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IN THIS ISSUE

• Louise Kruithof continues her story of a very long journey
• Kate Brookfield describes her involvement with yuan ji wu
• Don Henderson passes on some good advice from Snopes
• Are dogs good diagnosticians?
• Bruce Galway sends a blond man´s story
• Gerrit de Leeuw reminds us that there is a funny side to aging
• Barbara Wear forwards a tale of a pregnant blonde
• Bruce Galway, Catherine Green, and Kate suggest websites

Louise Kruithof continues her story of

THE JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE ROAD

On Friday morning, October 17, the driver who had picked us up from the airport was waiting with a slightly bigger vehicle to take us to our final destination: Huolinguole, Inner Mongolia. We were told that it was an eight-hour drive. We loaded everything into this vehicle and left the hotel. The vehicle we were using was not made for longjourneys: the seats were fine for the first half hour, but totally inadequate beyond that. The driver stopped around the corner to buy water and some sweet drinks and we were on the way.

After about 15 minutes, we reached the entrance to a highway going north. First hurdle: the access to the highway was closed and the driver had to give it a thought before moving on to a different route. I liked the different route because it went through small villages where everything was laid out outside the shops, the variety of goods on offer in the shop, the corn was spread on the ground to dry, and everyone went about their business. We eventually rejoined the highway and off we went.

For a few hours everything was fine, the going was good. At a junction with signs showing Huolinhe ahead and some other town to the right, the driver went right. Hmmm... I said to myself. After driving for about a half hour we reached another toll booth (they are ubiquitous in this country). The driver asked the attendant if he could reach Huolinguole from this highway; the answer was no. He asked if he could get gas somewhere close by and the answer to that was to go back to the closest village, which we had passed 10 minutes ago. While the driver was talking to the booth attendant, I noticed that there were lots of trucks held up at the booth. (Pictured) Some government agency had decided to check the trucks for some highway violation, probably overloading. I still wonder if overloading includes this next vehicle, the one with excess width because of the greenery in it.

In the end we had to turn around to find the gas station in the village which, I must admit, was a little difficult to find, given that the only access to the village was by a dirt track that only the locals could find. The only way to know it was there was to see that many vehicles were following it. So, we did as the locals did: we followed the dirt track, reached the village, looked for a gas station and found it.

The driver filled up with gas, while all the locals kept looking at us foreigners. Once the car was filled up with gas we went back to look for the highway that would take us to Huolinguole.

That was interesting also. We ended up following another dirt track to end up crossing a fairly new bridge to which the accesses had not been completed. Dirt, bridge, dirt again. At some point we reached the highway we needed and got going again. That was when I sat back, dreaming of a cup of coffee and a sandwich, or some other form of nourishment. (Being Canadian and from Hamilton, in my imagination it all looked very similar to what one gets at Tim Horton´s.)

So I asked the driver if we could stop somewhere and get some food because by now it was noon and breakfast was a long way down in the body. In case you wonder, he did not speak English, so I had to use whatever little Chinese I know. His answer was no, no, no; no time for that. So I thought that since we were supposed to be there by 3:00 p.m., we could wait a few more hours.

About half an hour later, the fun started: this highway we were following to the end, because Huolinguole is at the end of the road, was under construction. One lane was pretty well completed but traffic was not allowed on it. The construction crew had put dirt barricades at regular

intervals so the vehicles would not and could use it. We followed the older side of the road which was being torn apart and rebuilt in a lot of sections, and it went up and down in and between potholes, followed dirt tracks every once in a while, and the vehicle we were in hit bottom at times. And I thought the 13 hours on the plane was rough! There is even shared transportation on this road! The thought that crossed my mind when I saw the cows loaded in the truck was the term used in Montreal for publictransportation: "transport en commun".

But the view was absolutely grandiose, and one must see the humour in those occasions. We had to slow down or stop occasionally to let the duck, or the chickens, or the cows, or the sheep cross this four-lane highway under construction. What will they do when it is completed? It is, after all, their territory. With cows also came cowboys on horses. Cowboys with a twist: they did not look like John Wayne - they were definitely Chinese looking.

I loved the drive, as uncomfortable as it was. It was all compensated by the view and the happenings along the way.

To be continued.

Kate Brookfield describes her experiences with

YUAN JI WU

When we visited Taiwan last July, we were up early each morning and I saw lots of people doing Tai Chi. When I got back to Canada, I joined a Tai Chi class and learned the 108 movements of Tai Chi. But since coming here to live, I have not been able to find a Tai Chi group. Also, I have not been up and about at 5 or 6 in the morning!

