chaoyang day 1

Related posts:

1. Chinese New Year in Chaoyang with Wu Di 吴迪

Enjoy! And If you’ve got any questions you want me to ask him, please message me on twitter.

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Wu Di

So, I’m going to make an effort to bring some of that stuff to all of you.  I had a quasi-interview with Wu Di back in June, which I just posted up a few weeks ago.  Not really a proper interview, but you gotta start somewhere, right?

Yue Xiao Yu

Then a week or two ago when Xiao Yu was in town I asked her to grant me an interview.  We got together for lunch the day before she headed back to her hometown and she answered my silly questions about wushu and life as an athlete.  I edited the video down to 9:57, and then found out that I had my youtube limit raised to 15 minutes.  Ah well, it takes an hour to upload the video from China to youtube so I don’t feel like waiting that long.

In the interview I should mention that Xiao Yu was rather tired from a lot of travel and taking care of various things in Xi’an and Dong Ming (her hometown in Shandong province).  Her mother wasn’t feeling well, she was taking care of final administrative tasks related to her retirement from competitive athletics, and had seen a lot of friends and colleagues during her trip.  It was very nice of her to take the time to meet up with me.  Many thanks to Xiao Yu.

Oh, and yes, the video quality and sound quality are rather poor.  I had forgotten my video camera so I was stuck with two HTC phone cameras with sub-par video capture capabilities.  It won’t happen again, I promise.

Future Interviews

In the future I plan to interview some other athletes and coaches.  Next up will probably be Yuan Min, a recently retired nanquan athlete from the Shaanxi Wushu Team who is now coaching youngsters here in Xi’an at the provincial sports center.

I also would like to interview Wu Ya Nan, Asian Games and Chinese National Champion (and soon-to-be World Champion?) who recently went to the U.S. to perform at the U.N. and other places.

After those two I will have to see where I am.  If I can do one interview a month I’ll be pretty happy, but we’ll see what my schedule (and their availability) turns up.

Hope you enjoy the offerings!  Thanks for watching.

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This time around Ruhi was also in town.  She had gone a couple days before me to attend a teacher training and she was going to leave a couple days before me too, but we would at least have a bit of time to share in the Capital City.

July 9, 2011 (Saturday)

Boarding my plane to Beijing

Once again I flew over, but this time I went to the big airport.  I met up with Ruhi in the Guo Mao area where we attended a gathering of International Friends.  It was also Ruhi’s 10 year anniversary of her arrival in China.  Can you imagine being in China for 10 years?  Talk about old school …

I got to see a bunch of friends that I don’t get to see very often.  Like Dayyan E, Brian D and many more.  Always nice to see friends from afar.  After attending the event we headed towards Wang Fu Jing where I had booked us in to a Motel 268, just across from Xin Dong An Plaza.  I had met Pierre and the Wushu West folks in the same place just a mere 14 days before.

We checked in to our hotel and then had to run another errand to pick up our train tickets to Xi’an.  A walk through WangFuJing to the #1 line, transfer to the #2 line and then a short walk brought us to the ticket agent where we grabbed our soft-sleeper huo che piao (train ticket), hers for Sunday night and mine for Tuesday night.

Brian D in the House!

Then we grabbed another cab, as we were off to meet up with Patti and James at her mother’s home for dinner.  For some reason I had mistakenly thought they were in Guo Mao, when they were actually near Gu Lou (Drum Tower), which is just behind Shi Cha Hai.  As we were going along our taxi broke down just in front of San Li Tun.  We took that as a sign and I went inside to get myself fitted for the suit I had ordered 2 weeks before.

Then back in the cab and a turn-around on the 3rd ring road as we realized we were going in the wrong direction.  After a nice stint in the Beijing traffic we finally ended up near Gu Lou Da Jie and were met up by James who walked us through the Hutong to the Hao household.  It was a lot of fun hanging out there and Ruhi got along really well with Patti’s mom.  Patti’s brother and sister-in-law were there too, and needless to say the Beijing home cooking was to die for.

Patti's mom

After a great meal with great company we walked out and caught a cab back to our hotel where I showered for the 3rd time that day (it’s muggy in China, yo!) and hit the sack.

July 10, 2011 (Sunday)

The next day Ruhi left in the morning to attend a documentary film review by National Georgraphic out in HaiDian.  I took my time waking up, packed up my things and checked out of the hotel.  But not before going on ctrip and booking another hotel room closer to Shi Cha Hai.

