First month.

Report of the first month.

At the end of the first month my physical report can only be positive. Apart the kilos I've lost, how many I do not know but I feel them, now I can do things that only one month ago were impossible. I finally managed to run to the top of the hill and back without stopping (about 8km with a height of 100 meters), I made the "long run" (about 15km) and I went from 100 to 300 abs. I gained a lot of flexibility and I'm glad, even if sometimes my back hurts. My Tai Chi improves a bit every day. We'll see where I will arrive at the end of the three months. At the moment I've just destroyed my shoes.

The Children Day

At the end of the first month we also had the children's festival. We have a kind of partnership with a primary school and we went to give them a show yesterday. Welcome like rock stars! Our bus was besieged by children and our teachers were like bodyguards who made us into classrooms to rehearse.

For this festival we have prepared some kung fu shows (obviously), but we were also asked to give rein to our imagination. So someone sang, others danced, others did funny skits. It was a great day and it ended gorgeously, as it had began...releasing autographs for the kids...it will never happen again!

People coming, people going. 

At the end of the first month I had to say goodbye to some guys that I've grown close to, including my roommate Sigi. His four months here are over and he is now going back to his home. Have a good trip my friend, it was a pleasure meeting you. We were the Tai Chi couple and during the breaks, while the others were resting in the sun or doing stretching, we often read our books. For celebrating the departure of some of us, our teacher took us out to lunch in a small restaurant (Chinese of course), where we could enjoy some local specialties that typically we do not eat at the school canteen, especially chicken and pork. And behind us the cook was preparing hand made noodles. 

New students will join us soon, but for now we salute those who leave.

Among the people who come there is also the police. Today, June 1, Children's Day, during the “meditation class”, we found ourselves in front of a group of policemen who wanted to "make some pictures of us". I admit that at the first moment I thought it was because of my evading local law in terms of access to the internet ... like going to Facebook and other sites banned in China! Instead it was just propaganda to bring the police closer to the people, and they wanted to take some pictures with the friendly foreign students of the school.

What else? For now I can only confirm what wise shaolin teachers always repeat. The first few weeks are the hardest, but then the training becomes much more enjoyable.

That weird thing is the Dragon fruit...and I've eaten it.
Now I'm really going to be the Dragon Warrior!

PS. About Buddhist wisdom. One day we spoke of the Chinese government and one of the teachers told us: "Yes, because we are not like your countries. Here we have only one party. So everything is faster"...maybe it will turn out that he's right...

 PPS. From today I have the personal trainer of Tai Chi...and now who is going to stop me anymore?!?!?!?

Un mese.

Resoconto del primo mese. 

Alla fine del primo mese il mio resoconto fisico può essere solo positivo. A parti i chili che ho perso, che non li so ma li sento, oggi riesco a fare cose che un mese fa mi erano impossibili. Sono finalmente riuscito a correre fino alla cima della collina e tornare indietro senza fermarmi (circa 8km con un dislivello di 100 metri), ho fatto la “corsa lunga” (circa 15km) e sono passato da 100 a 300 addominali. Ho guadagnato parecchia flessibilità e sono contento, anche se a volte mi fa un po’ male la schiena. Il mio Tai Chi migliora un po’ ogni giorno. Vedremo dove arriverò alla fine dei tre mesi. Per ora ho distrutto le mie scarpe.

Il giorno dei bambini. 

Alla fine del primo mese abbiamo anche avuto la festa dei bambini. Abbiamo avuto una specie di gemellaggio con una scuola elementare e siamo andati da loro a fare uno spettcolo proprio ieri. Accoglienza da rock star!! Autobus assediato dai bambini e i nostri maestri che ci facevano da guardie del corpo per entrare nelle aule per fare le prove.

Per questa festa abbiamo preparato alcuni spettacoli di kung fu (ovviamente), ma ci hanno anche chiesto di dare sfogo alla nostra fantasia. Cosi alcuni hanno cantato, altri ballato, altri fatto scenette buffe. È stata una gran bella giornata e si è conclusa alla grande, come è cominciata... rilasciando autografi ai bambini... non mi capiterà mai più!!!

