Early morning exercise in Beijing

In honor of Beijing playing host to the Olympics for the past two weeks, here is another China-themed post. Many Chinese people make it a habit to get up early every morning in order to perform tai chi exercises, often in a public park. So John Branch went to one of Beijing’s most popular parks one morning and observed the tai chi ritual. You can find his report here.

The giant gates of Temple of Heaven Park swung open at 6 a.m., magnets pulling people into a new day. People quietly poured out of apartment buildings and low-slung hutong neighborhoods and drained through the gates of Beijing’s favorite morning gathering place.

Slowly the corners of the park filled, even the shady spots deep among the tight rows of cypress trees that date back 800 years. Over there, a man performed the slow-motion dance of tai chi. Over here, a woman scratched her back against a tree. Everywhere, people gave themselves pat-downs to loosen their muscles…

Here came a woman walking backward. There went a man furiously rubbing his head. Everyone made room for the man crawling down the sidewalk on his toes and hands. It is exercise without ego. There seems to be no way to move the body in a way that would draw puzzled looks here, although the bear-crawler elicited some second glances….

This is exercise to connect with the world around, not tune it out. This is exercise done to feel good on the inside, not to impress anyone on the outside.

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