J loves dancing. she is on her way to a rehearsal for the christmas party at the hospital where she is a nurse. she invites me to come along and have a look. on the top floor of the hospital they practice their performance of a traditional tibetan dance on that peaceful and dreamy music. most of the hospital staff is tibetan, but they converse in chinese. then follows an energetic chinese dance as the ones they show on cctv, and they all seem to enjoy that as well. they also do a chinese pop song dance, and of course the climax of the performance will be the famous sars song praising the heroic acts of the medical staff all over china.

on her free day J guides me up the paoma mountain overlooking kangding, but much further we cannot see. she told her parents she was going out with a class mate, and has to be back for lunch. she teaches me the famous kangding love song, a tibetan song with chinese words- the words and music are written on a large sign on the mountain. we meet 2 young girls climbing up, J advises them to stay with us because some bad people might be in the woods. we circle a stupa 3 times and all our sins are forgiven.

december 2003