University Days
Becoming Robert Peng
The school term began. I focused on my academic studies and completed my sophomore year with top grades. I also trained hard for the track team and ended up winning the regional hurdling championship. Xiao Yao’s presence was with me each time I took a test or ran a race, and I partially attributed my success in both endeavors to him. During winter break and the following summer break I returned to Jiuyi Temple to further my spiritual and healing training.
My junior year was a repeat of the previous one. I did well academically, won the regional hurdling championship again, and continued to visit Xiao Yao during my breaks. The following year, after I graduated from high school, I did not visit the temple. Instead I stayed home, studied, and took the national entrance exam in July. Then I applied to various universities.
In mid-August I received an acceptance letter from the admissions department of Zhongnan University in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province.
I wrote Xiao Yao immediately:
Dear Shifu,
Good news! I was accepted to the four-year program at the Foreign Languages Department at Zhongnan University in Changsha. I’ll be majoring in American and English Literature.
—Jihui
On registration day my father accompanied me to Changsha, which was a one-hour bus trip from Xiangtan. We were given directions to my room and found it easily. Three bunk beds were evenly spaced across the room.
I chose the top bed nestled in the far corner, which I figured would give me a little more privacy. Six small hardwood desks lined the wall between the beds. My father made my bed and set up a mosquito net while I unpacked my suitcase.
“Study well, Jihui, and come home whenever you miss your mother’s cooking,” my father said tenderly before he left.
My roommates were from all over China. We each talked Mandarin with different accents, but we shared a common love of the English language, the subject we were all majoring in. We ate dinner together and prepared ourselves for our first class the following morning.
All the English classes were held in the Foreign Languages Department, a white three-story building on a small hill in a quiet section of campus.
“Good morning and welcome,” our professor said the first day. “My name is Professor Zhou. Since you are all English majors, I won’t ask you to introduce yourselves by your Chinese names, but instead I’ll begin by giving you your first homework assignment. Each of you must come up with an English first name by tomorrow morning. Take some time to think about it—it’ll be your name for the next four years.”
I was so enthralled by the excitement of that first day that I forgot to come up with a name. So on the second day of class when Professor Zhou asked the first student his English name, I broke into a cold sweat. I was the third student he called on.
“And what is your name?” he said, pointing at me.
“Robert.” The name popped out spontaneously.
The name stuck.
My daily routine developed quickly. After class I’d eat lunch with my friends, go back to my room for a short nap, and then go off to a secluded park behind the Foreign Languages Department to practice Qigong. There was a grassy area there where couples would sneak away to steal a few hours of private time. In the early nineteen eighties Chinese society was still very conservative—even holding hands in public was considered improper behavior. I looked for an inconspicuous patch of grass and meditated while a few couples snuggled under the protective cover of trees and bushes.
A short time after the semester began Coach Chen, the head of the track team, was notified that the two-time hurdling champion from Xiangtan was enrolled as a freshman. He dispatched one of the team members to my dorm room to welcome me.
The team member knocked and entered, declaring, “I’m looking for Jihui Peng.”
“Hi,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
He was two heads taller than me.
“Are you joking?”
“No, why?”
“Never mind—I must be mistaken. I’m looking for a Xiangtan hurdling champion by the last name of Peng.”
“Well, you’re talking to him.”
“But that’s not possible,” he insisted. “You’re too short to be a hurdler.”
The boy reported back to Coach Chen and I was invited to pay him a visit. When we met, he had the same reaction.
“No offense, but it’s hard to believe that you are who you say you are,” he said with his brow scrunched. “There’s only one way to settle this. I want to see you run.”
I joined a few members of the team on the track. We raced and jumped hurdles. I came in third, beating the tall fellow who had come to my room.
“Unbelievable!” Coach Chen exclaimed as he extended his hand. “Jihui, welcome to the track team.”
Despite becoming close friends with the members of the track team and spending much of my free time with my classmates, I still managed to keep my Qigong practice a secret the first year of school, with one exception. After practicing in the secluded park one afternoon, I saw a brick lying on the walkway. I was buzzing with Qi and couldn’t resist. I didn’t see anyone around, so I picked up the brick and chopped it in half like a block of tofu.
“You know Qigong?” A voice said from behind me.
I turned around and recognized Dr. Zhu, one of the heads of the university’s medical department. I nearly panicked.
“Umm …” I stammered.
