Interesting events happen every day, every hour in the bustling city of Beijing, and not even our staff can cover it all! While we were busy with families and schools at last weekend’s JISE, local writers and professionals Dr. R.M. Clarken and O.C. Tennant attended the Nu Women Empowerment Summit. We asked them to share their experiences.

Dr. R.M. Clarken

Saturday was an unexpected day of inspiration at the Nu Women Empowerment Summit at the trendy Hotel Jen in the CBD. From the first invitation, I knew that this would not be a typical business meeting for professional women, as the formal program stressed the need to wear comfortable clothes and shoes to fully participate in the afternoon activities. This particular detail piqued my interest and ensured my attendance.

When I arrived on Saturday morning, I was met by a small group of about 50 women gathered in an open conference hall that was filled half with chairs and the rest with yoga mats. Before starting the program, we mingled while sipping cappuccinos and watermelon juice and nibbling on snacks. After a meet and greet, we sat down to listen to the exceptional speakers, whose experience in China ranged from a few years to several decades. With so much wisdom to share, the presentations could have gone on and on, but instead, each woman spoke from the heart for only 15 minutes, sharing a great deal in a short period of time. This quick-paced outpouring invigorated the audience and gave us much to think about and talk about over lunch.

The afternoon was a marvelously choreographed assortment of activities to move us out of our heads and into embracing and empowering our bodies. With mini sessions in yoga, meditation, and improv, our small band of women bonded as we stretched our physical, emotional, and mental muscles. The afternoon wound down with a few more delightful speakers, music, and socialization. All in all, it was a surprising break from the locked-down experiences that typify 2020. I will definitely be in attendance at the next event.

Dr. Clarken has worked in education for more than 15 years and is currently a principal in Beijing. She first came to China 25 years ago as a high school student and later returned to Sichuan as an environmental education Peace Corps volunteer. For the last eight years, she has been living and working in Beijing with her husband.

O.C. Tennant

As I scanned through the faces in the WeChat group the night before the Summit, I remember feeling like I was in a safe space with people who, although unique and different from me, were similar in the area I value most: having a true desire to better themselves and others. Now, mere days after the summit, I have fulfilled my hope of making new friends while also connecting more closely with old ones and, most importantly, connecting deeper to myself.

The thing that set this summit apart from other conferences and women events I’ve attended is that it addressed all aspects of who I am as a person. Sabina Brady’s “Tackling Systemic Issues Head-on” stimulated me as a professional and academic. However, Enoch Li’s transparent testimony of her battle with chronic depression in “Playing Your Way Back to Mental Health” helped me remember to never stop having fun.

The organizers did not just stop at educating us on topics relevant to women on their transformation journeys. I was also able to immediately apply what I’d learned and felt in practice during a heart-opening yoga session, as I crawled like a cat on the floor doing contact improv, and while yelling out suggestions for the Beijing Broads improv games.

I have already shared my experience with friends and family in the US and China and even my partner, asking him to do some of the contact improv exercises with me the next day. Summits like this not only have the power to transform us as women but transform our communities as well. I highly recommend all women attend the next event. See and crawl with you there!

A proud “Georgia Peach” (from Georgia, USA) and graduate of Vanderbilt University, O.C. Tennant’s interest in the effect of international experiences on human development led her to work for the U.S. Department of State; to serve in Ecuador, Kenya, Peru, Tanzania, and now China; and, in 2016, to found Omega Mind, LLC. Most recently, Omega co-hosted the Beijing International Travel Conference and helped create cross-cultural videos for the China Tourism Film Festival. She has been in China for more than two years now and at any given time can be found painting, reading, writing, dancing, or studying nutritional therapy.

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Photos: Charlotte Smith, Authors