Gente che viene, gente che va. 

Alla fine del primo mese ho dovuto salutare alcuni ragazzi ai quali mi stavo affezionando, tra i quali il mio compagno di stanza Sigi. I suoi 4 mesi qui sono finiti e torna a casa sua. Buon viaggio amico mio, è stato un piacere conoscerti. Eravamo la coppia tai chi e nelle pause, mentre gli altri si riposavano al sole o facevano allungamenti, noi spesso leggevamo i nostri libri. Per l’occasione della partenza di alcuni di noi, il nostro maestro ci ha portato a pranzo fuori in un ristonrantino (ovviamente cinese), dove abbiamo potuto apprezzare alcune specialità locali che tipicamente non mangiamo alla mensa, soprattutto pollo e maiale. Mentre dietro di noi la cuoca preparava le “tagliatelle” fatte a mano.

Nuovi studenti si uniranno a noi prossimamente, ma per ora salutiamo quelli che partono. Tra la gente che viene però c’è anche la polizia. Oggi, primo giugno, giornata dei bambini, finita l’ora di meditazione, ci siamo trovati danvanti un gruppo di poliziotti che volevano “farci delle foto”. Ammetto che in un primo istante ho pensato che fosse a causa del mio eludere la legislazione locale in fatto di accesso ad internet... accedere a Facebook e altri siti vietati in Cina!! Invece facevano solo propaganda per avvicinare la polizia alla gente, e quindi volevano prendere qualche foto amichevole con gli studenti stranieri della scuola. Per ora non posso che confermare quello che i saggi maestri shaolin ripetono sempre. Le prime settimane sono le più difficili, ma poi l’allenamento diventa molto più divertente.

Questo frutto strano e' il frutto del Drago...ed io l'ho mangiato.
Ora sono ufficialmente il Guerriero Dragone!

 PS A proposito di saggezza buddista. Un giorno si parlava del governo cinese e uno dei maestri ci dice: “Si, perché da noi non è come nei vostri paesi. Qui abbiamo un partito solo. Così tutto è più veloce”... va a finire che ha ragione lui...


PPS Da oggi ho il personal trainer di Tai Chi... e chi mi ferma piu’?!?!?!?

A walk in the park

Yuntai Mountain International Culture and Martial arts School got its name from the Yuntai Mountain which can be seen from my window.

It's a natural park of about 100 sq km and it's (luckily) protected by UNESCO. We needed two days to see most part of it and we also ended up in a restoration area that in theory wasn't open to the public.
When they found us, they asked us to leave and kindly called a bus just to pick us up.

The climbing to the temples is amazing...the arriving a bit less. All the temples are new, most of them have been built since 2000 following the schemas of the originals, destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. But almost all of them are touristic only and - with only few exceptions - lack that mystical atmosphere of real cult places.
The natural features instead are simply marvelous! Lakes, rivers, falls, forests and canyons...just gorgeous. :)
Enjoy the pictures and may the Force be with you.

Passeggiata nel Parco

Yuntai Mountain International Culture and Martial arts School prende il nome appunto dal Yuntai Mountain che si vede dalla mia finestra.

 È un parco di circa un centinaio di chilometri quadrati ed è (fortunatamente) sotto la tutela dell'UNESCO. Per poter vedere il grosso del parco ci sono voluti due giorni, durante i quali ci siamo anche infilati in una zona in restauro che in teoria non era aperta al pubblico. Quando ci hanno trovati ci hanno chiesto di andarcene e hanno anche chiamato un bus apposta per noi.

