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One is Julia, a lovely black-haired Chinese woman in her 30s, slim and flirtatious. She is dressed in loose silky trousers and a flowing overshirt of nylon fabric so thin her bra is visible. I am a brown-haired American, in my 40s and not slim in the hips. I wear blue jeans and a green t-shirt. We both face a man who could be in his 40s or 50s—it is hard to tell because he is so smiling and lively. His name is Yü AnRen and he is the only surviving heritage master of an internal martial art called Wudang Tai Yi You Long Gongfu: Wudang Supreme Ultimate Swimming Dragon GongFu.
A series of benign accidents brought me to Hunan University of Western Medicine to teach English to doctors for a year in 1991. Julia was one of my Chinese colleagues in the Foreign Language Department. Besides English, she practiced many movement arts and also qi gong. Julia encouraged me to attend university dances in a cavernous multipurpose hall where medical students taught me jazzy Chinese swing, and she whirled me in dramatic waltzes that charmed all the men. The first time she collected me at my apartment, she wandered through touching things lightly, exclaiming how interesting it all was.
Our Foreign Teachers house was brick, not concrete like most buildings on campus. We had wood floors and a large library. In my rooms, I had hung the walls with calendars (both U.S. and Chinese), with souvenir tickets from local parks, photos of friends, and a swoop of pale Chinese silk. The university had provided two bookcases (which I filled), two desks, a wardrobe, a TV, and a four-poster bed with mosquito netting. The other three foreign teachers had rooms that were equally well-appointed. Our windows even had screens to keep bugs out.
"No room for dancing!" Julia said archly when her inspection was complete, and we clattered downstairs to the dance hall.
Some evenings, I looked out my screened window and saw people in the concrete courtyard below, moving together in lines. They had a boom box and an audiotape that seemed to give instructions in a deep, spooky Chinese voice. A single lightbulb strung between trees swung shadows eerily around the circle of yellow light. A student told me the people were practicing qi gong, and I asked if I could join them.
"Nononono," my students said. "Too dangerous. Qi can get into your brain. Make you crazy. Here—we'll teach you tai ji."
"I can get tai ji in the U.S.," I said. "I want to learn something the people of China do."
"Nononono," they said. "Too difficult. Takes too long. You're only here for one year."
"That's OK," said a lone voice. "She'll never learn it anyway."
Word of my interest circulated somehow, and one night Julia and I were invited to a party. We entered another concrete room, furnished like hers. The big round table was laden with teacups, rice wine, oranges, and bowls of peanuts and sunflower seeds in the shell. Chairs, some wooden, some soft, were pushed against the wall to make dancing room. There was the functional concrete floor and—an elegant touch—a lamp cover handmade by artful slicing of a liter-sized soda bottle tied over the bulb hanging in the middle of the room. I had to dodge this when dancing, because I was taller than most of my partners.
Almost no one at the party spoke English so, between dances, I sat on a kind of bed with bolsters, being offered mandarin oranges and letting shadowy sounds and images flow by. At one point, Julia bounced up beside me, gesturing toward some laughing men.
"He has agreed to teach us! Yü AnRen! He will teach us yo long gongfu and I will translate!"
"Is that good?" I asked.
"Yes!" she exclaimed. "He is very famous!"
I looked at three men talking together, and could not tell which was the famous master, though I could see which one Julia started to flirt with.
Our time learning Swimming Dragon GongFu in Julia's living room went wonderfully. Mr. Yü was patient, skilled, and had a great sense of humor. After our twice-a-week lessons, Julia pulled her round table to the center of the room and gave us tea in mugs. She and Mr. Yü talked, laughed, and sang Chinese songs. With Julia translating, Mr. Yü taught us bits of the Daoist philosophy that underlies yo long gongfu, and I learned a couple of their songs. Julia once told Mr. Yü that it might be hard for me to practice Swimming Dragon in my rooms, because they were so full.
"Yin and yang, empty and full!" he exclaimed happily. "You bring empty inside full, full inside empty. This is Daoism!"
He stood and turned a circle with his arms outstretched, showing this was all I needed in my room. Then he did a bit of yo long gongfu within that imaginary empty space.
