My thoughts shared with you

24.ágúst 2017

As I have told you before my life in China was something.

The last 6 months, that I worked there, I was in Quanzhou. A wonderful city, 2 hours drive from my home in Fuzhou. I lived in a condominium there, with all the Chinese teachers and learnt so much during these 6 months, about teachers, about the students from young age up to 18 and about the city. Quanzhou is different from Fuzhou. It is humid, very humid. When I arrived there I opened all the windows in the apartment and everything got wet. I had never experienced anything like this. I just wanted fresh air and got a wet apartment instead.

I want to share with you, in this post, the gift my students gave me on my 65th birthday. I was helping at a wedding, cooking for the guests,  a foreign teacher was getting married to a Chinese girl.

When everyone had eaten my students took me to a corner and circled around me with one of the teachers. They had a present for me. They knew how I loved Chinese art and they knew about my situation.  They knew I would have to leave my beloved China and sell my house in Min Hou. They wanted me to be prosperous and the fish is the symbol of prosperity. I would never lack money, having this wonderful wood carving with me.

Now it is in my beautiful apartment in Portugal. I look at it many times every day and think about my students.  True Chinese art with gold. Every detail perfect. Every thought perfect.

Now these students are grown up, they have got their degree and the live has begun. I hope they are all happy. If I go to China in the future I might even be able to visit some of them. One of them is an artist. Another is an architect. One is a teacher and it goes on and on. One is studying to be a doctor. He will take care of the sick and vulnerable.  What a joy to have been a part of their lives, even though just a few months. I will never forget them and hope they will remember their foreign teacher who loved them with all her heart.

I sometimes wonder if the teachers are the same. Have they left or are they in the same place all their working period? I don´t know but I can find out. I will write to Martin. He invited me to lunch before I left and took me on his motorcycle. I have never been as afraid. On a motorcycle in the Chinese traffic. It was horrifying. I survived and we got a wonderful food in my favourite restaurant. He gave me a travel tea set. I have got the tea set in the green bag with his phone number and e-mail written on it. He, as all the other teachers, was much younger than me but it did not matter. Somehow we connected for life. That is the beauty of it all. The connection that never brakes.

Hulda Björnsdóttir

 

24th August 2017

When I had lived in Portugal for some time people began to ask if I had been to Algarve.

I had not.

Why not? You have to go to Algarve, they said.

Eventually I decided to go there and see what they were talking about. What is this place?  Before I moved someone from Norway had suggested that Algarve would be the place for me. Always hot and the sunshine all year around. This man had a house in Algarve, with a swimming pool and everything. Of course just a holiday home.  He was over the moon. Everything so wonderful. You have to buy a house in Algarve, he told me.

I did not buy a house in Algarve. I bought an apartment in centre Portugal, in Penela village which belongs to Coimbra district but is 45 minutes drive from the wonderful city Coimbra. Penela is just a tiny village. Of course the municipal Penela is much bigger and has more than 6 thousand people, many foreigners there living in the woods. In my tiny village we are perhaps 5 hundred more or less, I mean we the Portuguese . I am not a foreigner anymore.

When I moved here 6 years ago the village war more alive than it is now. This is how it is all around the country. The small villages are slowly changing. The small ones get smaller and the big ones bigger.

Anyway, this was supposed to be about Algarve. Algarve is the part of the slice that is in the southernmost part.

I did not want to go there during the summer when all the tourists take over. I wanted to go during the winter. Then I would see the reality, not just the tourism. I spent 10 days in Albufeira, which is a part of Algarve, during Christmas.

It’ s about 6 hours drive from my home and of course I took my car. There is no way I am traveling with a train when the other option is driving myself. I also wanted to see the cork which is in Alantejo and I can tell you, that is a place like no other. It is beautiful and I love the cork. Sadly the cork is retreating because of trees that grow quickly and give money to the farmers almost immediately, while it takes ages to get profit from the cork.

So, I was in Albufeira, in Algarve. Not too cold and I saw some tourists half naked. Of course, they were in Algarve and the sun was shining. The wind was blowing and terrible cold but they did not care. Read skin was the goal. Burned human skin from too much sun was what they were after. And the vine.

