The Last Installment

2 months later, I'm um, FINALLY updating my blog. I blame the lack of structure that my life has had for these past 7-8 weeks. Seriously? The most significant thing I've done is catch up on Doctor Who.

Anyway, at first it was pretty weird to be back in America. Not because it's a culture shock to be back in America, but because it seems like nothing has changed-- except that suddenly I can do Kung Fu. Like, I just picked up my life where it left off at the end of August and sometimes I suddenly go, "oh yeah, Kung Fu!"

Okay! Let's talk about my last week. Every time I update this I just feel so brilliant about keeping a daily journal. You should do it, guys. It's what the Cool Kids do.

Both Monday and Tuesday were days off for Chinese New Year. It's a pretty big deal in China. Sort of like Christmas. I was kind of in denial about leaving, so I didn't train all that much on either day. But! I did get some last-minute stuff done. Not on Monday. On Monday I watched both Kung Fu Panda movies with a couple of other people. And wrote my 2nd to last update.

Tuesday I went shopping! That was sure fun. I went with Mintoi and Chee. It is SO much nicer to go shopping with someone other than just yourself.

Mintoi and Chee both traveled over the weekend (for the life of me I can't remember the name of the city), but they came back a little after 9, whereupon we all decided to go out together.

We started off at the supermarket, and I got a few things (including some hawthorne! Yay!). In Bai Yi, there's a little section at the front that seems to sell stuff like scarves and hats and jewelry. I went there a while ago to get some hair clips (which have served me well). After some short contemplation, I stopped in to see if I could find one of Ellyn's requests for a certain type of hair ornament. I didn't find any, but I MIGHT'VE bought something else, except that the moment I entered I started being followed by one of the store girls. BOY is that annoying! She had a written receipt type thing in front of her, like she was going to write something down the minute I touched it. I didn't know how to say "stop following me" in Chinese, so I tried to use some pantomime and English, but she was like "haha ting bu dong" (I hear you but I don't understand), and after walking up and down all the aisles without finding my thing, I had to get out of there because I simply cannot shop with someone looking over my shoulder at everything I touch.

Anyway.

Mintoi said they had seen a hotel that seemed like it had a good menu on a previous trip into town, so we walked over there for lunch. We walked through the Underground street because I expressed my intent to buy a new coat. I did end up finding and buying one, and the more I think about it the more I like it. It was in the men's section, so it's sort of sporty and cool, and it's a color of blue that I think brings out my eyes really well. We also stopped by the Underground, where I got two calligraphy brushes and managed to find the requested hair ornament.

The hotel/restaurant was super nice. The last restaurant I ate at in China, and it was just super good. Chinese food, REAL Chinese food is just sooo good! While we were waiting for the food to come, we looked over at the table next to us, where they were getting up to leave-- they had barely touched a third of what they got. If I had had more gumption (and Chinese), I totally would've gone "can we just have what they left", because they didn't box it up or anything! I don't know if this was a cultural thing. It does seem a bit Chinese, though. We finished with our food around 1:00, and then headed over to the Souvenir Street, which is an alleyway next to the Confucius Temple wall.

There I got some last-minute souvenirs, and right now I'm kind of regretting that I didn't get one of those extendable swords. They're sort of like a plastic lightsaber, but they look quite a bit nicer. Wu Sifu has one… but maybe it's just as well because after buying some stuff I suddenly realized I didn't have much left. In fact, I didn't have quite enough to take my own taxi to the train station. That's usually about 60 kuai.

One thing I forgot to get in town was a bottle of red flower oil! It's awesome. It's like 3 kuai a bottle and you put it on sore muscles and it super helps. It smells good, but if you use it for too long then it smells like pain.

Here's an excerpt from Wednesday's journal:

It doesn't feel real. The fact that I'm going home in a few days, I mean. Can I really change to a different life so suddenly? Like, when you move houses it's usually a pretty slow process, where you go between the two houses, packing and unpacking your stuff, slowly building everything up… but when it's just you, two suitcases, and an airplane, all you have between the two lives is a day. Weirder still, I'll be traveling back in time, to before I left.

During lunchtime on Wednesday I recorded a bunch of forms with Yogi (thanks Yogi!) because he has an awesome camera and is a professional photographer. That's one of the strange things about the School: you just have no idea what people do in real life. Like, there are Nuclear Scientists, Social Workers, Lawyers… Mintoi's a Health Journalist. Wait what was I talking about? Forms! I kept drawing a blank on some of the forms, (I was facing the wrong way and stuff), so we didn't get all of them. But I think now I have some sort of recording of all the forms I did, even if I'm not the one doing all of them.

 

In the afternoon, Wu Shifu's son dropped him off, so we got to meet his family briefly. I think it was his son, his son's wife, and two of his granddaughters. One was 18, the other looked about 4 (the granddaughters, I mean). Mintoi was talking to them, and I sort of was getting the gist of what she was saying. I caught "gong zuo" (work), and then Mintoi started talking about her work, and since I already know she's a health journalist I was getting a bunch of that. But then she told them that I spoke Chinese, that Nellie had taught me some, and I was like (in English), "Are you telling them I speak Chinese?" and everyone laughed. Maybe they all knew enough English to understand that question. :)

Thursday: last full day of training. Near the end of Qi Gong, Brendan tried going on the ice, and it was working! Except I think it cracked, so he scurried off of it. Then apparently some more people were trying it after class, but I missed all of that. Dang.

For qi gong, a lot of people do meditation as well, and get one of the little muay thai pads from the training hall to sit on. Apparently one of the guys dropped theirs onto the frozen pond, because after I finished my qi gong forms, I walked over to see a few people with spears and a long wooden log, trying to retrieve it while standing on the 'porch' of the pagoda, which was at least 15 feet above the ice. Fortunately, they succeeded after a lot of finagling.

Power Training was not… so bad. We did an ab thing. Check out my gazillion ab muscles. We were still with "Stripey's" class for the whole week, so it was kind of interesting to have different people for partners. When I look back on it, it was sort of strange to be partnering with grown men, especially when I was the only girl in the class… but I hardly ever thought about it. The only time I would remember that girls are different is when we would race around the ponds and I was so obviously slower than everyone else. Man, that was frustrating.

Then for all of the second class, Mintoi and I just sat and talked to Wu Shifu (with Mintoi translating most of it). We told him that we were leaving tomorrow, and he admonished me to practice, because it would be a shame not to… and you know what? It really would. I spent five months here, I gotta have something to show for it! I shouldn't just let everything drop out of my head. That would be stupid. An expensive waste of time.

The last day, the classes were all as per usual. Forms, Power Stretching, free class. For the free class I went over to the Training Hall, where Stripey Sifu was teaching some people how to do Butterfly Kicks, so I joined in. It's pretty hard to tell if you're doing those right, y'know? Then I finished packing up, and people came by and took the free stuff me and Mintoi were leaving behind. Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent hanging out, taking pictures, chatting… etc. And then after dinner, out came the taxi! Chee, Mintoi, and I all piled in with our four suitcases (the trunk had to hang open to fit them all), and we went off to the train station. I asked Mintoi to ask the bus driver to stop at the Pharmacy so I could get those Red Flower Oil bottles-- and I did! Yay. Now I just need some pain.

Miraculously, I managed to get my two huge heavy suitcases situated on the train without too much hassle (and a little help from M/C who are now experts at ukulele-toting. The train ride went by pretty quickly, and then I was lucky enough to get picked up by President and Sister Lewis, who are the leaders of the China International District Branch (aka the Virtual Branch-- you know, the church I've been calling in to every Sunday?). They let me stay over at their lovely (and super Western) home on Friday night and even took me to the airport on Saturday morning.

Then I managed to get through the entire airport without any untoward incidents. Actually, that's not completely true: when I was checking my suitcases (phew!) the lady made me open my bag and pull out my sword. I was all like, "I HAS PAPERWORK FOR THAT", so she did end up letting me put it back and keep it and stuff. It was a really good call to have all their workers know how to speak English.

They REALLY don't want you to bring Chinese water outside the country! I had filled up my water bottle for the plane, but emptied it in order to get through security, so I was like "I'll look for a drinking fountain and fill it up again there". I did find a drinking fountain, of sorts. Instead of drinking fountains in China, they have hot water boiler dispenser things. It's the same for on trains. Basically so you can have hot instant noodles, which are like 4 yuan if you get them in a convenience store and like 6-8 yuan if you get them IN the airport or train station. Anyway, I put some hot water in my bottle, but then I had to go through a second security check to get onto the plane. They had a little assembly line of  workers emptying out water bottles, making you open your bag, checking for suspicious-looking eyebrows, etc.

The plane ride was filled with intensity! Drama! Action! Explosions! Honestly I was a little desensitized by the end of it. Putting movie screens on international flights was the best idea ever. Finally watched X-Men: First Class and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Started watching Pirates 4 but got bored 10 minutes in. There's only so much Jack Sparrow hijinx I can take… 

When you get off an international flight, it's a bit different from getting off a regular flight. They gave me a card to fill out about stuff I was bringing in, most particularly stuff I had bought and what was the dollar value for it, and I was like "how much did that hawthorne candy cost". I think the total that I put down was $100 USD, but… I probably brought in more than that.  

It started off with a series of hallways where some airport people point you in the right direction. I got really surprised when the lady said "Good Morning", because even though Washington was at 7:00 am, it was more like 10:00 pm back in China. The hallways lead you to some lines where they check your passport and stamp your card that you filled out, and then you go down an escalator to the baggage claim. I got one of my suitcases almost right away, but the second one took FOREVER. And then once I had it I realized I had put away my little stamped-and-filled-out card that I had worked so hard for, so I got to stand there even longer and dig through my ukulele bag where I had stashed my purse. Ugh.  

The next part was then a bit confusing, but once I knew the answer to the question "is Seattle your final destination?" (answer: yes), I got through the maze of subway rides, elevators, and hallways with the help of the nice airport people who for some reason didn't look Asian. That was really the only culture shock I had (also, I could suddenly read everything). I was starting to stare at all the "foreigners". I mean, I know I saw a lot of foreigners while I was in China, but when you're traveling you really don't see any. So… anyway. I got over it.

I called my peeps using my American cell phone, which I had put in my checked luggage so I couldn't get to it until then, and was found by my dear little sister (who, for the record, is taller than me) and got to go home.

And that was it. That was my trip to China. Now that I've gotten over the jetlag (which was the worst ever) and put away most of my stuff (not that I got a lot-- cheap Kung Fu student is cheap), I'm ready to move on to the next step in life.

College.

Xin Nian Kuai Le! (Reprise)

Gee wiz, that week went by quickly! This past week our class trained under "Stripey" Sifu, which was interesting and actually rather cool, except that I missed most of that action because I was sick for two days.

 

On Monday morning, we ran over to line up with Stripey's class. Hm. It somehow seems impolite to call him that… we'll just call him the Other Sifu.

 

Yeah, so the first Basics class under a different Sifu was, in essence, just like any other Basics class. We have a whole routine that we go through of running two laps, stretching, warming up, and then we do warm-up kicks, regular kicks, "punch kicks", "push kicks", "slap kicks" (hitting your foot when you kick-- it's supposed to make a sound), and then if there's time after that we'll usually move on to forms or something. But before I knew it, the class was over! He had us go slower than we usually do, I guess. For the whole week we added our numbers to his three students, making us about ten total regularly.

 

During forms I continued to practice my Chain Whip. My Sifu showed me all of "Part 1" of the form, so I've got all of that down pat. I'm not sure if the Other Sifu is going to teach me more of it… if he is, we've only got three days of training left. Monday and Tuesday is off next week for Chinese New Year (hence the title-- it means "Happy New Year" in case you missed the update from three weeks ago).

 

I spent the lunch break on Monday walking over to the 10-minute shop with the two new American girls. They both turned out to be really amiable and talkative, which was certainly nice. We had a fun week together.

 

Before we started running to start the first afternoon class, I managed to tell the Other Sifu that I don't do Sanda, so I went and finished up my straight sword form. Then I tried to do Floating Cloud (my first Straight Sword form), and was shocked and embarrassed that I had forgotten bits of it so that Sifu had to show them to me. He wasn't all that happy about that. "Bu lian" (didn't practice), he said , shaking his head. I think he chewed me out on it, but that guy never stays in a bad mood for long. :)

 

Monday night, it snowed! That was exciting for me. The only reason it hasn't snowed so far is because hardly ANY precipitation falls from the sky, because it's definitely been below freezing every night for the past month. It's a really weird contrast to Seattle, where it's ALWAYS overcast or rainy. But by noon on Tuesday, the thin carpet of snow had melted away to make the ground unpleasantly soggy.

 

Tuesday morning we for some reason were told to do Qi Gong. That was rather chilling, with the thin patches of snow providing visual confirmation of the day's coolness. I had dressed to train tough (meaning, I didn't wear very many layers), so I really think that's when I caught my cold.

 

Yep. I haven't been sick at all since I got here (well, except for a few days of indigestion issues, which weren't serious), and on my second to last week, I had watery eyes, runny nose, stuffy head… the works. So I missed all the excitement on Wednesday and everything on Thursday. I think I got my new roommate sick because she was sounding pretty congested too, but since she didn't have a lot of time here she trained anyway.