Two months passed. We had learned all sixty moves of the Swimming Dragon form, and Mr. Yü evaluated us on each. I was above average on only two moves but still felt pleased. When I started I had been a complete novice. Mr. Yü declared that we had earned the right to wear outfits—a white silk jacket and loose white pants—like he wore when he performed publically. Not silk, really, but silky polyester.
Julia and I bought fabric, buttons, and elastic, for ourselves and for Mr. Yü, as a small gift for teaching us. Julia got some thread and a packet of needles. The next week, Mr. Yü led us to the apartment of the seamstress who would make our clothes.
It was what Dickens would call a hovel. It was square and bare. A concrete box with an unscreened window in one wall and a doorway in the other. The door opened onto a courtyard surrounded by two floors of similar rooms. The seamstress had a table, a chair, and a thin mattress rolled up against one wall. No pictures. No sofa or tea cup. No wardrobe for clothes. No waste basket. No sewing machine. Just a square table and a wooden chair. On the table were a pair of scissors and a box of pins. Julia laid the materials we had brought beside them.
The seamstress picked up a piece of the fabric and started laying it politely along our bodies. She put pins here and there to mark the length of a leg, the width of a back. There was some argument about my hips.
I pointed out that my Chinese companions had narrow hips, not much wider than their waists, but that I, a burly American, went much further out. Julia gestured and explained. Mr. Yü and the seamstress glanced at one another in disbelief. I suggested that we measure. The room fell still.
Everyone shifted their eyes around without moving their heads. The seamstress looked under the chair. She went outside and came back shaking her head.
This was the home of a seamstress. For her profession, she had a table and a chair, a pair of scissors and some pins, plus what we brought for our order. She did not have a measuring tape. She did not have a piece of string. Empty.
I was surprised but, after eight months in China, I knew there was no need to pity her. She had an apartment of her own and (by law) all the rice and cooking oil she needed every year. Somewhere nearby was a kitchen and a toilet she could use. But her room reminded me of how much we have in America, no matter who we are. There is string lying here on the ground. There is perfectly good food and fabric in the trash. Full.
The seamstress did not pity herself, nor did she seem to envy us. She was a professional, and she had a good eye. She made each of us fine outfits, and they all fitted very well.
* * *
A series of benign accidents brought me to Hunan University of Western Medicine to teach English to doctors for a year in 1991. Julia was one of my Chinese colleagues in the Foreign Language Department. Besides English, she practiced many movement arts and also qi gong. Julia encouraged me to attend university dances in a cavernous multipurpose hall where medical students taught me jazzy Chinese swing, and she whirled me in dramatic waltzes that charmed all the men. The first time she collected me at my apartment, she wandered through touching things lightly, exclaiming how interesting it all was.
Our Foreign Teachers house was brick, not concrete like most buildings on campus. We had wood floors and a large library. In my rooms, I had hung the walls with calendars (both U.S. and Chinese), with souvenir tickets from local parks, photos of friends, and a swoop of pale Chinese silk. The university had provided two bookcases (which I filled), two desks, a wardrobe, a TV, and a four-poster bed with mosquito netting. The other three foreign teachers had rooms that were equally well-appointed. Our windows even had screens to keep bugs out.
"No room for dancing!" Julia said archly when her inspection was complete, and we clattered downstairs to the dance hall.
Some evenings, I looked out my screened window and saw people in the concrete courtyard below, moving together in lines. They had a boom box and an audiotape that seemed to give instructions in a deep, spooky Chinese voice. A single lightbulb strung between trees swung shadows eerily around the circle of yellow light. A student told me the people were practicing qi gong, and I asked if I could join them.
"Nononono," my students said. "Too dangerous. Qi can get into your brain. Make you crazy. Here—we'll teach you tai ji."
"I can get tai ji in the U.S.," I said. "I want to learn something the people of China do."
"Nononono," they said. "Too difficult. Takes too long. You're only here for one year."
"That's OK," said a lone voice. "She'll never learn it anyway."
Word of my interest circulated somehow, and one night Julia and I were invited to a party. We entered another concrete room, furnished like hers. The big round table was laden with teacups, rice wine, oranges, and bowls of peanuts and sunflower seeds in the shell. Chairs, some wooden, some soft, were pushed against the wall to make dancing room. There was the functional concrete floor and—an elegant touch—a lamp cover handmade by artful slicing of a liter-sized soda bottle tied over the bulb hanging in the middle of the room. I had to dodge this when dancing, because I was taller than most of my partners.
