Juggling commitments....

“If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.”
Henry Miller

It is late on a balmy Friday evening, something of a relief after the mercury touched 41C mid-afternoon; a slight breeze stirs the air pleasantly. I find myself sitting in the open air Tara Guest House restaurant enjoying a large and very refreshing Chang (Thai beer) and a plate of what are described on the menu as 'Pineapple Flitters'. These come with either honey or chocolate, or even both if one is feeling particularly indulgent. My lifestyle here is generally quite healthy but this, I have to admit, forms something of an exception.
I did actually stay here for a few days on arrival, opting for the very reasonable 'superior' suite at a relatively expensive £12 a night. Normally, by this stage, I have settled into some kind of long term accommodation, usually involving a cold shower and a lack of air conditioning, but this time I have been in somewhat indulgent mood and so the pleasures of fresh sheets, fresh towels and a small but cooling swimming pool have proven too much to resist.
Although such temptations sometimes get the better of one, I still find myself frequenting the much-loved but distinctly down market 'Jolly Frog' on a regular basis. The accommodation may not be the best in town and the service internationally renowned for being terrible, but they do have the most wonderful garden and a peripatetic clientèle of wonderfully eccentric characters, some of whom seem to have become regular visitors over the years.
The garden is also a wonderful place to take some exercise; the air is fresh, the flowers beautiful and the fact that the river Kwai runs so close by all lend a unique ambience to the place that has charmed many a weary wanderer (including your footloose flaneur). When I arrived last week, I immediately headed for the place to practice a little qigong and indulge my current fascination for swinging nunchucks. I have little interest in using such weaponry for any aggressive purpose, but love learning the wonderfully flowing and co-ordinated movements that are necessary if one is to perform with any degree of gusto.
On the first day in the garden, whilst practising a few of the more advanced moves, I met a German guy by the name of Alex and a young French lad called Ansulyman, both of whom were practising juggling in the same garden. A mutual exchange of views on the subject of skill acquisition followed, and so it was that, for the last four or five days at least, an informal school dedicated to such performance arts sprung up quite spontaneously amidst the palms, tamarinds and bougainvillea of the Jolly Frog.

Others guests and various itinerants have happened by over the last week and found themselves drawn into the process. At any given time one can find oneself learning various forms of juggling, particularly with balls and skittles, nunchucks, qigong, tai chi or other, equally exotic forms of martial and performance arts.

The atmosphere is very informal, relaxed and supportive; all in all, very conducive to learning such skills without any sense of pressure and, basically, just for the sheer, unadulterated pleasure of it. For my part, I have focussed so far mostly on picking up juggling and am now, after a few days of trying, able to manipulate three balls at once without injuring the spectators or dropping them too frequently. One young man has progressed from neophyte to attempting five balls in a mere four days, although it has to be admitted that it can be a somewhat hazardous undertaking to stand anywhere in close proximity when he attempts to do so. 

 
When learning new skills is a pleasure, almost an indulgence, such activities become very pleasant indeed. I sometimes think back to the pedagogic horror which formed my own education, to the woefully inadequate methodologies employed, to the stress laid upon discipline imposed from the outside (whilst discipline is clearly necessary, that imposed from within is often far more powerful, and far more effective), to the simplistic 'chalk and talk' methodologies, and many other unpleasant and ineffective conventions, and realise that, for me at least, conventional education was merely something that I had to survive rather than having any real value in terms of knowledge or skills acquisition.
Since those far off days and the daily frustrations and humiliations one suffered in the process of poorly acquiring skills that were often completely useless from that moment forward (working out tangents has not come up even once in the intervening years, and as for the learning of the (mis)doings of various Kings and Queens of England… such knowledge only turned me into a lifelong and convinced republican). Since those happily far-off days I have invariably found myself enjoying learning a range of new subjects and competencies in so many areas. All of these seem to have been acquired relatively easily, just as long as I was given at least a modicum of encouragement and support to do so. Looking around the 'school' in the Jolly Frog this morning, the thought struck me that such learning is so normal, so natural, so enjoyable for all of us, if only the right ambience is created.
Back in the Tara they are closing up for the night and I find myself faced with a pleasant ten minute walk back to my hotel on the river front. Kanchanaburi is even quieter this year; so quiet in fact that one wonders how long the almost deserted bars can survive. On the other hand, those of us who are more open to the less inebriated, daytime pleasures of the place are enjoying the current state of affairs immensely. And so, as this late but still

very steamy hour, I must bid thee a fond farewell and prepare this rather over-exercised body for a night of hopefully recuperative slumber.
Night night….

Wanna Fight ?