 

After dinner on Wednesday night, I got treated to a rather loud impromptu fireworks show, put on by some of the boys. That was pretty cool. Well, the uncool part about it was the smoke that hung heavy in the air afterwards and then managed to creep into our room. Six months ago I would've had a small panic attack at the sound of explosions outside of my door (IS THAT A GUNSHOT), but now it's my cue to run outside and see if they're gonna put off any more. I wish I could bring some fireworks back to America, they're so cheap here…

 

Anyway, so my downtime was spent battling my half-melted modem, listening to music, drawing, watching stuff, reading Lorna Doone (that there is a long book), and working on my talk. I got assigned to speak on Sunday, but I'll get to that in a bit.

 

Friday I was still a bit sick, but I was more sick of staying in bed, so I went back to training. Sifu taught me a new Chain Whip flower which I still haven't really figured out properly, but what can you do. Near the end of class he told me to start doing the one where you sit on the ground and jump off your butt while the chain whip goes under you… haven't actually tried it yet. Why did I want to learn chain whip again? Haha.

 

After training on Friday, I went with Mintoi and her boyfriend into town and we got our tickets. They're also flying out early on Saturday, so we all got the Friday afternoon speed train. I was planning to take a taxi back as per usual, but then I found out that it was going to be 20 or 30 yuan more expensive, so I took the bus back (there's a bus station just outside of the ticket office). That was an adventure! I got a seat about two stops before a whole crowd of people got on. And then getting off was the problem. The school is on a long road just outside of town, and I was hoping that everyone would get off before we got to that road, but I wasn't quite so lucky. So as we approached, I had to weedle my way in between people, shouting "Xia Che!" (it literally means "off bus"-- it's what you say when you want to get off the bus), and with the assistance of a few of the other passengers, the bus driver pulled over before going too far past the school. Adventure concluded.

 

And then Friday night I had a lovely time hanging out with the two American girls. We watched Aladdin and stayed up until like midnight, talking. They both left soon after breakfast on Saturday. This left me with an empty Extra Bed, which I have utilized to start packing. Because I'm leaving. In less than a week!

 

That's so crazy.

 

Through packing most of the stuff that I plan to bring home, I discovered that I have a bunch of extra space in my suitcases. I'm not sure how I am on weight, though (I should check that out), so I'll either just leave it as is or fill the extra space with, like… Chinese snacks. There's a really good rice cracker that I have to stop myself from buying every time I go to the 10-minute shop because the entire package will be gone in, like, two days if I get it. I found out I can fit my sword, by the way! If I bend it, that is. Luckily it's a training sword so the end is bendy.Now I just need the certificate from the school that lets me pack it.

 

I wasn't up to a repeat of Friday's adventure, so for fruit shopping on Saturday I just walked myself over to the 10-minute shop garbed in sweats and my big red coat and shoes that had been shoved on without socks. I was a bit chilled, but made my exit quickly. Dude, I got a pair of cheap-looking van-type shoes for NINE KUAI. 9 kuai! 9 kuai. That's, like, $1.50. I'm guessing they would last about a month of regular wear. While I was checking out, it was super obvious that the shop ladies were talking about what I was wearing. I didn't think to do anything about it until afterwards, of course (not sure what I would've done, really. Given them the evil eye?). Oh well. One of them ended up asking me in a slightly raised tone, "Leng ma?" (Aren't you cold?), and I was like "Bu leng" (Nope).*

 

And then Sunday morning I gave my talk! For anyone not in the Mormon Know, a "talk" is basically a short sermon, usually 10-15 minutes**. Each week, 2-3 people are "called" to give a talk during the Sacrament Meeting hour (one of three different hours that are held). Because I attend a virtual branch, I got to sit in my room and talk into my cell phone instead of having to stare down a crowd of people while I talked to them about Honesty. We only had one hour of church, although we usually have a second hour that rotates between Sunday School, Relief Society, and Whatever The Guys Do.

 

Sunday evening at midnight was the official start of Chinese New Year! Happy Year of the Dragon, everyone! Because the kitchen ladies had the afternoon off, we all went to a restaurant. We were all kind of excited about this, assuming we would be going into town. But we ended up having to walk there. That was… a bit cold. We passed two small herds of sheep. I'm in China, guys.

 

Although of course everything they served us was fairly good and there was a big variety, there's something about eating off a tiny plate that just isn't satisfying. I'm excited to go back to America, where I can eat off a plate or bowl that will fit more than a cup of rice. Well, to be fair the bowls at the school that we eat out of fit more like a cup and a half of rice. It's a significant difference.

 

The walk back was dark, and in honor of the new year people were already starting to set off fireworks. But I didn't really notice the distant cracks until midnight, when I finally got up to see what all the explosions were about. I went up to the balcony to get a better view, and every corner of the horizon was shooting off fireworks into the sky. We noticed Shu Shu and his wife lighting small fires, and upon closer inspection, they were making small piles of what looked like shiny gold ornaments and lighting them on fire, every 30 feet or so. This means something. This is important.

 

By 1 am the fireworks had finally quieted to a point where I could go back to sleep. And now it's officially the Year of the Dragon! Yay.

 

Well, that concludes my second-to-last update. This time next week, I'll be home. Probably sitting in Red Robin, eating a swiss mushroom cheeseburger.

 

 

*That's not a literal translation. The word "leng" means cold. "Ma" is the word you put at the end of a sentence to make it a question, and "bu" means not, making the literal translation "Cold?" "Not cold."

 

**5 minutes or less if you're a kid, up to half an hour if you're an older man. By the way, about 60 people "dialled in" to listen to my talk, which as I understand is a bit less than usual because people were traveling for the New Year.

 

 

Thanks for reading! It's been really fun to make a weekly account of my doings in China. So, will Sarah ever do a no-handed cartwheel? Will the speedtrain go over 300 km/h? Will the flight home EVER END? Find out next week in the last installment of

 

SOMEWHAT SHAOLIN

 

When You're Racing With The Clock

Um, that title isn't really referring to anything except that it feels CRAZY that there's only two weeks left in China (less, even). You get extra points if you can name the musical that it's from. Also it was my last week training with Young Sifu, and it just sped by.

 

Monday! Hurray, Basics and Forms. For most of the lessons in the week, Sifu was just trying to get everyone to learn their forms so they could practice it for the next two weeks and be awesome when he comes back.  On Monday I learned how to do a direction-change using my leg on the chain whip. Apparently I need to kick higher (story of my life). But I feel like chain whip is going pretty well, now. There was a move that frustrated me for a little while cuz I JUST DINNA GET IT, but now I do, so…. there… Sifu said that I was getting "better, more practice".

 

The Wudan Straight Sword Form continues to go pretty well. Honestly, it's kind of easy. I think that it's easier for me because the first form I did was both longer and more difficult. The only hard part is remembering to practice it in between classes so I don't forget anything.

