Newspaper Article.
Today was a nice saturday so far. Spent most of my morning learning more about Garage Band and how to use it. Talked with John via IM for a bit. Discussed plans to go to Shanghai for the May holiday. Its the first week in May. I also had spoken to Daisy's grandpa about this because his wife is from Shanghai and Lisa, his daughter, Daisy's mom, grew up there and can speak Shanghai-hua. The shanghai dialect. He gave me some ideas of places to go. Great.
I had class at 3pm, but I had to go in at around 230pm because some woman from Shiqi or ShanXiang wanted to interview me for the newspaper. Apparently, she saw me in the Lantern Festival and wanted to do a story on the only gweilo doing Gong Fu in Zhongshan. Apparenlty, a white person doing gong fu is news in China. Strange. So I show up and she uses Jeanne and Mountain as interpreters. She asked a few questions and I answered. She asked me how I have improved since I have been in China, and i was like, I haven't improved, if anything I have lost abilities here in China. I haven't been practicing as much, since its hard to practice on your own and when know one is around to push you, its even harder. She told me that Guo Sifu said that I was the best at their center that I was a genious of some sort, which made me blush, but I don't believe he could really feel that that is true. He he thought so, I think he would have shown me how to do the actual lion instead of still working on the same Hong Quan forms. Frustrating at times. I only got like 4.5 months left and 1 month of that has to be spent at the Shaolin Temple, so, he better start get cracking.
I told her some other things as well:
Chinese people think that because they think of their culture to be so complex that its hard for foreigners to learn gong fu and understand it. What a load of B.S. It just takes practice.
Chinese people do have a headstart on it though, since they are brought up watching martial arts on TV so they can do it instinctively almost. But they just don't practice.
I dont' feel like I am progressing much because whenever I go to practice, barely any others are practicing, and Sifu is always busy and no one else can instruct me on the forms. And the other students just sit around and smoke cigarettes. She laughed at this and said she feels that the chinese are lazy too. LoL! awesome.
I then asked, "Can you garuntee me that Donnie Yen will read this interview me and put me in his next movie?" I showed them his website because they have no idea who I am talking about when I say Donnie Yen and I constantly forget his Chinese name. She giggled at that. I also brought in some material from Shorinji Kempo, the Shaolin Monk I met in Las Vegas, and I talkeda bout all that and Gabriel Chin. Told them a bunch of stuff. Mentioned that Gabriel just recently passed away. What a shame.
She wanted to take some fotos of me in some stances outside so I was like, whatever. I wonder which ones they will use. She also sat in on my class with Daisy, Jack, and Violet and took some fotos of me using gong fu with the kids like I usually do in my classes.
Afterwards I headed home. I told her I would send her some fotos of my fotos on my computer of me doing Gong Fu and stuff. I sent a few Shorinji Kempo fotos, me in the New Years shows, and me with Shaolin Monk Shi Xingwei. I hope she can see them and maybe use a couple.
Afterwards, there was the option to go to Practice or go to Badmitten. I chose Practice. I got there and no teachers were around and no one was practicing. There were a few folks from the other troop there...but only one was banging the drum. The others were sitting around. So, after 10 minutes of nothing changing, I headed out to play some badmitten. It was enjoyable. We lacked birdies and rackets and someone had brought two tennis rackets and a broken ball. Robert and I played as best we could on the Badmitten courts. IS THAT COURT REGULATION SIZE OR WHAT!?
Afterwards, I headed home. Everyone was not up for anything since it was late and they had to teach the following morning. Wimps. Well, goodnite.