Advertisement
Published: August 2nd 2010
Edit Blog Post
Admist the pollution and traffic, the crowds and the noise, the urban monstrosities, the construction and the modernity, I had forgotten how beautiful China is. On the train leaving Qiyang, I had just woken up when the whole car became astir, and passengers rushed to the windows to fascinate over the landscape. Gigantic grey rocks, pocked and jagged by time, towered over farmfields, dwarfing the farmers and their oxen as they sowed and reaped in their shadows, seemingly oblivious to the giant-guardians of the land. At times we passed them standing in clusters like splintered mountains, their pocks looked like domestic entrances to an ancient cave community. Buried in my life in Shanghai, I had forgotten the rest of China. So is how I found Qiyang a year and a half after I had left- more beautiful than I had remembered- vibrant and colorful and positively exploding with life.
Shifu, our martial arts master, was truly pleased to see Chris and me; he clasped his hands together and laughed, then gave us a big hug. Pleased too, are he and Shimu, his wife, that our Mandarin has progressed to our current rudimentary level. Now only 1 in 4 topics have to
be abandoned to "ting bu dong" (I don't understand). A great improvement over 2008 when whole days would pass under the frusterating banner of "ting bu dong". We all bore that banner good-naturedly, especially Shifu who has supernatural patience and spent hours every morning instructing us in Taichi and Sanda (Chinese kick boxing). That is why our friendship persists so strongly to this day. Though I was not put under Shifu's care and instruction at age 6 like most of his "tudi", students, I am his tudi nonetheless and I feel the strongest attachment and respect for the man I have come to call "the grandfather I never had."
We all gathered in the bare main hall of his martial arts school after dinner. A crowd, sitting on rough-hewn wooden benches formed a circle around Shifu on the smooth concrete where we used to have our early morning training. The crowd was boisterous all brought together by ties to Shifu- Me, Chris, Shimu, Wanbamni- one of his top female tudi, a few grown male tudi, Tom- a southern brit who trained here after we left, and Liang, a northern Chinese who would act as translator. Admist the ringing phones, side
conversations, jokes, excited interjections, dog fighting on the streets, chickens clucking, visitors coming and going and street noise, Shifu told me a bit of his story:
It is 1951 and the pre-dawn air is warm, saturated with the Hunanese humidity. The stars are fading and an opaque mist hangs on the family courtyard. A six-year-old boy stands stock still and serious, his left foot forwrd, right foot behind making a shoulder-wide stance. He waits, muscles aching but coiled, ready for the call. He rose at 4am like he has every morning since his sixth birthday and will for the rest of his life. He is learning to ignore the throb in his bladder as no relief is permitted until breakfast. "Yi! Er! San! Si!" his father calls in stacatto bursts. He jabs, crosses, hooks right, hooks left then returns to his original position. His gege, older brother, mirrors the action to his right. When these exercises are finished, the sons will follow their father into the nearby mountains where they will scale bare rock-face, and shimmy up and down slick bamboo shafts. Shifu is three years his brother's junior but already his instincts are more honed, his mastery in
martial arts only a matter of time. His education, handled by his father and grandfather, began years before as soon as his cognitive abilities allowed him speech. He learned the Chinese language and the principals of Chinese morality simultaneously. The two main tenets of which are 1) defend only, never attack and 2) always help the less fortunate. Shifu gets plenty of opportunity to apply these tenets. In 1951, Qiyang was a rough and tumble place. Shifu saw much violence and fighting amongst uneducated peasants as he made the daily 9km trek through wild land and over mountain to and from school. "Big quarrels among small minds over small things," he says. He defends himself when necessary but never acts as aggressor. By the time Shifu was a teenager, these peasants sought out his wisdom and patience to solve their petty disputes. He was, is, known as a fair and balanced judge, encouraging talk and logic over fighting. Shifu is a man who has been long respected.
Back in his modest home of mud and straw, 6-year-old Shifu's hand trembles as he lifts his rice noodle to his mouth. The muscles fail and the chopsticks clatter to the table. Mother,
father, brother and young sister say nothing. In a few years, when they are old enough, his sisters, one a toddler and one still resting in the womb, will join their gege in the courtyard to begin their martial arts training, like five generations of masters before them. Shifu tries again with the chopstick, willing his muscles against the fatigue.
Shifu's father had made an iron log weighing nearly 150kg that he encouraged his children to lift. It took Shifu ten years, but by the age of 16, he was running several hundred meteres with the burden. By this age, he dominated all other competition in his family, village and region. He spent long solitary hours in the mountains, training alone in addition to his family training. His prowess did not go unnoticed and in 1962, at age 17, military officials acknowledged his skill and sent him to Guangzhou Military Sports Academy to receive special martial arts and gymnastics training. He competed in many competitions, quite a serious endeavor in China at this time, and never lost.
(At this point Shimu chimes in "Oh he was so handsome! He had so many muscles!" then with a smile but in the
blunt Chinese style that lets you know she cares "But now he is too thin. Every year he is thinner and thinner. Ugly." Shimu's dimensions, it should be noted, have changed inverse to Shifu's over the years.)
In 1969, Shifu returned to Qiyang to marry the woman who now lovingly pokes fun at his weight. Relatives came in droves to accompany Shifu on his procession to her home where he gave her gifts of rice, pigs, chickens, fish, oil and money. Claiming his bride from her parents' home, Shifu escorted her to his. They would have three sons and Shifu would pass down his wisdom to a seventh generation.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.066s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0396s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb