So, here I am! Chen Zhao Sen’s tai chi school in Chen Jia Gou. I’ve been here for almost two weeks now, and feel settled in the sense that it seems like I’ve been here for ages, Hong Kong seems forever ago, but at the same time I’m still trying to adjust to the reality of my new life.
The school I chose is small, at the moment there are seven students of all sorts of levels from complete beginners to highly advanced. I’m the only Western student, though I have seen another Westerner in the village. There are two coaches, Zhou Yan Fei who is amazing and who I’ve been working with, and another young guy who for some reason reminds me of Tin Tin, and as I don’t know his name, that’s how I think of him! There’s June who works as a translator and office person but who is also a highly accomplished tai chi practitioner. There’s the cook who is really kind in an earthy way and who will re-fill your bowl as many times as he can get away with. Then there is Grandmaster Chen himself and his family, including a very cute baby grandson.
Grandmaster Chen is pretty cool. I’ve met a few Chinese and Korean tai chi masters now and there have been some colourful characters amongst them, but Mr. Chen seems to be very laid back and down to earth. There’s a nice egalitarian feel to his school and it’s VERY informal, way more so than the last place I was at where there was lights-out at 9.30, Monday morning room inspections (yes, really!) and line-ups and so on. I wasn’t expecting that this time, but the level of informality did shock me at the beginning; people sitting down during training time?! Whatever next?!
At the moment because it’s cold and dark, there are only six hours of training (do you like the ‘only’?) and they don’t start until a very respectable 9am. I had expected a pre-breakfast chi kung session at least but there isn’t one, and I’m not getting up at 6 to make one on my own! It’s way to chilly for that! So there’s three hours between breakfast and lunch, then three more between lunch and dinner and usually I do a bit of chi kung at some point in the day.
I am glad I learnt some Chinese before I came here; it’s definitely helped,though perhaps more outside the school than inside it at the moment. I’ve just found out that a lot of the students here aren’t actually speaking Mandarin a lot of the time but their own regional dialects, which makes me feel a lot better about not being able to understand anything! After my experience in Hong Kong I decided I could do a better job teaching myself, so I’ve got a book to work through and am enjoying learning new words and ways of joining them together. And it’s really satisfying when I say something and a Chinese person understands me, though it’s much harder to understand what they say back to me! I can recognise a few characters now, and hopefully by the time I leave I’ll have enough to be able to read a bit.
Everyone at the school has been extremely friendly and welcoming. June especially has helped a lot, but I’ve felt more homesick the last few days than I have since the start of the trip. It’s quite up and down. Sometimes I’m really happy, usually when I’m training, sometimes quite unhappy. Then I really wonder what am I doing and why am I doing it? I could be at home in my cosy little flat. I could have bought a puppy! I could be watching football and drinking Harvey’s Best in the pub. I have to remind myself that when I was in my cosy flat, I spent all my time thinking about being here! Aren’t we crazy creatures! Never happy with where we are and always wanting to be in a different place or time. The truth is that I actually am ‘living my dream’. It’s not an easy dream to live, but there are not that many people who manage to follow their hearts, and I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity. Even if it means missing Spurs’ best season for decades.