My opinion of what I experienced in Algarve during these 10 days was, hotels, bars, more hotels, more bars, more hotels and more bars. Some shops, most of them Shopping centres, but in the summer there are more of the small ones open. More restaurants are also open during the summer but I managed to find a very good Chinese one, not far from my hotel and another one half an hours walk away. An Indian restaurant was also there, quite good one. Not to mention the Portuguese ones, which of course I don´t like because I don’t like Portuguese food.  I was nice and tried some Portuguese food there, no I did not like it. Just the same as on the mainland.

In Algarve you can buy vine at every corner. Everywhere. Since I don´t drink that was not  a plus for me.

To tell you the truth it took me a while to understand that there were not churches at every corner. In Penela alone we have more than one and in every village here on the mainland there is always a church, always. I also tried to find something really traditional Portuguese but could not.

My conclusion is this. I will not go to Algarve again. I am not interested. In my mind it is not Portugal. It is a tourist place. The wealthier Portuguese do go there for holidays. The common people, majority of them, have never been to Algarve. Everything is expensive.  I can buy 5 litters of water in Coimbra for the same price as half a litre in Algarve. Just as an example.

I would rather go to a nice hotel in Portugal if I wanted to take some time off. I spent my birthday many years ago in a beautiful hotel here in Portugal, the real Portugal and would do that again. There I was pampered and I loved it. They even cooked healthy food for me.

If your live is about sunbathing, drinking and eating Algarve is a fine place for you during the summer. The winters are cold, just as they are everywhere in Portugal. If you like the tourist places Algarve is where you could go.

I saw somewhere that Algarve is considered to be a great place for retiring. That may be true if you don´t expect too much, or none, art in your life. If you are a golfer the place might be good. I don´t know how the surveys do come to their conclusions but my life is more complicated than food and wine and sunshine, not to mention the golf. Of course I am an ungrateful bitch. Everyone knows that.

Hulda Björnsdóttir

 

 

22nd of August 2017

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we always had all the time in the world to do what we want to do?

I think so.

I am torn between so many things. I want to do so much. I want to write about my life in China and my life in Portugal. I also want to write about nothing, just the thought that is in my mind at the moment.

I have got 2 blogs. One in Icelandic and then this one here on WordPress.

The Icelandic one is older. I began because I wanted to keep my mother tongue. I never, or almost never, speak Icelandic but I do write a lot. I keep a diary and when I feel miserable for some reason my best solution is to sit down and write, and I write in Icelandic.

My other blog is here and in English. This one is more or less for my foreign friends and it is different.

Writing in Icelandic is mostly about the situation there. We all think everything is fine in the land of ice and fire. The beautiful land. The land of the Vikings. The land foreigners want to visit when on holidays.

Unfortunately there are sever problems in the tiny island. The elderly, the handicapped, the people on low income and those who don´t have work, are all suffering. Or most of them. There are elderly people who are well off, but the majority is not. It´s the majority I speak up for. The rich ones don´t need any spokes man. They are happy and the sun shines on them when they want the sun to shine. They have houses and food on their tables, every day. They travel and play golf. They can escape the cold winter and the darkness by hopping into a plain and flying to a warm sunny country. What a joy, and I am happy for them. I just wish everyone in the tiny island had food on their table every day and roof over their head. I wish everyone could afford to go to the doctor and if they needed medicine they could afford to buy it. I wish everyone could afford to go to a gym and exercise to keep their health better. I wish live was good for everyone in the tiny island. It is not. That is why I write about matters that I feel are important for the population in the land where I was born. I write about Iceland in Icelandic and it takes a toll of my sanity. My mind is tired and it is a relief to open my WordPress blog and write about everything else. Thank the almighty for variety.

I am going through pictures and letters and my diary from the time I was in China. The life there was not always easy but I miss it dearly. I miss my wonderful friends. I miss my students and I miss the art. The art that is everywhere. There is no place where you don´t see the wonderful Chinese art. I don´t know what it is in the soul of the nation but they are artists by the grace of the almighty.

Sitting and watching them cut the stones or the roots is an experience that makes you appreciate life.

They use every spot they come across to grow their vegetables. Beside the footpath there are vegetables. They are protected with plastic against the extreme sun. The  riverbanks are used for vegetables and the little boat is for fishing. Everything is nurtured even in the big city. These pictures above are from my area, The Min Hou area, outskirt from Fuzhou.