I walked down and caught the #1 subway line out to the Military Museum stop, close to the West Train Station.  It was there that I would hang out and wait for a bit until Ruhi came over from the hotel where the film review was being held.  I grabbed some late breakfast of Xiao Long Bao along the street and waited.

Mid-Morning Baozi

Ruhi was having problems with the hotel staff and taxi drivers.  None of them seemed to know where the west train station was or how to get there.  This turned out to be a total crock though, because after I met up with her and a quick look on G-Maps on my phone, we realized that she was literally a 10 minute walk from the train station.  It wasn’t that they didn’t know, it was that they didn’t want to take someone on such a short drive to such a crowded location.  So instead of just being honest with her and telling her she could just walk around the corner, they lied and gave her the run-around.  Pretty shifty.

We walked from the subway stop around the corner about 25 minutes and met up with Haidi and Mejdhi and their son Anis.   They are old friends of Ruhi’s who used to live in Xi’an and then went to Lanzhou.  They had just come to Beijing 2 weeks before and were still moving in to their apartment.

They took us to a very nice restaurant and then we spent some quality time in the afternoon at their home helping them unpack before we all walked Ruhi to the train station (25 minutes).  After dropping her off I walked back to the subway stop (another 25 minutes), took the subway close to my hotel and then walked through the hutongs (another 25 minutes) until I arrived.  By the time I go to the hotel my dogs were really barking and it was all I could do to make it to my room.  It wasn’t that the walking was intense — it was that I was lugging my backpack around with me at the same time.

I’m a light packer, but I was carrying my camera equipment with me too, so it was an extra 30 or 40 pounds or so, which took it’s toll after a while.

After checking in to the hotel I was rather hungry, so I walked across the street to a Xi’an restaurant and got some Rou Jia Mo and Biang Biang Mian, a couple of Xi’an specialties.  The folks there were from Xi’an too, so it was pretty authentic.  Tasted just like home.

Walking through Shi Cha Hai

I ate that, watched some videos on my laptop, and then hit the hay.

July 11, 2011 (Monday)

The next morning I slept in a bit and got myself ready.  I walked over to Shi Cha Hai where I figured James was training with the Sanda folks.  He had told me the day before that he was staying in room 214 but when I knocked no one was there.  When I went to the  Sanda Guan I didn’t see him there either.  So I gave him a call around 10:20 and it turned out that he was actually staying off campus.

I arranged with him to wait for him at the International Plaza Hotel lobby where he would make his way there after an hour or so.  Fast foward to 12:30 and no one had shown up yet.  I got a call from Patti who said they would meet me at Ya Xiu.  So, I grabbed a cab and went there (realizing that I could have spent the previous 2 hours checking things out in San Li Tun had i known I wouldn’t be meeting anyone at Shi Cha Hai.

I was able to pick up my suit from the tailor’s and walked around for a bit.   But then we had to head back to Shi Cha Hai (really?) to check out a rehearsal performance of the new wushu, acrobatic and chinese culture show entitled (appropriately enough) Shi Cha Hai.  It was in the new auditorium that was built behind the hotel (where the badminton hall used to be 5 or 10 years ago).  The show took a while to start but I spent some quality time with James discovering the world of Angry Birds.

His Taiji was excellent

The show was actually not that bad.  I wouldn’t say it is quite at the level of Ka, but the wushu is naturally quite good, especially anything done by Li Neng Miao or Fu Yang, who are both in the show.  The story is about two foreigners who are going around Beijing trying to find the “Kung Fu Panda” (yay for no copyright concerns in China?) and in the process they go around and meet all sorts of random creatures.  A Tiger King, a Snake Goddess, and others.  I didn’t take any video (go see it yourself!) but I did manage to snap some photos, which are fairly telling.

In the evening I had arranged for us to meet up with Alfred for a bite to eat and luckily Wu Di was able to join us having just returned from a trip to the ocean side.  His friend Jia Jia was there too, and even Colin Cook from the U.S. was in town to find some work.  So the group of us settled in to the Blue Frog and enjoyed some chicken burgers (they were out of beef!) and I even played a little pool with Wu Di.  (It turns out that this is the only sport I will probably ever be able to beat Wu Di at …)

He looks happy, even though I whooped him at Pool

It was nice hanging out with friends and catching up.  I hadn’t seen Alfred since before I had referred him for his current job, so I was very curious how he was and what he had been doing.  He’s working for my old boss, so its always interesting to compare notes about that experience.

After dinner we all made our way out.  Wu Di gave Alfred and Me a ride home and after getting dropped off near the hotel I took a shower and went to bed.

