Simon's Occasional China Blog

[SimonM]

Ok, first things first, I want to advertise another interesting Blog about life in China. Nothing to do with Gong Fu but still a good read: http://chinalife.typepad.com/

Now today I found out some good news. There is a "sports meeting" this Friday and all classes are cancelled Friday and Saturday. What's more, there is no makeup class on Sunday. The bad news is that means that my Friday Gong Fu class will be cancelled. The good news is that I can take my shopping trip into Taiyuan earlier. I'll probably still leave on Saturday because I don't want to spend the money on a hotel for two nights but I can leave early Saturday morning and have all day Saturday and as much of Sunday as I like (have to be back in Lishi by 9:00 for an online appointment) rather than having to wait until after noon to catch a bus for the four hour mountain road trek to Taiyuan.

Time to load the MP三 with some new songs I guess. I have enough; about 300 on my computer and several hundred more on CDRs.

Anyways the thing is that yet again I found out through my extensive informal network of friends and NOT from the school. If Tomoko (who hasn't made the same network yet) hadn't heard from me she still wouldn't know... Tomoko is the Japanese teacher at LLHC, an absolutely wonderful woman and yet another example of a friend I have made because I made the choice to step out of my life in Canada into the great unknown. The world is full of amazing people and places if you just look for them.

Sorry I am going off on one of my "travel is good for the soul" tangents again.

Back to the Gong Fu. I was a little ill on Monday; nothing that time and pepto-bismol didn't cure but ill in a manner that precluded spending a few hours in a field hundreds of meters from the nearest toilet so I had to miss class. This would have made this week a complete writeoff if I hadn't arranged for some make-up tuition time tomorow after I finish MY classes. Tomorow will be a long day between my three classes and this but it is very important to me that I continue with my training. I am really enjoying the new material.

Today I managed to rope an actual Shuai Jiao player into a friendly match. It ended basically the same (looks like my wrestling skills are better than I give myself credit for, thank you Master Chau who taught me most of what I know about the art, thank you Cal - my #1 Shuai Jiao partner) but took a bit longer... about a minute. And HE didn't hurt himself when he landed; looks like he DID know breakfalls. He did tap, however, the second I transitioned into the mount position (landed in cross body again and transitioned immediately). I guess his school wasn't too heavy on ground work. Afterwards he admitted he had never played with somebody as tall and heavy as me. I pointed out that if my head was too high up for him to reach (which it really wasn't) he could have always shot for my legs and offered a rematch any time. Then we knocked back a few cokes and chilled for a bit. Between that and the heap of EMail I have gotten from my Gong Fu brothers and sisters in Canada I've had a good week.

P.S.

Nancy I have some new words...

太贵了 tai gui le
能便宜点吗? Neng pian yi diar ma?
可以吗? Ke yi ma?
可以 Ke yi.
不可以 Bu ke yi.
我很喜欢 Wo hen xi huan.
多小tien你想要? Duo xiao tien ni xiang yao? I think my pinyin might be a bit flawed here because I can't get the right character for tien to appear. Oh well, I know how to say it and how to draw it.

Ok bonus kudos who can guess why I am learning these particular phrases.

[SimonM]

A few days back Eileen invited me to have supper with her and her mother. Her mother was coming to visit her. I was quite willing to do so. So today she comes by, we watch TV a bit (I said watch TV or go for a walk and Eileen chose TV ) and then she goes to the bus station to meet her mother.

Sadly our plans fizzled. Her mother became quite car-sick on the long journey from Datong to here and the thought of a big meal out at a fancy restaurant was not something she felt up to. Eileen (understandably) didn't want to leave her ill mother who she almost never sees to go out with a guy she can see nearly every day so she cancelled out of tonight too. Oh well.

Anyway other things I said I would talk about today.

Well 1: I am going to Taiyuan tomorow morning. I don't know if the internet cafes in Taiyuan are up and running. So I may be offline for a few days. The cafes are temporarily closed in Luliang. The rumour is that a couple of boys got into a fight over an online video game and killed each other. I don't know if this is true or not but regardless the internet cafes have been temporarily shut - much to my student's chagrin.

