yuan and zen

Work finished early this morning and I have spent a fortuitous afternoon wandering through Beijing – it is really the first day I have had (almost) to myself, with almost no work, and no practice with others.

I needed this day. No time worries, nothing pressing in upon me. First I track down a wushu supply store I visited last year. It seems to serve multiple duty as showroom, warehouse, and apartment and I feel like the proverbial kid in a candy shop each visit. All manner of uniforms, weapons, and VCDs cram the walls and litter the floors.

I can’t afford to buy anything while living in Japan, so I always save up for these chances in China. My eyes are a bit bigger than my wallet, but nothing can be put back. Most important - and most expensive - are a pair of yuanyang yue (鸳鸯钺, the crazy Klingon – bagua weapon). I am gambling with them, don’t know if I can get them into Japan but if asked, they are wall decorations, certainly not implements of destruction.

Also important is a two-meter carrying case for the pair of staves (棍子) I was given last night. A cool shirt, a tai ji fan, VCDs for the tai ji fan form. So much more calls to me, but I am too aware of how little Chinese money remains in my wallet, 600 and some change. I clock in well over 750 yuan. Ouch. I ask for and receive a small discount, though the friendly worker reminds me how cheap the VCDs already are compared to those sold outside the store (true enough).

I point out a major scratch on the back side of the case for the yue and manage another 50 yuan discount, putting me in range of the 600+ small change remaining. I start counting it out, getting down to the smallest bills, and joke (honestly) about needing taxi fare. He smiles, hands me back some small bills, refuses my attempts to return them. All the hard-faced, frowning bargaining is gone. I am all smiles after this kindness. But there is more – as I stuff the folding fan into my backpack, he sends an employee in the back to get a bag. Just as I mention that I don’t need a plastic bag, I realize my mistake – he is throwing in a nice cloth bag with drawstring, made just for the fan.

Back on the street, I nab a taxi with those remaining small bills and get to Qian Men, from where I can take the buses, and they are free for those of us here with the Olympics. Still flush with time, I get out at Gu Lou, near the famous Drum Tower. Crowds are down in the wake of the bizarre stabbing murder of a tourist some weeks back.

I stop to use a pay phone in one of the street stalls and have good luck – I reach both of my friends in Wenzhou, China by phone and we share good talk and laughs. By fate or whatever, it turns out my name was just in the Wenzhou newspaper.

At the Olympic wrestling venue, I spent much time getting to know the staff there, being uncharacteristically chatty and outgoing. I got along well with the head of the venue, whom it turns out is from none other than Wenzhou, and his father is even from the smaller city of PingYang. I stayed about a month in the wushu school in that town (read about it in Kendo World magazine or later in this blog) and he knew that school. I gave him a copy of the Kendo World article I had written on kendo in Wenzhou, and he referred to that in a piece written in the Wenzhou paper.

So, back to the Drum Tower. I wander around a bit and find a neat little café/bar type of place and would reallllly like a cold beer but lack the funds. I typically avoid tourist-oriented places like the plague, but this shop had a good feeling. I walk about 50 meters down the road and plunk myself down in front of an empty store. After a while, I figure what the hell. I walk in and explain my situation, ask if I can have a free drink today and promise to send money in the mail tomorrow. Just in the time I was sitting down the road, the owner had come in. She said OK and I got my free coffee (better for writing at the moment).

Turns out to have been quite good fortune once again. She also runs a low-price hotel near the park where I practice with Liu Laoshi, so that could work out well in the future. And her employee is from Kunming in Yunnan Province and knows of my other teachers in China, Sha and Li Laoshis.

That’s almost as good as the night I was at my favorite chuar stall in an unkempt alley munching on skewers and sipping beer and babbling in Chinese with the cook when the guy next to me asks where I am from and actually knows where Nebraska is without being told, knows the capital city, and so on. What a city this is.

Chance and fate. They have been operating in my life a lot lately. Or maybe they always do, and I am just more tuned into them these days. Living in Wenzhou ten year ago, I heard several times about fate or yuan, 缘. I also heard about a special kind of fate which draws martial artists together, wuyuan, 武缘.

Perhaps this is what drew best friend and then-student Wei Li and I together in Wenzhou (next time we meet, though, he will be the kendo teacher, not I). Or Mr. Wu, my teacher of the 42-motion style of tai ji quan every morning in Wenzhou. Or the staff fighting / jingju performance group I have been training with late nights here in Beijing, having discovered them by the chance taking of a different road than usual.

Or, biggest fate of all, living ten minutes away from my main teacher of Chinese Stuff for the past how many years, Mr. T. He offered a one-time only, three-week intro tai ji quan course at the small public area near my home. I think we both knew the first day that something special had begun. And through him, I am fortunate enough to have received direct training with three of his teachers here in China, Liu JingRu Laoshi here in Beijing, and Sha and Li Laoshis over in Kunming.

Was it also fate that he offered that class exactly at a time when I was winding down my karate and naginata training in Tokyo, and thus had available time to start with something/ someone new? It was also about the time I changed kendo dojos, so there was much upheaval in my life and training, and all these little parts fit together. Had the timing been slightly off in any one of these areas…

So now I sit in Zen café, just across from the Bell Tower or Drum Tower, tapping away on my laptop after having been granted sanctuary and an unpaid cup of coffee. [Beijing travelers contact me for their location]All feels right in the world, but I must admit this entire month of work and training in Beijing has also been the result of a chance encounter.

Last year while working at a translation company, I was one of two foreigners employed full or semi-full time. Given that much of their business is translating into English, the logic of not using native English speakers to translate into their mother tongue eludes me. That’s a story for another time and place.

Over the prior year or two, the other foreigner, Zou San from China, and I had spoken with each other occasionally in the office, usually just exchanging pleasantries in Japanese. One night I met him in the hallway. I had had a very long day at the desk and the J-to-E translation course I taught had not gone well that night.

For whatever reason, I spoke to Zou San for the first time in Chinese that night. We spoke a few minutes, then he suddenly realized. He switched into Japanese and asked me to sit down until he came back. Fair enough; I was knackered and collapsed into a chair to await his return.

Long story short, our company had, just that morning, been awarded the contract from the major Japanese TV station to handle media support work at the Olympics. And they needed a native English speaker with good Japanese and, well, not so terrible Chinese. And there I was.

Was it simple chance that I spoke to him in Chinese for the first time on that very night? I don’t know, but I can say I will be going back to Japan tomorrow with new eyes and ears, keeping them more open for opportunities and chances. My life has been too passive, always waiting for the chances that come. These days I feel it is not enough to make good use of those opportunities which present themselves – it is time to take more active control over my life and work to create opportunities and chances.

But even so, I sense that the most valuable or rewarding opportunities will remain those which are not sought after, but those which are presented to us by whatever force it is. And we can welcome them and revel in them or let them pass by…