"Beating the Cow"

I guess my hours herding cattle as a young child and teenager helped me to gain the skills necessary to propel a top across the ice. Maybe... I had the chance to "beat the cow" when I was in Anshan last week. Angel's goal of my time with her in Anshan is to expose me to many new and interesting Chinese things. We had gone down to the park in the middle of town; the huge lake was now frozen over. We slid around on miniature sleighs (another story) for the first while, and then Angel and I took time to "beat the cow". Though I have retired my whip for now, if I find a suitable patch of ice in Beijing, I may just give it another try.

I had never seen people "beat the cow" before. People gather on a frozen surface with tops and whips, managing to use the whip to start the top spinning and keep it going for long periods of time. I was shown the basics of this game and given a top and whip to play at it for a while. To my amazement, it isn't at hard as it looks (once you know how to spin the top), and I had fun!! Behind me in this video, you will notice many people with much more sophisticated whips and tops, balanced perfectly to spin on the ice for a really long time. To gather in such cold weather to play daily is a habit I don't think I would form, but it was fun!!

p.s.- The music in the background is from a large group of people who were dancing in the park that morning... dancing in the midst of all the snow and the very cold weather.