2: At English corner last night we started talking about Gong Fu. I love talking about Gong Fu and as often happens when such topics arise my students wanted a demo. NO PROBLEM. So this time, rather than showing off some simple form I decided to show a couple of shuai Jiao, chin'na and 12 Bridges applications. Well my students just ate it up. They loved it. And after the english corner was over a few of them said that I should teach Gong Fu. Now in my own personal opinion I am not skilled enough yet to teach. Sorry but I believe in adhering to a high standard in tuition of martial arts. I can handle myself in a scuffle but that does not a master make. And skill level aside I don't want to be yet another "fat shifu" getting ridiculed for my girth on Martial Arts websites so I would like to drop the gut before I start teaching. So anyway I declined and said that they could check back in 10 years. My students did seem to accept that answer though I hope they don't think I am "just holding out on the good stuff" by doing so.

3: I don't know if I already mentioned this but I accidentally broke open a door that was nailed shut. I didn't realize it was nailed shut, I thought it was just a bit stuck and I gave it a shove. The next thing I know there is the sound of splintered wood and screaming students who were standing next to the door that they all knewcould not be opened. This may further my reputation as a "strong man". I didn't get in any trouble over the door, it wasn't actually damaged in and of its self. They just had to nail a new board across the space between the frame and the metal door.

[SimonM]

I had a great time in Taiyuan. I also am in a rather novel position that I have to sort out. See, for really the first time ever, I find myself being in the position of having multiple women interested in dating me. I went out with my friend in Taiyuan, we had supper, went for a walk in the park and then got drunk and danced at a disco. I had a really great time with her. Now I am remaining a perfect gentleman, I have never been and will never be a player and neither is my girlfriend as of yet but I find that both women are attractive, interesting and fun to be around albeit quite different from each other.

Anyway other than my Saturday night I had a major shopping trip. My cell phone busted and I bought a new one the very next day (motorola c157t). I also picked up a pair of boxing gloves, bits and bobs for my halloween costume, various western food stuffs including really good dark chocolate (no cheese though ), a nice jacket for wearing clubbing (also part of my halloween costume though at 415 RMB - on sale - you can bet I'm wearing it on more than just one day) and a new Reebok sweater.

Oh and a heap of DVDs. One of the DVDs will probably interest the guys over in the off topic forum. It is the new Jacky Chan movie. It is a Chinese movie and was just released this year; it is called "Myth". If you folks in the west are lucky a subtitled version might be available in a few years.

I haven't watched it yet. Eileen was talking about it a while back so I might see if she is interested in watching it with me.

PS: I have a new skill that I never knew about. I'm a wicked shot with a rifle. At least if the Bee Bee rifles and electronic games you can use in China are at all a valid indicator. I was like totally dead-eye. I've never used a gun in my life so this surprised me somewhat. I still don't like guns though. Being able to aim one effectively isn't making me want to rush out and buy one.

[Mel]

So it seems that Eileen's insecurities were not so unfounded after all, eh Simon? You're flying high kid, and the air is very thin up there!

[SimonM]

Sorry I was going to post this earlier but some friends dropped by...

First I want to appologize for the delay in posting. I have had a very busy couple of weeks and there are three very valid reasons why it took me until now to get this post up:

1: I have been having internet problems off and on since about the 15th of October.

2: I have been showing the new FT the ropes. She got here on the 23rd of October. A nice old lady from South Africa.

3: I have been busy planning, cleaning, decorating, hosting and cleaning up after my first annual Halloween bash.

This is on top of my normal schedule of working, gong fu, shopping, spending time with Eileen, etc.

Ok. First I'll satisfy Mel's curiosity.

Honestly, I like Eileen a bit more, if she made it clear that she wanted me to be her BF the other girl would not even enter into the picture. Unfortunately Eileen some days acts like she thinks she is my girlfriend and some days like we are just good friends and I haven't gotten a lock on what she wants.

The other girl I mentioned in my previous post is a REALLY nice girl. She is also quite foreward, no mixed messages. Fortunately (at this time) I am only able to see the other girl when I go to Taiyuan whereas I see Eileen daily. If I have a lock on what Eileen wants by the next time I go to Taiyuan it will be much easier for me to proceed. In the meantime I am in a bit of a holding pattern.

