In Italian footsteps; Fujian revival

A little over four years ago, a book called A Fortune Teller Told Me was what convinced me to investigate meditation by going to Thailand for a 10-day retreat. The author was Italian journalist Tiziano Terzani, who died in 2004.

My original copy stayed with my then girlfriend when we split up, but I bought a second-hand copy last year, and I’m re-reading it now. I’m intrigued by something in one of the early chapters that meant very little to me before, but is rather more interesting now. Attending a meeting of the French École Française de l’Extreme Orient, he has this encounter:

One ethnologist gave a paper investigating the revival of occult Taoist practices in the Chinese province of Fukien. He told how one night, under a full moon, he had witnessed a ceremony in which a man immobilized by ropes had suddenly shot like an arrow across the rice fields, drawing after him the whole population of the village, including the local Communist Party secretary.

Since Terzani’s book was published in 1995, this event probably took place in the late 1980s. It must be about a tang-ki, whom I’ve encountered here in Singapore, and about whom I’m increasingly interested. Many of Singapore’s Chinese population have their family roots in Fujien province.

What is happening with this revival now, I wonder, twenty years after that ethnologist witnessed the ceremony he describes? Has it grown in strength, or vanished in the face of consumerism and rampant development? If anyone out there has any information, I would love to hear about it!

Blwyddyn newydd dda

Happy new year, and xin nian kuaile!

Let’s hope 2008 is better than 2007…

True self, right path

As I mentioned, I went to a Dharma talk last week, given by Zen Master Wu Bong.

The marketing by the KYCL centre was a bit mixed up, I think. It only mentioned a talk on the 20th of December. It turned out that there was a Dharma talk on the 19th as well, and the session on the 20th was really meant as more of a Q&A. Master Wu mentioned that on the previous night there were very few people but many questions; on the 20th, many people but few questions – not surprising, really!

Master Wu teaches through telling stories, which in some cases went over the heads of some in the audience. There was, I think, a pretty eclectic audience; some who knew very little of Zen, some who knew a lot. Of course, what we take away from a Dharma talk like this depends very much on what we take into it. On this occasion, I was struck hard by his teaching that Zen means finding your true path in life, and striving to follow it. What your true path is, is something each individual must choose. In response to a question from a Caucasian (German?) woman, he stressed that it’s not about “feeling” what your true path is, it’s a matter of actively choosing it and then living it and following it with commitment.  The founder of the Kwan Um school movement, Zen Master Seung Sahn, says something very similar in one of his books, perhaps The Compass of Zen. I’ll have to check my copy again.

This got my attention, because I have to say that I’ve recently been feeling intensely insecure about my future direction. As you know, I’m heading off to Beijing in February, and I’m looking forward to it very much. The fact is, though, that it’s for a short-term contract, and I really don’t know what I’m going to do afterwards, or where I’m going to be living. I’m very much concerned with trying to “find my path”, after my MBA didn’t help me to make the career transition I’d envisaged.  Over the past couple of weeks, this has been worrying me a lot. The key takeaway was that Master Wu really emphasised finding the right path, and sticking with it regardless of the difficulties. Find your true self.

Through coincidence, or karmic destiny, I found myself a few days later browsing in one of the second-hand bookshops in the Bras Basah complex. A couple of books almost jumped out at me. One of them was The Buddha, Geoff, and Me by Edward Canfor-Dumas. I’ve seen it before on the shelves at Kinokuniya, but wasn’t tempted then. A quick flick through the pages, though, and I bought it. I even got an unexpected discount on the marked price! It could have been written for me, in the situation I’m currently in, and I got through it in an evening. I’ll give it a couple of days to percolate through my subconscious, and then I’ll read it again. There’s a lot of down-to-earth wisdom, and very recognizable characters in this book! It’s actually a novel, written in a memoir style; at first, I was taken in, and though it actually was autobiographical.

These two events have actually been pretty helpful to me, as they have resonated so strongly with things that were already on my mind, and ideas I was already juggling with. How to actually turn these into a path I can follow? That’s the challenge for 2008…

Oh, and to answer the question that was on my mind, Master Wu Bong is not a monk. In the Kwan Um school, both lay people and monks can be Zen Masters.

Invasion of the history snatchers

The Qianmen district of Beijing is one that is very dear to my heart – although sadly, I now have to write that it was very dear to my heart. It’s gone now, replaced with an identical copy of itself.