“I’ve studied a little.”
“Well, that was remarkable.” He noticed my consternation. “Don’t worry. I’m a big fan of Qigong. I believe traditional Chinese medicine has much to teach Western health care. Do you do energy healing?”
“I have some training.” Despite his enthusiasm, I remained cautious.
“That’s exciting. You must come visit me. I’d like to hear more about your training, and don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone what I saw. Not everyone shares my high regard for Qigong, you know.”
“Yes, sir. I know.”
The aura of intolerance that began during the Cultural Revolution still permeated most of society, despite the greater freedoms that were beginning to creep into our daily lives. I desperately wanted to keep my practice of Qigong a secret for fear of being socially ostracized, or even expelled.
Fortunately Dr. Zhu kept his word, and we became friends. But despite my best efforts to keep my Qigong training private, news of my healing abilities spread during my junior year when I was faced with a moral dilemma that required me to divulge my secret to Coach Chen. The star of the track team was a dashing sprinter named Cheng Feng. He was a talented athlete with a bright future when halfway through the fall semester he developed an infection in his big toe. At first he ignored it and continued to compete with the infection, but his condition worsened. The toe turned black and oozed a vile-smelling fluid. The pain became intolerable and Cheng Feng went to the infirmary. The university doctor gave him antibiotics, which didn’t help. Coach Chen accompanied him to the hospital to consult with an expert.
“We’re worried the infection will spread to your blood,” the doctor warned. “I strongly suggest we amputate the toe.”
Cheng Feng was devastated. And when Coach Cheng shared the news with the team, he was on the verge of tears.
“I think I may be able to help,” I told the coach privately.
“How?” he asked.
“I have some Qigong training.”
Coach Chen was a modern man with a scientific outlook. He did not hold traditional Chinese healing methods in high regard. Under any other circumstance, he would have laughed in my face, but he was also a practical man. “I guess there’s nothing to lose at this point,” he said.
I removed the bandage from around his foot. The infected toe looked horrible.
I directed white-colored Qi directly into it for fifteen minutes. The following day Cheng Feng looked slightly less pale. The noxious discharge had stopped. Two days later I treated him again as Coach Chen looked on. The next day the toe was turning pinkish.
“It’s looking much, much better,” Coach Chen said, sounding surprised.
“It doesn’t hurt as much,” Cheng Feng added.
After the third treatment I could sense energetically that the vicious Qi had been neutralized. Within another week the toe healed completely. Word began to spread about my healing abilities, but instead of treating me as an outcast, people became curious and expressed a sincere interest in learning more about Qigong.
When the semester ended, I returned home for a few days and then traveled to Jiuyi Temple as I did every winter break. I arrived on a cold day during the first week of January 1985. The hike up to the temple was not easy. The trail was muddy at the base and icy higher up. The trees were bare and the gusty wind stung. Once at the temple I found Xiao Yao in his room.
“Hello, Shifu,” I said, handing him a bag of dried lychees.
He greeted me with a tender smile, “Buddha bless you.”
I updated him about my school work and told him about Cheng Feng.
“You did well.” He placed a handful of sunflower seeds and peanuts mixed with dates in my palm. “Here, have a snack.”
Xiao Yao spent the rest of the day and nearly every moment of the whole vacation with me, which was unusual. In the morning we practiced by the Rainbow Tree, and the rest of the time he reviewed everything he had ever taught me. My master didn’t teach me any new practices, which was also surprising. In the evenings we spoke for hours, reminiscing about the past and discussing personal matters. He was relating to me more like a doting parent than a Qigong master.
He often brought me back heaps of food that visiting pilgrims donated to the temple.
“Eat, eat,” he insisted.
At dusk the day before I left, he suggested, “Let’s go practice by the Rainbow Tree.”
We had never before practiced by the Rainbow Tree in the afternoon. As we arrived the sun was beginning to set. When we were done, we walked back to the monastery in the dark through the snow. After chanting in the main hall we returned to my master’s room. He seemed unusually reserved.
“Jihui, this year there might be some turbulence in your life. Don’t let any interruptions distract you from your studies. Continue to practice Qigong and study. Be strong.” Xiao Yao looked at me with loving, tender eyes.
We went to sleep early and got up before dawn. In the morning chill we went to the kitchen. Xiao Yao wrapped three warm sweet buns and placed them gently in my satchel. We walked to the main gate together, side by side.