And considering that such a predicament is one I have not ever faced before I must admit that, as confusing and headache inducing as the situation is, it has been good for the old self confidence.

Anyway... Onto Gong Fu. We started San Da in class this week, FINALLY!!!

I must say that I exercised restraint; I only bloodied one nose on the first day. And after that I made sure that when scrapping I picked the toughest and most skilled guys in the group.

Chinese guys do have one quite frustrating aspect to their fighting style that is ubiquitous. Very non-aggressive. If you look like you are going to come at them they play a full defensive game. If you pull back and try to lure them into the defensive they turn around and assume the fight is over.

However most of the class was not impromptu matches on the soccer dust-bowl but was rater focus pad drills and footwork drills. Basics. What Master Chau called bread and butter material. I spent a large part of the class trading the focus pad with a guy who couldn't remember that you jab with the lead hand showing off my coaching skills and proving that you don't have to speak the same language to teach a person to keep their guard up when punching... Smack a guy lightly on the ear five or ten times and each time mime keeping your guard up and he begins to learn.

For all of this I think that I impressed Sifu Zhang. As fun as it is Wushu is not my strong suit. And as interesting as it is I was hoping to move on from Taiji to something more aerobic. That is exactly what I got with San Da and my stupid fighting grin (the guys at NBDMA know what I am talking about) never left my face all class.

Next up: The new teacher. She is an older lady from south africa. We are not simmilar in any way BUT she is a kind woman and a forgiving neighbour. Today, when I appologized for the noise that my party generated last night, she said she could hardly hear it at all. Plus the school shifted all but one of my sections of Writing to her, leaving me with speaking and my beloved European Culture course (which I now have more sections of) so my timetable is much more to my liking now that she is here.

The halloween party: I expected 20 people, I got 50. At the busiest point I had about 35 in the living room (seating for six) and 15 in the bedroom (about 10 sitting on the edge of my bed). Eileen, Lake and my chinese teacher - Stone helped me to clean the night before, Stone helped me shop (sadly I shopped for 25 and so my guests ate and drank EVERYTHING I bought except for the Bai Jiu) and Eileen and Lake helped me to decorate. I haven't taken the decorations down yet because they are actually quite pretty. Streamers of fake, plastic, red maple leaves, wicker baskets full of cloth corn and halloween doodads that flash and laugh when they are jostled. I set up a spooky sounds file on my computer and lit the appartment entiely with candles. I also dressed in my halloween costume... I was going for a morpheus look so I donned mirror-shades, black dress pants, a black dress shirt with a crisp collar and low-key blue and gold stripes, a maroon silk tie (it says gucci made in italy on the back but at 35 RMB, 30 after bargaining, I have a feeling it is more likely gucci-immitation made in China), a long, trendy, jacket, a rather realistic plastic shot-gun that could fire BeeBees (except that I wisely unloaded it) and a Katana. I didn't want to cut my hair all off so I did the next-most-matrixey thing and used a lot of gel to style it into a tight, slicked-back do. Lake and Eileen dressed up as good and evil twins. They were wearing the same clothes and styled their hair identically but while Eileen carried around a stuffed pig all night (good twin) Lake wandered around with my bowie knife in her hands (evil twin). Then I let the guests in and told them a story about the origins of Halloween, ending by telling them that my flat was haunted by a ghost. Cue scream from the scary sounds machine (good timing that) and all my guests were sufficiently on edge. Then I switched to some good old-fashioned halloween music and got out drinks before begining to move around "hosting". After an hour we played bobbing for apples (it was a hit) and then, when enough people had left that we could see the screen, we put on a scary movie called "One Missed Call 2" a Japanese horror movie that was basically just Ringu with cell phones. Seriously, it was ultra derivative. However my guests were sufficiently frightened and the sound of gasping and jumping was a regular occurance during the frightening scenes.

Sadly Eileen fell ill half way through the party. She tried to tough it out but just had to make for home. She was still sick today but she got plenty of rest and was feeling well enough to stop by with Lake and Lakes BF to watch the film (which she missed) today. However it was a bit too scary for her so we left lake and her boyfriend (nice guy, doesn't speak a word of english) to watch the movie and Eileen and I went and watched the Simpsons instead. The jokes were all new for her and I think she enjoyed it... I picked a Homer-centric episode as they depend the most on physical comedy.

