I have always liked the idea of growing Bonsai  and, for my birthday last week, I was set up for the challenge and given this beautiful little tree called Syzygium buxifolium or Chinese myrtle. As today is China’s national day, it’s good to celebrate that great but far from free country’s culture with something of such beauty.

I’m a little bit daunted by the responsibility of caring for it but I’ve placed it on my desk so that it’s in the right environment, next to a South-facing window, with some direct light and plenty of air as I mostly keep that window open unless it’s really cold outside. I know not to over-water it and that I should use rain water or cool boiled water to prevent it drying out in summer. I will turn it weekly to control the growing pattern and trim the roots every two or three years. Mostly though, I hope, I shall sit and watch it grow – already it has injected a Zen-like spirit of tranquillity into my working space.

Chinese Myrtle grows to its full height in Southern China including Fuchian province where I visited in February 2008 – it was in China, rather than Japan, where I first saw Bonsai trees growing in ornamental parks like this one in Fouchou.

I was visiting China with my White Crane Kungfu club, White Crane Fighting Arts, to study Shaolin Dog Boxing with renowned Master Lin Zaipei.

http://www.whitecranefightingarts.com/lewes-club.php

Apart from the Kungfu,  there was time to see the country,  visit temples and, of course, to eat and drink the Chinese way.

I even earned myself a certificate in Shaolin Dog Boxing presented by Master Lin Zaipei himself.

Of course, when we weren’t training, there was also time to go out on the town in Fouchou city.

I had a great time there so it’s especially good to have this little Chinese Bonsai tree as a daily reminder of the positive aspects of Chinese society while we, at least, are allowed to see in our media, those brave  Hong Kong demonstrators taking to the streets demanding democracy from the often hard-faced government of leader Xi Jinping.

Wish me (and the tree) luck, everyone, but don’t forget to wish luck to the great Chinese people too – when I was there they were welcoming, hospitable and very charming.

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The people of Hong Kong are still out there on the streets demonstrating, illegally but charmingly, for full democracy for their state within a state. They want free elections and object to Beijing imposing a list of ‘suitable’ candidates on Hong Kong. China must be worried that the demonstrators raised all those umbrellas against the heavy-handed use of tear gas. Umbrellas, civilised, decorative and fragile, will become a potent symbol of humanity pitched against brute force.

The demonstration, apparently lead by a huge body of students and academics, has been handled with charm and smiling faces and that is a lesson for all of us. How difficult it must be for the Chinese government to keep credibility internationally when these images spread around the World.

These fresh-faced, optimistic but plucky people have won our support without lifting a finger in violence.

It is easier for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to keep these images away from his own people  – all he has had to do is censor the media and social networking websites.

The non-Democratic Chinese government dreads its people seeing images of protest especially when they are calling for democracy and freedom. So the brave people of Hong Kong will not be seen in mainland China.

Twenty-five years after the last major demonstration against Chinese autocracy, more plucky Chinese demonstrators risk the wrath of their unelected rulers. Today’s demonstrators,  just like that brave student in Tiananmen Square all those years ago,  have created images that will haunt us all just as, presumably, they must haunt Mr Xi Jinping.

The post The Umbrella Revolution – new iconic images from China, 25 years after Tiananmen Square. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

In my eyes down mode, I’ve been coming to the final pages of my new novel’s first draft and yesterday, June 4th,  went by without me recognising the 24th Anniversary of the tragedy of the Tiananmen Square  riot, demonstration, or, more accurately, massacre that is still not acknowledged as such by the Chinese government who regard it as little more than a counter-revolutionary blip on the great forward march.

We need to remind the world of that dreadful day – the resulting long prison sentences for some of the demonstrators and of course the many deaths (somewhere between 200 and 3000 people died that day) at the hands of Chinese troops on the streets of Beijing.

I hope, but doubt, that new president Xi Jinping of China will see fit to reassess this blot on his great nation’s record. I hope too that on his imminent visit to the USA, he will be reminded of his duty by President Obama.

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Even though I have been lucky enough to have spent most of the last weeks abroad on holiday, first in Sicily and just recently the USA, I have been on a determined bid to get back into my martial arts patterns (taught to me by my instructor Neil Johnson of White Crane Fighting Arts – see links) as a primary way of getting, and trying to stay, fit.  Luckily, the friends that I was staying with in rural New Jersey had an excellent and large garden that was perfect for my early morning routine.

