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.