The past few days China blog 2

The past few days
Date: 01-05-2008
Location: Beijing,China
Written and translated from Dutch by Ester van Dam

The past few days were unforgettable like everyday seems to be here. Every day In TianTan park it is busy with people doing all kind of activities. Today we saw a lady with a fine pink feather on top of her head she was juggling with a small ball, trying to keep it up with her feet. Yesterday there was an old man in a wheelchair who was accompanying himself with some Chinese castanets like instrument while he was singing loudly.
Later when we were walking our Bagua circles, I saw somebody from the corner of my eye, hanging upside down in a tree. In certain things Chinese people are definetly more free then we are in the Netherlands. The Dutch like to pat themselves on the chest and say they are so liberal and free, but to be honest many things are frowned upon. There is a saying in Dutch that roughly translated goes as followed: “Act normal that is already crazy enough”.
The past few days we have trained a lot. We walked Bagua circles, did Qinna, TaiChi and Pushhands (Tui Shou). Today we got the change to practice with some of the Chinese students of Xu Laoshi. That was quite a challenge. When we explained that in the Netherlands hardly anything is allowed in Tui Shou they were stunned. In China almost anything is allowed, the idea is to mimic a real fight as realistically as possible. So anything from sweeps, qinna, throwing, grabbing, or pushing with plenty of force, using the whole body and ofcourse moving around is allowed, even encouraged. Xu laoshi showed us plenty of ways to make things pretty difficult for a Dutch style opponent and still (almost) stick to the rules.
Yesterday it was sweet to see how Maarten got tightly taken by the hand by Xu Laoshi while we were crossing the street. Not only is he an incredible good teacher he is very protective and concerned about our well being. He showed us what the normal prices are, were we can safely eat, he is very worried about us being taken for a ride (paying too much because we are non Chinese). Sometimes we feel like little toddlers safely following mother geese into the big wide world. And then again during a lesson you are suddenly tightly put into a qinna lock and he will smilingly explain to you that this is most effective! And I can assure you it is!
See you tomorrow!