For over a month now, I have tried to do a daily session consisting of the moving meditation system named after one of kungfu’s founding fathers, the revered Da Mo. Even though it looks gentle enough, it is actually pretty demanding especially on the legs. It stretches the body gently and subtly, trains the lungs and puts you, if you can control those wandering thoughts, into an inspired state of oneness with your surroundings. It was wonderful doing this here in a woodland New Jersey garden with the sun rising above the trees and a chorus of unfamiliar and exotic-sounding birds and insects.

It was pretty challenging doing my Taichi and Kungfu patterns too as the strong summer sunshine racketed up the temperature.

It was a great deal cooler when I started this regime at home in my small town garden in Lewes, UK.

The great thing about having these patterns to perform every day is that you can really do them anywhere giving you no excuse for not keeping your body strong and flexible even if like me, you are not particularly skilled at them.

Unlike team sports or visits to the gym, you can take your exercise regime with you wherever you go and over the last year, I have done just that. As I now approach the third anniversary of a major illness, dare I say it,  the gradual recuperation and exercise is beginning to pay off. The after-effects of my brain haemorrhage now seem to be near to disappearing all together and the seizure-caused broken back too has benefited all through this period from my regular use of my White Crane Kungfu 66-move Taichi form which I began to practise again, against doctor’s orders, on the hospital ward and that has meant that I needed no physiotherapy as my spine repaired itself. So even though I can no longer take part in those highly enjoyable sparring sessions, I have been able to keep my patterns going – even my weapon patterns – in some unlikely places. All you need is the determination and a certain lack of feeling embarrassed doing the stuff in public places.

Straight sword with a purloined garden cane,  Paros, Greece.

Straight sword with a strip of plastic on a hotel roof, Santorini, Greece.

Seven and a half foot staff pattern with a plastic ventilation pipe, Santorini, Greece.

Sword pattern with a mountain walking stick on the summit of Mount Rigi, Switzerland.

Taichi by the Grand Canal, Venice, Italy

Kungfu in Florence.

Da Mo Meditation on Mount Etna, Sicily.

Kungfu on the beach at Cefalu, Sicily….

and finishing with some Chigong exercises just a few days ago in Princeton, New Jersey. It may seem strange to say this but doing these intense but also at times profoundly contemplative exercises in different lands gives me a deeper sense of the places and, don’t laugh, a feeling that I have connected with them in a special way. It all began in 2008 when I practised early morning Taichi in a park by a lake in Fujian Province, Southern China with a roaring lion breaking the morning silence in a nearby zoo.

The important thing now is for me to keep it up now I am back in old England.

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The Chinese dissident artist Ai Wei Wei is an unconventional man living and making his mark in a highly conventional society. He believes that you should let it all hang out but the Chinese government disagrees especially when he takes a stance on what he saw as a cover up over the earthquake that killed many more than the official fig leaf wanted to reveal.

Like dissidents the world over, Ai Wei Wei is a brave and principled person but since April this year, he has “disappeared” into prison for unspecified reasons. a charge will be invented eventually for international consumption but his “crime” was speaking out about injustice. What is worse for any totalitarian government, he is totally unapologetic. Let us all try to keep his name and his message in circulation and hope that he will be released soon.

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The purpose of the trip was to study a branch of Kung Fu known as Dog Boxing with the renowned Master Lin. That too was a life changing experience but, if you want to know more a bout that, there is a record of the trip in the menu above under Martial Arts.

I broke my journey to change fights in Hong Kong and, whilst I was there I bought my first digital camera, a Canon EOS 400D, and I instantly became shutter crazy.

These are my first digital photographs, divided into two sections: People and Places. I plan to put them up in the Photography section in the menu above – something I shall be adding to over time. Click on the image to enlarge.

Kung Fu took up the main part of my time out in China, I was studying in Fuzhou, in Fujian Province, right down in the South, but there was still plenty of time to wander around seeing the sights, experimenting with my rudimental Mandarin Chinese and, in a simple way, to form what I hope will be a lasting relationship with the country.

Apart from my time in Fuzhou, I was also able to travel to some of the Buddhist temples, notably the Southern Shaolin Temple, tranquil places associated with the birth of Kung Fu.

China certainly suffers from many of the things criticized in the press but it is also, to my experience, a land full of things to learn, alternative ways of seeing things and, again in my experience, a country full of friendly, smiling people.

PEOPLE

PLACES

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