Even the houses reflected in the handmade rivers are art. The bridge and its colours are in perfect harmony with everything around and you look down and see the perfect garden. Whose garden this is I don´t know. It is just there and smiles at you.

All around me in my wonderful home was beauty and art. All around there were people who smiled and wanted to know something about the rare foreigner. Everyone was friendly and smiling. Of course they tried to cheat me and have me pay more for my goods, but who cares. They think that the foreigner is a rich person and she should share with them her wealth. Is  that not how it is in the perfect world? I think so.

Hulda Björnsdóttir

21st of August 2017

Yesterday I was watching the TV here in Portugal. In fact not the Portuguese TV but that does not matter.

They were showing the gathering in Spain, in Barcelona. The beautiful church was packed and outside there were also people. More than 30 nationalities are among those affected, included Portuguese people.

The Spanish king was there and the Portuguese president. We saw when my president was greeted by the king and his queen.

Here in Portugal we have had a really bad year with more fires and more deaths than ever. The arsonists are having a blast. The TV shows from morning to night the fires and the madmen enjoy being stars. The criminals are all ages. I think the oldest one so far is a 78 years old woman.

We have a new president in Portugal. He is powerless. That’s how the system works here. The prime minister is the one with all the power.  Until 1973 there was a dictatorship in Portugal ,  but now we have a democracy. A young democracy. Everything is still in formation towards democracy.  Slowly one step at a time, but we are on the track.

Our last president was distant. We complain about how much running the presidency costs .

I don´t know it the cost had gone down with our new one. What I know is that everything is different.

My new president is human. He showed that during the big fires in Pedrógao Grande and through out the summer. I have never met him but this picture is from the TV when there was a minutes silence through the country after Pedrógao fires. He is the one standing between the woman and the man in the west. That is my president.

My president hugs people and cries with them. He had tears in his eyes at the memorial in Spain where he sat next to the king. He has shed many tears during this summer in different villages in my country.  He has given hugs and comfort to the firefighters, to the families who lost their loved ones, to the people in the small villages and everyone appreciates his effort.

I am proud of my president. I know he does not have any power but he is different,  and he might be able to whisper into the prime ministers ears, some good ideas. We don´t know, but I hope he can. That is how he might be able to help the country developing into a great democracy.

I am grateful from my president. He is humble and he understands. He is not afraid of shoving empathy.

Hulda Björnsdóttir

 

20th of August 2017

I love to read in the summer. It is hot and today we have more than 40 degrees with little humidity and reading is the best option. I can´t go out for a walk in a heat like this.

I am lucky. In October last year I closed my 10 meters balcony with glass. Before my apartment was freezing cold during the winter and I needed to do something. The condominium, just like most houses here in Portugal, has no insolation and the cold creeps easily through the open bricks.

I decided to have this glass wall around my balcony a year ago. I saved money to be able to pay for the work and in October my wonderful people came. It took about week and a half. They came one day and put up the frame, measured everything and had the glass made. The second trip was to put up the glass and what a difference. Last winter I saved on heating and I felt warm most of the days. The first time in six years. What a joy.

My view is to dye for.

Imagine. Sitting outside with a good summer reading, of course the books are different in the summer heat, you can not read heavy material in 40 or more degrees. Imagine sitting there and looking up from your book and this is in front of you. Can you travel with me and enjoy the beauty?

Every time I go to my balcony I thank my instinct to buy this apartment. I could have bought a house in the village, an ugly one for the same price. That would have been private with no annoying noisy neighbours upstairs but not with this heaven in front of me.

The house to the right could have been mine, no view in front just another ugly house.

I was in Ansiao last Friday and saw the picture to the left. I took the photo through the window from the restaurant where I had some water. It was a hot sunny day, people trying to protect themselves from the sun. What caught my eye was the fan, the white one between the balconies. Rather interesting.

So while reading and enjoying my wonderful view I am slowly melting. It is so hot, even though the sun has moved to the front. During these days I feel dirty all the time. My hands are sticky, even though I don´t do anything. My laundry is like from a family of 12. Luckily I have got tons of towels which I brought with me from China and can use many during the day.  I have also got a  washing machine for 9 kilos and she takes care of the washing.

