Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon for Chinese New Year

They're showing Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon on Movieplex.... over and over and I was pretty excited to see that it was in Mandarin on my American TV. But I didn't put it together that they were probably doing this because it is Chinese New Year season until I saw that it was still on. AFer all Kung Fu Panda 3 came out for Chinese New Year season too. I'm telling you, because of China's strength, Chinese New Year is totally an international holiday now. Plus it's cool anyway.

It's funny because I was just telling Grace that Chinese New Year has some developing to do. I mentioned that there weren't really any Classic New Year movies. Dong Sing Sai Jau, comes to mind, but it's like China jumped straight from real hard core traditional stuff, to straight hardcore sell out commercial stuff.

I didn't really think of Crouching Tiger as a Chinese Movie, but I guess from an American standpoint, it would work. But you really want something funny. I bet Kung Fu Panda 3 will really be the ultimate Chinese New Year movie in America and in China, for a while.

As many smart Chinese People as there are, I think that because of the politics in China, and also the politics here in America fro Chinese Americans... well there isn't a Chinese Charles Dickens who wrote a Chinese New Year novella. I saw a cute little video and there are legends and stories that are similar... but they don't seem to have become a thing yet.

The Chinese New Year music blasting at that 88 food court market today was the type of techno craziness that China and Eastern Euro countries formerly part of the Soviet bloc have in common. It's a different taste, or perhaps slight numbness of taste if not lack of.


And so the famous international Chinese Cultural movie I'm watching on tv, was directed by a Taiwanese director.


Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

You know, when I first watched this movie, I was watching it as a Chinese American that did Kung Fu and watched a lot of Kung Fu movies. As a Kung Fu movie, it is out of place in terms of how the other movies were a the time. That's why internationally it did very well, but mainlanders, hated it and said it was really a Lo Fahn Kung Fu movie.



Now as I am watching it, I can actually watch it as a Lo Fahn, and if you look at it from the mytholigical story telling of the West.. it's actually pretty awesome.

And it's true, it's not really a Kung Fu movie at all. I would argue that most of the shit that happens in this movie in terms of Kung Fu is not only "unrealistic" it is alternate realistic. I mean it's not even really happening.

Now when you watch this movie in hindsight, remember that Ang Lee would later win his big awards for Broke Back Mountain. What's that about? Hidden sexual repression.

Crouching Tiger has some actual real sex. But I would argue that most of the Kung Fu is also sex.

The Green destiny sword. What is it? What is a man's sword? Even in Romeo and Juliet you hear this sort of Julie is my Sheath for my dagger etc.

So Zhang Ziyi steals Chow Yun Faht's manhood err His sword.

There is a scene (the famous one) where Zhang Zi Yi is fighting Michelle Yeoh in a Moh Goon show down with all the weapons. Zhang Zi Yi touches the blade of the sword.  as it rings out. She's been holding it this whole time, fighting with it, but when she touches the blade part.. that is full of innuendo and Michelle can't take it. "That's Lu Mu Bai's! (dick which belongs to me....if only in a spiritual way)" Because where as Zhang zi yi has real sex with the bandit from the desert, Michelle and Chow Yun Faht have been meditating and sipping tea instead, being spiritual lovers.


Zhang Zi Yi runs away with the sword and Chow Yun Faht follows her an dhere comes the bamboo scene. This totally doesn't really happen either. Don't even talk about the Hing Gung. JUst look at how the faces fade in and out like subconscious images. It's a day dream fantasy, except somehow the man and young girl are communicating. She fantasizes about him. But he takes his sword (manhood) and says she doesn't even deserve it and throws it in the river. A dark figure then takes her (Jade Fox). She's totally like your typical disney witch. She's also a trickster Fox. she now has the manhood and says that she and Zhang Ziyi can "be their own masters." There's some kind of lesbian thing with that. I'm not imagining it. Plus remember Broke Back Mountain might have been a way to look at it from a new perspective, where homosexuality is scene as heroic or right instead of having Jade Fox, the Villain be the one suggesting that. Jade Fox is sore because the Master slept with her, but didn't treat her as an equal human being, (i.e. teach her Wudan style sword) But it's totally not really about swords. It's about relationships.

Jade Fox drugs Zhang Zi Yi with horny lustful ecstacy and sets a trap for Chow Yun Faht. Now the sex almost comes out into the open, But Chow Yun Faht is too moral and doesn't take advantage of the girl.