 

Tuesday we had more forms practice, and then no Jumps and Rolls. Instead we did some Wing Chun, which was pretty cool as usual. I realized that there's no way I'm going to finish the form that we do on the wooden dummy. I am disappointment.

 

Then in the afternoon we learned some of a two-person Shaolin Short Staff form. Hardcore. It felt more practical to practice a form whilst going against an actual opponent. You certainly can't forget to block.
 

Wednesday was the usual Basics-Forms-Bagua (Wudan!) formula. I spent a lot (see: all) of my free time drawing.

 

On Thursday, we had a short Meditation lesson from Sifu, and then meditated for a while. Meditating is SO hard because you have to clear your mind, and then you're thinking about needing to clear your mind, and then a song gets in your head and you're thinking about trying to get the song out of your head, and… ugh. More practice needed.

 

My Grammy submitted a question about Qi Gong. Basically what it is, is a type of breathing meditation. There's no chanting involved in the forms we do (so far, anyway), but a lot of it is relaxing and slowly stretching your muscles into different poses, breathing through your nose and collecting your chi in the lower part of your stomach. I keep spelling it 'chi' because that's how I first saw it spelled a long time ago so I don't want to confuse myself, but it's the same as the 'qi' in 'Qi Gong". Qi is the combination of your breath and the energy in your body. Besides being great for your health, Qi Gong helps you learn to control and channel your chi into different parts of your body. It's useful for when you're cold.

 

Of course we had conditioning. Of course. It was in the Training Hall this week, and all the other Sifu's students were in there as well (it was a bit windy outside), so we got to watch everyone else get kicked and punched and stuff. Why is that so funny?

 

For Power Training we literally did 500 sit-up type things. He mixed it up, of course, and we got to switch and hold our partner's legs, but… yeah. Doesn't make your stomach feel great.

 

For Wudan Straight Sword, I went over my form and then basically just hung out and talked with people who were also hanging out and talking. One of the guys who just came back from Christmas break from Germany brought out some German chocolate for everyone to try, which was awesome. It was awesome. It was awesome. I ended up doing a bit of qi gong and going over my Wudan short staff form (I'm on the verge of forgetting it oh noes).

 

We had Mandarin every night this week because Nellie left us for her Chinese New Year holiday for the next two weeks. Most of the time she had me memorize a page of words that I should've memorized three months ago and quizzed me on them, but halfway through the week I realized that what I should've done is just make her teach me a ridiculous amount of words so that I could study them for the two weeks she'll be gone. Oh well.

 

On Friday I didn't realize that it was "Friday the 13th" until, like, dinnertime. It has no particular significance. My last Power Stretching with my Sifu was about as painful as usual. I have pictures. Oh! I should attach that as the picture for the e-mail. I'm not making a very flattering face, though.

 

Saturday was my sister's birthday! Happy Birthday, Aubrey! To celebrate, I went to a Chinese restaurant that everyone calls "The Korean" for dinner. That was nice. Saturday was also the day my Sifu left, so he said goodbye to everyone in the morning.

 

Sunday I dialed into church and then spent most of the rest of the day re-reading Tarzan of the Apes (thank you, Project Gutenberg). Now I have to decide between reading Lorna Doone (my awesome aunt's suggestion) or finding out if JANE AND TARZAN WILL EVER GET TOGETHER. I could do both.

 

In the evening we were suddenly informed of getting a new roommate, so Mintoi and I had to scramble to get all of our stuff cleared off the extra bed and desk. It's two American girls, actually, though the other one is upstairs. They're only here for a week, and are both very nice. It's nice to be able to speak American with someone.

 

Anyway, that's it for this week. Sorry I was late!

 

Love you all,

 

Sarah

 

PS I was even later than I thought I would be this week because my internet decided not to send it through yesterday. Sorry for the delay!

Week 18ish

I think it's 18 weeks, now. I sorta just counted in my head rather than use a calendar.

 

Well, we had Monday off for the new year. Usually that would've been exciting and special, but the week before we had had Friday and Monday off for Christmas, so really it was just getting close to tedious. For New Year I did absolutely nothing. Oh, except my darling sister woke up at 8:00 her time to say hi to me at Midnight. Happy 2012, everyone!

 

Anyway, this week I've been spending a lot of time drawring. I've already filled one sketchbook while being here, and am now several pages into the second. It's been fun. I'm not sure I've really talked about it here, but I've been working on a plotline that will someday be a comic, most likely a webcomic (meaning, a comic that is on the internet for people to see rather than in a printed book form). I optimistically decided last year that I would have it ready to start updating in April, but… isn't that when college starts? Haha. I'll just keep plugging away at it and maybe by this summer I'll be able to start putting up pages somewhere.

 

Sad news:  My Sifu is leaving on January 15th for two weeks to visit his family. As I'm leaving China on January 28th, we'll just miss each other. So this next week will be my last week training under him. Depressing? I think so.

 

Basically, what's been going on with Mandarin class is that nobody except me has been going recently, so I've been working on memorizing words, and during class Nellie just tests me on the words I memorized since the last lesson (and all the ones before that, unfortunately), and then answers whatever other questions I have. On Tuesday Sifu sat with me after Nellie had to leave and helped me for a little while, but his Chinese accent is such that he can't really teach me Chinese words effectively, so basically we just started talking about different things… mostly about family, really. And, of course, his life in the Shaolin Temple. You know, they have visitors every day at the Shaolin Temple. It must be such a singular experience to grow up in a tourist spot. It's like, people walking through and taking pictures of your home, and of you. Weird.

 

Most of the week was kind of same-same, monotonous. But Friday contained an interesting experience, because I FINALLY went to the "10-Minute Shop", which, predictably, is only 10 minutes by foot down the road. Way less of a hassle than taking the bus into town and a taxi back. Cheaper, too. I think the change of scene helped break up the feeling that China's getting old. It's a funny little convenience store that really only had the basics. There was no refrigerated section, but at this time of year it was cold enough that the four produce items they had didn't go bad. Amongst the classic carbohydrate snacks there's also some medicine, fireworks, beebee guns, and shoes. I understand now why people at the school are always setting those off. They sit on the shelf so temptingly.

 

For the free afternoon class on Friday I finally asked Sifu to teach me how to do a backflip. And the answer is, I've got a long way to go. It takes quite a bit of coordination to get enough height so you won't injure yourself when you go backwards, and I'm not quite there yet. So for the second half of class I tried to do a proper cartwheel, and FINALLY started improving at that near the end. The next step is one-handed cartwheel, and then no-handed cartwheel. Apparently the chain whip form has many such aerials. Yay, chain whip...

