Shinly Shaw is slender with short hair, and Chinese. This is how she described herself so I could pick her out in the crowd. Luckily we found one another in Tokyo Station, but only the second time around.
Shinly -- the English spelling of how it sounds in Chinese -- is a practitioner of Falun Gong, a form of physical and spiritual training that has its roots in ancient Chinese culture to strengthen the body and mind. "Falun" is a Buddhist term meaning "law wheel" and "gong" is natural energy, as in "qi gong."
From Jiangsu Province, near Shanghai, Shinly moved to Beijing to work at a publishing house. " It was the time of the open policy, so after a year I went south. That's where I met my ex-husband."