China 2011-2012

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

You are a very brave man.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

So brave, I will be having a dinner of pastries and Moshi cakes. It was hard to explain I only wanted 10 Yuan worth of food when I was flashing the 20 Yuan note.

[Drunk Monk]

yao shi kuai. bu yao er-shi kuai.

shi (sure) = 10
er (errrrr) = 2
kuai = $

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

It was worth it.

Did I mention I have lost two phrase books on this trip? Plus, I was holding up the one finger that meant ten. Or the crossed fingers which also means ten. Still worth it. Mmmmm cream puff.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Henry the guard greeted me at the gate as I left for the day’s adventures. The plan was to see Yongtai, Songyang Academy and the Martial Arts academies. On my first day, Henry helped me get the cab for free. Today he made the universal fingers rubbing together gesture for money. I gave him 5 Yuan which I think he appreciated. He did offer me a cigarette. I know I’m supposed to accept it, but I couldn’t.

The trip to Yongtai, which is located in the hills about Dengfeng was another 30 Yuan. I think that is the going rate to transfer stupid foreigner outside the city limits.

It was another overcast day of taking pictures. I think the fog is seeping into my head because nothing jumps out at me about the actual visit to Yongtai. They had ribbons tied to trees. They had locks hanging from tree branches. But nothing that said I’m glad I traveled six thousand miles for this. Maybe there was a secret special room I overlooked.

Since Yongtai is about 2 kilometers off the main road and completely deserted when I visited, I had to hike down the hill to catch a cab.

Before I did, there were a bunch of shops across the road that had great Chinglish signs I had to photograph. My favorite was the burning ranch food restaurant. Of course my camera now acts as a beacon to bring people to me. Immediately a guy started yelling at me from his van, asking if I needed a taxi. I was still photographing so I gave him the Bu Yao.

As soon as I stopped and faced the road, a silver van made a u-turn off the highway and asked if I needed a taxi. I could tell this wasn’t a licensed cab. The clue might have been the three people already in the van.

I told him I wanted to go to the Songyang Confucian Academy. He nodded his head like he knew what I was saying. His amount of English was probably the same amount as my Chinese.

They made room for me in the van and we were off. I got the laugh by saying Nei Hao to everyone in the car. I wasn’t too worried because I had my map and could tell we were heading the right direction.

Now, unlicensed cabs can’t go where the licensed cabs go. Probably because the licensed cabs will be mad at drivers when big foreigners disembark and hand over money.

We cruised right past the turn to Songyang and pulled into a side street. The nice driver smiled and held out his hand. I cried bullshit and refused. I kept pointing to my little guide book and saying the name of the academy.

He got out of the car with me and started leading me back up the road to Songyang. He was walking really fast in order to make it look like we weren’t together. I could see the entrance, but I decided the driver for his duplicity needed to make the entire walk with me and didn’t pay him until I was at the ticket counter.

i liked Songyang. It had a really good smell about the place, almost like green tea. It had ancient Steles which is China’s answer to the Irish Celtic cross. They seem to be everywhere. I saw the apricot platform where they used to give Confucian classes. I saw a really old Stele which I think was from the 7 century AD. Once again, an English guide book would have really helped. But since I was the only English speaker there, I’m guessing the demand for English guide books isn’t high.

The General Trees were impressive, but I’m not sure if I had the right Cypress picked out as General number two. As I was taking one picture, one of the guides who was sitting in one of the halls started yelling at me to go to a different, apparently better spot to take picture. They weren’t buying the fact that I might know from where to take a picture.

So, I played along. This woman sales person pointed me to the proper spot and told me to look at General Number One. She was trying to point something out to me, but I just kept shaking my head.

Oddly enough, the spot I was in was just in front of one of the gift shops. And the woman was a clerk for the store. She took me inside and started pointing to pictures of the General, in particular a fork near the top of the tree. She then pointed to some painting of Damo and Buddha. I eventually put together what she was saying.

One of the drawings she showed me I vaguely remember as being a combination of the three great sages of China, Lao Tzu,Confucious, and Buddha. Or something like that. Well this fork in the tree was supposed to represent those same lines as in the drawing. Do you remember those 3-D drawings that if you stared at long enough a picture would appear? I could never see them no matter how long I stared. I couldn’t see the Buddha in the fork of the tree, either.

