time to stop lurking for long enough to say this:
never was very impressed with the training in shanghai, tianjin, or taipei. most of the Chinese folk I have met, even some with big names, really suck. some of them are great, like totally mind blowingly awesome, but only a few and not all of them are willing to share with you. I still haven't met anyone over here as good as my teacher, but on the other hand, I did manage to learn all about tea, erhu, gu qin, I can read classical Chinese now, planning a masters degree about the relationship between dao de jing and meditation at ubc, and still doing gongfu every day.
never been in a competition, never will be, not my reason for practicing. My shoulder is messed up from sanda, so I don't spar that much, i only ever push hands when forced now, but guys like jon niklin from the board can attest to my skills in that department. My MA training may seem less serious that when I showed up in Shanghai, but my life is way more colourful and good than it used to be before coming here.
Don't knock it till you've tried it.