On our day off on Sunday, Michael, Hanwei, Rutger and me went downtown and bought ourselves some dinner at "Barbarian heaven". When we came back to school in the evening, one of the kids approached us saying something in Chinese to Michael and Hanwei, which resulted in a long and serious discussion. I wondered what it was about, and when I asked Michael he explained me that one of the Chinese kids that has been hanging out with us (the foreigners) had been bullied because of it. They called him a traitor to China, because he was hanging out with the "devils". Michael seemded very pissed about this; not because we were called "devils", but because it was sad that a boy would be bullied just because he was hanging out with foreigners. Gladly, though, the boy didn't seem to care and kept on hanging out with us anyway.
Shortly after that, the Master came to our room and invited us to come to his room and have some tea. I felt very honored, and modestly entered his room. He explained us how expensive Chinese tea can be, but because many people give it to him as a gift he has a huge collection of tea. I told him I knew all too well about tea being expensive in China.
After cooking some hot water, the master first poured half of the tea on the table for some reason. When I asked Michael, he told me that it was part of the ritual when drinking tea in China. When the Master poured some tea into our cups, we had to touch the table twice with two fingers, which is a way to show respect and gratefulness. The Master told us about how he hated it that Shaolin Kungfu has become so commercial the last few decades, and said that he felt it was his task to keep the real traditional Shaolin Kungfu unharmed. Therefore, he has been writing a book about true Shaolin Kungfu. He said that he also wanted to give more foreigners a chance to learn real Shaolin Kungfu in the future, and was therefore planning to create an international school.
On Monday morning, the hard training started again. In between trainings, I had a few sparring sessions with Michael. Apart from Shaolin Kungfu, he has been boxing back in England as well, and therefore his punches to the face were really fast. I also had the chance to spar with the coach who has been teaching me the last two weeks. He is a very quick and skilled fighter. Thanks to all these sparring sessions, I am slowly getting used to giving and taking punches to the face.
On Wednesday evening, we went to the Master's room to tell him that Rutger would leave the next day. The Master invited the four of us to have lunch with him next day before Rutger would leave. In his room, the Master showed us some of his moves. He has an incredible speed. I doubt that I have ever seen anyone that fast. I had to punch him once to the face, and before I knew it he had blocked my punch and gave me three or four back.
When I heard the alarm clock next morning, I really didn't feel like waking up to train. I was just so tired. The other guys in my room seemed to feel the same way, since no one even tried to move. Ah, let's just forget about it today and keep on sleeping, I thought, but when I closed my eyes, I started to feel so bad about myself that I couldn't sleep anymore. I didn't want to go and have lunch with the Master without even training. I jumped out of my bed, and left the room right away. Michael and Rutger also followed me, but Hanwei kept on sleeping happily in his warm bed.
On our way to lunch in the Master's car, everyone was sarcastically talking about Hanwei being such a serious Kungfu practicioner, but Hanwei didn't seem to care and just kept on laughing together with us. The dinner was great and I ate so much that my belly was about to explode, which made me worried about having to train again in a few hours. I didn't even want to think about it!
0 件のコメント:
コメントを投稿