Another evening spent in the enjoyable, if somewhat controversial, company of martial arts practitioners at the local Jeet Kun Do School. For this particular group of Wushu experts, the training itself is often interrupted by long interludes of sipping tea from tiny cups seated around the heavy wooden trunk alluded to last week. The conversation is mostly related to technique, exactly how to inflict the most damage possible with a given punch or kick, or everyday life in China. As such, it is a source for much material for this blog, although the conversations can get a tad surrealistic at times.

The Chinese seem to love a fight. So much of the culture here is related to, or directly involves, martial arts. In matters on the macro scale, the Chinese military have not shown themselves to be particular competent in any area, their greatest victories coming when they are fighting each other, as in the Chinese Revolution. The modern day People’s Liberation Army seem to be in the business of liberating people in much the same way as the Americans liberated Iraq in 2003 or the Russians liberated Poland in 1940. Their most notable victory in the last fifty years came when they briefly entered Vietnam in 1979 whilst the main Vietnamese forces were away in Cambodia. When these threatened to return, the PLA quickly changed strategy and advanced in a generally backward direction to the safety of China. For all their historical limitations militarily, on the smaller scale, as in hand-to-hand combat, the Chinese fighting man represents a formidable foe.

 The attitudes contained within the Wushu (martial arts) lifestyle are, in a sense, almost a national metaphor. The ways to success are often seen in militaristic, martial or very directly competitive terms within this society. Far from being a particularly co-operative or socialist society, the underlying culture is one of constant struggle against others who are seen in terms of being fellow competitors.

Even a short trip down a metropolitan Chinese road will aptly demonstrate this point. Co-operation is the very last notion to cross the mind of the average driver here. It is very much dog-eat-dog and too bad if you cannot keep up. An interesting statistic will serve to illustrate this point. A person in charge of a motor vehicle in China has, per capita, something like eight times the likelihood of becoming a fatality on these roads as on the roads in the US (which, in itself, is hardly the least competitive society on the planet). Of course, there are many other factors involved in that statistic, but the vast majority of the accidents here are down to ‘driver error’, a pleasant enough euphemism for ‘driving like a lunatic’.

During this current stay in China, I have had many fascinating interaction with some very interesting, and even occasionally charismatic, martial arts practitioners, from those practicing the gentler skills of tai chi to the representatives of the local school whose skills are far more practical in nature. Personally, I am getting a tad long in the tooth (and carrying a few too many injuries) to train too seriously with these folk, but I have enjoyed learning to use nunchucks, a strangely fascinating and absorbing activity the learning of which requires a great deal of concentration, perseverance and the willingness to take the odd bruise here and there as the fast flailing handles forever shoot-off in random directions each time I lose control of a sequence.

The sheer variety of skills and techniques studied and employed here in China is enough to boggle the mind of the Western observer. In my short time here, I have seen people training with swords, short-swords, long-swords, cutlasses, daggers, spears, both short and long, staffs, sticks, nunchucks, flails and fans and observed them using various techniques to stab, jab, slash, cut, skewer, pin, impale, flail, smash and generally do untold amounts of damage to their opponent. Happily, all the violence I have witnessed using implements has been of the practice variety, although I have seen several injuries even within that context (I have my own bruises from the nunchucks to illustrate my point all too painfully….).

The more direct weaponless techniques allow for tightly controlled contests to take place. Last weekend, I witnessed my first ever Taekwondo tournament. Originally a Korean martial art form, Taekwondo has been happily adopted by the Chinese who now have hundreds of thousands of active participants in the sport. The contests are conducted mostly with the use of kicks, scoring kicks being made to the central anatomy and the head of the opponent who wears thick pads around his/her ribs and a helmet incorporating some protection for the face and skull. These protective measures are very necessary as the power of the kicks from a properly trained practitioner is impressive indeed. When training with these guys, the sheer weighty thud of a well placed kick into the heavy punch bags is enough to send a shiver down my spine. One would definitely not want to be in the way of such an attack, even if wearing protective pads…

 The wushu specialists at the school I attend are fairly liberal and eclectic in their approach to martial arts – almost any technique is countenanced if it is likely to have the desired effect. At times, one can watch them practicing punches, slaps, backhand slaps, elbows – both horizontal and vertical, knees (usually applied to a particularly vulnerable area..), kicks to the ankles, legs, stomach and head and even butting for street fights.  

Oddly, each and every one of them seems a relatively gentle, even genteel, soul when not fighting. We sit around the intricately worked trunk and consume the tiniest of tiny cups of green tea. The cup is forever replenished as long as you drink it. The host, whoever that is on any particular evening, has the duty of ensuring that your cup is never empty. Each cup is but a couple of sips, but the teas are often delicious, each practitioner taking it in turn to supply his own particular tea. Each of these gentlemen has enough knowledge of martial arts techniques to do considerable damage if they so desire, but each seems to be the perfect gentlemen in such surroundings. It is my good fortune to have met and learnt so much from these gentlemen whilst in China.