 

And then we had Qi Gong Theory again. That was interesting. Apparently if you do Daoist Qi Gong improperly, then you could go insane.

 

Quickie Mandarin Lesson Time, requested by my sweet Grammy.

 

"Xin Nian Kuai Le", meaning "Happy New Year". "Xin" means "new", "Nian" is "year", and "Kuai Le" is the two words that you use to wish someone a happy something. (Sheng Dan Kuai Le is Merry Christmas). It's a bit different from "gao xing", which also means "happy", but in an emotional way. "Wo gao xing" (Whoa gow sheeng) is "I'm happy".

 

Chain whip's going well, and I don't remember if I said anything, but we're learning a Wudan Straight Sword form (when we're not doing Qi Gong Theory, that is), called "White Rainbow". It's quite a bit shorter than the Wudan Straight Sword form I've already learned, "Floating Cloud". Cute names, huh?

 

And that's about it for this week. Questions and feedback are appreciated. Is it just me, or are these getting shorter?

 

Love you all! And tune in next time to read more stuff about Kung Fu on

 

SOMEWHAT SHAOLIN

 

 

PS I seem to have partially melted my modem, so if you guys are trying to contact me and I don't reply via internet, you know why.

 

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

So I was all like, "Happy New Year!" and she was like, "New Year's not until next month".*

 

At least, I think that's what she was saying. I don't actually speak Chinese. But I know how to say "Happy New Year"**, so… there you go.

 

Well, here we are at the weekend again!

 

This week felt a little weird because we had Monday off, and so they decided for Tuesday classes that Basics were more important than Wing Chun. Maybe they're right, but it doesn't make the Basics class any more exciting. But they did have the usual Jumps and Rolls class, which I decided to go back to. I think it went rather well. Not as much leaping about as usual. Still can't do a backflip.

 

I finished the Short Staff Form! That went a lot more quickly than I thought it would. Maybe it's because Bagua took so ridiculously long to complete. Yeah, I need to practice that one. And my Straight Sword. It suddenly feels like I have a whole lot of forms, and I can never get around to working on them all.

 

On Wednesday I felt super sore the entire day, and I heavily suspect that it was the four-day weekend break that made it so. It reminded me of the very first week I got here, when my legs were just constantly sore, and I started to dread staying here for five months, assuming that it would stay that way. But your body gets used to such things pretty quickly. By Thursday I felt completely better.

 

After a few weeks ago when Power Training felt like it would simply never end, I haven't dreaded it nearly as much. This week's theme was Sit-Ups, and if I remember correctly I did over 300. But doing so and then holding your feet for your partner so he can also do so takes up a lot of time, so we didn't do anything too crazy afterwards. Just the usual push-ups and chicken steps (squatting down all the way and then taking tiny steps forward, with your arms held together behind your back. It's harder than it looks.).

 

Friday! We, of course, had Forms and then Power Stretching in the morning. We've officially finished Tonbei now (the Shaolin Fist Form), and so Sifu asked us if we wanted to start on the Broadsword form. But I've opted instead to do the Single Chain Whip. If you're gonna learn a weapon form, you might as well learn something portable, right? So I was able to get one from the weapon shop here for 30 kuai and "take it for a spin" (ha, get it?) during the free class on Friday afternoon. For the first fifteen minutes of swinging that thing around, I was like, "this is gonna get old really fast", but then at the end of class I was like, "LET'S KEEP GOING". Weirdly addicting. Except when it smacks you in the shin. That's not all that fun. It has a spike on the end, but Shu-Shu recommended that I wrap it up so I wouldn't injure myself. I thought that was sound advice.

 

For Power Stretching, we "combined" with Wei Sifu's class, meaning that the two people from their class who hadn't left for the holidays joined us. Surprisingly, the latter part of this week has seen the fewest number of students that have trained while I've been here. I would've thought that Christmas rather than New Year's would be the time when it would all trickle down to a dozen students. Nope!

 

In my spare time this week I read Wuthering Heights. I'm not sure I can recommend it. It kind of freaked me out. I decided that if "Secret Garden" were a bit longer (like, if it covered the rest of the kids' lives), then it would be the antithesis of "Wuthering Heights". Is it just me, or did Francis Hodgson Burnette have a little more faith in people's goodness than Emily Bronte?

 

Recently I'd taken a bit of a break from Mandarin, but I decided to go back on Wednesday, to discover that others had also dropped the endeavor. So I had Nellie to myself. To her astonishment, she discovered that I don't actually speak Chinese. I've been trying to convince her of as much for several months now. I can't decide if now is a good time to really try to learn, or if I should just wait for an actual college class because I've only got a month left in China.

 

Yes, there is but one month more. *cue Les Miserables Music*. That seems super strange. But I think I'm about ready to go home to my family. After a while China loses its charm, you know? Riding in a taxi has gone from frightening to exciting to "I don't even care that we're on the wrong side of the street right now". It'll be strange to go back to a place where they have traffic laws.

 

Because we're getting Monday off for New Year's, I figured I could use the second Saturday to do my weekly Fruit Shopping and use the actual Saturday to get some rest. Which basically meant that I stayed inside and re-read half of the Scarlet Pimpernel before my smart mother convinced me that I should read one of the classics instead. I've decided on "Moby Dick", but I haven't had the courage yet to get into that "whale" of a book (heh).

 

In the last half hour of daylight on the last day of the year, I decided to take the puppy out for a walk. Here's a cultural thing about China. They don't really care about their pets all that much. In some households in America, it's like the dog is one of the kids. But here? I don't think I've even seen dog and cat food for sale in the supermarket. The dogs that live here at the school eat leftovers. And all of the stray dogs I've seen here have a funny build, with a long body and short legs, like they're descended from household dogs that were turned out on the street. It's sad, really.

 

Anyway, I really didn't do anything exciting for midnight on the New Year.  Had we been near the ocean or something I might've arranged a polar dip, but as it was, 85% of the students went to the local international youth hostel to drink in the New Year; so I stayed in my room and, like, read fanfiction or something until midnight, when my sister got up at 8:00 am her time to say Xin Nian Kuai Le to me.

 

And there goes 2011. According to the Mayans, the world's gonna end this year. I don't put any stock in that; I'm pretty sure those guys practiced human sacrifice.

 

The morning of January 1, 2012, came wrapped in an extremely thick fog. That's pretty much what the next twelve months look like to me. While I can see fairly clearly the things that are coming in the next few months (flying back home, etc.), the way ahead of that is a little more indistinct. But even though that fog was so thick I couldn't see the dining halls, when I stepped into it, it gave the illusion that everything around me was a greyish white. Just because you can't see the future doesn't mean that it's going to be dark.

 

I think it's gonna be a good year.

