Taomeow

Thanks for a thoughtful response, Blasto. I have to confess very mixed feelings about buddhism, not "resentment" (this I reserve for more worthy targets like genocide, environmental crimes, cruelty, lies, or governments engaged in same) but a state of mind resulting from "understanding without embracing." (Taoist stuff I recognize subjectively by its being easy for me to embrace, no effort of any moral or ethical faculties required. I was at the Asian part of the Philadelphia art museum recently, and my companion had to pull me away by force from each and every item of taoist origins, whereas I walked past buddhist ones rather unperturbed, except when buddhist statues were shown holding their hands in taoist mudras! ) Of course buddhism doesn't need my approval. And of course, just like you said, there's many shapes and forms it takes and some are closer to my heart than others (in particular tibetan buddhism -- my first training was in Dzogchen, before taoism.) And to add embarrassment to mystery, a shamanic ritual that keeps gaining significance in my mind as time goes by (almost a year ago, and its aftermath keeps growing more rather than less important) culminated (at one of its many climax points) with an otherworldly entity giving me a personal buddhist mantra! YIKES! What I do want to stress -- not easy to find words in a quickie online entry -- is that I see much of buddhism as very close ideologically to much of "western" stuff, and since many a western taoist is a refugee from exactly the western paradigm we've been overfed in the past few thousand years, I sort of try to point out that running from that and into the arms of buddhism is actually running in circles more often than not... whereas running from that to taoism is indeed being headed somewhere new. Better or worse -- who's to judge? -- but different for sure. So when Soaring Crane said they have "nothing in common," well it may have been a bit of an exaggeration but mostly I had to agree. They lead in different directions -- one, toward another circle back to some kind of "father in heaven" or other, under whatever name; the other, toward a circle dance where "father in heaven" may be a dancer but not the main honcho. I see it as crucial, because the western paradigm has no built-in safety against being used for enslavement and has chiefly served this purpose better than any other for ages. Whereas the eastern paradigm does offer a measure of healthy resistance against this kind of applications.

There was one exactly like this one in China earlier (start watching at O:36): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNHEmrjRe5Q...feature=related And over Russia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGHjPMyzXTU...feature=related

I'll try to help but I have to rely on memory, it's been quite a while... 1. Does the Falun develop through the practice or it has to be installed or placed by the Grand Master? Sort of both -- the story is, the master has embedded it in the practice, once you start practicing, you install it automatically. Of course it's not an "installation" in any mechanical or even spirit sense. It's a reconfiguration of some functions. Much like learning to read -- you reconfigure some neural pathways for that. The reading "program" gets gradually installed -- then perfected -- but nothing mechanical has changed in your brain and no "spirit of reading" has been planted in your head, what happened is a new network of connections has been developed by the practice of reading. (If any of the refugees of the kunlun discussion are reading this, I believe K "transmission" is similar in its nature, i.e. it's a reconfiguration of what you've got, an expansion of function rather than something new or extraneous.) 2.What is your take on Falun? Same as concentrated Chi? Revolving Chi? I don't remember what the explanations were, I can only share my memories of my own experience at that point. I perceived it as the revolving miao tao, the "mysterious border" between yin and yang in taiji, the S-shaped line separating them, which is where manifestations sink back into the unmanifest and, vice versa, the unmanifest becomes manifest. To me it was beautiful and meaningful, I started seeing this shape and feeling this energy (whether in rotation, forming a falun, or by itself) everywhere in nature, in the arts, in Oriental architecture -- and more... But that's my own take, like I said, I've no memory of the official explanation by now. 3. Why is this practice not compatible with others? And here we have an opposite situation -- personally I don't know, but I do remember the master's explanation. "You can't travel the river in two boats by placing one foot in each." In and of itself, this incompatibility of a particular practice with others doesn't mean it's good or bad. In the Ayurvedic tradition, you don't eat melons with anything else, only by themselves ("eat them alone or leave them alone.") Melons are considered very beneficial, but it's just something you don't want to mix with anything else. Likewise, Jewish dietary laws prohibit mixing meat and dairy products in the same meal, but separately both are considered fine. From warnings on labels we also know there's incompatibilities of drugs, some of them very dangerous and others very obvious (e.g., it's not a good idea to take a sleeping aid and a laxative together, methinks ) Similar rules apply to some practices. 4. Is there anything that is compatible with Falun? Kundalini, Zazen, Abdominal Breathing? Or its complete alchemy in itself. It's supposed to be complete, but I don't know since I only practiced for a few months. I'm pretty sure it's compatible with taiji. Zazen -- no need, there's a meditation part that's similar, only a bit more challenging since you have to keep your arms in a certain position (which you change a few times, flowing them into the next one before finally setting them in a mudra at the lower dantien level.) Kundalini -- god forbid! I can't begin to imagine what it will do if the falun picks it up for a ride and who will shred whom. Abdominal Breathing -- no need, it kicks in on autopilot after a while. Zhang Zhuang -- no need, there's a version of that included (a difficult one). Internally, all you do is nothing -- it is practiced in wuwei state. What else. You are instructed to do the meditation in full lotus, if you can't, you keep working on it. Hope it helps.