“Good-bye, Shifu,” I said.
It was very cold.
“Good-bye, Jihui.”
Midway through the spring semester, I went to check my mail between classes. There was a telegram for me. I opened it. The message was curt: Shifu passed away.
There was no signature, but the return address was Shaping County where the monastery was located. The bell rang. Class was about to begin. I obediently returned to my seat in a fog and didn’t hear a word the teacher said. Class ended. I went to the student administrator’s office, still dazed.
“I’d like permission to leave campus,” I said.
“Why?” the man behind the desk asked.
“My uncle died.”
“Your uncle? We don’t give students leave unless an immediate family member passes away.”
“We were very close.”
He sized me up as he considered what to do.
“He was like my father,” I added sadly.
“Oh, all right.” He handed me a permission slip. “Here you go, but you must be back in a week.”
I ran to my room, packed some clothes, and rushed to the train station. I hadn’t bothered to check the schedule, so I waited eight hours for the next train and eight hours more for the bus. I refused to accept the news and half expected to see Xiao Yao running around the monastery when I got there.
I didn’t arrive at Jiuyi Temple until the following evening. I was ushered to Liu Bo’s room. The abbot was surprised to see me.
“Come in,” Liu Bo said.
“Is it true?” I asked.
“How did you find out?”
I showed him the telegram.
“We didn’t send this to you, but I think I know who did. It must have been Niuazi, one of your Shifu’s older disciples. He was here a few days ago.”
Niuazi was very poor, and the postal service charged for telegrams by the word. That would explain why he hadn’t signed the message.
“Xiao Yao spoke to me two weeks ago. He told me he was going to ‘leave’ soon. He wasn’t sick, but he said his time had come. He didn’t look it, but he was ninety-five years old. He asked me to keep the news of his death from you until you returned this summer. He didn’t want to disrupt your studies.”
As Liu Bo spoke, I remained silent.
“He talked to me about you for a long while that day,” Liu Bo added. “Xiang ni lei—he missed you very much.”
My eyes swelled with tears.
Liu Bo continued. “The next morning after we spoke, one of the young monks entered his room. Your master was sitting on his bed … He still looked like he was in deep meditation. Buddha bless him. We haven’t buried him yet. Would you like to see him?”
“Yes,” I replied.
Xiao Yao’s body was resting inside a ceramic jar the size of a barrel in an open-air room called the Soul Palace, awaiting his burial date. The stars twinkled above. A statue of the Buddha stood near the wall, and red and yellow banners inscribed with prayers were hung all around. Incense smoke wafted up toward the sky. I lifted the wooden rim of the jar. Xiao Yao was inside, seated in lotus position. His eyes were closed, and he was smiling. His skin looked normal. There was no foul smell. He looked alive, and for a moment I believed that he was going to open his eyes.
I knelt down before the jar with my forehead on the floor.
“Shifu, yi lu hao zou—Master, I wish you a good journey,” I said.
I bowed and repeated the ritual prayer thirty-six times. When I was finished I sat in front of the jar for a long time. It was still dark when I returned to his room. I burst into tears. I cried for as long as my exhausted body could weather the grief. Then I fell into sweet slumber and had many lucid dreams in which Xiao Yao visited and comforted me.
When I woke up I returned to the Soul Palace. I bowed another thirty-six times. All the monks joined me in the room and we chanted the Great Compassion Mantra. I spent all morning beside my master’s body. All day long I ferried back and forth between the Rainbow Tree and the Soul Palace. The next morning I informed Liu Bo that I had to return to the university. I bid my beloved master farewell one final time, and left Jiuyi Temple.
On the train ride back to Changsha, the reality of Xiao Yao’s passing really set in. I had always relied on my master for guidance. Although I was only twenty-one, I realized that from then on I would have to rely on my own inner guidance and be my own master.
Later that year my mother passed away, and soon afterward, my grandfather died. It had been almost a year since Xiao Yao’s cryptic warning about my impending hardships. And despite my efforts to be strong, I lacked enthusiasm and faltered academically during my senior year.
During the last semester I became more social to distract myself from my grief. I formed a salon with two other friends. We discussed the cultural, political, and economic changes sweeping across China. We organized debates about social transformation. Our salon grew, and we created a journal called Road to the New Horizon that was well received and inspired other salons to form on campus. I wrote an article for the first issue about the influence of Laozi, the founder of Daoism, on Chinese culture, and another piece about Xiao Yao for the second issue. Then the school year ended.
