Once Upon a Time in China
Recollections from the China Camp, Ming Qing, Fujian Province. December 2005
by Pen Rance
Anyone passing through Heathrow Airport one chilly Saturday in December would have been alarmed to see a sinister group of black-clad martial artists gathering in the departure lounge. So would we, as we arrived, in haphazard fashion, nattily attired in club tracksuits and looking dazed and confused. We settled down to the pursuit of that time-honoured discipline: hanging about in airports. It was a skill that would be honed to razor sharpness over the coming weeks.
Something like 28 hours later, even more dazed and extremely confused, we arrived at the Ming Qing Taishan Holiday Hotel. Which was lit up like a Christmas tree, and appeared to have come straight out of The Arabian Nights. Except that it was freezing cold. We were met by effusive hotel staff, and a life-sized, animated plastic Santa playing tinny carols in the lobby. Attending to our most immediate needs we ate, then slept, too tired to wonder what the next day would bring.
What it brought was an enormous breakfast, and breathtaking views across mountains and the river, framed between the bulbous white turrets and minarets of the hotel. Then we saw the training ground. Forget The Arabian Nights, this was straight out of Enter the Dragon. Probably designed as a peaceful spot from which to contemplate the idyllic vista, to us the hotel garden, with its winding paths and palm trees, became the site of some of the most intense training we had ever done.
Seven hours a day, seven days a week, we forced our bodies into new and unusual positions, attempting to learn patterns and techniques from masters of Yongchun White Crane, Wudang Tai Chi and Natural Boxing. New and unusual injuries developed, including Wudang knee, Yongchun thumb and the after effects of beating our bodies with chunks of wood in an attempt to emulate Master Gu, the Natural Boxing expert. For variation we trained on the hotel terrace in brilliant sunshine, and in the dusty surrounds of a local pagoda, having first removed the local badminton players.
As is traditional on kung fu camps, training was interspersed with eating. A lot. And what food: delicately steamed river fish, crispy prawns, mountain chicken and the freshest vegetables. If it hadn?t all been so healthy, it would have been gluttonously obscene. Of course, we weren?t always able to identify the food before consuming it, and our ignorance was compounded by the ever-helpful waiting staff introducing each course with one of their stock phrases: ?This is a special dish?, ?This is a new dish?, or ?This dish is meat?. But as every plate arrived with the instruction to ?Enjoy yourself?, we did our best to comply.
Information subsequently gleaned from Dennis? nephew Carl ? who spent three weeks running our lives, solving our problems and organising our laundry, all with unruffled aplomb ? revealed the nature of the mysterious food. Among the range of delicacies consumed were dog stew, casseroled cat, drunken prawns (still flapping about in alcohol when eaten, resulting in Stefan taking to his bed for a day), turtle-in-its-shell, deep-fried frog and corpse-eating eel. The latter is something of a speciality, prized for its richness, and caught as it makes it way back to the river from the graveyards, stuffed with human flesh. As Fernando pointed out, eating it was only one step away from cannibalism. One delicious step.
Other memorable meals included Christmas dinner ? steamed potatoes and whole roast goose, something of a challenge for Westerners wielding chopsticks ? and the night Master Chai brought out the Wudang moonshine, a surprisingly mellow vintage served straight from a petrol can.
In the evenings, a wide variety of entertainments were on offer: ping-pong and pool; the sauna, which Peter quickly warmed to as his natural habitat; the massage parlour, where all the girls quickly warmed to Fernando; and the Coffee Pub. This last served white coffee from packets and Chinese beer. As the beer was cheaper than the coffee, a great deal of it was drunk in the unusual surrounds of a wooden hut with Chinese graffiti on the walls and martial arts soaps on an endless loop on the TV. Ben and Matt took up near-permanent residence.
Chinese television provided endless amusement, from news channels with their reports of agricultural production ratios and English catchphrases (?Letstakealook!?) to, er, martial arts soaps on an endless loop. Jason even managed to find some football, which kept him quiet for a while.
