Stumblefist
08-20-2001, 02:33 PM
Gene said:
"I find your comment "Everything in China is fake, including the government, everyone lies,..." offensive. If you truly beleive this, why on earth do you choose to live there and post here? Plus I'm Chinese - are you calling me a liar?
... but I certainly don't care to be called a liar, and I suspect most Chinese concur.) True, face is an alien concept to westerner, but it's not too hard to understand once once you get filial piety and no reason to call us all fakes and liars."
...
"Lastly, I admit I have little expertise in China, but I'm very curious to know what portion of my Wudang article you felt was naive."
................
I'll answer your questions in a new thread rather than clutter up the old thread about training with Shaolin Monks. The first paragraph in itself shows extreme naivity and needs a great deal of dissection.
-------------------
But first, the article...
You introduced Zhang SanFeng as a REAL person instead of a legend or even as if telling a story i.e. "legend has it..." Atually you could tell 23904 different stories and none of them would have any shred of historical backup. There are only 2 references to ZSF in history, to 2 different people, and neither even mention Taiji.
...
Ditto for the mythical Emperor Zhengwu.
...................................
You don't understand the money there, i could tell the way when yu mentioned the 9 Dragons hotel. You sort of confirmed that when you mentioned elsewhere on the forum about a Shaolin performance "recouping their losses" by selling souvenirs!!! What losses? It costs the boss nothing to put on that show. Workers eat the same 30 days , eat the same rice buckets. Where's the losses?
Your group probably made the Hotel's season. That's all they need. They are all in bed together by a system of guanxi, probably the abbot, the hotel boss, your sifu. Probably almost everyone you met is in on the action somehow. With the kind of money you are spending, you will get anything told to you, they are your "friends" for life. The abbot goes to the gold (plated) medal bin, someone tells you how honored you are. I do not see an earned friendship here.
Purple Cloud temple is where they make chinese movies, they are used to wealth,wealth, wealth there. The abbot is a greedy snout who 100 x charges foreigners to study at his "nei gong" school despite that there are many chinese richer than most foreign travelllers.
I also can relate a specific negative incident revealing his true character but i won't bother here.
You remind me of how a tourist told me the chinese were "happy", so i directly asked the waitress at the table.: No she WASN't, gets up at 7, sleeps at 12 to 1:30, no days off and today she had all these difficult tourists to attend to getting nothing extra out of that for herself, just the same pay, but actually we got happy talking together, but that's how it works, making spaces inside the larger mess. "
..........
My opinion of the priests of Jinding is totally the opposite.. I was very impressed by them and their devotion and sincerity.
Anyway i spent 20 RMB a night there, expensive because i had to take all 3 of the beds in the room for myself. That's about 2.50 US. Is that what you spent?
-------------------------------------
Now I can understand that you didn't know about the "god road" or that is is a traditional Taoist pilgrimage to walk up and down it, but i would have thought your "monk" guide knew about it. I consider the cable car is for old people, crippled people, rich fat tourists, and lazy shaolin fake monks i suppose. Why do you call this guy a "monk" when he is married ...twice?
How can you see or know about the "71 peaks" if you don't walk up and down the God Road. Well the modern adult "emperor generation" extremely CANNOT eat bitter, they can't walk 10 steps without looking for a taxi. Oh i'm sure he can exercise, just doesn't carry much of it into "real" life.
..........................
ok that's a first installment
"Without water there would be no fish"
"I find your comment "Everything in China is fake, including the government, everyone lies,..." offensive. If you truly beleive this, why on earth do you choose to live there and post here? Plus I'm Chinese - are you calling me a liar?
... but I certainly don't care to be called a liar, and I suspect most Chinese concur.) True, face is an alien concept to westerner, but it's not too hard to understand once once you get filial piety and no reason to call us all fakes and liars."
...
"Lastly, I admit I have little expertise in China, but I'm very curious to know what portion of my Wudang article you felt was naive."
................
I'll answer your questions in a new thread rather than clutter up the old thread about training with Shaolin Monks. The first paragraph in itself shows extreme naivity and needs a great deal of dissection.
-------------------
But first, the article...
You introduced Zhang SanFeng as a REAL person instead of a legend or even as if telling a story i.e. "legend has it..." Atually you could tell 23904 different stories and none of them would have any shred of historical backup. There are only 2 references to ZSF in history, to 2 different people, and neither even mention Taiji.
...
Ditto for the mythical Emperor Zhengwu.
...................................
You don't understand the money there, i could tell the way when yu mentioned the 9 Dragons hotel. You sort of confirmed that when you mentioned elsewhere on the forum about a Shaolin performance "recouping their losses" by selling souvenirs!!! What losses? It costs the boss nothing to put on that show. Workers eat the same 30 days , eat the same rice buckets. Where's the losses?
Your group probably made the Hotel's season. That's all they need. They are all in bed together by a system of guanxi, probably the abbot, the hotel boss, your sifu. Probably almost everyone you met is in on the action somehow. With the kind of money you are spending, you will get anything told to you, they are your "friends" for life. The abbot goes to the gold (plated) medal bin, someone tells you how honored you are. I do not see an earned friendship here.
Purple Cloud temple is where they make chinese movies, they are used to wealth,wealth, wealth there. The abbot is a greedy snout who 100 x charges foreigners to study at his "nei gong" school despite that there are many chinese richer than most foreign travelllers.
I also can relate a specific negative incident revealing his true character but i won't bother here.
You remind me of how a tourist told me the chinese were "happy", so i directly asked the waitress at the table.: No she WASN't, gets up at 7, sleeps at 12 to 1:30, no days off and today she had all these difficult tourists to attend to getting nothing extra out of that for herself, just the same pay, but actually we got happy talking together, but that's how it works, making spaces inside the larger mess. "
..........
My opinion of the priests of Jinding is totally the opposite.. I was very impressed by them and their devotion and sincerity.
Anyway i spent 20 RMB a night there, expensive because i had to take all 3 of the beds in the room for myself. That's about 2.50 US. Is that what you spent?
-------------------------------------
Now I can understand that you didn't know about the "god road" or that is is a traditional Taoist pilgrimage to walk up and down it, but i would have thought your "monk" guide knew about it. I consider the cable car is for old people, crippled people, rich fat tourists, and lazy shaolin fake monks i suppose. Why do you call this guy a "monk" when he is married ...twice?
How can you see or know about the "71 peaks" if you don't walk up and down the God Road. Well the modern adult "emperor generation" extremely CANNOT eat bitter, they can't walk 10 steps without looking for a taxi. Oh i'm sure he can exercise, just doesn't carry much of it into "real" life.
..........................
ok that's a first installment
"Without water there would be no fish"