Looking for the guy, I noticed a group of people were practicing Tai-chi in the square down the street. I walked down there to watch how people perform the 24 path. Some of them even practiced swards, whose style I had never seen before.
It was a strong contrast between the modern and the traditional. I wondered how they compromised themselves with those modern offerings while they practiced Tai-Chi. They never minded them at all, I suspect.
We visited the Dalian Nationalities University on the second day, 28th October. It took about 40 minutes to reach there by car and I was amazed to see the modern buildings lined out continuously while we drove outskirts of the city.
The university was also huge. I was told later that 13,000 students studied in the campus.
With Prof. Kunifuji, I interviewed nine student who wished to come to our institute, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. I did not know what drove them to apply for the program, but was impressed by their decisiveness. They were after all very young girls, whose ages were around twenty. They examined their future seriously and tried to change their ordinary course of lives. I could sense strong family ties behind them and how well they were cared for by their parents.
I had better keep myself from commenting on the series of interviews as the result is yet to be known.
I just walked around several times during the breaks and observed how students spent their time. The number of students was enormous and everyone was struggling for a better life.
After a pleasant dinner, I wondered around the city corners alone and stepped into a street where many shops were open. They mostly sold foods. A small girl was playing in one of the restaurants looked after by her parents, carrying a chair, which was too big for her to carry around. I thought how she would grow up and hoped the situation surrounding her would be better.
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