La salite verso i templi sono mozzafiato... L'arrivo meno. Tutti i templi sono di nuova costruzione, i più ricostruiti dopo il 2000 seguendo gli schemi degli originali, distrutti durante la rivoluzione culturale. Ma sono quasi tutti solo turistici e mancano (con qualche eccezione) di quell'aria mistica tipica dei luoghi di culto in cui il culto viene effettivamente esercitato. Le bellezze naturali invece sono semplicemente fantastiche. Laghi fiumi e cascate, canyons e boschi. Insomma... Bello :-) gustatevi un po' di foto!
E che la forza sia con voi.

The inverted Mascot

The mascot is a person or an animal that, according to a certain group of individuals, is expected to bring good luck. The name comes from the Provençal mascoto, "witchcraft" and "luck." This tells us wikipedia. I would add that they are usually small and pretty and represent the group of individuals to whom it should bring luck ...  After 20 days of presence and training, I find out to be the mascot of my group that takes care of me and look if I'm or not well ... But I’m definitely not small and pretty nor I represent the group of "Jedi to be." After 20 days I’m actually ill in bed. I'm not the only one, to tell the truth. In recent days we have had a number of injuries and also a case of acute dysentery. But this has not happened to me. I am simply collapsed from fatigue! These first two weeks and a half I was very satisfied. I almost always kept the pace of my younger classmates and when it came to technique and coordination I can say without false modesty I did well. But the stamina is not with me. Then this week I took two days of "rest" to visit the park of UNESCO which is just behind the school. Very very nice, but I also found out how must have felt the kung-fu Panda to do all those steps to get to the temple! I did 700 meters in altitude all of steps, often steep. Then the next day I started training, and on Saturday I collapsed. Today I'm already better, but for now I’ll rest a bit and tomorrow I think I’ll take it easy.

No worries, photos are coming soon!

Let's talk about a serious subject. THE FOOD!

My bowl

I must say that to my great surprise the food is good. I am very satisfied. There are three meals a day and we eat together in the common room. Of course, the menu is not that varied, and above all I can forget certain dishes I was accustomed to enjoy in the Mediterranean, but I must also say that with all the exercise we do, if I ate like in Italy I'd already be dead ! The meals are light, mainly based on rice and soy. Very little meat and it’s always in a sort of soup and never served as a dish in itself. A couple of times we also had the spaghetti ... I almost felt at home. Each of us has his bowl and chopsticks and takes care of them. The portions are generous as you like, but I personally do not eat much compared to others ... I still have some weight to lose! Certainly in restaurants outside the dishes are more various. I still haven’t tried it, but when we went to the park some guys ordered fried scorpions... Expensive for the Chinese standard, and they were also shown alive before cooking. Who has tasted them says they were good ... tasted of deep fried food ... but you know, fried also shoes are good.

Fresh food 

The language
The Chinese language is at least interesting. I sincerely would like to know what was going through their head while they were developing it. The written language has all the complexity that catches your eye when you see it the first time ... To have a minimum base knowledge you need to be able to recognize at least 2000 different characters. To write well you have to know more than 4000. But this does not tell us anything about how those characters are pronounced. Then there is a version of the Chinese written with Latin characters (which the Chinese also study to learn how to pronounce those symbols!), whose pronunciation, however, differs from the typical Latin characters ... And finally we understand why it is so difficult for a Chinese pronounce English words correctly ... With their pronunciation those words would have a different sound. So, long story short, a monstrous orthographic complexity. And the grammar? The grammar DOES NOT EXIST! They developed a monstrous writing system and then they talk like illiterates. "I good, you good? Horse big".

It must be said that for now I've had only a few lessons, but also those who have attended more classes confirm that the grammar is extremely simple.
Since each of us comes at different times and remains for different periods, there are not real courses. We study mainly on our own book and then during the lessons they teach us pronunciation and we can ask direct questions to the teacher. Then, a couple of times a day, before we start training outdoors, in front of the entrance, we repeat aloud the sentence of the day. In short, I do not know what I'll learn, but I’m having fun.

wise Chinese words

...over a toilet branded  Faenza!

Next time I'm gonna tell you about the walk in the park, with a special selection of pictures from the 180 I've made in 2 days!

May the Force be with you.