One evening, Michael and I went for a walk in the Da-an Forest Park, which is near our apartment. The park was full of people, dog walkers, children playing, others like ourselves, just enjoying the cool of the evening, away from the noise and smell of traffic. In the large square beside a covered stage, lots of people, many wearing red shirts and white pants, were doing something that looked a bit like Tai Chi, only to music. It looked like fun, especially the final dance, where they all had a large fan which they opened with a loud snapping noise.

I made enquiries and discovered that this exercise routine is called "yuan ji wu" (pronounced wen jee oo). Wu is the Chinese word for dance. As with Tai Chi, the movements are based on martial arts and it is a gentle but effective way of using all muscles. Those wearing the red shirts and white pants are the experts, who have no doubt attended workshops and are bona fide members. One or two of these instructors stand on the stage and the rest follow them. The classes are free so anybody can join in. The exercises are held every weekday morning from 6:00 to 7:30 am and every evening, 8:00 to 9:30 p.m.

So for the past three months I have been going to these classes in the evenings. I have bought the DVDs of the different routines and now have my own fan! It is pretty easy to do as you just follow the person in front of you. At the end of the session, people gather round the stage and somebody hands out a snack, either dried apricots, raisins, or some other fruit. The nice thing about it is that it is a neighbourhood group. Over the months, I have made quite a few friends at the yuan ji wu classes, as well as keeping myself in shape.

Yuan ji wu seems to be a Chinese philosophy and there is probably more to it than just this dance. Yuan ji Gong is a way of thinking about all aspects of mental and physical health.

If you want to see what yuan ji wu looks like you can visit thiswebsite:

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=TTaY0eEBASM

And this second link shows a group in a park which is more like ourgroup:

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=dSrUn6961lE&feature=related

Don Henderson forwards this

ADVICE FROM SNOPES

Anytime you see an e-mail that says forward this on to 10 of your friends, or sign this petition, or you´ll get bad luck, good luck, or whatever, it almost always has an e-mail tracker program attached that tracks the cookies and e-mails of those folks you forward to. The host sender is getting a copy each time it gets forwarded and then is able to get lists of active e-mails to use in spam e-mails, or sell to other spammers.

Almost all e-mails that ask you to add your name and forward on to others are similar to that mass letter years ago that asked people to send business cards to the little kid in Florida who wanted to break the Guinness Book of Records for the most cards. All it was, and all any of this type of e-mail is, is a way to get names and cookie- tracking information for telemarketers and spammers - to validate active e-mail accounts for their own profitable purposes.

You can do your friends and family members a great favour by sending this information to them. You will be providing a service to your friends, and will be rewarded by not getting thousands of spam e- mails in the future!

Also, e-mail petitions are NOT acceptable to Parliament, but they are to members of Parliament.

Read the full story here: http://WWW.snopes.Com/inboxer/petition/Internet.asp

CALLING DOCTOR DOG!

Nearly 30 years ago, a Dalmatian called Trudi found a mole on the leg of her owner. The dog made such a fuss that he saw a doctor and discovered that the mole was a malignant melanoma, a deadly form of cancer.

Doctors became interested in stories like this, and studies were made of dogs´ ability to sniff out cancers. One of the earliest studies was conducted at Oxford University, where the dogs attained a 41 percent success rate in identifying cancers in urine (pure chance would be 14 percent) proving the study´s hypothesis, that cancer has a unique odor. But there was a bonus. The six cancer-sniffing dogs all detected cancer in the urine of a control - a man thought to be cancer-free. He was tested and found to have a malignant kidney tumor. The dogs saved his life.

During the last 15 years, cancer researchers have been experimenting to see if dogs can sniff out the unique chemicals emitted by various cancers. The general consensus is that dogs can be diagnosticians, but whether they will be a regular part of health screenings remains to be seen.

Dogs can be trained to sniff out cancers. Duane Pickles, the dog trainer for a Florida State University study, agrees that the problem is not the science but in the training. Pickles has 31 years experience training police dogs. In 1993, Florida State researchers asked him to train dogs to sniff out the chemical markers for three types of skin cancer and five types of lung cancers.

One dog that Pickles trained was George, a former bomb-sniffing dog. George and the other dogs in the study were given the job of identifying samples of cancerous tissue taped under bandages on their handler´s body, as well as samples hidden in one of the ten holes drilled into a plastic tube. George´s success rate on both tests was greater than 99 percent.