Instead he puts it in her.

His chi that is. So he shows her love on a spiritual level. Jade fox tries to kill everyone but is killed. (Does she even exist or is she just the crazy dark side of adolescent hormones manifesting themselves as a person? Whatever same thing. She's gone now.)

So Zhang sees that her spiritual parental figures, love her and now she tries to help.


Okay I watched the movie ou of order too so I'm going to jump back to when Zhang Zi Yi is wreaking havoc in the bar. It seems unrealistic that a young girl could be so much better than all those masters. It wasn't just the sword it was her too. How could her Kung Fu be so strong?

In the movie it is.

And in real life, if Kung Fu  is sex, passion, and love, then many young girls do make fools of respectable powerful men, making them crash all over the place at bars and tear a whole house down. That shit happens every weekend, except if you can control that, then your club can make money off of this instead of being in tatters. In fact even that iron arm guy that she outs... there can be a lot read into that.. your not all that hard. lol

So in the end she jumps off a cliff and her lover seems happy and unconcerned about it because in the movie, people can kind of fly, in anycase she isn't committing suicide.. and in real life she is just doing that leap of faith he talked about earlier. She doesn't choose fer home life, or a life where she runs away with him, she chooses to find her own path. Today that would be some sort of career woman or personal journey that young girls do all the ime. Starting a company or backpacking through Africa, whatever.


Anyway, I want to read the novel the movie was based on, though all this crazy stuff is probably ONLY Ang talking. I'm just saying it's kind of cool to look at it from a mythological context. It's deep. It's just not that Chinese.

Walking Meditation

After my daily work out, I've been making a point of ending with walking meditation. I used to practice this a lot, but it was sort of just mixed into my other kung fu and part of the advanced training. However I am totally using it in my beginner's classes now. Why?
Well first of all it's simple.. and I've been focusing on stuff that is simple.
Plus I realized that after you pushed your self, that slowing down and trying to walk with your eyes closed really really slowly is a challenge. It's actually kind of trippy too. Something about moving makes you feel way different then sitting or even horse stance meditation.

I saw something on Facebook about meditating on happiness, and I realized that I might as well start doing that too. It might be weird to be throwing punches while at the same time closing your eyes and picturing your kids doing cute things... but that's totally what I did today. I mean when I am doing the repetitive punches, it's not like I really need to be that martial. I don't need to picture where I am hitting anymore. I got it. I understand the move. The exercise is more to stretch out my waist and arms and train my body. So meanwhile I can exercise my mind by thinking happy thoughts.


Later on when I do a more free style practice (both slow and sprinting) I sort of still have to picture the enemy though. I wonder if ultimately, this is harmful to my luck and well being though.

After I really get settled into my routine I think I am going to add a weapons section to my daily practice in the afternoons. Maybe I will only do this every other day though. I don't want to burn out. I just noticed that when I did my weapons practice on the weekend, I was pretty sore afterwards... which basically means my muscles are not as strong as they should be. But I still don't want to overdo it.

Epic Camera fail

Of the many things I have to do today I failed at he most important one.. which is getting QUALITY video of Noah and Jonah's concert. Did Dai Dai do many cute things on stage? Yes he did. Did I bring my camera with the zoom lens that would have been able to capture it all for the viewing pleasure of Grace and Gong Gong and Amah? Yes I did. However, when I pushed (the wrong button) which I guess would have taken the picture, the battery died. Why? Because I shot a bunch of stuff yesterday and forgo to make sure it was charged for today. Now know this. I am pretty upset. Not so much because I missed the concert... but because I had to sit there in fear.
I really don't want to hear about this all year.

I must meditate and prepare myself to be calm when criticism comes and to ignore it and not respond.
In fact I can already feel myself going over to the dark side over this.

So what will I do? I'm going o go do my work  out... go to my lion dance, and we'll video he kids doing the songs, by themselves.


That's all I got.

Noah's Boats

Noah has taken to  building and testing his own boats. He loves bringing them to school with him too.
I don't help him buildi them at all, mostly it's me getting out of the way of his creativity

Kung Fu Social

I always really enjoyed how after Kung Fu, when walking home, people couldn't really quite part and there was a bit of a social end to the night. Talking. Sometimes about Kung Fu, sometimes not, always late at night. The old classes ended at around 8pm and then we would start cooking. Now my classes at First Baptist Church end at around 9pm. I try to fit in so much stuff into an hour, and honestly I sort of get it done. I'm kind of proud of myself for that. We do meditation, external internal, some drills, and then ended with two different types of walking meditation.