July 12, 2011 (Tuesday)

My last day had arrived!  My time flies when you’re only in Beijing for 4 days …

I packed up all my things and headed out the door to Wang Fu Jing where I was going to meet up with Pat, Stephen and Raffi at the offices of tom.com.  I ended up getting there a bit early, but soon enough Pat (who still looks the same) came in and took me to the AliveNotDead offices.  Alfred came a little bit later and we met Raffi downstairs and found a cafe where we could get some lunch and even Wu Di was able to meet up with us.

Patrick -- in a familiar pose.

More re-connecting and catching up ensued and after a nice meal and a quick walk back to the office it was time to get going.  Wu Di gave Alfred a ride to nowhere (Beijing traffic is crazy, I tell you) and then we went to Shi Cha Hai where he needed to drop off a few things in his room.  I was supposed to meet James so I went to the lobby of the hotel and we hung out for a while until Wu Di was ready to go.

Originally I was going to get a ride to the train station but he was running late to Ian Power’s wedding so he dropped me off down the street where I was able to catch a bus.  Actually, I could have caught the bus at Shi Cha Hai, which is good to know for future reference.  (A single bus ride from the train station to Shi Cha Hai is mighty convenient.)

An hour on the bus and I found myself at the train station.  With ticket in hand I made my way on to the train and got some shut-eye for the ride back to Xi’an.

Another trip to Beijing finished, and most likely the last one of the season. But I got to see a ton of people and it was definitely worthwhile.

We originally planned to head back after another 2 weeks, but our work schedules got the better of us and we had to stay in Xi’an.  I definitely don’t want to wait a whole year for another trip there.  Not to mention visiting Shanghai or Hong Kong at some point too.  We’ll have to wait and see what the travel gods have in store for me …

You can view all the photos below.  Just click on a thumbnail or use your arrow keys to navigate back and forth.

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Related posts:

1. Four Days in Beijing

Most of the pictures in this entry I took with my camera phone, since I didn’t bring my DSLR with me on this trip.  But I did bring my video camera so I was able to get some decent footage of the Beijing wushu practices.  (About time too, since it’s been like 10 months since I posted up any wushu footage.)  They’ll get posted up as soon as I’m able to do some editing (and get my VPN working).

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Nanyang Airport

In my first trip I flew in to the new(ish) NanYang airport, located to the south of Beijing.  It is basically a big strip of concrete next to a building which they call an “airport”.  Wu Di told me it used to be a military airport but has been converted for commercial and shipping use.  It is a bit cheaper to fly in to this airport, but the transportation in to the city is not nearly as good.  They have a few buses, and no subway.  Also the taxi drivers are not all that helpful and don’t even know where the nearest train station is (or at least they pretend they don’t).

I met up with the Wushu West folks in Wang Fu Jing where they were on a shopping outing.  It was good to see Pierre, Eddie, Lauren, Ely and the rest of them.  We grabbed some grub and then headed back to Shi Cha Hai.

Pierre at McDonald's

At Shi Cha Hai I ran in to Sifu Fong, Mrs. Fong, Marla, Ben and a few other SF Wushu folks.  I didn’t know they would be there so it was a pleasant surprise.  I also didn’t know Marla had been in China for the past year, which just goes to show that I either need to keep better track of people, or Marla is avoiding me.

The first night I also met up with Wu Di and two of his friends, Jia Jia an actress and TV producer and Tony, a stunt director from Hong Kong who used to work for Jackie Chan.  He looked really familiar which means that I’ve probably seen him get beat up in films a bunch of times.  We hung out in the hutong area near JaoDaKou, which was quite nice.  Wu Di was taking off on a quick trip to Xiamen, which meant I wouldn’t be able to spend any time with him, but as a parting gift he let me crash at his apartment in Shuang Jing (双井) so at least I had a place to stay.

The Hao Family

Sunday, June 25, 2011

The next day I met up with Pierre and we hung out at Ya Xiu where I got measured for a new suit.  I didn’t have a standard black suit with a white shirt, so I thought it would be good to get that as my primary suit.  (It isn’t like I can wear my wedding suit to a business meeting, right?).  In the evening I went with Wushu West to eat some yummy Beijing Roast Duck.  I hadn’t had duck since my trip the summer before so it was long overdue.

It was also nice to see Patti’s mom again since I haven’t seen her in several years.  For some reason she looks the same as she did 15 years ago.  She must have some good, clean Hutong living going on.

Monday, June 26, 2011

Of course, this was the day I was anxious to get to, since it meant I could check out the wushu practice.  Unbeknownst to me, I would be practicing as well.  The day before Patti told me (while I was stuffing my face with duck, no less) that I would be practicing the next day.  *gulp*  I hadn’t practiced since my trip to the U.S. a month before, and the time before that was back in October.  3 trainings in 10 months goes not bode well.

