Liz Braccia, May 25

On Monday morning, instead of having our normal class in the classroom, we had a special class. We went to the gym to experience and learn martial arts. From the moment I first saw the schedule for the month, the martial arts class was one of the things I was the most excited for. My brothers were very involved in karate when they were growing up, so I was looking forward to seeing how it compared to Chinese martial arts. Their attire resembles traditional Chinese clothing. The material used is general silk. We first noticed that they had props like swords, long sticks, and spears, and we were very interested to see how they were going to use them. They had music prepared and they put on a performance. They started by not using any props. The moves were very sharp and intricate, and they did different kinds of flips. Then, they incorporated the props and showed how they would fight each other. After they preformed, we had the opportunity to learn the ten main positions in martial arts. I found it to be very difficult to get each position correct; however, I found it to be very interesting.



At night, we went on a two river cruise. One of the things Chongqing is famous for is the point in the city where the two rivers, the Yangtze and the Jialing, connect. There are many different cruise boats that sit on the river where people can have parties or go to dinner and travel the river to see the city. In order to conserve energy, the government has recently ordered large buildings in the city to refrain from using their big lights. The tour guides for the two river cruise felt compelled to apologize; however, I still thought the views of the city were beautiful. We were able to hang out with all of our new and old friends. The forecast had called for rain all day, so we were very fortunate when the skies were clear and temperature was comfortable.