Park incident, China

[Trick]

Yes ,probably occopying the old man's(or someone he know's) practice spot. I have now lived a couple of years in China and have been practising(in the mornings)in the same park during these years. If i would go the park in the afternoon for practice i would go to the very same spot i train with "my" group in the mornings. I would feel disrespectful if i chose some of the other groups practice area. Well Said that, the stranges park incident i so far have had, one morning about 7.00am sitting on a bench changin to my traning sneakers, a woman dressed up very "nightclubished" sits down close to me and begin stroking my arm and ask, massage ?. Another incident of the more aggressiv kind, i usually stay to practice on my own after the regular group practice, i was going through some forms practice when this guy that clearly looks as one of those "gangsta" guys comes up stares at me for a while then begins to hit a tree with his forearms all the while staring at me, after about ten minutes he gives up and walk away probably with painful arms.

[Michael]

I used to practice in this spot in the park kind of early, it was off a main road inside the park where lots of people walked by at all hours. I think I started doing it at 6AM and no one was there. It only took about a week and more and more people who played netless badminton and other games started showing up earlier and earlier, place was getting crowded. So, I started at 5:30 AM. Within a week or two, they came earlier. So I thought I'd come and do my Taiji forms practice at 5:00 and get in a solid half hour before the crowd showed. Nope, within a week many of them were coming 10 or 15 minutes after me and a local Cantonese couple, who played netless badminton so lazily that I doubt their beats per minute increase could have been measured, they were now arriving about 5 minutes after me. Guess which spot they just had to have? Woman starts smoking in my face, I figured I'd see if the Taiji practice had chilled me out enough and so I moved over to where they had been playing badminton the past month. After that, I found a totally different spot inside the school so only the students could gawk at me.

[Trick]

Haha, yes it's amazing. Any time my wife and i go to a supermarket i usually hang out by a shelf stacked with whatever while my wife looking for some groceries, and then alway people gather up around me examining what is stacked on just that shelf, i move to a new spot by another shelf and yup another group forming up around me, and so on...after all these years here in China i'm still amazed by this

[mixjourneyman]

Paul, what you have encountered is pretty common in the world of TCMA in China. Many many Chinese (men, normally of a certain age) think that CMA is a jewel of traditional Chinese culture (which it is) and cannot be learned correctly / well by foreigners. The Chinese superiority mindset is common and well-known to most foreigners who have lived and learnt CMA in China, which is why I don't practice in parks any more.

Speaking Chinese is a double-edged sword. On the one hand (like in your case), you can't tell people to F off when they clearly deserve it. OTOH, you get to hear a lot of the snide remarks about foreigners - when it comes to CMA, everyone's an expert - even people who have never done kungfu in their life.

Anyway, hope it doesn't affect your overall view of China and hope your experience has been positive overall.

More people should apply my strategy to solving these problems.

[grzegorz]

I believe he is rather polite.
The racism I encountered in many ways were worse than this~

Now think about Li Cunyi were fighting in Eight nations alliance in 1900,
I will say the old man had done nothing, and wouldn't do a thing~
Especially seeing Guo Yunsheng teaching displayed by a foreigner in public.
Of course he wasn't happy~ but complain is the best he could do~

To understand what racism truely is, is good to check this clip~


Cheers

I'm watching this now. I'm going to post it on the Races thread.

[meeks]

I've had that both in China as well as in Vancouver. Essentially you have 4 choices - 1. walk away and come back later, 2. try to show you're gong fu is not crap (and if you choose that route you'll never win, they'll always have something to nitpick), 3. stroke his ego, tell him that his gong fu probably is good, and that he should demonstrate the movements you were just practising a moment ago, in the way they should be done properly, 4. challenge him to a fight - not push hands, but a true blown fight...politely. Make sure the people around him know you're giving him a choice to put up or shut up, and that you aren't simply trying to knock his teeth out for talking shit. He just wants to blow steam. If he truly wanted to fight he'd be challenging you right off the bat. Even if he hands your ass to you, if you get a slap on his cheek you've made him lose face - the same way you've been losing face since he got up in yours.

What I've learned over the last 30+ years of this kind of shit is that you can't win. From the viewpoint of the douchebag in your face:
You're an asshole for thinking you deserve to learn chinese gong fu.
You're an asshole for thinking you can do it better than any of the chinese people doing this.
If you try to demonstrate (as in 'but...but.. I do it this way...' or 'but..but... my teacher is so-and-so') you're an asshole to him still... and now you've given him more bait to use against you.