Almost no one at the party spoke English so, between dances, I sat on a kind of bed with bolsters, being offered mandarin oranges and letting shadowy sounds and images flow by. At one point, Julia bounced up beside me, gesturing toward some laughing men.
"He has agreed to teach us! Yü AnRen! He will teach us yo long gongfu and I will translate!"
"Is that good?" I asked.
"Yes!" she exclaimed. "He is very famous!"
I looked at three men talking together, and could not tell which was the famous master, though I could see which one Julia started to flirt with.
Our time learning Swimming Dragon GongFu in Julia's living room went wonderfully. Mr. Yü was patient, skilled, and had a great sense of humor. After our twice-a-week lessons, Julia pulled her round table to the center of the room and gave us tea in mugs. She and Mr. Yü talked, laughed, and sang Chinese songs. With Julia translating, Mr. Yü taught us bits of the Daoist philosophy that underlies yo long gongfu, and I learned a couple of their songs. Julia once told Mr. Yü that it might be hard for me to practice Swimming Dragon in my rooms, because they were so full.
"Yin and yang, empty and full!" he exclaimed happily. "You bring empty inside full, full inside empty. This is Daoism!"
He stood and turned a circle with his arms outstretched, showing this was all I needed in my room. Then he did a bit of yo long gongfu within that imaginary empty space.
Two months passed. We had learned all sixty moves of the Swimming Dragon form, and Mr. Yü evaluated us on each. I was above average on only two moves but still felt pleased. When I started I had been a complete novice. Mr. Yü declared that we had earned the right to wear outfits—a white silk jacket and loose white pants—like he wore when he performed publically. Not silk, really, but silky polyester.
Julia and I bought fabric, buttons, and elastic, for ourselves and for Mr. Yü, as a small gift for teaching us. Julia got some thread and a packet of needles. The next week, Mr. Yü led us to the apartment of the seamstress who would make our clothes.
It was what Dickens would call a hovel. It was square and bare. A concrete box with an unscreened window in one wall and a doorway in the other. The door opened onto a courtyard surrounded by two floors of similar rooms. The seamstress had a table, a chair, and a thin mattress rolled up against one wall. No pictures. No sofa or tea cup. No wardrobe for clothes. No waste basket. No sewing machine. Just a square table and a wooden chair. On the table were a pair of scissors and a box of pins. Julia laid the materials we had brought beside them.
The seamstress picked up a piece of the fabric and started laying it politely along our bodies. She put pins here and there to mark the length of a leg, the width of a back. There was some argument about my hips.
I pointed out that my Chinese companions had narrow hips, not much wider than their waists, but that I, a burly American, went much further out. Julia gestured and explained. Mr. Yü and the seamstress glanced at one another in disbelief. I suggested that we measure. The room fell still.
Everyone shifted their eyes around without moving their heads. The seamstress looked under the chair. She went outside and came back shaking her head.
This was the home of a seamstress. For her profession, she had a table and a chair, a pair of scissors and some pins, plus what we brought for our order. She did not have a measuring tape. She did not have a piece of string. Empty.
I was surprised but, after eight months in China, I knew there was no need to pity her. She had an apartment of her own and (by law) all the rice and cooking oil she needed every year. Somewhere nearby was a kitchen and a toilet she could use. But her room reminded me of how much we have in America, no matter who we are. There is string lying here on the ground. There is perfectly good food and fabric in the trash. Full.
The seamstress did not pity herself, nor did she seem to envy us. She was a professional, and she had a good eye. She made each of us fine outfits, and they all fitted very well.
* * *
A note on Chinese spelling and pronunciation: Do you remember when the capital of China was Peking, now spelled Beijing? That is the difference between how the sounds of Chinese were spelled by the British and how the Chinese prefer to write them today. Mostly, English speakers do OK by speaking Chinese words as they are spelled in our alphabet, but not always. In case you are not current on how to pronounce Chinese pinyin spellings, here are guides for the trickier sounds in this memoir:
You long gongfu is pronounced "yo long gong-foo." Qi gong = "chee gong." Tai ji = "Tie gee." Daoist = "daowist."
You long gongfu is pronounced "yo long gong-foo." Qi gong = "chee gong." Tai ji = "Tie gee." Daoist = "daowist."