Kung Fu dinner and a movie

Today was the Kung Fu Federation August Moon Banquet. In fact, as far as I know, it could still be going on. I came home early to see if the children were rioting. (Because apparently yesterday they were.) I don't hear anything upstairs but I don't dare go all the way up there.
This weekend was also the Kung Fu Film Festival at the Gate. I was so mad that I forgot that this was going on because on Friday I was actually free, in Chinatown, looking for something to do. I wasted that freedom.
On Saturday I did the lion dance at the aquarium and today I had to be at the Federation Banquet because I was actually performing. But the movie was playing for free, in the park, right down the street. I signaled my friend, who was performing (after my performing obligations were complete) and we snuck down and watched some of the movie. I saw some community activist type people I knew and watched for a short while before heading back. Wah Lum was performing to very exciting music which for some reason made me want to eat very energetically. Like I was in a Kung Fu feeding frenzy or something. So I chomped like crazy while they kicked, flipped, and split.
I noticed at one point as one of my students was leaving, that it was already 9pm. I usually do the Tiger Fork at the end, but I don't have to. Time to go. I just let Jing know I was leaving. On my way out I passed by the movie,

(a chinese movie I had seen by the way, but there really is something great about watching a Chinese movie in Chinese on the big screen. Makes you feel like your ethnicity is ten times more important, relevant, and appreciated. In fact it brought me right back to watching "Police woman" with my dad at the Chinese Movie theatre. Had to leave that one early too because he wasn't feeling well. I kicked and screamed. My dad really was feeling ill though. I mean, he must have died within a few months to a year, because he died when I was four and I must have been about that age based on my memories of how I talked, and my experience with how Noah is now talking.)

I almost just left and went home, but I stopped halfway down the block. I am super cheap, but I went back to buy a films at the gate T-shirts. One of the people helping out for ACDC was actually a mother of a child at BCNC and she recognized me from a parent board meeting we had. It turns out there was one kids T-shirt left (which I couldn't see because it was dark) I got a T-shirt with little Sung Dunasty looking fellow doing Kung Fu on it for Noah. It's for a 6 year old really but he'll grow into it. I imagined giving it to him if he was still awake and crying for me to sleep next to him. He is asleep though. (I think.)


On my way back home, walking from Stony Brook, I thought about how I would want to somehow organize the Federation Banquet around a Kung Fu Film Festival with ACDC. I mean, we could have started our banquet at 4pm on a Saturday, and advertise the fact that there was a movie starting at 7pm right across the street for free. Or maybe the banquet could be more of a Kung Fu picnic, and we could just do all of our performances outside, while eating from food carts, and then at the end, Kung Fu movie. I mean we already have all the performers set up. It would be another festival in Chinatown, with a movie spin to it. Of course I am sure there is all sorts of issues with serving food outside, and maybe some of the people that come now from the suburbs like the banquet. But anyway, that's how I would do it, and even if you didn't have the same Kung Fu people watching, you would have Chinatown old people that used to do Kung Fu watching. Heck, I saw the guy that used to do the Tiger Fork for my Sifu's team in China, at the movie. He had given me a lecture and a story about that Tiger Fork... how he had once run into the old men in a village (when he was young) who had been alive during the more traditional days and wore beards down to their waists. They demanded traditional skill. Sifu took him aside. The Tiger Fork Uncle did the Tiger Fork while a lighter man they called "monkey boy" jumped on top of the fork and the swung and did moves with the Tiger fork facing heaven while monkey boy kept his balance on top of it.

Anyway, There are a lot of "Kung Fu treasures" walking around Chinatown, sitting in the park already. And there are so many schools and teams that are just itching to perform, who will perform for free (especially when it's fun and convenient) and there's organizations like ACDC with backing and experience in putting on these Film Festivals. Combining these things might leave some people wishing for a banquet with lobster (which is still possible if you combine) but I think there is something to be said for at least working together on scheduling in the future. It could lead to something even bigger and more fun for the community. We could move toward something different and hopefully better each year. The decision to move it to August Moon, instead of New Year, was definitely a step in the right direction.