I have enough students now that I am breaking even, and the thing is we are already all friends. So it feels really good for me to be able to share my love of Kung Fu. In a way I feel like I am recapturing those first times when I joined Woo Ching White Crane as a 14 year old.

That's not a knife, this is a knife.

For whatever reason I was talking about knife stuff, you tube videos with a friend and student at the playground. The truth is, the way I would react if someone pulled a knife on me would probably not be that different than a normal person's reaction. I don't think I would use some very clever and clean looking technique. Is it possible I would freeze like a deer in head lights?

That is possible.

Running or distancing your self might be the best solution. But that could be difficult if my kids are with me. So the main thing would be putting myself in between the knife and them.


Once in a physical altercation.. .would it make much difference that they had a knife? I don't mean in terms of my odds. My odds are screwed. I mean in terms of my reaction. I might go for the hand holding the knife... if I even saw it, which I probably wouldn't.

The one time this old guy pulled a knife on me, I just grabbed him (not the knife). He put the knife away. It was still in it's scabbard. In fact I was wondering did I really just see a giant hunting knife. This was only confirmed by the fact that I said to him "You pulled a knife on me."

He then said, "It's my knife, I bought it with my own money."

I never accused him of stealing the knife mind you. That was not my issue.

I eventually let him go. He tried to pull it out again, and it was my words admonishing him that actually stopped him. Some people would say I was way to merciful in that case. But since neither of us even got hurt let alone died I would say for that particular case, given the guy's age, that was probably the correct reaction.

The point is, the knife situation is always considered to be a situation where words are now useless. And so the answer for what you do is usually physical. Fight or flight. And the fight aspect is usually some cleanly demonstrated sequence of moves. I'm not saying those are ineffective. I know some stuff to do, but I don't practice them as much as my more basic stuff... so probably, my body would react with what I practice... When I grabbed that guy, running was not really responsible because it happened at the Kung Fu school and other people were sleeping there. So I had to be the attack dog.
I grabbed him in a way that was sort of martial artsy in some aspects... but in other ways it was just grabbing him like a bully. The only thing I learned from that encounter martial arts wise was that I start working on shaking chi gung cheun ging (inch power) with a sort of side ways Karate chop. But also I worked on all sorts of angles and techniques more, because I realized it's important to be able to hit repeatedly from strange or awkward angles with one hand, because other hand may be grabbing, and usually people really are not defending themselves and the spot you are hitting is just open and could remain open for repeated strikes. If I performed this type of thing, it would look extremely stupid and boring. People might wonder what the hell I am doing and if I have lost my mind. Although when I demo it with words and talk to people, some people have mentioned that they were impressed.


It's funny how stupid some advanced and powerful Kung Fu can look.

Lion Dances for the Quincy School system

There were a few years that our lion dance team performed at the Montclair and Wollaston school. In the past we had a lot of members of our Lion Dance team that worked for themselves or were between jobs, or were stay at home parents... but times have changed. Last year we did not have that many people who were free. But Noahs' Gong Gong happened to be up here. Not for Chinese New Year. But because of all the snow, the Chinese New Year festivities happened in march and Gong Gong was here because it was warm enough for him to now return.

In any case, with his help and the help of my Si Hing, we did a little performance. Gong Gong even made a little video.

They called me up this year and I was super excited to do it again. There was only one problem, I don't drive. Not only that, but even if I did, Grace had to work so I wouldn't have the car. 

My Si Hing was also busy. I had to say no....

But to tell the truth I really wanted to do it anyway. But I realized that it just wouldn't be that good of a decision. If the kids were older, like 8 and 10. I might have done it. I would totally even sleep over at the school just to perform in the morning. Though I'm sure that's illegal. Why would I do that? Do I like lion dance that much? Well I tell you I like it that much when the performance is for children at a school. You really get a good feeling about it. I mean I could take the T and walk , but could my kids walk that far? I'm not sure. Plus I would have to carry equipment... how?

The only way I can justify  not doing this thing for these two schools is that I will be doing something with my kids for New Year at their school... which I may be doing for free... but it will be a lot more manageable.

Why am I writing about this? Tomorrow is the day of their Chinese New Year celebration.

I wonder if they found a team to perform? What will they do instead if they don't? I feel kind of bummed about not doing it.