Lecture aside, I think the goal was to get me to buy one of these paintings. I fled instead.

Songyang is right at the edge of Dengfeng. And one of my landmarks to find my way around town, the river, was next to the parking lot. I figured I could walk into town and start photographing martial arts academies and have a general look around town.

I had been in contact with Mr. Ching who suggested I call his travel agency friend. The address for the agency was on Beihan Lu, which I couldn’t find on a map. Mr. Ching did mention that the letters for the travel agency were on the outside of the building.

As I turned on the main drag that led to the Kung Fu academies, I spotted the CITS letters of the travel agency. Turns out the main street at this end of town was Beihan Lu. At my hotel’s end of town, it was Dayu Lu. The shop was locked and nobody was home.

I continued on up the street looking for the martial arts academies, photographing their empty courtyards when I found them. I had been warned they would be empty and now I had my proof.

I came to a giant intersection at the end of town. I had one school left to find, Taguo, the biggest martial arts school in the world. I just had to cross a massive car-death filled intersection and climb a hill to get to it. At least I think it was up that hill.

I took a break behind a bus stop. I photographed the school across the road. I wasn’t in the mood to brave the crossing for more pictures of empty school yards. Since, I had the camera out, people had to stop and stare at me. One of the little motorcycle cabs stopped to see if I needed a lift. Greg Lynch, making friends where ever he goes. Who knew?

Traffic was pretty light so it wasn't too sphincter tightening to cross the intersection. And it was a long way across the street. Plenty of time for a car to come out of nowhere and find my pale body.

And I walked. And I walked. I questioned myself over whether the school was here. I walked in the road when the side walk ended. I passed what I think was a factory. Finally, I heard shouting from up ahead. The kind of shouting you hear from a school yard doing drills. I was excited at the possibility that Taguo, despite all the evidence to the contrary, might actually be in session.

When I eventually came around the turn and saw the school, I saw the film company that I saw filming at Shaolin Temple, in front of the Taguo gate. They had a bunch of students with spears running in formation out the gate. Another group sans spears ran in. The white kid, now dressed like an itinerant backpacker was also in evidence.

I photographed and videoed the film making process. I recognized my grip friend from the day before, too. Even in other countries watching film making is still boring. After awhile, when there was break for a new set-up, I walked onto the grounds of the school. I thought I would be stopped, but everyone seemed to be watching the film making.

Taguo is huge. It’s like a university campus with huge dormitories all around. Just beyond the gate is a large courtyard surround be statues and more Stele. The place appeared empty, but then I heard an amplified voice shouting instructions coming from behind the building in front of me. Then I heard the response of many voices calling back. Had my luck changed? Was there a class going on in the back of Taguo?

I hurried to the spot where I heard the yelling. Behind the school buildings was a massive brick paved courtyard. It was about the size of two football placed side by side. In the center on one side, was a platform where the coach shouted out instructions. In the courtyard, to my photographic delight were three or four hundred students dressed in red sweats doing synchronized martial arts. Be still my beating heart.

When I arrived, the coach called all the students over to the platform for some instruction. The kids all ran and lined up in ranks at the base of the platform. I tried to video them doing this but I had one too many buttons to push to get the shot.

I followed the group over to the platform. I took one or two shots before one of the assistant coaches came over to me and shook his finger to say no more photographs. You know how you sit down for a nice delicious pizza and then they tell you can’t eat and they leave the pizza in front of you? That was me sitting under the platform watching the martial arts.

I kept thinking how could I sneak a few shots, but I didn’t want to be rude. My camera rested on it’s tripod unused while I watched sword forms. I must have unbalanced the camera, because it fell over onto it’s back. Another indication I shouldn’t have nice things. The camera appeared to be okay when I picked it up. It had fallen on it’s back rather the disastrous onto the lens. I checked the lens. It appeared to be fine.

Vans drove up and parked next to the platform. the film crew was here. Puzzle pieces fell into place. Although the school was probably half full, the students here had been assembled to be part of the movie.