Teaching English and Teaching Qigong
Graduation day drew near. All the seniors were scheduled to meet with representatives of the Student Distribution Committee, the group responsible for job placement. My advisor, Assistant Dean Huang, was an administrator in the Foreign Languages Department.
I knocked on his door.
“Come in,” he said.
Dean Huang was seated behind his desk. He scrutinized me through a distinctive pair of horn-rimmed glasses. He had lived abroad for two years, and the experience had imbued his style with an air of international sophistication.
“Sit down, Robert.”
I did.
“Have you considered your professional future?” he asked.
“I have,” I answered.
“And … ?”
“I’d like to work for a foreign trade company.”
“I see. Well, let me be direct with you. At this time we don’t have a quota for employment in a foreign trade company. Do you have any other ideas?”
“Not really.”
He leafed through my file.
“Overall, your grades are pretty good. You placed third last summer at the regional track meet, your behavior is exemplary, and,” he looked me straight in the eye, “I really appreciate what you guys did with Road to the New Horizon. I’d like you to consider staying on at the university. We need English teachers and I think you’d make an excellent one. What do you think?”
I had never really thought about becoming an English teacher at the university, but the idea of staying on and becoming a member of the faculty appealed to me immediately.
“All right.” I accepted the position on the spot.
“Then let me be the first to welcome you to the Foreign Languages Department.”
The class of nineteen eighty-six graduated. The campus thinned out, and I stayed on. I moved to the faculty dorm and spent that summer at the university preparing for the fall semester.
One evening while I was working, there was a knock at my door.
“Come in,” I said.
It was Dr. Zhu.
“I hear you’re going to stay on and teach English. Congratulations!” he said.
“Thanks.”
“Look, I’m here to discuss a sensitive matter. Do you have time to talk?”
“Sure. What’s wrong?”
“I have a good friend. His name is Mr. Liu. He’s one of the top administrators. You’ve probably heard of him. Anyway, he has crippling lower-back pain. The doctors have tried to help, but he’s still suffering. He’s been lying in bed for more than a week. Can you give him a Qigong healing?”
“Sure.”
“But we’ll have to keep your visit quiet. He doesn’t want anyone to find out about it,” Dr. Zhu explained.
“I understand,” I replied.
Dr. Zhu called his friend to inform him that we were on our way over. We walked to Mr. Liu’s home and found him in his room, flat on his back in bed.
“Hello,” Mr. Liu said coldly. I realized instantly that he had agreed to indulge his friend’s whim and see me only out of desperation.
“Hello, Mr. Liu,” I said.
I diagnosed his condition, and after I figured out the problem, I treated him and empowered a few energy points. While I worked, Mr. Liu kept making annoying, condescending comments.
“Are you afraid of pain?” I asked him when I was done.
“No.” The question puzzled him.
“Good, then you won’t mind putting up with some,” I warned him, then added, “I’ll need a beer bottle. Do you have one lying around?”
“A what?” he blurted out in a sour voice.
“A beer bottle.”
He rebuked me with a surly expression and then finally said, “Yes. You’ll find one in the fridge downstairs.”
I returned to Mr. Liu’s bedroom holding a chilled bottle by the neck.
“Please raise your right leg, Mr. Liu,” I instructed.
He looked at me in disbelief.
“Oh, all right,” he complained while he positioned himself on the edge of his bed, grunting and straining as he slowly lifted his leg.
When his leg was perpendicular to the floor, I grabbed his foot and smashed the base of the beer bottle against his heel three times—bang, bang, bang!
“Ahhhhh!” he shrieked, turning pale.
“Stand up,” I snapped before he had a chance to get angry and yell at me.
“What?”
“Stand up and walk, Mr. Liu,” I insisted.
“You’re not serious, young man?” he asked rhetorically.
I raised my voice to ensure him I was. “Get out of bed.”
Mr. Liu eased himself off the edge of the mattress and slowly stood up.
“Now walk,” I instructed.
“Walk?”
“Yes, walk.”
He took a cautious step. His face lit up, and he smiled.
“Hey, I can walk!”
Mr. Liu paced back and forth alongside his bed a few times.
“Dr. Zhu, look. I can walk!”
Dr. Zhu, who had been watching the whole time, seemed relieved.
“Young man, you wait here,” Mr. Liu said to me cheerfully.
