On the 10th International Yoga Day, hundreds of yoga aficionados around China spread their mats on Saturday to demonstrate their devotion and expertise in the ancient Indian physical and spiritual practice, despite the frost in bilateral relations since the 2020 military stalemate in eastern Ladakh.
According to officials, the number of yoga practitioners engaging in official and unofficial events on International Yoga Day in various locations grows year after year, particularly among young people.
On Saturday, the Indian Embassy in Beijing hosted a two-hour yoga event with over 1,000 participants. The event took place a day after the US International Yoga Day to coincide with the weekend holiday.
The Indian Ambassador to China, Pradeep Kumar Rawat, his wife Shruti Rawat, and Deputy Ambassador Abhishek Shukla, as well as embassy officials, attended the special function at the old embassy premises.
The event encompassed a wide range of Indian health and wellness traditions. While Master Lokesh Sharma, an embassy Indian cultural teacher, supervised the common yoga protocol, there were also specific meditation sessions led by renowned professor Dr R S Bhogal, a meditation expert from Kaivalyadhama Yoga Institute in Pune.
The event was organised in partnership with four institutes: YogiYoga, We Yoga, Om Shiva Yoga, and Hemanth Yoga.
The event featured a lovely kirtan performance by N K Singh and a mesmerizing kathak performance by Sohini Karanth, which combined aspects of yoga and meditation.
Huge yoga events were also conducted by the Indian Consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou, as well as in the eastern city of Yiwu, the global commodity market where hundreds of Indian businesspeople stay and sell billions of dollars of Chinese items to India.
While more than 270 people participated in International Yoga Day last year, nearly 1,000 did so this year.
Mohan Bhandari, Director of Research at YogiYoga Institute, stated, “The unique feature of yoga culture in China is its popularity among young people in the age group of 20-25 years”.
Young people are participating in yoga in greater numbers than in other nations, where many people get interested in the Indian physical and spiritual practice after the age of 30.
Bhandari, who is from Rishikesh, India, created the YogiYoga Institute several years ago with his Chinese wife, Yin Yan.
The institute has centres in numerous Chinese cities and offers training programmes such as yoga healing.
Yin Yan, the founder and president of YogiYoga, believes that yoga will continue to grow in China due to people’s needs and its increasing appeal in social life, the workplace, and the family.
However, despite their growing popularity, yoga institutes suffered significant setbacks during the COVID-19 pandemic, with hundreds of them closing. This also prompted a number of Indian yoga teachers working in China to return to India.
According to Bhandari, the yoga sector in China is slowly recovering, and Chinese people’s passion will continue to help it develop.
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