Quiet and unexpected rise of yoga in China
I was returning to Beijing from the southern city of Nanning in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region a few weeks ago after a story trip when I found a woman in allwhite clothing and high heels sitting next to me on the plane. In my experience, the odds of having to jostle for elbow room on a slim, shared armrest are considerably lower with a female co-passenger than a male.
That the flight was taking off just 20 minutes or so behind its scheduled departure time had already put me on peppy mode. So, Miss Wei (as she introduced herself ) and I launched into a conversation. She said she was visiting Beijing to participate in a yoga camp along with a few other women, who were seated in rows behind us,
This Day, That Year
ItemfromMay31,1992,in ChinaDaily:Afteropening toforeignoilcompaniesa decadeago,petroleumdevelopmentintheBohaiSea regionissettogointofull swing.
TheBohaiOilCorpis speedingupconstructionof threeoilfields,whichwill produce3millionmetric tonsofoiland500million cubicmetersofnaturalgas withinafewyears.
The Bohai Sea is the larg- and like her, were fashionably dressed.
Many Chinese assume I practice yoga since I am from India. This is akin to the notion some Indians hold that most Chinese are into tai chi.
But some scholars say the growing popularity of yoga in China, especially among women aged 25 to 40, is in part due to perceived similarities between the two traditions.
Zhang Yongjian, a researcher on yoga in China, told me last week that learning the ancient Indian discipline requires money here.
“In recent years, more and more people in China have started to learn and practice yoga because their incomes have risen.”
And while there is greater health awareness in the country today, Chinese women mostly view yoga as a way to stay fit and look youthful, he added.
Zhang works for the Chinese Academy of Social Sci- est offshore oil and gas production base in China, with annual oil output reaching 30 million metric tons since 2010, according to the Ministry of Land and Resources.
The first foreign cooperative oilfield in the area was put into operation in 1985.
Now there are about 50 oilfields in operation, according to China National Offshore Oil Corp, the country’s biggest offshore oil producer.
However, the energy boom has hit the environment ences, an influential think tank that produces reports on a variety of topics.
The CASS report on China’s yoga industry is likely to be released ahead of the International Day of Yoga (June 21).
In India, there is a spiritual side to yoga that involves meditation. In many parts of the world, it is more about prescribed postures and controlled breathing.
There are more than 10,000 registered venues that offer yoga courses in China. But why has yoga suddenly become so popular in the country? After all, over the decades, it spread from India to the United States to the extent that some people, including Chinese, believed it originated there. By some accounts, pop yoga is a multimillion-dollar industry in the US.
According to a Chinese woman who organizes yoga events, some Chinese have been practicing it for the past 20 years although the num- hard, with a series of oil spills from offshore platforms in the past few years.
In 2011, two oil spills at the Penglai 19-3 field polluted more than 6,200 square kilometers of water, according to ConocoPhillips China, the field’s operator.
Economic losses caused by marine accidents surged bers have lately increased.
The need for qualified teachers is also expected to rise in the country.
Ma Huiying, a 30-year-old woman from Shenyang in Northeast China’s Liaoning province, told me that she has been teaching yoga at a sports institute in her city for the past five years and that her students, in their teens and early 20s, include boys. In her opinion, yoga practitioners in China fall into two broad categories — serious and lifestyle.
The first pursue the holistic approach of “change from within” and the second roll out colorful mats for lighter workouts.
As for me, the mat seems within reach.
Contact the writer at satarupa@ chinadaily.com.cn
Online
Scan the code to hear an audio version.
from 300 million yuan ($44 million) on average annually in the 1980s to more than 17 billion yuan between 2005 and 2010, according to the State Oceanic Administration.
To better protect the marine environment in the area, authorities have strengthened monitoring.
MAY 31- JUNE 1