more on the state of kung fu in china

[YouKnowWho]

i am trying to inform you ...

After you get used to the SC training method (develop one technique after another with "partner"), you will never be pleased with the solo form training. Most TCMA teachers will teach you form after form. It's very difficult for you to go back. Others may not understand your situation but I can quite understand that.

[bawang]

There are some truth there. Even today, I still try to "modify" this "3 rings catch the moon", and try to use it in sparring without much luck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G6jLx0tIzI

thats just a triple haymaker. use it when your opponent turtles up. two to the left, he shifts left, third one to the right. when he counters, you turtle up.

Hey, but you were referring to Westerners in general, not just White People right? It's not like you see an abundance of Black Americans training in China...

the choclate peoples are our friends. we are big fannies of doctor khalid muhammad.

[Faruq]

southern china is usually pro westerner, they had a lot of missionaries there.

why you going to hong kong though? why dont you learn in the countryside?

Hong Kong Bak Mei is prettier. So if I can kick butt and look good at the same time, Baw, you know I'm gonna take that option.

[Faruq]

the choclate peoples are our friends. we are big fannies of doctor khalid muhammad.

I'm sorry, I'm not acquainted with the good doctor I am ashamed to admit. I am pleasantly surprised to learn that we are welcomed in China. I'll shoot a quick e-mail out to everyone on the Operation Push, NAACP and NOI mailing lists immediately so we can take your kind people up on their hospitality and repatriate! Thanks, Baweezy!

[omarthefish]

[QUOTE=TAO YIN;1200023]Omar,
... It is going on more so with Xingyi, Taichi, and Bagua schools than it is with Chow Gar Tong Long schools in Guangdong...
[quote]

Sorry. I didn't catch that "???" was for sarcasm.

...He is not Chinese. When I lived in Guangzhou, I went to Honkers any weekend I wanted to.

I don't think even 10,000/month is enough money to live like that. It's pretty darn good for the mainlang but still pretty **** poor for HK. Only about $1600/month US. Hardly enough to be making regular trips out of town just for kung fu classes.

Wiz,

If you can't read, and can't take criticism on your own topic no less, why expect us to?

Meh. I think it's just funny how much denial there is on the thread of how things really are out here. Sure, there's exceptions but not many. Even, for example with the training I did find, it would fall into the same category really. Shifu teaches fighting and applications and all that but you really need to show him your in for the long haul before he shows you much of that. There's no way someone like Wiz would lean much more than forms from him. By "someone like Wiz" I mean, somebody who is sort of "shopping" for kung fu. He's not selling his goods for tuition. He wants to see someone who's going to possibly continue his lineage and treat this stuff like a national treasure. Kung Fu tourists need not apply.

[B.Tunks]

Meh. I think it's just funny how much denial there is on the thread of how things really are out here. Sure, there's exceptions but not many. Even, for example with the training I did find, it would fall into the same category really. Shifu teaches fighting and applications and all that but you really need to show him your in for the long haul before he shows you much of that. There's no way someone like Wiz would lean much more than forms from him. By "someone like Wiz" I mean, somebody who is sort of "shopping" for kung fu. He's not selling his goods for tuition. He wants to see someone who's going to possibly continue his lineage and treat this stuff like a national treasure. Kung Fu tourists need not apply.

Of course - 'everything in China sux, apart from my experience'

[omarthefish]

No...actually...an awful lot of my experience sucks too.

I am living out my fantasy but that doesn't mean there's no downside. There's no need to be a Pollyanna about life in China. It's a statistical fact that the vast majority of westerns who come to China are not able to adjust to it on any kind of a long term basis. I spent my first year in China at a foreign language university and I'd say roughly 80% of all the westerners there had had there dreams/fantasies about life in China thoroughly smashed by the end of the first semester. Most were dissapointed and tired and really homesick.

They weren't there for kung fu. They were there for the language and for some idea they had about the culture. I really do tend to think the main reason it worked out so well for me was just that I didn't really any positive expectations at all. I didn't even plan or expect to learn kung fu here. I felt that I could probably find much better training back home (lived in San Francisco). I just wanted to polish up my language skills and then move on to HK. I stayed on the mainland mainly just because it was cheap and because I was a Chinese major and HK'ers don't (didn't at the time anyways) really speak much actual Chinese. They all speak(spoke? It seems to have changed a bit) Cantonese and English. Also, couldn't figure out what I'd do for work in HK.