OK, time to go mix up a Bai Jiu and Sprite, settle down in my warm blankets to read a book and then catch some sleep.

[SimonM]

Today we started kicking in San Da class. After two hours of running, pushups, kicking drills and stretching my legs feel like they are about to fall off. I am also filthy because it was very dry and windy today... Dust! Dust!

However I am not certain I would stay standing in the shower right this second so I am taking a break to play some video games.

Ouch.

[SimonM]

Back again. I have been a bit busy of late as the end of the semester approaches. I taught my last class of the term yesterday and am now preparing exams.

Fortunately the PE department ends later so my Gong Fu classes continue and we have FINALLY strapped on gloves and head gear to begin hitting each other for real.

There is one bloke in my class I REALLY want to spar with. Unfortunately the folks around here still haven't gotten it through their heads that height is not the determining factor in a fight so they keep matching me with people who are not as skilled as him but who are tall. However tall guys in china don't have my combination of tall stature, stocky muscle and fatty padding. They are thin as rails and light as feathers. Combine this with the fact that many of these guys have NEVER been in a real fight and it's a bit of a disaster waiting to happen. In my first match (my second will be tomorow) I knocked over my opponent with a single punch...

What's worse, it was a spinning backfist, a move I'd never use in a real fight because it's so low-percenage!

After that he spent the rest of the match running around the ring trying to avoid me.

I just put up my Christmas tree but since all my presents are in a cabinet waiting to be sent home it looks a bit lonely - even with enough lights on it to make it look like a miniature sun.

It's a bit lonely here right now. I miss my family more accutely than I have in the past because of it being the hollidays. Also Eileen has been out of town all week and so my only company has been Helen and my students. Helen is a delightful woman but I crave companionship within my own general age bracket. Most of my students just want to hit me up for information about the exam when they visit and I have already had one houseguest breakdown in tears when she misinterpreted something I said and thought I was upset with her. See she had got me a gift, a lovely - oversized - Chinese knot. I visited with her for a small bit when another student showed up and I started telling that student about exam preparation. Now the first student is actually one of my best students in her grade but she is a freshman and so her English is far from perfect. I've had major plagirism problems with my third year students and I was telling the other student (a third-year) that if anyone cheated on their essay or on their exam I wouldn't hesitate to give them a 0% grade. I continued by saying that there was no guaranteed pass in any of my courses. The freshman misunderstood what I meant and thought I suspected her gift of being a bribe for a better mark on an exam. I thought no such thing but with the stress of exams looming and this being her first year away from home she suddenly broke into complete tears. I calmed her enough to find out what had so upset her and reassured her that I had not been even thinking about her gift when I had made these comments but I still felt terrible about the whole incident.

Sadly in Lishi the only people who CAN speak English are the students and teachers at LLHC (most of whom are either 5 years younger or 10 years older than me or are out of town on placement until tomorow) and a pair of restauranteurs who are good friends of mine but who are quite busy with work of their own at the moment.

And my Putonghua is still too poor to develop meaningful friendships with people who are incapable of speaking English. I do OK when I go shopping and I have learned some important basic phrases such as "what is this" and "I don't like it" but... Language acquisition takes time and I've only been here for 6 months.

[SimonM]

Wow! I've been trying to get on to KFM ever since new years day and I just managed it now.

Well, it's official, Eileen is now my girlfriend. We managed to reach that point over supper on New Years Eve and I have never been happier.

A few of my students got me work out equipment for a christmas gift so although I don't have gong fu classes I have been practicing on my own.

After some events that I heard about at various English corners I am considering starting a self-defense seminar for the students at our school.

That's about it really.

[Mel]

Congratulations, Simon.

[SimonM]

I thought you'd appreciate the update.

[omarthefish]

I've been intentionally avoiding saying this because I thought it might be a bit mean spirited and I didn't want to rain on your parade but...

The one who is celebrating and getting congratulations all around right now for the new "girlfriend" status is Eilieen.