A gentle stroll down into Ming Qing village for the purpose of purchasing cheap clothes and chocolate biscuits would result in rubber-necking from the locals and endless beeping of car and scooter horns. The girls in the pharmacy were delighted to see us, pressing various products into our hands while insisting ?This is good!? Eddie was particularly flattered by their determination that he needed a pack of bright blue pills with a rhino stamped on the front. Among other things, they give him a terrible headache.
On the day the heavens opened, we took a break from training and headed into Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province, and thriving hub of commercialism. We were hard pushed to find any weapons to buy, but there was no shortage of MacDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut emporiums. A lot of tea was bought, and everyone came away with their body weight in pirate DVDs. Lunch was in Carl?s sister?s diner, where she filled us with her special oyster buns, and seafood and peanut noodles. New eating records were set, and it took us some time to stagger back to the coach.
But at the end of the day, it was all about kung fu, and the incredible opportunities available to us thanks to all the hard work our Chief Instructor Dennis has put in over the years building up contacts with masters in China. While very different, each was truly inspiring. Master Su, the master of Yongchun White Crane and Dennis? martial brother, has spent a lifetime refining his art and was infinitely generous with his teaching. Along with his son and his students (affectionately nicknamed Mr Happy and Mr Grumpy), he was endlessly patient in showing this group of crass Westerners the subtleties of his style.
Master Chai, his disciple and his son all arrived in traditional robes, transporting us in our mountain retreat to another time and place. He gave us a small insight into the ways of Wudang Taoism, posed impressively with his sword, twisted himself into impossible positions, and did it all with a huge grin on his face. His disciple was the most flexible man I have ever seen. No hip joints, apparently. Just cartilage.
Our final teacher was Master Gu, exponent of Natural Boxing and surely one of the hardest men on the planet. Reportedly, he has never lost a fight, something that is easy to believe when his unstoppable style is observed. Most alarming was his habit of laughing uproariously after demonstrating some terrible blow. ?Pow! Hahahahahahaha!?
Beyond the man from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in his flowing robes and Bruce Lee?s training ground, other movie moments included Shkar?s face off in the hotel restaurant, when he was challenged to a fight and managed to diffuse the situation into a friendly patterns demonstration. And who could forget the classic romantic comedy scene when the hotel manager, who displayed an unswerving affection for Peter, produced his daughter for the big guy?s approval. Hasty excuses were made, and Peter fled the dinner table. The Oscar for most beautiful nose went to Fernando, with James a close runner-up, while Jason won best original screenplay for teaching the massage girls to shout, ?Come on baby, let?s go! Yeah!?
New Year?s Day dawned sunny and hot, a good omen for the year ahead. The hotel strewed our path with firecrackers, and staged a tug-of-war tournament. An annual event, it was incredibly popular with hotel staff and locals alike, who threw themselves into the bouts with gusto, although there was a certain amount of nervous laughter when the Dream Team of Stefan, Karim, Felix, Eddie, Peter and Danil arrived. Rarely has a tug-of-war team been so confident. The FWC women?s team of six triumphed, despite having ten opponents, and the men literally walked it. Dennis accepted the trophy with some embarrassment that night, pointing out that he had fielded a team of water buffalo.
A life- threatening fireworks display and champagne concluded the festivities for some, while the more hardy headed for the previously unexplored karaoke bar. The hotel?s assistant manager serenaded us with Chinese ballads and threw flowers at us, while our truly multi-national club performed an array of traditional songs from Kurdistan, Columbia, Ireland and the back catalogue of Bryan Adams. John?s recital of Happy Birthday in Welsh was a highlight, only topped by his rendition of the Oompa Loompa song. The event descended into a painful medley of Eye of the Tiger and Hotel California, before everyone took to the floor for a last waltz, accompanied by a surprisingly tuneful duet from Amanda and Jason.
More sessions of training, eating and hanging around in airports followed, leaving us standing once again in Heathrow, exhausted and in a state of culture shock. We returned having learned a great deal about ourselves, each other, China, and most importantly, kung fu, and harbouring a burning desire to return as soon as possible.