November 30, 2006

Tea Change Time...
I was reading a recent article in The China Daily (the Chinese government's national English daily newspaper) this morning and came across an interesting article called "Expats must learn to go with the flow".
The article was some advice from a TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) doctor about how we should prepare for the coming winter season. First we should switch from drinking Wulong tea to drinking Pu'er tea. Apparently there are different teas for different seasons:
-in summer drink green tea
-in autumn drink wulong tea
-in winter drink pu'er tea
-in spring drink jasmine tea
The next thing the doctor says is that "Westerners usually have more yang factors in the body, but not enough yin factors". Too much yang leads to hardness but that allows us to warm up, thus enduring the cold winters of northern China. Excessive yang also means that foreigners aren't as patient or flexible as Chinese. To correct this, we should nurture our qi and avoid drinking cold water or eating cold foods.
I guess I need to buy some pu'er tea.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cruising the blogs on blogspot - what a life! It's already the thick of snow things here in Enderby - and cold! Damn, wish I could afford to be somewhere else...I enjoy your blog - I have a great fondness for China, particularly Beijing (been there four times) and Dalian (where I worked for four months in 2003 as a wedding photographer). My daughter lives in Beijing (seven years now) and just had her first baby, our first grandson. She's here visiting right now...but she's lonely for Beijing and wants to go back for a week-long break to be with her boyfriend...sorry, boring story. Anyway, keep up the blogging, I'll be checking in again to see your latest adventures. By the way, Ottawa is very boring these days (Liberal leadership non-race).

Stephen said...

I'm glad you're enjoying my blog! It's always nice to know there's someone out there reading.

Anonymous said...

you mentioned nurturing your "qui", what is that?

The Hattons... said...

I always thought yin and yang were some sort of figure of speech ... but then I don't get out much. haha

Glad to see all is continuing to be well. Miss you!

Anonymous said...

Hey Stephen

just cruising through your site on an off blog day (as there are so many... you manage to be so consistent!). Nice new format!

See you in China next year!

Stephen said...

Qi (气 or air/steam/breath) is thought to be the life force or flowing energy. Hard to explain. An example is when you get acupuncture done, people often say they feel a flow of warm current running along their body. This could be called "qi".

S&L: Always good to hear from you guys. I'm glad the adoption is going so well!

Alex: let me know when you finally make it to this part of Asia.