Everything so far has read like she has been the one seducing you. She took you home to meet the folks already which means that they are now all very excited at the idea that she seems to have managed to bag herself a foreigner.

It's not that true love doesn't exist between foreigners and Chinese girls but just be aware that you are essentially an eccentric billionare or a rock star. The minute you stepped on campus, half the female student body was evaluating their options. I haven't met Eileen and it's entirely possible you guys have something real but it is nearly impossible for the vast majority of mainland girls to see you as anything other than "a foreigner". That's a mix of good and bad but the main thing is that, and this is especially true if this is your first relationship in China, you and here are not so much in love with or attracted to each other as you are for each others countries. Your first "love" in China is more of a romance with the country than with the girl and as your relationship with the culture matures so will the kind of relationships you are able to have with it's citizens.

The VAST majority of these things do not end well. Your Chinese is probably not good enough to see it yet but if you go on Chinese discussion boards there are endless topics devoted to things like:

-what's the best way to snag a foreigner.
-what a gold digging **** some poster is for sleeping with a foreigner.
-my mixed blood kids are so cute..followed by massive flaming and insults for the "traitor to her country" for marrying a foreigner and lots of verbal attacks telling the original poster she shouldn't be so uppity and that she's not the first person to go abroad etc.

Just be warned and proceed with caution. You have no idea how many girls spend half their free time hanging out at Starbucks because that's where the foreign men go. In Xi'an, no starbucks so they spend their time at the Starbucks ripoff attatched to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Girls who speak English, unforntunately, are even more obsessed with "western fever". They pick it up in the Universities.

Good luck and watch out.

[SimonM]

No offence taken. However my skills in Hanzi and Putonghua aside part of my attraction to Eileen is that she was different in that regard from a lot of the other folks I know.

She really didn't throw herself at me. It's taken me 4 months of work wooing her while dodging all the girls who WERE throwing themselves at me to get to the point where I was calling her my girlfriend.

Is she "The One"? I don't know. There are still many unknowns in our fledgling relationship.

Is she a gold-digger? I don't believe so.

How do I know? Well

1: I know a few gold-diggers. She doesn't act like them. If she is such she is at least much, much more clever than most.

2: I have a strong intuition. I tend to trust it. Doing so rarely steers me wrong.

She is heading back home for the holidays either tomorow or the day after so I took her out for dinner tonight. Because she didn't want to pick a place I chose one I knew she likes. She complained it was too expensive. I've had the gold digging types complain when I don't spend enough RIGHT NOW on them. My gut tells me that this isn't a more-clever-than-average ploy. It tells me she is on the level.

As for being an "eccentric rockstar" that hasn't lost it's charm for me yet, 6 months into my China stay.

Seriously I appreciate the warning but I am not walking into this one blind. I've heard the stories, the good and the bad hundreds of times over at the other forum I frequent: www.daveseslcafe.com and have met the gold diggers in person before. Hell I've barely dodged them before.

If it ends badly than it does. For now I am a happy man and I will worry about tomorow when it comes.

PS: One of these days I've got to get down to Xi'an. It's just a stones throw away after all. How is the weather over there now?

[Scott R. Brown]

I received similar advice when I met my wife. She is a Filipina. Intuitively I felt something immediately. I tempered my intuition with reason and took it slow. She is the finest woman I have ever met. She also treated my finances with respect and deferred any expensive gifts or outings. To her, time with me was what was more important and she is relatively unconcerned with material goods. What she wanted and wants is a long an happy marriage with someone she loves. Also she was a virgin and had a very close and protective family. Their actions demonstrateed to me they were concerned that she not be taken advantage of by an American. We had a constant chaperone when we first met. That impressed me! There may be a lot of gold diggers, but there are a few diamonds as well!

[SimonM]

Despite the fact I agree it's generally a good sign there is one down-side to an over-protective family. Eileen has been complaining that it's too cold up where she is. So I offered to take her somewhere warm for a week or so. But her mom said no. So instead I'm going to go up to Longqing and see if I can't check out one of the forges up that way.

[Scott R. Brown]

Yeah! That's not the only downside!

But then think about if it was your own daughter.