If you DO choose #4 - don't accept any kind of push hands BS - Don't fight the way they train, fight the way YOU train. Make him fight under your comfort zone instead - hopefully it's not some public park push hands you've been practising (the way he has). More than likely it won't come down to that (it hasn't for me yet) - he'll come up with some BS reason why he can't fight you and all you have to do is wait for him to finish spewing his excuses and insults and say "well when you feel good enough to fight me, you know where to find me" (or something along the lines of pointing out that despite all his excuses, all you see is that he's admits he's not good enough).

At the end of the day he's already won. You're posting here about how pissed off you are (or were) and it'll take a long time to integrate the experience and detach emotion from it. It's a wound that you cannot see. Don't try to explain yourself (you're an asshole, remember?), don't try to show your skills (still an asshole), and don't stand there silently (see? you're an asshole who has nothing to say - losing face).

[Strange]

i was in this nice little park by a canal that goes to the east coast
nice neighbourhood, well to do types with their dogs
ppl mostly mind their own biz, some doing a double take at me
cos i am wearing slick Nike Tees, bermudas and Teva sandals
"westernized" for sure, but this fella's movement and vibes are anything but

i was standing
this guy in his fifties on an old bicycle comes and sits down at the nearest bench to look
keeps repeating for chinese kungfu, Bruce Lee is the best, kick punch very fast, Bruce Lee is the best
like a broken record

i just ignore him

Next, i did my Piquan
not using any force, just me holding my imaginary spear in my hand
three or four moves in, he decides he's seen enough and takes of in his rickety bike
i thought it was funneh
just sharing

[Franklin]

lol

if the people seem too interested in watching me..
i just switch to taiji or bagua...

i know they won't last past the 1rst section of the taiji form
and the bagua- when they see i just keep going around and around without changing direction... they get bored pretty fast..
hahahaha

[MaartenSFS]

It's still worth it to train in the parks. I've met plenty of masters this way and some have imparted valuable [to me] knowledge to me. Had some good bouts this way as well. It's all part of the "experience".

[bailu]

So... I'm noticing that no-one else is owning up to having had their leg humped by a labrador whilst going through a taiji form??


... Must just be the parks I train in

[mrtoes]

I used to get occasional shit from drunks and kids when training in my local park until I started bringing my spear and sword with me, at which point it all mysteriously stopped! You should have taken your spear along Paul

[Strange]

what i heard today:
"Your education is for you to talk to assholes calmly; Your training is for assholes to talk to you calmly."

[Michael]

I've had that both in China as well as in Vancouver. Essentially you have 4 choices - 1. walk away and come back later, 2. try to show you're gong fu is not crap (and if you choose that route you'll never win, they'll always have something to nitpick), 3. stroke his ego, tell him that his gong fu probably is good, and that he should demonstrate the movements you were just practising a moment ago, in the way they should be done properly, 4. challenge him to a fight - not push hands, but a true blown fight...politely. Make sure the people around him know you're giving him a choice to put up or shut up, and that you aren't simply trying to knock his teeth out for talking shit. He just wants to blow steam. If he truly wanted to fight he'd be challenging you right off the bat. Even if he hands your ass to you, if you get a slap on his cheek you've made him lose face - the same way you've been losing face since he got up in yours.

What I've learned over the last 30+ years of this kind of shit is that you can't win. From the viewpoint of the douchebag in your face:
You're an asshole for thinking you deserve to learn chinese gong fu.
You're an asshole for thinking you can do it better than any of the chinese people doing this.
If you try to demonstrate (as in 'but...but.. I do it this way...' or 'but..but... my teacher is so-and-so') you're an asshole to him still... and now you've given him more bait to use against you.

If you DO choose #4 - don't accept any kind of push hands BS - Don't fight the way they train, fight the way YOU train. Make him fight under your comfort zone instead - hopefully it's not some public park push hands you've been practising (the way he has). More than likely it won't come down to that (it hasn't for me yet) - he'll come up with some BS reason why he can't fight you and all you have to do is wait for him to finish spewing his excuses and insults and say "well when you feel good enough to fight me, you know where to find me" (or something along the lines of pointing out that despite all his excuses, all you see is that he's admits he's not good enough).

At the end of the day he's already won. You're posting here about how pissed off you are (or were) and it'll take a long time to integrate the experience and detach emotion from it. It's a wound that you cannot see. Don't try to explain yourself (you're an asshole, remember?), don't try to show your skills (still an asshole), and don't stand there silently (see? you're an asshole who has nothing to say - losing face).

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