I feel I got very very lucky finding the training I did and, honestly, it took about a year to find it and another 6 months of being tested before I was taught really seriously.

China is just not for everyone. Better that people travel here with their eyes wide open.

[Faruq]

No...actually...an awful lot of my experience sucks too.

I am living out my fantasy but that doesn't mean there's no downside. There's no need to be a Pollyanna about life in China. It's a statistical fact that the vast majority of westerns who come to China are not able to adjust to it on any kind of a long term basis. I spent my first year in China at a foreign language university and I'd say roughly 80% of all the westerners there had had there dreams/fantasies about life in China thoroughly smashed by the end of the first semester. Most were dissapointed and tired and really homesick.

They weren't there for kung fu. They were there for the language and for some idea they had about the culture. I really do tend to think the main reason it worked out so well for me was just that I didn't really any positive expectations at all. I didn't even plan or expect to learn kung fu here. I felt that I could probably find much better training back home (lived in San Francisco). I just wanted to polish up my language skills and then move on to HK. I stayed on the mainland mainly just because it was cheap and because I was a Chinese major and HK'ers don't (didn't at the time anyways) really speak much actual Chinese. They all speak(spoke? It seems to have changed a bit) Cantonese and English. Also, couldn't figure out what I'd do for work in HK.

I feel I got very very lucky finding the training I did and, honestly, it took about a year to find it and another 6 months of being tested before I was taught really seriously.

China is just not for everyone. Better that people travel here with their eyes wide open.

How does an American go about finding work on the mainland (the warm South, not the cold North, lol)?

[bawang]

How does an American go about finding work on the mainland (the warm South, not the cold North, lol)?

teach english

needs 0 qualifications

[taai gihk yahn]

-western students masterbate all the time and the dormitories smell like semen.

it is our way of ensuring that your haggard and lank yellow seed will be made even more impotent by the scent of our genetic superiority...

[omarthefish]

teach english

needs 0 qualifications

Not anymore.

That was the case when I came here back in '99 but somewhere around '06 or so (I forget which year exactly) the government started cracking down on unqualified Engrish teachers. You can still just show up with a tourist visa and work illegally for a training center or as a tutor but if you plan to possibly stay long term, especially in a single city, I wouldn't reccommend it. You can get caught, deported and banned from ever entering China again. It's not common and that's why I think if you are happy to just hop around from city to city it's probably no big deal. Get caught and just hop a plane to Thailand for the weekend and then come back but in some other city where immigration doesn't know you.

My personal experience has been that immigration has come to my home twice over the years and just recently they even showed up unnannounced at my job to check my papers and interview me to see if they could catch me talking about teaching anywhere else in my free time (which would also be illegal and grounds for deportation)

So teaching illegally is a roll of the dice. Current law requires a BA at the very minumum...from an English speaking country.... and it's very hard to get a proper Z Visa nowadays without some sort of TESOL cert on top of that...even if it's just some dumb online course. Oh yeah, and they also now require a police check from your home country stating you have no criminal record. Kind of a dumb rule though since local police stations in America only have local records. . . at the least that's how it was when I got mine.

[wiz cool c]

yawn,o sorry did you say something

[omarthefish]

Nothing to see here....move along....

[pazman]

I'm sorry, I'm not acquainted with the good doctor I am ashamed to admit. I am pleasantly surprised to learn that we are welcomed in China. I'll shoot a quick e-mail out to everyone on the Operation Push, NAACP and NOI mailing lists immediately so we can take your kind people up on their hospitality and repatriate! Thanks, Baweezy!

Sweet Jesus, that's like throwing ice into a deep fat fryer.

Faruq, if you are interested in living and working in China, you have a couple of different options.

Teaching English is certainly a popular choice, and only requires a 4-year university degree from an English-speaking country. Getting an online TESOL certificate may increase your chances and pay. If you want a lot of time for training and traveling, I recommend working at a university, as your teaching load is much, much lighter than a training school. You also get summer and winter breaks. Finding some people to train gongfu with is easier at university, though the training might be very underwhelming at first.

If money is a concern, teaching business English on the side is very lucrative, even if it's a little illegal.

I will warn, though, "chocolate people" are not really welcomed in China. Training schools and many universities, in accordance with Chinese culture, will not hire black people. That said, you will most likely find enough good experiences and nice people to make it worthwhile. And good gongfu teachers, the ones worth training with, really don't give a ****, as most people who aim to study kungfu in China are weirdos anyways.

[TAO YIN]

Wiz,

Don't be a poor sport.