synchronicity strikes again. Exactly my point expressed a minute ago in what I just finished writing in another thread. Баба з возу -- кобилi легше.

We would have to define our terminology first. Let me try to see what you mean when you say nonduality. 1. Advaita of Hinduism, Tengri the One God of Mongols, pantheism of totemic cultures, Shema of Judaism, oroborus of the South American and Pacific Islander and Eastern Siberian tribes?.. Or something buddhism and taoism have in common with each other but not with any of these? 2. If two systems have a key component in common, are they interchangeable? E.g., humans and chimps have 99.7% of all our genetic material in common. Does it mean we are pretty much the same creature and one can replace the other at any and all of its tasks? 3. Most importantly. If you divide the world into "east" and "west" based on religious beliefs and languages used to formulate them, Buddhism and Taoism fall on different sides of the east-west distinction you propose, Buddhism being part of the Indo-European ("west") family and taoism, of the East Asian ("east") family. If you insist on the east-west dichotomy, you have to be consistent and view the buddhist paradigm as part of the "western" rather than "eastern" heritage. That's because it's not duality-nonduality that determine the affinities and affiliations of a paradigm (for duality-nonduality of it can't be used as a meaninful distinction pointer because it is present globally, decided upon culturally, and has crossed the east-west and north-south borders many times. All African tribal views are nondualistic, then some of them convert to Christianity and some to Islam and both have both non-dualistic and dualistic branches and schools of thought. SO WHAT. It's not where the big deal is...) Duality-nonduality, in other words, is culturally important on occasion (like fashion or a particular technology currently in vogue) but semantically trivial. What does determine the east-west split of doctrines is first and foremost the language of their creators that has helped shape them as either object-oriented (western) or process-oriented (eastern). The Indo-European family of languages (I didn't make it up, I have a degree in comparative linguistics) is characterized by many nouns it employs to shape its discourse with reality; consequently, their users come up with static images and "ultimate outcomes" and "higher goals" of their abstract ideation precisely because they have an abundance of grammatical means to express them, AND few to express dynamic images (time- and change-aware rather than things-aware -- like the taoist "five moments/phases/movements of transformation/transition/change of qi" that get immediately translated as "the five elements" as soon as they hit an Indo-European language -- get objectified, stripped of their nature of a "process" and wrongfully ascribed a nature of a static "thing.") The East Asian group of languages (linguistically unrelated) has given rise to cognitive paradigms that go with the flow -- and the emphasis is not on an "object" or "objective" to go toward or away from -- the emphasis is on the flow itself. Not in some dumb new agey "living in the moment" sense where no living and no moment are actually happening so much as they are being talked about. In the sense that the flow is enriched by the process of living and knowing it, much like true love is not "at first sight" but "greater at every next sight" -- you get to know the person in the process of loving her, you get to love what you are in the process of getting to know -- that's how the flow is handled. You are not in some indistinct "now" -- you are in a precise, ever-changing, ever-valid (not illusory anymore than any other) texture that spells, to one living it, e.g., something like "warm, soft, moist, timely, fragrant, cherished, in need of protection, funny to look at from the top, flowing from the kidneys, redirected by dong quai, modulated by licorice, in the Seventh Palace under a Money Star, ancient, reliable," whatever -- on and on you notice reality and its energies and swim in that and know and feel and think and live instead of resenting and seeking to "transcend" so as to be "one with everything." A taoist is one with everything not "later" and not "if she deserves it by thinking the Right Thougts and doing the Right Actions" and not "if she escapes rebirth" -- humbug!-- she is one with everything by virtue of being and becoming -- simultaneously and at all times and in all states. That's the taoist process. What its philosophy thinks about duality or nonduality is as interesting to this process as the texture of the armchair in which the thinker of this thought entertains it. No more. No less.