I continued to sit and watch. I looked up to the platform and one of the people from the film crew was beckoning me to come up. I pointed at my camera to see if it was okay to bring that with me. I received the acknowledgement head shake. I didn’t have to be asked twice.

They gave me a spot on the back of the platform behind the camera dolly. I couldn’t see the whole yard, but I could shoot a bunch of the kids from the side. The man, who I am guessing was the producer, made signs that I was to be still so as not to shake the platform and subsequently the camera. I thanked him and he departed.

I looked through the viewfinder and realized that something had happened to the camera when it fell. You should be able to see an f-stop reading in the camera to tell you the aperture. Mine read zero. There is no aperture setting of zero. I tried to take a picture. When I did the preview, it came back black. Let’s just say I was a little panicked. I have been give permission to eat, but couldn’t open my mouth.

So, I fiddled. I hit every button I could on the camera to unfreeze it. I noticed the depth of field button was locked down, but I couldn’t get it to loosen. Finally I removed the lens from the body. It’s precision connection. It didn’t feel like it when I unscrewed it. It felt really tight and grindy. That’s not something you want to feel.

It was tough screwing the lens back on. At this point the film crew around me were looking at me wondering why I wasn’t taking pictures of the beautiful martial arts in front of me. I finally got the lens to click into place. Happily I now saw proper aperture numbers in my viewfinder.

For the next hour I stayed on the platform shooting pictures and video. The kids were doing two routines. One was of punches from the horse stance that looked very basic. The second was a sword routine that had a bit more difficulty.

As people came and went from the platform I edged closer to the front railing to get better shots. At one point the director had a talk with me about where i was from. The reason they were on the platform was to shoot over the shoulder of the white guy as he shot photographs of the crowd below.

During a break, the guy introduced himself. His name was Patrick and was from Wexford, Ireland. He’d actually come to Beijing to study martial arts. He put a call out to do some modeling while he was here to make some money and found himself in these promotional videos about Kung Fu in China. He was still getting used to people fussing over him as the lead. Although he didn’t have a trailer and made a costume change in one of the vans.

He was studying a style called Bandu(?) in Beijing. He said it was more about actual fighting than forms work. How to break bones and such. His teacher had been told not to show the how to break the neck routine.

The film company descended to the ground for more shots leaving me alone on the platform with the coach who had been calling out cadence to the students. The coach welcomed me to Tagou. I got some hopefully great front and center shots from the platform.

They were still shooting when I came down, so I decided to do a few more shots at eye level. I kept thinking it was time to go but didn’t leave. I kept hoping for something else exciting to happen.

I moved to keep myself out of the camera crews area. When I did, I became the object of attention for a group of students who were out of the shot and just standing around. They motioned that I should take their picture. I complied. Another group decided they needed to get behind me and look over my shoulder through the view finder. I motioned they should get their picture taken, too. There was an exchange of Hello’s and Nei Haos. I finally shooed them away before they started interfering with the camera crew.

It was really cold out on the yard. Everyone but the students was bundled up. At some point the wind started to blow making it even colder. I kept thinking how could I graciously make my exit. I didn’t come up with a good idea, so I just walked off when the camera crew was looking the other way.

A nice woman taxi driver picked me up at the gate. She didn’t get the memo about being a crazy driver. And she smelled nice. I was already to spend the evening hanging out at the hotel room.

I turned on Skype and started to upload pictures. I was happy to notice that I could send photos to flickr and I could attach my photos to an email to Mr. Ching.

Sal called me after a few minutes to talk about our plans for the evening, it being New Year’s eve. He had moved from his school with the girls to a hostel in town. He wanted to grab some dinner and then go to a martial arts show that was being hosted by the owner of the hostel. After that we could go out clubbing.

He wanted to pick me up in twenty minutes. Err. Um. I had just spent eight hours walking and shooting. I was looking for a little down time. But there was an offer of a meal that I really hadn’t had in two days. I said fine.

We ate dinner in the night market. Around six pm, food vendors block off this street and start selling food. They set up tents and tables for their patrons. Sal had a particular favorite that sold fish. I demanded meat. It had been some time since I had meat and my body needed it. I’m always afraid to order in fear that I accidentally get dog.