So, after picking up my train ticket back to Xi’an, I went over to Shi Cha Hai and prepared myself for the practice.  I got a knee sleeve with Pierre and Nina (who had just arrived) down the street and borrowed a pair of Pierre’s feiyue’s (the same ones I used a month before in Berkeley), making sure to get to the wushu guan nice and early to stretch out.

Li Neng Miao

Li Neng Miao was the coach for the Wushu West group this time around, and it was great to see him again.  He’s no longer competing, but he’s involved in the new “Shi Cha Hai” show being put on by the school in their new auditorium (where the badminton hall and visitor dorms used to be waaaay back in the day).  I was actually able to keep up with basics, but just as I had mustered up the courage to do a section of my form the class ended and they broke for conditioning.  Shoot.  I guess it would have to wait until next time.

On the carpet next to us was the current A team members, which really is just comprised of a few folks, Wang Xin being the one I’m most familiar with.  We had a nice chat while stretching out before class and he was a friendly as ever.  And yes, his wushu was as bad-ass as ever.  Made my eyes water, it did.

After workout I grabbed a shower in Pierre’s room and then we headed back to Ya Xiu again (what is it with that place?)  I ended up buying a really nice backpack.  In fact, it is sort of my dream backpack.  Back in 2009 I drew a design for the backpack I wish I had, complete with camera compartment, big laptop area (with side loading zipper) and a roomy main area.  Low-and-behold I found the bag I was looking for, and it was just 300 RMB (originally 900 RMB, but that’s bargaining for you).  I was quite happy.

Eddie at the Italian Restaurant

After Ya Xiu Patti, Pierre, Eddie and I headed around the corner to eat at a nice Italian place in San Li Tun called Ciro’s.  After a while we were joined by a few more Wushu West folks but eventually I had to head out because I had some work to do (had to finish my grading for the Spring semester and turn them in).  On the way out I ran in to Wu Di’s friend, Jia Jia, which was pretty neat.

Tuesday, June 27, 2011

The next day I packed up my things and said goodbye to Wu Di’s apartment (technically his old apartment, as he doesn’t live there anymore) and went to Shi Cha Hai to watch a final practice session (and snag some more vids).  Li Neng Miao put everyone through their paces, teaching lots of new forms for people (a nice nandao for Pierre and Nina, broadsword for Eddie, etc.) and then, just as quick as it started, my trip was finished.

My train to Xi'an

I said my goodbye’s to everyone and caught a cab over to the West train station for my 8:03 PM soft-sleeper train back to Xi’an.  I just have been pretty tired because I managed to sleep up until the moment we pulled in to Xi’an train station on Wednesday morning at 8:10 AM.  A bus and taxi ride later and I was back home, ready to get back in to the swing of work.

I took another trip to Beijing just 2 weeks later, but It will take me a few days to pull all of that together for you.  No vids on the second trip, but a lot more photos.  So stay tuned for that.

Related posts:

1. Four More Days in Beijing

Monday morning was practice.  9:00 AM in the Wushu Hall.  Actually all practices this week are at 9:00 and 3:30 in the upstairs wushu hall, so at least it is consistent.   Everyone was working hard, and down on the far carpet was Liu Qing Hua’s group.  Since it was just the two of us, we got to be on the blue carpet.  Yay!  For myself, I primarily focused on the first section of my nangun (Southern Staff) form.  I’m working on making a new one this week so each day I’m creating a new section.

After class was lunch and then I spent some time in the afternoon working in my room.  The afternoon class came and went as well, and I spent that time working on more nangun.

I’m not sure what everyone did in the evening, but I spent the whole time working on my computer, so this is why I didn’t end up writing much in the blog.

Tuesday was another morning training (of course). Unfortunately Myles hurt his ankle so had to sit out the rest of the day.  Jennifer said she tweaked her ankle as well.  Hopefully they’ll both be back in full form soon.

After the morning practice I spent 20 minutes or so working on my nangun form after everyone left.  However, Liu Qi and Zhang Ye Xin were still there so I talked to them for a while and had them record a video so they could greet everyone in America.

In the afternoon I went to the airport with Lauren to pick up her mom, Susan and younger brother, Travis.  Once again we were blessed by the airport gods and they came out of the terminal just as we walked up to the door.