I sure did. The only thing they have in common is, westerners don't know much about them. They see a superficial similarity and they see that one can be mixed and matched with the other and historically was... and what wasn't? I live in the land of fusion cooking and there's raw beef sushi on the menu of every good local Japanese restaurant, so someone superficially familiar with the menu might assert that beef sushi is authentic Japanese cuisine. Whereas beef was introduced and energetically promoted in Japan by an emperor who wanted a closer relationship with the West, and was not eaten there before. Once it was tasted, some Japanese liked it. Some proceeded to treat it the familiar way and put it raw on sushi. Nothing wrong with that. The Chinese did pretty much the same thing with buddhism once it was installed. Doesn't mean it has something in common with taoism, anymore than a cow has anything much in common with a tuna fish. However, people who never tended cows or fished for tuna will easily mistake one for the other. Works on sushi. Doesn't work if you try to impose the cow's values on the tuna's lifestyle, or vice versa. Doesn't work if you insist on milking the tuna, and proclaim that a tuna fish that gives no milk is on the wrong path. Doesn't work if you insist the cow lives deep in the ocean, and proclaim that a cow that drowned when dropped there did so because she didn't understand the teachings of the buddha. Doesn't work if you can't tell the difference between two organically incompatible paradigms -- they can only be made compatible on some sushi platter or other when they are dead. Alive, they live different lives, taoism swims in the ocean, buddhism chews cud in the barn, both are fine and neither one needs to insist on taking the other's place. Otherwise you wind up with a bloated cow and a bloated tuna that will stink up the world.

True. It's also true with NOT changing the method though. Gopi Krishna comes to mind. He did an authentic, no-changing-anything, ages old and reputable Hindu meditation (sitting in lotus, focusing on the third eye) for 17 years, for 3 hours every day at dawn. Nothing happened in all those years, he would finish the meditation and go to work, I seem to recall as an accountant. Then one day his kundalini suddenly (sic) awoke and rushed up the shushumna. What followed was 12 years of psychosis, and only after that, wisdom and clairty. If he was to report on the results of his practice in its 10th year, he would have to say it does "nothing." If he was to report on its outcome after 20 years, he would have to say it drives you crazy and causes great suffering. It was only after 30 years that he wrote books about it that became an authoritative guide for practitioners worldwide, and could say about the practice that it brought him both spiritual enlightenment and human satisfaction. Kunlun is nowhere near as slow.

LOL, no. Most wouldn't want to undermine their good standing with skeptics. But I surely did hear it from a few.

What you presented, whether in your own words or repeating someone else's, constituted a very explicit superimposition of buddhist ideation over taoist graphics. A diagram, by itself, contains no such ideation -- it is a mere visual image, it doesn't include any explanations. So whenever these appear, it means someone has supplied them, and this someone may be a buddhist, a satanist, or a biomechanical fundamentalist -- a cat can look at the king, a buddhist can look at a taoist diagram. What either one will see in what they're looking at is a different matter altogether. When you tell me what you see, I know who's looking. It's much the way the famous South American shamanic healer Maria Sabina always sang and chanted about Jesus and the Blessed Virgin and Catholic saints but was actually using magic mushrooms to access them. The sentence starting with "especially" needs an "if" somewhere, otherwise it sounds like a curse. (Mudra of protection. Touching the warding-off-evil talisman.) What people see as having fallen, as simple effective steps of rescuing, etc., vary very widely. You believe being human means having fallen; I'm not all that sure. I tend to think it's the opposite -- NOT being human enough is having fallen. You think what you have is a Rescue Manual. Again, I'm not all that sure. I tend to think it's the opposite -- an extra push in the general direction of losing one's humanity. So I do try to differentiate between what pulls me out of a deep narrow cavern and what jams me deeper into it. Preferably in advance rather than post factum. Taoist sciences are big on prevention.

Oh, OK. Yes, it makes sense. In the half-lotus of female alchemy, it is accomplished by pressing the heel of the lower foot into the pubic bone, then the thigh seals the yongquan. But since I still don't know what the sentence is, or whether a male could or should do this, I'm just guessing.