My shoes are sitting and waiting for the next walk, competing. One pair looks like laughing at the sandals. The sandals want to get out but the Nikies, the pink ones, know that they will win the competition. Tomorrow we will go out and leave the sandals at home. We go out in the morning, to the gym, and come back before it gets too hot. Although the sandals might get their opportunity in the afternoon. I need to talk to the house company that takes care of the condominium. There is a paper on the wall downstairs that sais in a stern voice:  Every flower pot needs to be removed. The Portuguese law. I need to know if mine do qualify for staying! I love life.

Hulda Björnsdóttir

 

19th August 2017

There are things you should never tell any Portuguese about food.  If you do, you will be considered ignorant, at least.

Never tell a Portuguese that you don´t like their bread.

If you do they will jump at you. What kind of bread are you talking about? There are so many different breads. Are you talking about bread breads or cakes? they might ask. You are hurting their feelings and you don´t want that. Just don´t mention the bread.

You might for example think that the Portuguese bread is just air, because of the yeast they use. Don´t mention that, please.

Don’t tell them about the bread you make with Spelt. They will not know what Spelt is and also don´t tell them you put hemp butter on your bread. Never tell them about your eating habits.

Then you might think they use too much sugar and salt in the food. Don´t ever think about that when among the locals. Some might agree with you about the sugar but the salt, no.  Why is high blood pressure so common in the country? Don´t ask. Please.

If you are a vegetarian you might mention that it is difficult to get vegetarian food in the land. Don’t, please. You could get a long speech about all the wonderful vegetables and fruits that grow in the land.

Then you might want to say something about cooking. Oh no!!!! please don´t. If you think the vegetables are like slime and the rice like a chunk, don´t even dream about mentioning it. If you think a broccoli should be crispy and green when cooked, just forget it.

If you lived in China and liked the tea and the healthy waffles there, forget it. Don´t mention it.

If you think avocado is a wonderful fruit, full of healthy fat, that does not need olive oil over it, please be wise and keep it to your self. You might have to explain in detail why there should not be olive oil added on the fruit and how much olive oil should be used and where you saw anyone put the oil on it. It goes on and on. Just keep it to your self and eat the avocado perhaps just from the skin and make sure  you get everything.

Do never say you think the food is being mistreated in the land. You will get a long speech about the wonderful fish and the healthy environment. Yes the raw material is amazing. You can get fish straight from the boats, for exempla at the beach and the fish market. But, when my dear countrymen put the wonders in the pot, they kill it, again.

The most important to remember. Never talk about dry salted codfish if you don´t like it. Never.

Every Portuguese person likes this fish. They don’t know about fresh codfish. They have no idea that it can be eaten fresh. Or at least 99 percent of them don´t.

If you want to keep the Portuguese happy you don’t talk too much about the food you don’t like. Let them think you eat their bread and your stomach does not scream at you when all the sugar in the healthy cakes enters your body. You don’t have to lie. Just keep quiet.

They will tell you that the food in homes is different from the restaurants. They will tell you that you have never eaten the food in their house, the healthy food they make.

How long to you cook your broccoli? I might ask. Oh, some time, they might reply. Just keep your mouth shut my friend if you don’t want to be swamped in argument against your opinion.

There are Indian restaurants, Chinese restaurants, sushi restaurants and even pizza restaurants that make good food. There are also bad Chinese restaurants that have adjusted to what my countrymen like and the food is not Chinese at all. If you are a vegetarian and want to eat out, just forget it. You get a salad; carrots, onion and salad blades mixed with olive oil and that’s it, there could even be a slice of tomato . Then there might be some white bread or even a bit of brownish bread to go with it. Olives might also follow.  You don´t mention the lack of veggie food to the local, just keep it in mind if you are a vegetarian.

I have found a place where I can get fish straight from the ocean, grilled with salad and potatoes, not much potatoes. This is at the beach in Vieira de Leria. I love their fish. It is expensive but totally worth it. At the beach you can get good food and you can get the traditional one. You pay more for the good one but it is worth it.

There are healthy cakes made of carrot and good knows what. If the sugar was left out they would be ok. There are even cakes made of nuts and seeds, coated with sugar! I say no more.

