Open Writing

Sometimes when I walk to the Riverton Forum shopping centre, I pass a house in Myrna Way which bears a large banner in ideograms, then underneath in English, “Chinese Medical Foundation.”

I’ve often wondered what they get up to in there and a couple of weeks ago my curiosity was answered. They had a notice in the suburban newspaper inviting people to join them for Qi Qong, which roughly translates as liberating your energy.

I went along to the Qi Qong class and handed in my ten dollars. The teacher, a Malaysian Chinese, with a traditional Chinese medical practice in Fremantle, said his native tongue was Hokkien or Cantonese but he would explain the moves in English.

“Nee how,” I said. “Wo xiexi Hanyu,” which means “I study Mandarin in the romanised form.”

“Ah,” he said. He pointed to a small man beside him. “He speaks Indonesian.”

I greeted the man in Bahasa, “Selamat datang, tuan. Apa kaba?” ( roughly, G’day, mate, how’re you going?)

He beamed at me, “Kaba baik,” telling me he was well.

“You speak the Bahasa,” he said.

“Not really,” I said, “but a long time ago I was a guest of the Indonesian navy on a training ship sailing round south east Australia. The ship was named after an old god. I later took a course in your language through Adult Education.”

We sat on cushions on the floor while the teacher told us a story about the futility of worrying about things you can’t fix. He led us in meditation for 15 minutes and then taught us the 18 steps of Qi Qong. These included flying like a pigeon, flying like an eagle, riding a wild horse, rowing a boat Chinese style, lofting a ball, reaching for the moon, and swinging through the trees like a monkey.

There was also an exercise for prostate and pelvic health, called “baby tries to stand” followed by “kangaroo looks around.”

He demonstrated where to apply pressure at points on the energy meridians linked to our internal organs, and discussed the use of various foods as healing medicines.

He advised us to be careful with our attitudes to others. The basis of good relationships was respect. We had to learn to accept people and also to forgive. He cautioned that being well isn’t the whole story. We also have to be happy. When you are happy you don’t need to die to go to heaven.

We stood in a circle, breathing in unison, and then went through a couple of exercises to discard troublesome thoughts and cares.

To finish the session, the teacher made a huge pot of tea and handed us each a full mug, no milk, no sugar.

“Is that dinky di Chinese tea?” I asked.

The teacher said, “It’s bo-cha, very good, very expensive. Not that Silly Lanka tea.” I realised he was having a problem with his RRRs, and nodded my understanding.

“Why did you ask?” he said.

I said my next-door neighbor, who is from Beijing, had presented me with a Chinese tea set. This included six tiny cups, a tiny tea pot and a packet of coarse Chinese tea leaves, where the tea improves as it develops flavor after each refill.

My neighbor had instructed me on how to perform the ritual of the traditional Chinese ceremony. Everyone in the class was very interested, so at the next class I took the tea set along and made everybody a cuppa in a dinky di Chinese style.

A Chinese girl with a Canadian accent brought some Chinese biscuits and savory nibbles – altogether rather an international event – just a few doors away physically from where I live but in another sense a world away.