Early in the mornings, the area around the Temple of Heaven is packed with people. It’s not only filled with tourists like me who want to see this sacred space where Chinese emperors used to pray. Even more common is people meeting up to practice together. They get together and do all sorts of things: dancing, tai chi, acrobatics, Chinese chess, writing Chinese calligraphy in water on the stone tiles, playing music, and more.
This morning as we walked around the park surrounding the temple, we were amazed by the focus, fun, and sheer diversity of interests represented. Here’s a little video showing some of the activities. See if you can tell which are our students. It’s amazing how many different types of recreation exist all over the world!
Speaking of recreational activities, we invented a new game at dinner tonight. Shall we call it, “Pass the Peanut?”
Categories: China
Innovation on Earth 
just a quick question about the S.S workshet on china:
Do we have to do all of the questions things on the worksheet or three like the ukraine one?
All of them for the extra credit 🙂 Thanks for asking. Hope you are having a great summer!
This is great!!!!
I think it’s very interesting how people write Chinese calligraphy in water on the stone tiles. I’ve never heard of that before. In the first video, when there was someone tracing something on someone’s back (the someone’s back was in a somersault position), was that what they were doing? (Chinese calligraphy.)
I thought that the fun that you saw in the park looked really cool!! You’re lucky to have been there.
I think that most of the students were doing Tai Chi. Most of them looked American, and a few looked familiar.
The game, “Pass the Peanut” looked like fun!!!! What was the longest amount of time the students got through without dropping the peanut?
Best Wishes!
😉 ~ Anna
it looks like a lot of fun there! i’ll have to try “pass the peanut”
also the checker/chess pieces those guys were playing with looked like banana slices. Were they?
oh and yes you should call it that. it is very fitting to it’s content.
It looks like yo are having a TON of fun! Has it been hard for you to learn how to use chopsticks? Was the temple relaxing, or super exciting? What did the park look like?
wow it is amazing what you can see just walking in a park! you look like your having a lot of fun!