Hulda Björnsdóttir

 

 

 

19th of August 2017

Yesterday I was contemplating on why I don´t feel happy at my gym.

It is a very nice one. The facilities are nice. There is everything in this gym. A swimming pool. A room where you do the cardio and another one for the weight training. Everything is clean and the sun shines through the glass walls.

Why do I not feel like in heaven when I am in my gym. That was the feeling I had in the physiotherapy and in my old gymnasiums.

Since I came to Portugal I have attended 3 gyms. The first one was Korpus and my coach there was To. Just few months after I started he was in an motorcycle accident and lost his life. That was a horrible tragedy. I lost a friend.

I had to find a new gymnasium and I did. Some of the same people were there and I felt at home. After a while one of my friends from the old gym started Korpus again and I went there again. It was like coming home and I enjoyed every moment. Everyone was friendly and wonderful.  Unfortunately this was a small gym and the owner was not making profit so he closed. That was a sad day for everyone but if you have a family to support you can not just enjoy your work, you have to make some profit as well.

Some weeks ago I met one of my sport pals in the supermarket. He gave me a big hug and kisses. He smiled and my heart warmed up. There was a dear friend. He asked how everything was. He was happy to see me and I was happy to see him. He is a young man and what we have in common is our friendship from the Korpos gymnasium. Whenever I see one of my  friends from my other gyms there is always this happy feeling.

In the new gymnasium the feeling is different. Everyone is in their own world and you don´t step in there.

This gymnasium is based on personal training, or so it seems to me. The coaches and their customer have a nice friendly relationship, but they are inside their boxes and some of them, or rather most of them, don´t even bother to say good morning. The box is closed. Leave us alone, is the message they send out.

I was asked if I wanted a personal trainer when I began in this gymnasium. I did not. I just came from a long physiotherapy and had to promise to continue what we started there. I am happy to have made the decision not to have a personal trainer following me every step. What I have seen so far is that they would not understand how fragile my bones are.

Yesterday I was watching how they stretch their customers. My stomach crunched. They would break my body.

I have seen yoga classes and how they teach the beauty. I know they are all doing their wonderful things but I don´t want to be a part of it.  There has been a pressure on me to attend the classes ! And ungrateful me, I don´t want to.

Why do I miss my old gym? Because I miss the friendly feeling. The comradeship where everyone is supporting everybody and being happy when there is a progress and motivating when there is a setback. This does not happen in my new gym. I am sure all the people are nice persons and they are doing what they are supposed to do. Would it change anything for the coaches just to say good morning? I don´t know and I am not expecting anything to change. I have to decide if I accept this is how it is, or if I just find another one, more friendly, perhaps not as fancy, but more human.

If I quit this gym would I ever  visit just to say hello to the friendly people? I don´t think so. I have to say to be fair that the one who interviewed me at the beginning is friendly and the one who is available for everyone is there to help if I need help. It is the general feeling I am talking about. There are TVs everywhere and the coaches, some of them, are really interested in what is happening there and the phones are also interesting !  Wonderful. Why don´t they spare a good morning? Why don´t they shake hands with the men? Why, why why?

I go regularly to the physiotherapy to say hello. We laugh together. We share our thoughts and joy. Some of the long time patients are still there. There is compassion everywhere. We are interested in the progress and we share. That does not happen in my new gym but it was always in my old ones. What a pity.

Perhaps I am ungrateful. I may be, but this is my feeling today and I am sad.

Hulda Björnsdóttir

14th of August 2017

Once again Portugal is on fire.

This is my 7th summer in the country and fires have roared every summer and even into the autumn when October has been warm, which it sometimes is.

Portugal is a small country. Long and narrow. I live in the centre. Exactly in the centre.

Luckily for  me I did not buy a house in the woods, when I moved from China. I bought a wonderful apartment with a view to die for. It was the space and the view that captured my heart when I chose the apartment. I see the mountains and the apartment is big. Just what I needed after my grand life in China.

Every summer I have thanked those who protect me, wherever they are, for making sure I did not fall into the temptation to buy a house in the woods, far from everyone. I did not want isolation from the natives. I wanted to live with the natives, to learn about the culture, to make native friends. That was what I did.

From my balcony I see over to Esphinal, which belongs to Penela Municipal but is not Penela. It´s a wonderful small place, not many houses there but just few minutes drive from my home. I could even walk over there, maybe half an hour. Here it is on a clear fire free day.