 

-Sarah

 

*Not only do people here celebrate Chinese New Year, most of them actually go by the Chinese calendar. For them, it's still December right now! It's actually made it a little difficult to figure out when my Sifu's birthday is. All we know is that it's in November, December, or January some time.

 

**"Xin Nian Kuai Le" literally translates to "New Year Happy" and is the common greeting expressed whenever you see someone around the New Year. It's pronounced "shin neean kwhy luh", and I had the pleasure of learning a song to remember the phrase set to "Oh My Darling Clementine".

 

Happy Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone! Well, actually for me it's a few days after Christmas. I wish I could say that it's because I was busy. Does "waiting for the Downton Abbey Christmas Special to load" count as busy?

 

Anyway, the week before Christmas was pretty good. Pretty much standard. On Tuesday, one of my roommates left, and she gave everyone from Hungarian chocolate candies, which were SERIOUSLY good. Next time I go to Hungary I'm gonna get me some of those.

 

Also on Tuesday, my internet finally started picking up the pace and video calls on Skype started working for the first time. So because I wasn't sure how long it would last, I skipped the second morning class and talked to my family for an hour and a half. It's been working pretty well since then! Yay.

 

Qin Nan! It's spelled "Qin Nan". Yes. Um, so Qin Nan is on Tuesdays sometimes instead of Sanda Takedowns, and it was good that we did that this week because Wu Sifu wasn't there that day and I'm not a fan of takedowns. I'm assuming that he was doing something awesome, like winning a ping pong tournament.

 

Wednesday I finished 42-Step Tai Chi! Now I just need to practice it for the rest of my life and maybe one day I'll be kinda good at it. :) Um, nothing else exciting happened on Wednesday.

 

Thursday, I think Sifu went kind of easy on us for Power Training because of Christmas. It was mostly weights. Man I'm so weak. And then after Power Training, they announced that we would have Friday and Monday off for Christmas break! So we had a four-day holiday. Love those. Not that I used it to do anything constructive. They also put up some lights for Christmas, which was fun. Festive.

 

Thursday evening we drew the names for Secret Santa, so Friday and Saturday a lot of people went into town to get their presents and things for the stockings. Apparently 'stockings' aren't a big thing in Europe. I just had everyone contribute something to the stockings, and there were 16 in all. Yes, I ended up being the organizer. In an unrelated note, I was the only Western girl there on Christmas Eve and Christmas because my roommate traveled to Nanjing for the weekend.

 

Although I did go shopping on Friday, I ended up having to go back into town on Saturday because I forgot some things. One of those things, I decided, was a curling iron, and I obtained one for 20 kuai ($3). Surprisingly enough, it worked pretty well and didn't ruin my hair. I think.

 

The reason I decided to get dolled up was because we had a special dinner on Christmas Eve Night. It was certainly fun, and full of Christmas spirit. Everyone put their Secret Santa presents in the dining room beforehand. The kitchen ladies prepared a ton of food for us, and set out cans of beer and a big bottle of coke for each table. I was a little disappointed because even though the Sifus did eat in the two smaller dining halls, they weren't actually with us. But it was also a little good because near the end of the meal, people passed out the Secret Santa gifts and the Sifus weren't signed up for that, so… anyway. It was fun to see everyone open their presents and exclaim over what they got like kids. Some people got super nice things like really nice small-scale weapons. Some people got funny things, like fireworks or plastic princess dress up things. All in all a good dinner.

 

After dinner there was a lot of fireworks going off as people waited for the cabs to come to take them to the hostel. I, of course, opted out of going to the hostel because everyone was going there to drink, and I had a nice little quiet evening. Watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and then my Mom was nice enough to wake up the family at 6:00 in the morning their time to hang out with me briefly.

 

Christmas morning, I got to open some presents that my family had given me several weeks ago when I visited them for the last time before they left China. One of the cool things I got was a book about Confucius-- well, it's called "Confucius from the Heart: Ancient Wisdom for Today's World". Confucius was a pretty zen dude, yo.

 

Here's a story that was in the book that I thought was good.

 

"There is an interesting tale in Buddhism.

 

Two monks came down form their mountain temple to beg alms. When they reached the bank of a river, they saw a girl, who was upset because she was unable to cross it. The old monk said to the girl: 'I'll carry you over on my back.' And he gave the girl a piggy-back across the river.

 

The young monk was too shocked to do anything more than gape in astonishment. He didn't dare to ask any questions. They walked on for another twenty leagues, and at last he could bear it no onger, so he asked the old monk: 'Master, we're monks, we're supposed to be celibate, how could you carry a girl across the river on your back?'

 

The old monk said coolly: 'You saw how I got her across the river and then put her down. How come you have carried this thought with you for twenty leagues and yet you still haven't put it down?'"

 

Basically the whole book makes you examine yourself like that. Deep stuff.

 

For church, we had a special Sacrament Meeting program for Christmas, and I volunteered to read aloud half of 3 Nephi chapter 1. Because it was a special occasion, my family got to listen in on the church meeting from America.

 

Anyway, I ended up having a very relaxing weekend. Although it was nice to have the extra two days off, it was also sort of weird because there's not a whole lot to do here on weekends except train anyway or read or go on the internet. Gets a little boring.

 

Question time! I got more awesome questions from my Grammy. It's good when people ask clarifying questions because I keep just assuming you guys know what I'm talking about.

 

1) How do you communicate with your Sifus?

 

We have two translators here, Nellie and Leah, who tag along with whichever of the 4-5 Sifus need them. My Sifu speaks pretty functional English, but when he's stuck on something he calls over a translator to explain a more difficult concept. He speaks the best English out of the Sifus-- for the others, as far as I know they can say stuff like, "punch right", "more power", "lower", "thirty push-ups"… sometimes it feels like that's all my Sifu can say, actually, haha. But the one Sifu who doesn't speak any English whatever is Wu Sifu, who teaches Bagua and Wudan forms. He's only here in the afternoons, and when there's no translator around it's pretty hard to follow what he's talking about. There's a lot of pantomime involved with that guy. Actually, he generally speaks kind of slow, so I'm starting to pick up some phrases from him, like "step forward" and "turn your foot".

 

2) What is "firebending"?

 

"Firebending" is a reference to a kid's cartoon show that aired a few years ago; I'm not at all surprised that you didn't hear about it. I was just silly in taking it for granted that people would know what I was talking about. It's called Avatar: The Last Airbender. The premise of the show is that people in the world can move around the elements (water, earth, fire, air) by basically using Kung Fu. The animators referred to different Kung Fu styles for the different elements. "Firebending", or the ability to shot fire from your fists, etc., was based off of Shaolin Kung Fu, hence the illusion that I'm firebending whilst practicing my Shaolin Fist forms. I'm actually also learning Tai Chi, which is "Waterbending", and Bagua, which is "Airbending". No Earthbending here, though.