I’ve mentioned before why I liked it so much. I spent many summer nights there, getting lost in the narrow, wandering, alleyways, drinking beer and eating delicious food in tiny little restaurants where staff bantered with customers, and everything was great as long as you didn’t look in the kitchen.

On my first trip to Beijing in 2004, my Norwegian friend Stefan and I stood around watching the card games in the street, and stayed around until the only people left were the locals, who would be walking around in their pyjamas because of the heat.

In 2005, I hung out with Fei from Xi’an; we dived into the old courtyard buildings, looking at the different architectural styles, and chatting to the migrant workers who paid extortionate rates for clapboard rooms that had been thrown up in the courtyards. Everywhere we went, we encountered a warm welcome. With her, I had a really enjoyable evening in a tiny dumpling shop, where we were quizzed and teased by the rest of the diners.

In 2007, I went back to find the area reduced to rubble, surrounded by hoardings. The new “walls” were graced with huge pictures of the future Qianmen; it looked like Second Life.

I guess I’ll see the reality for myself next year. It sounds like it’s appalling. I’ve just found an article about it in the online journal China Heritage Quarterly. An area that once was part of the jianghu (in my interpretation of it – see my About page):

he previously privileged occupants of the Inner City during the Ming dynasty were forced to move elsewhere, often to new residences in the Outer City. As a result of this brief southern migration Qianmen flourished, as erstwhile residents of the Inner City relocated their roots and businesses to the south. In addition to its already existing reputation as a mercantile centre, the area also soon became a new entertainment district which residents and visitors, many of them scholars from other provinces who were in Beijing to sit the civil service examination, could dine out at the many restaurants that lined the streets, find lodgings, purchase luxurious goods, or attend a performance of the opera.[1]
Fig.1 The demolition of buildings in Qianmen district in January 2007. [Kelly Layton]

Equally important for social life in Qianmen, and for its status as Beijing’s entertainment district, was the commerce in brothels catering to the varied sexual appetites of their male clientele. Indeed, according to the local historian Zhang Jinqi (and many salacious accounts in ‘apocryphal histories’, yeshi), it was here that the Tongzhi Emperor (r.1862-74), during one of his late night incognito excursions to escape from the frustrations of court life and his libidinally frustrated eunuch retainers, contracted syphilis whilst fulfilling his own concupiscent urges, from which he would eventually die.

has been transformed into a sanitised, commercial zone of shopping malls disguised in “authentic” Qing-style buildings.

OHO’s redevelopment of the area of Qianmen promises to be a new, faux-Qing-style pedestrian shopping mall, a place where Beijing’s residents and tourists may engage in lifestyle practices that dabble with history whilst never really having to come to terms with it.

Of course, the life will all be gone, and the community dispersed. I guess I can only be glad that at least I saw it as it was.

Drying up the rivers and lakes

This being Saturday morning, I am of course in pain! Today, it’s mainly my shoulder. Master Zhou had me working on a shoulder strike, and was demonstrating several ways it could be used. At one point, I thought he was indicating that I should try it out on him – but in fact, he was preparing another demonstration… so our shoulders collided hard when I tried to slam him just as he slammed me. Ouch! Of course, he’s ok. Me… hehehe, I’m slapping on lots of Tiger Balm!

He was emphasizing the need for stretching, especially when we worked on a move which went from swooping down into a low crouch, then rising up into a jump and a kick. This is new to me, and I really felt it in my knees! He went on to point out that the form we’re working on – the Rising Dragon – is relatively straightforward, and that the later forms – Monkey, Bear, Horse, Chicken, etc – need much more speed and flexibility. He demonstrated a few of them and, well, I see what he means! Of course, I won’t get the chance to study these with him for a long time, if at all. I just want to get the Dragon form finished before I leave..

After class I did some solo training, but it didn’t go too well. My mind was too busy, and I found it really difficult to empty my thoughts… so my taiji was useless. Eventually, I managed it to an extent, and went through some bagua, which worked up a good sweat.

I moved on to Keong Saik Road, and got talking to the owner of the coffeeshop. I asked him how he thought it had changed over the years. He looked around, bent down, and whispered “less prostitutes!“. I mentioned previously that the area is getting gentrified, and of course I can understand why people who live and work there would prefer higher-value passing trade…. but it’s still a little sad for me to see one of Singapore’s historically ‘colourful’ areas losing its character.