My first experience of the fires in Portugal was when I drove through them on my way back form Leiria. The police was ahead and I knew it would be safe. They told me so. Driving through a wood on fire is an experience you never forget. It lives in the memory but it is like living in a country of fire and ice. You can always expect the mountains to erupt but you don´t think about it all the time. One day there might be a huge earthquake and everything moves. This happened in Iceland when I lived there but it did not control my life. The same goes for the fires. We know they are likely to be active during the summer months but we survive through the year without worrying all the time. I am not afraid of them, just really angry.

These 3 pictures above are from 2012 and the fires are in Esphinal, just around the corner, seen from my balcony. The animals, the trees, the farmers crops all destroyed.

This summer, 2017, is my 7th in Portugal. I moved to the country in January 2011 and came from China. Every year there are fires during the summer months. Every year we ask WHY?

We know why. The arsenics love the fires and light them. They become famous. They are on the TV. The TV goes on and on and on and on all day long about the horror. The government does not have solutions. The courts say the people are mad and just let them go. They can not go to prison because they are sick. Seriously! This is madness. They should be behind bars. There is a petition now to make those people stay in jail at least 25 years.

Some of the foreigners think the reason is the Eucalyptus. Some of them even believe it is the heat.

This year we have had very little rain and there is drought around the corner. That does not help. In  2012 there was a lot of rain, a lot. I know because the living room walls in my apartment began to change from dry into wet ones. Now the government has made a committee to talk about the problem, the fire problem. They will talk. We talk a lot here in my land. A lot. Will they find solutions? I doubt it.

When I came home today from my Gym there were  no fire clouds, at least none that I saw from my balcony. 15 minutes later it was there. When I drove to the Gym in the morning the air was thick with ashes.  That was at half past nine in the morning. I don´t go out in the afternoon. The air is full of smoke and the ashes are all over. We have still got at least 2  hot months. The fires continue. The houses burn down. The people loose everything. Lives are lost. Something has to change but WHAT? The mentality? The culture? The punishment?

I don´t know how, but this has to stop.

The army is helping, the EU is helping, Spain is helping, France is helping, but that does not stop the horror.  Help is wonderful but we need to change the culture.

Hulda Björnsdóttir

 

10th of August 2017

I had already gone to China twice.  I had found a place where I wanted to spend the rest of my life.  I had bought the house and it was under construction. Now I needed to find an interior designer and a company to take care of the next step.

I asked the house company if they knew any? They did. We could not reach those in charge so I just forgot the whole thing and went looking on my own, not quite on my own, I did have help! So, there I was with a wonderful designer who understood what I wanted. He made a rough design in 24 hours, after going with me to Min Hou and measured everything. I had to take care of this before I left and we had only 2 weeks.  Everything was fine and I liked my designer. Mr Chen was my man. He would take care of everything and my house would be ready in January, when I left Iceland for good.

We, me and Mr, Chen, went sight seeing. Sight seeing furniture companies, and I found my future. Beautiful and everything matched. The whole house was in harmony. The bedrooms, the living room, the dining room. All the furniture from the same company and just like a dream. I loved my sofas, they were big and comfy. Perfect. After choosing furniture for the living room the bedroom was next. The Chinese are small. I am tall. My friends are tall. The beds were made for Chinese size. I lay down in one. No, it was definitely too short. I explained to my friend and the ladies in the shop that I might have guests that were 1,90, really tall. They looked at me, looked at each other, and again at me.

Was I serious? 1,90 is huge! Yes, I told them and we could not let my guests sleep on a bed with their legs hanging outside, or  like a baby in a mothers womb. No, that was not good. We decided to make the beds extra long. I would be able to stretch my toes and my guests would not have to sleep with half of the body outside. That took care of the furniture.

Now we had to find a bathtub for the lady. Right, the lady is tall, really tall, compared to the Chinese and this finding a bathtub, big enough, was a problem. Luckily we were in a huge building and there had to be at least one shop selling extra long bathtubs. There had to be! I took of my shoes and went into the tubes. Many tubes.  No, nothing big enough, until…….we came across one with massage and everything.