 

3) The part you wrote about Buddhism and how it relates to Shaolin was very interesting to me. I would love to read a lot more about Shaolin history, if you have time.

 

Well, you asked for it, I guess ;). I'm really not a Shaolin History expert, but I'll give it a shot.

 

Buddhism originated in India, and was brought to China by two different monks, spaced about 100 years apart. The first monk, Batuo, came from Northern India in about 500 BC (not positive on that date) and brought a type of Buddhism that encourages one to only improve one's self internally. The Emperor of China really took a liking to Buddhism and eventually built a Buddhist temple for Batuo. Although the Emperor really wanted the people to accept Buddhism in general, it never really took hold. Basically the end result of Batuo's visit was the establishment of a temple and it built awareness so that the Chinese people knew what Buddhism was.

 

100 years later, Dharma came from Southern India to China. His Buddhism was a little different than Batuo's, in that the goal was first to help others, then yourself, with the ultimate goal being to transcend earthly life and become a Buddha. He traveled around for a while, and then he's the guy who meditated in a cave for nine years. His first disciple heard about him and took care of him for a while to show his dedication to learning Buddhism. Then they worked together to build up the Shaolin Temple at the base of the mountain where the cave was at. There were regularly about 2000 monks at the temple, and I think my Sifu said that today there are less than half that number.

 

"15th Generation" Shaolin monk actually means that his father, grandfather, great-grandfather and so on all trained at some point in the Shaolin temple. My Sifu trained there for ten years, starting when he was 7-8 years old, but got into a more advanced class than usual when he started because his father taught him what he had learned at the temple beforehand.  That's why he's so awesome. Wei Sifu, by the way, is a 34th Generation Shaolin monk.

 

That's basically all we covered in our first class. But I know from other times that Sifu has talked about the temple history that the kung fu movements were adapted from working with every day things-- like farming tools. There are a lot of weird weapon forms, man. And of course, there's all the animal forms. Kung Fu Panda showcases some of those, but for some reason they skipped over Scorpion. Not that I blame them-- Scorpion Style only really looks cool when an actual person is doing it. Oh, a "form" is a series of movements that are put together, created to help you remember how to fight. It's pretty easy to go from learning movements in a form to using those movements that you learned in an actual sparring match. Well, *apparently* it's easy. You still need to practice a bit before you get over the fear of having objects (and fists) hurled at your face.

 

But I digress. The Shaolin Temple is apparently where all martial arts started, and the idea soon spread to Japan and Korea and stuff. Different styles developed in different places, like the Wudan mountains up North have a pretty distinctive style. Wing Chun famously originated in Hong Kong (See "Ip Man 2" for further reference). Qi Gong, the meditation style, was actually from India originally, and was more of a prelude to martial arts. If you ever have a chance to do Qi Gong classes, you totally should. It's really good for your health. Sort of like yoga, but less strenuous.

 

Anyway, that's about the conclusion of this week's update. I kinda skimmed over the classes, huh? Hm.

 

Well, I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. See you next year!

 

Sarah

 

PS: The picture is of us doing Qi Gong. I'm the one in the pink sweatshirt.

 

Sunrise, Sunset

Wow. Another week of training has really sped by.

 

So, when Arianne left, she was like, "do you want some wool" and I was like, "what does that even mean"-- until I figured out that she meant yarn. At some point she had gotten some yarn in three different shades of pink, one of which is really violent and a little scary, but the other two are fine. She had started knitting a hat which I might have finished except I haven't a clue how to knit. But I decided to take the yarn anyway because I'm pretty handy at crocheting (April 2008 will tell you as much, when I crocheted a 13-foot Doctor Who Scarf. Whoa, was that really almost four years ago?). Unfortunately, finding a crochet hook is practically impossible in China-- or in Qufu, anyway. Knitting needles? Sure! Cross-stitch patterns? Plenty! But I was trying to explain what crochet was to Nellie, and she really had no idea what I was talking about.

 

So I decided to whittle one. That was my Monday project, and by the end of the day I had a pretty nice-looking little crochet hook that was just the right size. I crocheted three rows of a scarf and haven't looked at it again since.

 

Anyway, the days have certainly gotten colder, though the sun hasn't stopped shining all week. It's really weird to have such consistently nice weather, when back home at least half of the days would be overcast or rainy. I remember the last time Seattle had a week of sunny days I started to feel a little nervous, like something unnatural was going on.

 

I've had several things to divert my time this week. One was the discovery of a site called "Project Gutenberg", which has the e-text of practically any book that has an expired copyright date (something about 70 years after the author's death?). So, all of Sunday afternoon was spent glued to the followings of that elusive English Spy, the Scarlet Pimpernel. For the record, I totally called his disguise at the end.

 

The other diversion came in the form of Justice League, Seasons 1-5. I watched all of them with my sister several years ago, and it was funny to see how many of them I remembered, or missed, or forgot. No, mom, I didn't spend ALL of my spare time staring at the computer screen. Not that I have a lot of spare time.

 

Well, let's get to the play-by-play of the week.

 

Monday classes, as per usual, were (Tai Chi), Basics, Forms, Sanda/Bagua, and Bagua. Learned some more of the 42-Step Tai Chi, learned some more Tonbei (Shaolin Fist form), and practiced my Bagua form which I finished last week. Have I already said how weird it is to be done with that? And at some point I finished the Qi Gong form. The only difficult part of that form is that you need to remember to practice it in the mornings and evenings. I did so for about two days during the week. I'd forgotten that I was supposed to do that until now.

 

We finally had Calligraphy again, and that was interesting this week because a bunch of the new people came, so the teacher was less like, "go draw some lines" and was more like, "this is the history of this character".

 

(Calligraphy teacher writes something)

New Guy: That's beautiful! What is it?

Leah: "Bank of China".

 

Also on Monday, I got a hold of more Dengfeng pictures from someone. She took a LOT of pictures, so I spent some time going through and deleting a couple of repeats.

 

And that was Monday.

 

Tuesday was Wing Chun Day. I like Wing Chun. Have I already told you guys to watch Ip Man? Do. It's awesome. So I did Wing Chun for the first two classes instead of Jumps and Rolls...

 

Yeah, then the afternoon class was Qinan, and we learned some knife defenses. We got to go and choose a stick to be  our knife. In some ways we were kind of messing around with it, and that was okay because Sifu was laughing and joking around too, but then at the end Sifu talked to us in a more serious tone about how important it was to be serious and learn these things well. Overall a good class. Sifu was gracious enough to show me where the pressure point on my elbow is when I asked. He has a painful sense of humor.

 

Once again, reviewed Bagua and learned some Qi Gong.