Heh, I was thinking of this when I looked again at Wikipedia’s entry for Jianghu. The older version, the one that inspired me to use “Jianghu” as the name for this blog, said:

“jiang hu” is ‘not a physical place or geographic location but the wild and romanticized domain of secret societies, gangs, fighters, entertainers, prostitutes, assassins, thieves, actors, beggars, and wanderers that is roughly the Chinese equivalent to the English terms “bohemian” and “the underworld”‘.

It looks as if the entry’s been revised pretty recently, and now it reads:

The Jiānghú (江湖; Cantonese: gong woo) world is the milieu, environment, or sub-community, often fictional, in which many Chinese classical wuxia stories are set. The term can be translated literally as “rivers and lakes”. Jianghu is an alternative universe coexisting with the actual historical one in which the context of the wuxia genre was set.

Well… yes, true, fair enough… but dry. Academic.. yes, I know it’s meant to be authoritative, a reference source… but it’s still less alive, less evocative. Symptomatic in a small way of a world increasingly ordered and run by bureaucrats and policemen…

And speaking of policemen – but no, I’ll save that story for another time…

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A little bit of heartbreak

I wrote not so long ago about “Jiulong”‘s pictures of Beijing, and in particular about the picture of Qianmen. It stirred a lot of memories about an area I remember with a great deal of affection, and it seemed to strike a chord, as that post got quite a lot of hits for some reason. I was writing about the community of the area , and my concern about the redevelopment of the area. Sadly, it seems that my worst fears are true. An article in Beijing Newspeak reports the intimidation, cheating and violence that have been used to evict the residents, who are being resettled far from the area. Of course, I’ll go back to visit when I get to Beijing again, but it seems I’ll only find a tourist Potemkin village at best. How very sad.

Convergence

Ever get the feeling that fate is pushing you in a certain direction? I’m starting to get that. Lots of interesting martial arts things happened over the last couple of days…

Last night, out to practice as usual. For the first time in a week or two, I was able to practice with a pretty clear mind, so the taijiquan flowed smoothly; that felt good. Then several sets of the ba mu zhang, followed by long xing baguazhang, rounded up by the sword set, with a couple more sets of taijiquan to wind down.

All good, though I’m having a bit of difficulty still in sinking my weight fully, and my mud-stepping is really messy at the moment. However, the real interest of the night was in people…

First of all, when I arrived, Mr Ng was there doing his warm-up qigong. This is common: he starts off there, and then goes to practice his routine at the other end of the park, near the exercise equipment. Last night he came across to ask me whether I would be interested in teaming up to start a class studying xingyiquan with Chin Woo’s Master Zhao. I’ve spoken to Master Zhao before, and seen him teaching students in a couple of other forms. On that occasion, I got the impression that he was only visiting for a short period, but it seems that he’s actually been here for a couple of years, so I think perhaps he’s here for a long stay. A number of people have told me that he’s very good, and suggested that I study with him.

Well, Mr Ng’s suggestion came at an interesting time: only the night before, I’d started xingyiquan classes with Madam Ge – which will last for 5 months. I’m pretty new to xingyiquan, so I don’t know how much I’ll like it. I think it will be good, though. Going off on a tangent, I mentioned before that most of what I knew of xingyi concerned its directness and focussed mentality. However, I’ve been reading up on it, and I’ve been struck by how many masters say that xingyi remoulds the body, and that if you are sick when you start, xingyi will remake you (in particular, I’ve been reading Jess O’Brien’s Nei Jia Quan). And in fact, I really felt something in tha first lesson, of tendons being stretched and postural defects being highlighted quickly; this is going to be an interesting experience….

Anyway, so I had to say that although I was interested in learning xingyi, he was asking just a bit too late! (Anyway, I like Madam Ge’s training style).

Later on, as I was working on the long xing set, a group of about ten guys passed along and stopped to watch. I’ve never seen them before, so I was a little startled, but it turns out that they also all belong to Chin Woo; they also study with Master Zhao, but in their case, they’re learning baguazhang! I gave them a quick demo of the Long Xing form (or at least, the first six palms, which is all I can do at the moment), and one of them gave a demonstration of what they’re learning. It looked very similar to what Master Ku demonstrated – which is to say, in my really very limited experience of all the different bagua lineages, looked closer to Fu style than anything else I’ve seen. I asked them what it was; it’s also a dragon form, and comes from “Wujimen” (?) baguazhang, which they say is only really taught in Shanghai. They couldn’t tell me more than that. What was really impressive is that the guy who demonstrated has only been learning for two months, but they’ve been doing it 3 times a week and already know the full set; it was also clear from his movements that they’ve been paying attention to the details of the movement. Very interesting… They suggested I join their Sunday night class, which is actually a night when I’m free.