He left the room for a few moments and came back with a bowl full of Mandarin oranges.
“Please take these as a token of my appreciation. They are very sweet.”
I thanked him and left with Dr. Zhu.
“What on earth did you do to him?” Dr. Zhu asked in astonishment as we walked back to campus.
“The doctors couldn’t help him because the source of his pain was not physical. Mr. Liu had a stubborn energy block and a lot of damp Qi in his lower back. I removed the blockage and I empowered him to revitalize his weary body. The beer bottle helped ground his Qi, but it also served a second function. The shock of the pounding helped clear his mind of doubt. Without the acute pain, it would have taken longer for him to ‘believe’ that he could walk,” I explained.
After witnessing Mr. Liu’s successful healing, Dr. Zhu began to discreetly send me more of his friends and colleagues for treatments. A small group of notable university professors became my first patients.
Nonetheless, the significance of this development was overshadowed by the growing apprehension I was feeling about the coming semester. My first teaching assignment as a university assistant lecturer was for an English class for science students. I toiled for weeks putting together a lesson plan. I prepared sixty pages of notes just for the first day of class.
The night before my debut, I was extremely nervous, and when class began I couldn’t even focus on my notes. The students were just a few years younger than I was. As I stood in front of them, I felt the weight of fifty pairs of eyes staring at me. I introduced myself, following the “script” I had prepared. I was stiff and spoke mechanically. My breath was shallow and my voice felt weak.
Then I took a few deep breaths and addressed them as a caring friend rather than an authoritative teacher. I made some humorous remarks and the atmosphere loosened up. I settled into an easygoing teaching style, and the students relaxed. We had fun and our time together was productive. To my surprise, after class was over, I realized that I hadn’t referred to my notes even once. After I taught a few more classes, my confidence grew. That semester my students taught me an important lesson: I loved teaching.
In 1989, three years after I began teaching, I met Wuhui, a sports instructor at the university. Just a few years older than I, he was also an advanced Qigong practitioner and healer. During the Cultural Revolution he had learned similar practices to the ones Xiao Yao had taught me. We shared a common personal history and worldview, and we soon became good friends.
During this time Qigong was becoming more accepted in China, and Wuhui and I were inspired by this change. We formed a Qigong club and began teaching some close friends and doing private healings. Mr. Liu gave us permission to use an empty dormitory room as our Qigong “clinic.”
Later that year I finally revealed my “true” Qigong identity publicly by entering the year-end talent show sponsored by the Foreign Languages Department. More than two hundred people were in the audience, including my colleagues and students. Almost none of them knew I practiced Qigong.
The emcee introduced me: “Please welcome Robert Peng and some members of his Qigong club. Tonight they will demonstrate their special abilities.”
As I stepped out on stage with a few of my students, murmurs ran through the crowd. I began by snapping a chopstick into two pieces by pressing the pointed end against the base of my throat. The audience gasped. Then I brought one of my Qigong students up on stage and placed a long, sharp spear tip against the same spot on his throat. The room quieted. While holding the handle, I pushed the spear into him. He held his ground and it bent like a bow. I pushed harder. Crack! The wooden handle snapped in half. The audience gasped, but once they realized he wasn’t hurt, they let out a roar of applause.
We followed up with a few more demonstrations. Finally I asked for a volunteer from the audience to take down the large round clock hanging up on the wall. I held it between my hands while facing the audience and then asked them to count down from ten to one.
They began, “Ten, nine, eight, seven …” and as they reached “one” I strongly projected my Qi into the clock and made the second hand stop. Their applause continued for a long time. Afterward a swarm of people surrounded me to shake my hand and ask questions.
That evening Dean Huang burst through my door without knocking.
“Robert, that was amazing!” He grabbed my hand and shook it vigorously. “I didn’t realize that my department was a lair for crouching tigers and hidden dragons.”
“Thank you, Dean Huang,” I said.
“You don’t understand—my whole life I’ve dreamed about learning Qigong, but I could never find a teacher. Please accept me as your student.”
“I’m happy to teach you, but Qigong requires an ongoing commitment.”
“I’ll do anything I have to do.”
“All right then, you’re welcome to join our practice group.”
Dean Huang became one of my most enthusiastic Qigong students. He practiced daily for two hours. The following year the Qigong club entered the talent show again and Dean Huang’s stellar performance stole the show.