Have to second that. A superb routine, and costs nothing to learn and practice. The often-discussed lower back pain, I had it all my adult life till falun gong, and never again. (Knock on wood.) The founder did say some strange things, and way back when, when I was exposed to it, to me the mention of aliens among us was the last straw... but now there's hardly a master out there who doesn't mention them. Nothing wrong with the main message -- truthfulness, forbearance, kindness -- either. The falun itself, too, is as old as the stars, older in fact... and feeling it in your body is quite a trip. The downside being that it's one of those schools that are deemed incompatible with other methods of cultivation. Perhaps because qi pathways it opens are rather unique. I had to cut my hair very short at one point when practicing this because qi started flowing upward along the back and getting entangled in the hair! However, once I did cut it, I knew why and wherefore so many monks and nuns of so many traditions do that.

I must have missed the official question. What is it again?

Non-violation of the rules of Nature is where it's at, sure, and in this respect taoism is similar to shamanism, Shinto, or pagan religions, and distinctly different from paternalistic hierarchies that place yang, heaven, father, disembodied spirit, some mind ideal or other on top and in a position of power, superiority, control over yin, earth, mother, embodied life, actual being of live creatures. One whiff of that superiority-inferiority mindset and I know I'm not dealing with taoism, no matter what name the pyramid scheme calls itself.

Yup, this is consistent with what I'm talking about always -- integration, as opposed to fragmentation, wholeness, as opposed to a hierarchy, communication, as opposed to disconnection (on any level -- of the body and mind, of the houtian and xiantian, of xing and ming, of manifestations and the unmanifest), and remembering, as opposed to forgetting, are key taoist methods of cultivation. Poetic promises aside, this text contains many practical pointers in the right direction -- e.g.: After a certain length of time, wholeness can be seen; It will become the foundation of your spiritual empire. The truth of immortality is dependent On your integrated new life of wholeness. In the beginning these three are separate; As one, their subtle power is beyond the mind's grasp. Only when they are completely integrated Do we have the precious immortal medicine. When they are separated, there is no power. For the achieved one, The seven orifices communicate with each other, Each imparting its own subtle light. These are the keys to the castle, the rest is PR.

Excellent point. To me, a traditionalist, taoism (vs. not taoism) means two things: 1. Taoist fundamentals, i.e. a purely taoist and originally taoist (not derived from other doctrines) way to describe energies of the world: hetu, luoshu, yin-yang, wuxing, bagua, I Ching, qi, ganying. 2. Taoist Canon, i.e. what taoism itself included into what it sees as taoism. So it is quite possible to tell what is or isn't "what taoists believe" much to the same extent it is possible to tell "what Christians believe," as well as to assess a statement made to that effect as true or false. In most general terms, Christians don't believe that Allah is the Savior. To the same extent, in most general terms, taoists don't believe that they are "entangled in wuxing." And so on: from a statement of someone's belief one can infer whether it is a taoist view being proclaimed or not really. Specificities vary, of course.

He said that he admires Western noses and would enjoy having golden hair. One thing we've got. China was so brutally victimized, exploited, humiliated and robbed by foreign powers in the past 300 years of its history that I can only marvel at the magnanimity of its people who find it in their hearts to forgive and move on without holding too many grudges. (To compare, Russia still harbors a lot of hard feelings toward all things Oriental for having been enslaved by Mongols some 800 years ago!)

I've seen it -- I have biotech friends who do stem cell research.Of course it's been my idea for years that certain taoist alchemical practices do exactly that, physiologically speaking, -- to wit, activate dormant stem cells. The Immortal Fetus is what you get if you succeed. It's not the fetus as such, it's the fetal pattern of stem cell utilization that kicks in. Most of taoism is not after immortality and none of it is about "avoiding rebirth" (an idea imported from a foreign source, and by exceedingly few taoist lineages), since it doesn't see birth or rebirth as a bad thing, nor death -- provided the latter follows a long, fulfilled, enjoyable life. Immortality is for the most ambitious taoists, but "living out one's years to their full extent in health, peace and enjoyment" is the goal of most. Taoist ideas are life-affirming and rebirth-accepting (as one possible outcome which is not seen as negative -- see, e.g., Zhuangzi's musings re the possible joys of being reincarnated as a rat's liver -- "whatever I get reborn as, where can tao possibly take me where it isn't good?") This is not an escapist paradigm. You mean buddhism. Taoists don't call it nor see it as "entanglement." They see it as tao-in-motion, which is in no way secondary or inferior to tao-in-stillness, and call it that -- not with resentment but with appreciation and gratitude. Tao-in-motion is not "entanglement," it is "going along with the Way." Going against it consciously (i.e. alchemically rather than neurotically, out of greater ambitions than merely "living out one's years in enjoyment" rather than out of escapist get the hell outta here sentiments toward the world of tao manifestations) is just using an upgrade, or a better (or not even "better" but "different") model... like using a Mac when everyone else is stuck with Windows. (I use a Mac. Doesn't mean everybody else is "entangled..." ...or does it?... )

Forks, spoons, knives, cleavers -- pots and pans -- anything can be used as weapons, but chopsticks traditionally doubled up as hair pins and were always handy... might be awkward to stick a fork in your hair, methinks.