I had the lamb on skewers. It was hot and spicy and I could have been eating them all night. I think it cost me 20 Yuan for the twelve skewers I ate. Plus, I had some fried rice from another vendor. Also delicious.

The demonstration was to be held at one of the Martial art schools named in honor of Bruce Lee. The hostel owner met us on the steps and ushered us to some front row seats, kicking out some other chinese patrons in the process. There were plates of tangerines for all the important guests, which I guess was now us.

The show opened with a bunch of little girls dancing and singing, reminiscent of Toddlers and Tiaras. This was followed by an older group of girls doing some weird dance that involved straight swords. They had bubble machines launching bubbles and fog machines occluding the stage with smoke. That sword dance was the closest thing we would get to martial arts all night.

The next act was a singer who almost couldn’t breathe when he was engulfed by the smoke from the fog machines. Towards the end of the song, a girl ran out and gave him flowers. This was the pattern for the night. Sing and at the end someone would give you flowers. I was suspicious that they kept giving the same bouquet over and over again.

A four piece weird comedy thing happened next. I think it was comedy. The audience kept laughing in a pavlovian response to this fat guy hitting a gong.

Then more singing. A traditional music act followed. Another falsetto song act followed. An old woman and a young boy read a ten minute speech. They thanked the local officials for coming. Photographers took pictures, many of us. Children kept climbing on to the stage to grab the bubbles. And then was more singing.

Halfway through, it dawned on me, there wouldn’t be any martial arts in the evenings show. We couldn’t escape either. We were in the front row. And if we left, Sal would have to explain to the hostel owner/show emcee about our rudeness.

We sat and suffered, Eventually, they invited all the performers back on stage and gave them flowers. and placques. All the kids and photographers got on stage with them. I stood thinking about my exit. Mercifully, we finally left.

After dropping Sal and the girls at their hostel, I made my way to my hotel. I was going to spend New Year’s eve sleeping.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

You are a very brave and patient man. Also, would it kill you to post a pic or two? Jeeez!

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I would if I could. I got a few on flickr.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Having your camera freeze, so you can't review pictures you are taking. It was like using film. It was barbaric. And by freeze, I don't mean the camera locks up. I mean it was so cold the buttons on the back of the camera refused to work.

[cranefly]

This is all so far beyond what I could comfortably do -- or even uncomfortably do.
I had a very xenophobic upbringing and have just never fully matured out of it.
Kudos on riding the dragon without saddle or bridle, and making it take you all the way to the ticket booth.

[Drunk Monk]

Did you go into CITS and ask? There should be English speakers there. I'll tell Wang where you are staying.

Always accept cigs. You lite them and wave them around like incense - don't inhale if you don't want to (but I'm told Flying Horse is decent tobacco).

Sorry you're getting the tourist runaround. I was figuring Sal had better planned out your journey. You're in the off season.

DENGFENGHUA LESSON
Yao bai jiu - yow buy jew.

Want white liquor. This is the local moonshine, usually sold in Chinese mason jars. It'll help. If not, it'll be good to strip paint.

yao pi jiu - yow pee jew.

Want beer. 5 star is pretty good and it's often cheaper than water. Chinese beer is based on German brewing ala Tsingtao where the Germans occupied China. The export is lousy in comparison to the local beers.

lu lou or like the English loo
road. It's the same term we use to describe forms (taolu - way road)

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I'm thinking Mr Wang is out of town. And I found there are not one but two CITS offices. At the one I found, they didn't speak a lick of English and had no idea no idea who Mr Wang is. I did sort of suss out that that he was at the other office.

But it's all good. I'm off to go buy some moonshine.

[Drunk Monk]

I guess that's because it's the off season. My info is pretty dated.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

You know how you get it in your head that you are coming home on a particular day, then you talk to your SO an she corrects you on the actual day you are supposed to be returning? Yeah. I got it in my head I was returning on Thursday. Looks like I'll be coming home on Friday. Time to schedule another day in Zhengzhou.

[Drunk Monk]

It's that damn date line. It's weirder on the way back, but at least you'll be home.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Dengfeng is surrounded by Mountains. Really cool mountains. Who knew? It better be fucking clear tomorrow or there will be trouble.