We got back to Shi Cha Hai just in time to go watch most of the training.  Lauren quickly changed and I spent some time either talking with Susan and Travis, helping Wu Di with some conditioning, or working on my nangun.  It was Tiger’s last time teaching us, as he would be leaving the next day for a competition in ZhengZhou, Henan.  Actually, we will see him there since he will still be in town when we go to check out the Shaolin Temple.  We grabbed a group photo for posterity.

After class I was asked to go to a Japanese restaurant with Wu Di, who had also invited Shahaub, Patti, Cary and Jennifer.  It happened to be the same restaurant I ate at last November, also with Wu Di.  We had a good amount of food and naturally I took some photos:

After that Patti and Cary went back to Shi Cha Hai, and the rest of us walked down the street to digest our food.  We also grabbed a quick cone at McDonald’s before catching a cab back to the school.

Tomorrow we have two different coaches training us.  I’ll be sure to snap a few photos and post them up.

Related posts:

1. Beijing – Day 7 & 8: Training Next to the Pros
2. Beijing – Day 3: A Look at Training
3. Beijing – Day 2: The Training Begins and Tyler’s Birthday

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Edit 7/27: Swapped out videos with youtube embeds

First, sorry for the delay.  I haven’t had as much time to blog these days.  I’m going to recap Day 7 and 8 here.  But first, here are a few pictures from Day 6 that I didn’t have time to post earlier.

Here are some nice taro treats that they served during lunch.  Sifu Patti asked me to take some pictures of them:

Next, I was really surprised to run into an old friend of mine here.  Liu Qi used to be on the Shanghai Wushu Team and trained in the hall near mine.  We used to hang out quite often back in 2006, but she went back to Gansu with her coach and I haven’t seen her since then (or heard about her).  I was super surprised to run into her here and we had a nice time catching up.  Here is a Pepsi she gave me when we first ran in to each other.

In the evening I went to get a massage with Myles and we also got some Qian Bing and Tang Su Li Ji (just for you, Jenn! ) which he had never had either of before.  It was delicious!

Now, back to Day 7.

Since the quaratine is over, we are able to train in the wushu halls next to actual other human beings. A nice change of pace.

The morning practice was in the underground wushu hall. We started at 8:00 AM, which was rather early for us. At 9:00 AM some of the professional-type athletes came in. It was Mr. And Mrs. Zhang’s group (two old teammates of Patti’s who are coaches here).  The Mr. coaches taiji athletes and the Mrs. coaches kids around the teen-ish years. The kids were doing conditioning for their class, but the taiji folks were in full force so a bunch of stuck around after class to watch them.  Very amazing.  The Macau Team was also there training and we got to see them go as well.  Also very good.

Our workouts were no longer quaratined, but our meals still were.  We hadn’t moved to the big lunch room yet, but that was okay, because the small one is kind of nice.  We get all the same foods, without the same crowds.  Plus, Myles loves his Yogurt drinks.

The afternoon practice was in the main wushu hall.  It was our first time training there, and we were doing it next to the pro’s, no less.  Here, Tyler shares his thoughts on the training so far.

And just because we can, here is a picture of Wu Di’s abs …

The evening was spent hanging out in the hotel.  Not too much to report about that.

Day 8

Finally we could eat in the main cafeteria.  Here are some pictures of us, as well as Noah hiding his new haircut.

The morning training at 9:00 – 11:00 was in the main upstairs Wushu Hall again.  I think this is the best hall to train in, because you are next to lots of professionals doing wushu.  The downstairs hall just doesn’t have the same feeling of “awe” for me.  (Plus it kind of feels like a dungeon.)  Myles was kind enough to record a section of my nanquan for posterity.  Hopefully this is the last time it will suck quite so bad:

After lunch I went to Noah and Jonah’s room to record their messages for the folks back home (i.e. you).  Here is a video of them:

The afternoon training was, once again, in the upstairs wushu hall.  Since I don’t train in the afternoons, I just made sure that all the Wushu West students got to class on time (2 people were late — the same 2 that were late the other day…) and once I had done that I went to go pick up some shirts that I had ordered at Ya Xiu.  Yay for tailoring!  After that we came back and had dinner in the cafeteria.

In the evening my room became the social hub for Wushu West, with people playing games on one laptop and watching movies on the other.  Liu Qi and Wu Di both dropped by the room as well.  I got a bit over stimulated so I grabbed a book and went down to the lobby to read for a while.  Soon enough it was time for bed.

And thus ends Days 7 and 8.

Related posts:

1. Beijing – Day 13/14: Training and New Arrivals
2. Beijing – Day 3: A Look at Training
3. Beijing – Day 6: Last Day of Quarantine