You know, this reliance on hard evidence is the outcome of left-brain schooling we all know and love. I was raised in the tradition. My father is old now, but when he was younger, he was a walking encyclopedia of "hard scientific facts." He knew intimidatingly everything about everything, liked to bet and prove himself right every time, and things like exact dates, exact locations, and exact 'laws of nature' were supposed to be proof of... what exactly, I don't know. Intellectual superiority? Knowledge for its own sake? Tools of winning arguments? I don't know. Most of what he knew as "hard facts" had been changed by the very "hard sciences" he relied on during his lifetime -- no, make it "all." The Galaxy was supposed to be 5 billion years old till they discovered 18-billion-year-old stars. Learned skills were supposed to be inheritable based on hard genetic evidence, then not inheritable based on new hard genetic evidence, then inheritable again based on newer genetic evidence. Elementary particles were supposed to be particles, then waves, then both, then neither, all based on hard scientific proof. Eggs were supposed to raise your cholesterol, then lower it, then have no impact one way or the other based on hard scientific proof. Genghis Khan was supposed to be a barbarian, then an enlightened ruler, then a bloody tyrant again. Pyramids were supposed to have been built by slaves, then some engineers proved it impossible, then they were refuted, then they showed hard scientific evidence... and so on. Archeologists... carbon dating was supposed to be precise to a day, then it turned out that under various conditions, the error margin is 25,000 years give or take. The skull that was supposed to be "the missing link" and was for quite a while to all hardcore scientists turned out to have been a hoax. X-rays that were supposed to be pretty harmless and were used at shoe stores to help clients better fit their shoes proved pretty deadly after all. Computers were supposed to shorten work hours and the number of people processing any and all kinds of data, instead they increased both. The cure for cancer was officially "just around the corner" -- just one more study away -- five years away -- forty years ago, and then again a few years later, and then again, and again, and now again -- "almost there," just out of reach but we only need one more study and then... And on and on, ad infinitum. Hard evidence is not reliable, contrary to what our conditioning suggests. It is prone to being obtained and interpreted by mere mortals who make mistakes, have agendas, axes to grind, grants to win, reputations to uphold, competitors to defeat, cultural bias to perpetuate, and on and on. They err and lie and stretch and jump to conclusions. They may be deficient in talent and skill and imagination yet ambitious and conceited. They plagiarize and repeat each other and things repeated often enough become our "hard facts" just because of that and nothing else -- as Lewis Carrol put it, "what I tell you three times is true." They might lack access to the bigger picture because they are narrow specialists and, as a 19th century sage put it, "a specialist is like a tooth abscess --- his fullness is one-sided." Hard evidence is notoriously without "heng," long endurance -- none of our "scientific facts" of today were seen as such 150 years ago and vice versa. They get refuted faster than they emerge. Clinging to the newest evidence especially, paradoxically, renders one obsolete in her knowledge in no time. Which is one reason I allow "knowledge" to form a "field of possibilities and probabilities" in my mind without demanding "precision" except where it matters. I get rid of names and dates and "facts" and retain the essence. I rely on pattern recognition. This is something that is learned differently from looking it up in an encyclopedia. I will note what the encyclopedia has to say, sure, but I won't necessarily agree, and my disagreement may not stem from having read a competitor's article in a competing encyclopedia. I might disagree based on no "hard facts" whatsoever but, rather, on the basis of the "fact" presented not being congruent with the pattern I have learned to recognize, a pattern I've learned to trust. So... it's my best bet with hetu and luoshu -- to rely on recognizing the pattern wherever I look. No matter how far back I look, I recognize it. I can't really prove it with hard facts... there's just too many facts, and I don't need any of them to be "hard" in order for them to work. Except when I do... THEN I will keep it precise. E.g., when looking for an acupressure point -- or for my own lower dantien.

or Peru, or Russia, or Italy. So?..