Shortly after, along came the taiji instructor from Chin Woo after class, who also stopped to say hi. After I’d finished my training, I went with a friend to a coffeeshop nearby for a beer – and on the next table were a couple more Chin Woo instructors, one of Hung Gar, the other of a ‘quan’ form whose full name I didn’t catch. We chatted for a while.

So. People have been inviting me for a long time to join Chin Woo; I’ve always said no because I really want to study baguazhang as my main art, and was under the impression that they didn’t teach it. For certain, I’m going to keep studying with Madam Ge, because I like her style. But I’m increasingly tempted now. I seem to be getting to know a lot of people there, and it’s cheap – apparently only S$15 pa, which gives access to all the classes (that’s the price for Singaporeans, someone else tells me that it’s a bit more expensive for foreigners). I suppose I’m also tempted by the Association’s heritage. And that bagua form looks really interesting… plus, I have to say: my first meeting with Chin Woo, and my going to their anniversary demonstration, actually set in chain a series of major changes in my life (I’ll spare you the story, but believe me – significant changes for the better). So perhaps it’s just fated that I should join…

All the world’s a stage…

I once saw an empty doorframe, standing upright on a beach.

A few years ago, in what for me were the bad old days, I was walking along a beach just before dawn. It was a pebble beach, not sand, and kind of near town but still a bit out of the way. It was on my way home, though, and that’s where I was going. I’d spent the night out with friends: drinking, partying, talking about all kinds of stuff, and – this being a cold autumn – occasionally hiding out in public shelters to avoid the rain showers, and singing hymns because the signs on the wall said HYMN SINGING ON SUNDAYS.

So anyway, I got tired and decided to go home and, as I said, I had to walk along this beach to get home. There was nobody else anywhere nearby, this being 4 or 5 in the morning and all, and there was that eerie, otherworldy feeling you get when there’s no sound at all except the breakers and the hissing of the water pulling back through the rocks and your head’s full of silence and hymns. And, behold, there was this doorframe, standing upright and empty, in the middle of the beach and facing the waves and the great wide horizon.

If I had stepped through it, would I have been in the same place? If I was in the same place, would I have been the same person? I don’t know. I didn’t step through it. These are questions worth asking, though. They’re worth asking, because a doorway in the midst of wilderness taps deeply into our sense of myth, and draws upon our millenia as a species of asking questions about what on earth is really going on here. It doesn’t belong – but why not, and why is it there? If it’s here, maybe it’s for a reason. Maybe it hasn’t just been washed up by the sea and put upright by who knows who. Because our reality is artificial and constricted. William Gibson described cyberspace as “a consensual hallucination” but the description is just as apt for “the real world”… whatever that is. It’s a liminal experience.

A solitary doorway on the tideline challenges the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, and about the world we live in. We act according to unconscious streams of thought, and sometimes we encounter something that resonates, and we feel compelled to act without really knowing why.

That’s why I feel that I need to take, ahem, acting classes. I’ve known for a long time that very little is real – or, at least, as real as we like to think it is. Like all of us, I have several narrative versions of who I am; some are mutually incompatible, but they are all true, none the less. (I put it down to reading Michael Moorcock‘s Jerry Cornelius quartet at a young age).

Where do these stories come from, and what lies underneath? Studying baguazhang and taijiquan has helped, and is helping, to discipline and understand my body and, through the body, my mind. Studying Buddhism and meditation helps me to understand the mind and, through the mind, my body.  What’s lacking is a way of systematically examining the ways in which I interpret myself to the world, and the ways and means I employ to sway and motivate other people.  Seeing an advert for acting classes has triggered a response: I think this could be a really useful experience in terms of personal development and give me insight tools that I’m lacking(and, to be clear, my less-spiritual MBA self also sees advantages).  What do you think? Details are here.

Which card are you?

Hat tip to Mushtaq Ali:

You are The Wheel of Fortune

Good fortune and happiness but sometimes a species of
intoxication with success

The Wheel of Fortune is all about big things, luck, change, fortune. Almost always good fortune. You are lucky in all things that you do and happy with the things that come to you. Be careful that success does not go to your head however. Sometimes luck can change.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.