"You can´t just use someone´s pet," Pickles said. "You have to have dogs that are certified utility dogs (the highest AKC obedience rating). You need a professional handler with several obedience trial wins. The dogs need to know 150 commands just to start and have to know 400 commands by the end of training."

A dog can be a real-time chemical detection system. Cancer screening by dogs is non-invasive and can find cancers very early, before symptoms appear. But there are still questions on whether you can do this reliably.

Bruce Galway sends a story that proves that

BLOND MEN DO EXIST

The sheriff in a small town walks out in the street and sees a blond cowboy coming down the street with nothing on but his cowboy hat, gun, and his boots, so he arrests him for indecent exposure.

As he is locking him up, he asks "Why in the world were you undressed like this?"

The cowboy says: "Well it´s like this, Sheriff ... I was in the bar down the road and this pretty little redhead asks me to go out to her motor home with her. So I did.

"We go inside and she pulls off her top and asks me to pull off my shirt, so I did.

"Then she pulls off her skirt and asks me to take off my pants ... so I did.

"Then she pulls off her panties and asks me to pull off my shorts ... so I did.

"Then she gets on the bed and looks at me kind of sexy and says, ´Now, go to town, cowboy....´ and here I am."

Gerrit de Leeuw forwards these stories about growing old:

WE MIGHT AS WELL LAUGH

Two elderly gentlemen from a retirement centre were sitting on a bench under a tree when one turns to the other and says: "Slim, I´m83 years old now and I´m just full of aches and pains. I know you´re about my age. How do you feel?"

Slim says, "I feel just like a newborn baby."

"Really? Like a newborn baby?"

"Yep. No hair, no teeth, and I think I just wet my pants."

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Hospital regulations require a wheel chair for patients being discharged. However, while working as a student nurse, I found one elderly gentleman already dressed and sitting on the bed with a suitcase at his feet, who insisted he didn´t need my help to leave the hospital.

After a chat about rules being rules, he reluctantly let me wheel him to the elevator.

On the way down I asked him if his wife was meeting him.

"I don´t know," he said. "She´s still upstairs in the bathroom changing out of her hospital gown."

~~~~~~~

A senior citizen said to his eighty-year-old buddy:

"So I hear you´re getting married?"

"Yep!"

"Do I know her?"

"Nope!"

"This woman, is she good looking?"

"Not really."

"Is she a good cook?"

"Naw, she can´t cook too well."

"Does she have lots of money?"

"Nope! Poor as a church mouse."

"Well, then, is she good in bed?"

"I don´t know."

"Why in the world do you want to marry her then?"

"Because she can still drive!"

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Three old guys are out walking.

First one says, "Windy, isn´t it?"

Second one says, "No, it´s Thursday!"

Third one says, "So am I. Let´s go get a beer."

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A man was telling his neighbour, "I just bought a new hearing aid. It cost me four thousand pounds, but it´s state of the art. It´s perfect."

"Really," answered the neighbour. "What kind is it?"

"Twelve-thirty."

Barbara Wear shares this one about

THE PREGNANT BLONDE

The other day my neighbour, who is blonde, came running up to me in the driveway jumping for joy. I didn´t know why she was jumping so excitedly but I thought, "What the heck?" and I starting jumping up and down along with her.

She said, "I have some really great news!"

I said, "Great. Tell me why you´re so happy."

She stopped jumping and breathing heavily from all the jumping up and down, told me that she was pregnant. I knew she had been trying for a while so I told her, "That´s great! I couldn´t be happier for you!"

Then she said, "There´s more!"

I asked, "What do you mean, there´s more?"

She said, "Well, we are not having just one baby. We are going to have TWINS!"

Amazed at how she could know so soon after getting pregnant, I asked her how she knew. She said...

"Well, that was the easy part. I went to Wal-Mart and they actually had a home pregnancy kit in a twin-pack. Both tests came out positive!"

THIS WEEK´S WEBSITES

Bruce Galway and Kate Brookfield send the URL for a story of a greatartist:

http://www.maniacworld.com/art-in-the-eye-of-a-needle.html

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Bruce also forwards this explanation for a printer problem:

http://arunaurl.com/2l3j

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Catherine Green suggests this video of the first jet-powered man:

http://www.flixxy.com/jet-man.htm

But I preferred the video about an international musical performance:

http://www.flixxy.com/peace-through-music.htm

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And just in case you thought I had forgotten, let me remind you that you can make a difference with only a few clicks in less than a minute by clicking on the Hunger Site: http://arunaurl.com/2l47

"The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been kindness, beauty, and truth. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible."