Go East, Young Man, Go East

While you were working on your tenth strawberry daq of the day while passed out on the beach in Mexico, the members of the Harvard Tai Chi Tiger Crane Club were eating fried scorpions in China. Jaime Gaurnaccia ’08, David Henderson ’07, Thomas Lowe ’05, Brenda Wong, the fitness trainer at the Business School, and high school senior Jimmy Cheung traveled East for intersession with Master Yon Lee, who’s been the club’s teacher and senior advisor for 20 years.

In China, they got to participate in a photo shoot for a local newspaper, celebrate the Chinese New Year with a group of 15 co-eds, hob-nob with mayors and other city officials, and humiliate themselves with a few rousing rounds of karaoke.

Even better than belting out the words to Gloria Gaynor’s karaoke classic “I Will Survive” was the visit the group took to the Shaolin Temple as guests of the municipal government. There, they got to attend tea with the abbot of the temple, who was flanked by an entourage of 27 bodyguards.

“There were all sorts of things [at the temple] that seem taken straight from legend,” said David J. Henderson ’07. “There were several trees, probably a few hundred years old, with holes burrowed into the bark. These holes were from the monks over the years pushing and twisting their fingers into the bark of the tree in order to strengthen their fingers.”

That sight certainly beats the bottom of yet another bottle of Cuervo.