 

I did go to Mandarin, but because so many new people are doing it, we're kind of at Square 1.5. I learned a little, but at the end I made Nellie stick around and teach me some more family words. Holy cow, the Chinese people have a name for everyone! And it all depends on where you are in the family. Feng le. (crazy).

 

And then I stayed up until 9:30, which actually is too late for me. I slept through half of Tai Chi before I got up and did some Qi gong. You know what? 8:45 is my new bedtime. Srsly.

 

Which brings us to Wednesday.  Um… first class, Basics. We did a little more drill-type stuff. You see it in Kung Fu movies a lot, where the students are all standing in lines and rows, doing movements at exactly the same time. That was both stressful and empowering. Second class, forms, and we learned a bit more of Tonbei. I'm really liking Tonbei, by the way. Especially when I'm pretending to firebend.

 

Now that I've finished my Bagua form, it was about time for me to start learning a new form from Wu Sifu. The timing couldn't have been more perfect, because on Wednesday, Wu Sifu started teaching the Wudan Tai Chi group a Short Staff Form. We all had to hunt down our own Short Staff, and I was lucky enough to find one that had been abandoned a while ago. I also actually found an abandoned long staff, so now I have my own instead of having to borrow someone else's. Wish I could take it home. It seems like the plural for 'staff' should be something besides 'staffs'. Hmm...

 

Thursday. Finished the Qi Gong Yi Jing Ji form (that spelling is complete guesswork), and I got the order of the movements all written down. Now I have yet another Qi Gong form to remember to practice. Huzzah?

 

Haha, conditioning. Remember a few weeks ago, when I said that conditioning my forearms no longer hurt? Well, Sifu decided to help me this week. False alarm, guys. It still hurts, and I've got the bruises to prove it. I wonder at what point in his life his arms turned into small trees?

 

During the half hour before the lunch whistle is blown, I finally posted the sign-up list for Secret Santa. It's hard to fathom that Christmas is only a week away. Here, there's so little hype that December just feels like winter instead of Christmas Month. Apparently in most parts of Europe Christmas isn't nearly as big a deal as it is in America. That seems kind of weird to me. As a Christian, the most important part of Christmas is celebrating Christ's birth. But no one else has mentioned that this is part of their Christmas tradition, so… I dunno. I know I'm gonna watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional on Christmas Eve, and of course I'll ask if anyone wants to join me. But anyway, I'll write about how Christmas went next week. The update will probably go up on the 26th.

 

Lunchtime, I totally forgot about my laundry until like 15 minutes before class started (I blame Superman), but I managed to get it hung up to dry before I had to scurry out and run around the ponds. You know, I keep forgetting to talk about that part of class. Although the classes are an hour to an hour and a half long, half an hour is always taken up by warm-up. Because it's gotten colder, we often run three laps around the ponds in the morning (those are starting to really freeze over, by the way). Then we head over to the steps, stretch our legs on them, and then do a leg stretch with a partner. For that one, you stand against the wall, and your partner lifts your leg as high as you can go with both legs straight, and then hopefully a little higher. I can definitely see that I've improved in that one. My leg used to only go up to, like, waist height, but now I'm nearly at shoulder height. Then we do a series of warm-ups where we move around our joints starting from our neck down to our ankles. After which, we partner up again and sit on the ground while our partner pushes us in different directions: one where you sit with the soles of your feet together and your partner presses your knees down to the ground (my least favorite), one where you sit with your legs stretched out straight in front of you and your partner pushes your back so that you touch your toes and your head eventually touches your legs (my favorite), and one where you stretch your legs out into a straddle, and your partner puts his feet against your ankles so you don't move and then pulls your arms so you bend forward. Then we do horse stance for three minutes.

 

Short Staff was pretty fun. I was kind of nervous at first because Wu Sifu showed us a whole lot of movements at once, but he repeated it enough times during the next hour that we all (mostly) had it down by the end of class. Short Staff is pretty cool. Very practical. It really reminds me of my Wudan sword form, though of course it's not nearly as pretty.

 

Thursday evening, Sifu taught us Shaolin Theory (with Nellie translating). It's a 'new' class that we're going to do every week from now on. This week we learned mostly about the history of Buddhism and how it relates to the Shaolin Temple. Like, Dharma, an Indian Buddhist guy, came to China and meditated in a cave for 9 years. One of the Chinese guys was all like, "why is that guy meditating in a cave for 9 years" (I'm wondering the same thing), so he went and became his disciple. I saw that cave, actually. It's halfway up the mountain next to the Shaolin Temple. I think I mentioned it a few blog posts ago. If anyone wants to hear more about Shaolin history or anything about life in the Shaolin temple, let me know-- I took pretty good notes, and I know a 15th Generation Shaolin Warrior Monk.

 

For the first class on Friday, Sifu had us review all of our forms. That included 5-Step which I thought I had forgotten and Continuous Fist which I wish I had forgotten. Not because I don't like it, but because when I learned it, I always practiced it with my stance too high, so if I really wanted to be good at it I would have to re-learn it with a lower stance. Ah, me.

 

And then Power Stretching is always fun. Ha. Ha. I feel like it's actually gotten more painful. Seems like if you're closer to doing the splits it should be less painful, right? Usually we do Power Stretching in the training hall because that's where the mats live, but this week we took them outside because it was so nice and sunny. The people in the other class, who were also outside practicing their forms, seemed to find it amusing. After power stretching we always do warm-up kicks because if you don't use the muscles that you just stretched, then they just get weaker. Stretchier, but weaker.

 

Friday afternoon is a free period, so I did a variety of things. I went to the training hall, and a few of the guys had stacked up the mats to practice Parkour, so I did that for a little bit. I actually improved a little. It was going well until more people came in to do it/watch, and then I just got self-conscious and did some stretching in the corner with some of the girls. Then I went and started right into Short Staff. That second afternoon class is becoming kind of hard because at 3:30 the sun is getting low in the sky, and it suddenly gets really cold whether you're moving around or not.

 

Saturday all I really did was watch Justice League and go into town for my weekly shopping. I went with one of my roommates, and we walked along the street next to the Confucius Temple, where they sell a bunch of souvenirs. If anyone wants anything like a wooden scroll or an ocarina or a stamp with their name carved into it, let me know-- I've gotten pretty good at haggling. I'm glad Qufu is sort of a tourist spot. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get any lame Chinese souvenirs once I left Beijing, but this is not so.

 

… And that was my week.

 

Hope everyone has a great Christmas!

 

<3,

 

Sarah

 

PS: This week's title was from Fiddler on the Roof. It sort of applies because the time seems to be passing really quickly, and also the sunrises are getting really pretty. We hold Tai Chi in the training hall because it's too cold outside, and when you look out the window, you can see the sky turning shades of pink and orange through the black silhouettes of tree branches.