I saw immediately this would be my future. Laying in a huge tube enjoying massage from all sides.

I want this one, I told my designer.

This one? He looked at the price. This one is very expensive, he told me. I know, but its the only one long enough for me, I replied.

My dear Mr Chen did the bargaining and I drank tea. Before I left China this time we had ordered all the equipment needed for a new house. Everything from furniture to the tiniest screws,  or so to speak.

Everything would be ready and I would move in before the Chinese new year. Now I just needed to take care of what was left to take care of in Iceland and my new life was around the corner.

I went back and booked the flight and a hotel. A hotel for one week. My house would be ready but I needed a week before moving in ! Little did I know what lay ahead!

Hulda Björnsdóttir

 

 

 

 

þar sem Chen er að skoða og ég stend fyrir utan með manninum

 

A lot to look at

 

 

9th of August 2017

What is Yoga? Sometimes this question pops up in my mind, even though I am a qualified Yoga teacher.

Why? It happens, and I have to convince me that I have still got the meaning, when I see all the different Yoga offers.

There is a Hatha Yoga, a power Yoga, asana Yoga, and even a facial Yoga. It was the facial Yoga that made me laugh and I was convinced I had not lost the meaning of some of my reality.

Facial Yoga is one more quick solution for the problems of getting older. The wrinkles can go away in few days with this wonderful Yoga. Why can´t we age normally and be happy about the wrinkles. If we don´t have wrinkles around the eyes we have most likely not been spreading smiles around us. Wrinkles are beautiful. They tell a story, a story of a life lived.

Then there is power Yoga. That is something I have never understood. Of course there are many things in life I don´t understand, unfortunately.

The last 2 years I have been struggling with serious illness. I had to stop going to the gym but now, finally, I have started again. I love my gym. The people are great and the customers are interesting. Some are young and some are old, perhaps not old but elderly. Some are men and some are women. Some are friendly and others are not. Just normal gathering.

During the 2 years brake I could walk and I could do some Yoga. I would not have dreamed of doing facial Yoga. That is just isometric exercises and does not deserve to be called Yoga.

Le me then tell you what I think Yoga really is.

Yoga is a way of life, an integrated system of education for the body, mind and inner spirit. This art of right living was perfected and practised in India thousands of years ago but since Yoga deals with universal truths, its teachings are as valid today as they were in ancient times. Yoga is a practical aid, not a religion, and its techniques may be practised by Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists alike. Yoga is union with all.

When practising Yoga we are nourishing our mind, body and soul. We nourish our mind by meditating, our body by Asanas – steady poses, and our soul by way of living. We eat healthy and we breathe. Yes we breath. Everyone does that, at least if we are not dead. How often do we pause and listen to our breathing? Is it deep and nourishing or shallow and difficult?

We might think that meditation is something fancy and difficult, just for the special ones. We could even think that Asanas are just for flexible young people. No, meditation is simple, you pause, breath in and out and allow the thoughts to flow. 10 minutes meditation refreshes and invigorates you. The Asanas as for everyone. They can be practised in the morning, during the day or in the evening. By using this holistic way, life becomes easier.  The daily tasks bearable and the joy of life more joyful.

Today I saw a young man doing something that might be in his mind Yoga. He was extremely flexible. I watched him for about 40 minutes. Yes he was flexible.  No doubt about that. But, some things he did to accomplish his flexibility made me swallow hard. There was nothing flowing and beautiful in what I saw. There was stress and sometimes it looked like he forgot to breath. When he put extra weight on his knees, to relieve tension in his lumbar, I gulped.

During my 2 years brake from my wonderful gym, Yoga saved me. I meditated, a lot, I did breath, also a lot and I ate healthy. I did very little of the Asanas. Very little. In my mind the Asanas were not the priority. They would come when I got better. Now they are slowly appearing in my daily routine. I am grateful for my Yoga teacher, who taught us the true Yoga.  Why do we have to adjust everything and dilute the ancient philosophy?

My wonderful happy Buddha smiles at me every morning. He reminds me of the beautiful Chinese art, made from roots. The trees have to give way to the new fancy houses in the new districts in Chinese cities. The farmers move but they bring with them the ancient knowledge. The art of  wood carving. No one can take that away.  The Chinese art has not been diluted.

Hulda Björnsdóttir