Ouch. I'm hurting. I thought I'd try something different this weekend, so I asked a good friend to submit me to a beating. I let him have two go's at it, the second time using a stick. For good measure, he let me have a stick too, to defend myself, but it didn't make much of a difference. To be honest, it's not so much the beating I got that hurts (although my nose hurst a little from when he gave me a good punch straight in the face) but rather the times he'd let me hit him. I hurt in strange places. For some reason my legs hurt a lot, because you need to move around alot and use your legs to push your body forward when you make a punch. Or something like that.
The unarmed combat was actually under the supervision of a Wing Chun teacher. Wing Chun is that martal art style that Bruce Lee made famous. The teacher was some sort of ex-bodyguard and had adapted this style to the situations you'd find on a street. His aim, he said, was to teach you to fight wearing a suit and an overcoat, and possibly even wearing bullet proof west. Sounded pretty hardcore, but I suspect it may just have been an excuse not to teach us how to kick.
The stick fighting was really really fun, and my friend has actually worked as an instructor. Stick fighting uses less force and places more emphasis on defense. The latter makes a lot of sense. While you can take a punch or a kick, you really don't want to allow a stick to hit you. So you train a much more defensive posture.
It was a busy weekend. I didn't just attend my first fighting classes, I had my first real chinese lesson! I've enlisted a personal tutor who will visit me at the office three times a week. We agreed that I've reached an intermediate level, so we will focus our time on chatting rather than working with texts. Also, the fighting has really taken it's toll on my hands, so I can't write using a pen and paper. I'm even finding it difficult to press the space bar writing this! So for a while we'll just be practicing talking and listening skills.
It does appear that I might have the edge on this language. Chinese is actually quite easy, it's just that they've made it more difficult by using those beautiful but stupid chinese sings instead of an alphabet. However, I find it really enjoyable to learn these characters, I enjoy searching for the system behind these signs and can spend hours just exploring new characters. However, this is usually considered the worst and most boring part of the language, so many westerners skip it altogether. I'm coming to this languages enjoying it's most difficult part, so now that I'll start taking classes, hopefully I will be able to pick it up quickly. We'll see
Not only did I start my martial arts training and chinese tuition. I also explored my new shopping addiction a little further. It's mad living in Causeway bay, whenever I go out for a chicken with rice or just out for a little walk, I'm confronted with one of the more hectic shopping areas in the world. All these bargain, shiny products screaming out at me from displays under strong, attention grabbing lights.
I've realized that my approach to shopping has been completely wrong up to now. Having bought some nice jeans and a really italian-looking blue shirt, I realized that I needed white shoes+belt for this set to look it's best. As the jeans+shirt had cost a lot of money, I thought maybe now I'll head off to the bargain market over on Kowloon side. Now, Causeway Bay may be one of the busier shopping districts I know of, but Mong Kok in Kowloon is definately the busiest in the world. It's streets after streets of pulsing crowds, shops, stalls and restaurants. You think it will end at some point, but it just slowly transitions from extremely busy to very busy, and then goes on forever. After browsing the stalls for a while I understood two things:
- Escalation: once you buy an expensive piece of clothing, it requires quite a lot of will power to buy something cheaper to go with it.
- Priorities: you don't go cheap on accessories. You can save money on your clothes, but not on your bag, belt, shoes and sunglasses.
So, I quickly gave up on the busiest district in the world and headed back to the high end brand stuff and got myself a nice belt and some nice lamb skin shoes. Yes, I've overspent, but I'm writing this off as learning-related expense. Wearing an expensive shirt with cheap shoes is NOT the thing to do. While wearing the belt to end all belts with cheap old jeans and a dirty t-shirt could definately work. Now, I just bought an ordinary nice belt in the end and instead spent the money on the lamb skin shoes. I wore the shirt, jeans, white shoes+belt out on Saturday and overall I must say it was a pretty good show. It was a bit too much, but then I knew that beforehand- but sometimes you just really really want to wear all the new things you bought, right.
Speaking of going out, I headed off to Cyber in Kowloon in my new outfit. Partying in Cyber is not really the thing to do if you're a westerner, but I quite enjoy hanging out with the young cantonese hamsters. They listen to some very suspect music, but I quite enjoy it. And going against the trend (usually the cantonese come visit us in our ghetto, rather than the other way around) earns you quite a bit of attention both on the cantonese side and back in the ghetto.
All in all, wow what a busy weekend! I've broken myself financially, but I've learned many things about shopping and about the cantonese clubbing traditions. I've broken myself physically, but learned to keep my body tight and how to throw a good right hand punch. I'm still living in a rat-hole, but I'm learning Chinese. Excellent.