Well, only from books, I've no experience treating male pattern baldness in others and am myself neither male nor bald. My Russian herbal encyclopedia lists Burdock oil as the primarly anti-baldness agent. I haven't seen it in HFSs but it's usually available in Russian food stores and pharmacies if you live near one. Or maybe you can find an online source. This you don't take internally for baldness but apply externally, rubbing into scalp an hour before you plan to shampoo. (If you don't mind oil in your hair, you might keep it there longer). They also recommend nettles decoctions for rubbing in, cayenne, garlic (I'm not sure you'd be able to live with the smell though), a bunch of other stuff, but whatever it is, it's deemed efficient when applied externally and rubbed in. In addition, washing your hair with something that doesn't do any damage (the easiest and pretty efficient way is to use an egg yolk instead of shampoo, with a drop of some essential oil or other to counteract the smell, otherwise you'll be exuding the aroma of an omelet). Of all shampoo/conditioner products on the market, the only ones I found that have nothing that damages hair are some of Aubrey's Organics products, and not all their shampoos and conditioners at that but only a few (look for the ones that don't list 'alcohol denat.'). They are pricey, but the egg method will add up too... European oil of choice for hair preservation is rosemary. Then there's Life Extension folks with their own brand of remedies; they go the amino way but also include topical irritants like cayenne to improve blood flow to the follicles. Then there's a huge Ayurvedic tradition of hair care prominently featuring amla, neem, and dozens of other herbs; they also like to keep hair oily (with special blends of coconut oil and herbal extracts) but that's part of Ayurveda's overall approach -- they don't like anything they want to preserve in good condition to go dry, desiccated, or oil-free. (Many of their internal remedies are taken with some fat too, usually ghee, for better absorption.)

Well, let me try to turn the argument around a bit and invite you to look from a different perspective. The view you presented is an athropocentric view shared by most modern humans but apparently not by tao, far as I've been able to discern. Reactive and predictable patterns of behavior sound so not cool to us -- unless we compare these with patterns exhibited by tao itself as encountered in all of non-man-made nature, and notice that "reactivity" is actually sensitivity, adequacy of responses (commensurate with stimuli, not exceeding and not failing to match their extent, nature, and quality); while "predictability" is "heng," a Virtue of tao, which consists in reliability, trustworthiness, the ability to be long-lasting without jerking any of the participants around any which way on a whim. Wild animals have behaved consistently with these features and virtues of tao for the longest time, which is why all natural species of animals on Earth are older than ours. Tao rewards this behavior with being, with participation in its process. On the other hand, domesticated animals (foods, goods and pets, i.e. no longer animals) exhibit the same wide array of erratic, unpredictable, neurotic behaviors as humans. In other words, the difference between humans and natural animals is that natural animals are already natural, while humans have a potential to become so. If it is formulated this way, I do agree. Shinto, by the way, the native religion of Japan, is of the same opinion. So are many indigenous traditions that place animals on top of the totem poll and humans who have "potential" to get there, on the bottom. The human way, for the longest time, was to assert our specialness (the kinds of specialness we ascribe to ourselves vary but the "better than thou" mentality vis a vis all non-human inhabitants of the planet persists). I wonder who we learned it from, and what for... So far I'm not too crazy about the practical outcome of this ideation. It's so easy to marginalize something "different" and dispose of it from some "sacred right" perspective in any manner whatever/whoever is designated as "superior" sees fit. Whole civilizations, countless communities, and vast ecosystems have perished as victims of this paradigm, as well as countless billions of individuals, human and animal alike. Whenever we stop seeing ourselves as part of nature -- not the "special part" with special rights but just part -- we invariably start doing really stupid things...

The demand will grow, I'm pretty sure. I've read an article about high executives who used to hire French- or German-speaking nannies for their privileged kids hiring Chinese-speaking ones instead in the past few years. I do the same thing you did -- when on the East Coast (I'm sort of bi-coastal), I go to Chinatown regularly to buy herbs and ethnic food items and attempt to conduct my transactions in Chinese (I'm laughed at half the time, but encouraged and even offered some free gift or other for my efforts the rest of the time ). In SoCal, there's a huge Asian supermarket where I shop once or twice a month, and I do the same thing there. As for online courses, it's a matter of discipline... which is a matter of zhi... which is a matter of strong kidneys... which is a lifelong quest for me anyway -- that's why a regular schedule with a teacher would be so useful for me as opposed to self-study. Some people do well creating study schedules for themselves, whereas I learn by osmosis -- or else with an external disciplinarian.