Letters from China, Part 2

Chapter 2 

Hung, that's his name. Been here five days with the dude and we just learnt his name yesterday. You can get too good at bluffing you're way through ignorance. Hung's the guy I ended the last mail with, from New York's Chinatown, a marshal artist from the White Crane School, of which Flo's mum's squeeze is the head. ''Sefu'' (master) as he's called is eighty eight, but looks more like sixty eight, and active enough to piss off Florence with his cantacerous ways (from which I am sheltered by my linguistic handicap) He had a famous fight with the ''King of Tai Chi" (Wu style, not the sissy shit you get in the west) that's still talked about amongst those in the know to this day. Mayor of Macau gave him a plaque the other year for the 50th anniversary of this ''fight to the death for charity'' (charity means gangster's gambling needs in Macau) they stopped the fight, but not before Sefu had to swallow a couple teeth out of pride. Both sides claimed victory, but I'm getting the tape soon, so we can judge it for ourselves. Hung and the White Crane boys from NY recon he's the top or close to it in the world. 
It's New Year’s Eve when we arrive, everyone's off work for the next seven days, just eating and chillin' with family etc. So we do the same. Hung's become our companion, despite his knowledge of the language; I think he's as happy to have a few more English speakers about as I am. There's a lot of sightseeing with Mamma Pang, most of it with Hung (who we're calling 'dude' at the time, since we're too embarrassed to admit we'd forgotten his name) We see the famous facade of a Portuguese church which burnt to ashes save the ornate front alter wall thing. It looks cool, especially with all the modern minimalist steel accompaniments, plaques etc. In stark contrast to this is the Buddhist temple hill.
The Buddhist temple hill is also beautiful, but it's a tip. The Chinese seem to have a knack for creating things of striking beauty and letting them rot. This is no exception. It's a rock garden hill, if you can imagine that, with little altars, big alters, pagodas and enough incense blazing away to explain the omnipresent springtime fog. Could be beautiful, but it's a functioning temple, which means it's a shambles. Irritating overweight beggars crowd the steps mumbling colloquial Cantonese and shaking their pots while within arms reach wrappers of every description fighting for space amongst the dyeing plants. If the fuckers cleaned up the place I'd spare some change, but they don't so I won't.
I shake out a fortune stick at the top and buy some incense planting it randomly about the little shrines till there isn’t any more. My fortunes so-so: the dude tells me (and Flo's mom, who's well into this stuff elaborates) that basically next year I shouldn't trust anyone, (that means YOU fuckers) and that a great man will help me out. We shall see. How do I know I can trust this fortune stick? 
Other sights of interest: the maritime museum (good boat models, and very informative as to fishing methods and Portuguese colonial trade) a gallery full of contemporary Chinese art, good shit!, kicks ass all over English stuff. A museum with loads of ornate clocks and contemporary Macanese art, just one city's portfolio and it still fucks up that rosbeef bullsht! (You hear me England? when that giant gets through brushing it's teeth, it'll be yo' ass). I got the flier things so you can judge for yourselves. This place is full of eye candy, so perhaps that's why it's all visual type goodness, the kind I tend to go for. England's got a lot of interesting people, so the art's based on ideas, something a bit lacking in the Chinese stuff, though I can't say I miss it. It's probably a bit sketchy to get too political/conceptual in your art with your gran still telling you stories about the red guards. 
Speaking of red guards, we spent a few hours the other day chatting with a few of them who were selling Mao posters on the street. They were like sixty or so, there aín't no red guards no more, so they're retired, selling off Little Red Books and other stuff to tourists and getting all excited telling us about the good old days. Chairman Mao must be spinning like a top in his grave. They look the part, real friendly peasant type folk, the lady's got that haunch-sitting ability only true rural farmers can achieve and they get more and more animated as they talk, the way a bunch of drunk guys get, all friendly until they get so happy and excited that the next thing you know they’re kicking your ass. I can see how things got out of hand back then. They tell us that they'd all pitch in and work all year together and at the end of the year they'd tally up how many days they worked and take a cut of the pay based on that. No one needed to lock their doors, crime didn't exist. They were all comrades. The way they put it, it all sounded pretty idyllic.
'Corse Sefu left the mainland because they were locking up martial artists, and Flo's mom didn't swim a few hundred miles from Hu Nan because it was a nice day, but I'm bringing home a few copies of ''Chairman Mao's Thoughts" so we can make up our own minds.
Went to the casinos the other night, Florence wasn't really up for it, said gambling is for sad old men, her friend who's a croupier doesn't like the job because she ''kills a few people every night''. Fuck that I wanna gamble! We get to the first place, the historical place, and it's full of grim locals lining up to play weird Asian games on big square tables. Ok Flo, you were right. We go to another place run by the Sands from Las Vegas, should be more western games. It's impressive, lots of space, expensive this and that, like a really pimped out airport terminal. There's a pretty girly crying in front of the cashier when I get there, they send me upstairs to buy chips. Strike one. I get upstairs and the second black man I've seen in Macau is on stage with the cheesiest casino band ever, bad jokes, bad music, strike two. We wander about for a bit and then I go for some chips. ''We only take Hong Kong dollars'' says the little rat behind the counter. ''I thought this was Macau?!" I say, He shrugs and says I can change my money at the window over there behind the other line. Strike three. That's like asking me to make the bed before you rape me in it. I'm outa there, taking my thirty patakas with me. 
Hung tells me orientals are suckers for gambling, I tell him westerners are suckers for alcohol, so we head for the bars. They try to charge us a bit too much for the drinks because there's a few Filipino girls singing pop covers on stage, Flo tells me how much, I mishear and think it's way too much, have a word or two with the manager, all six feet of me with my tattoos out and those bulgy eyes I get when I'm trying not to snap and we drink for free for the rest of the night! These little people can be so accommodating! Eventually we realise our mistake, apologise for being bitchy and stumble home.
We've been doing a lot of eating. They live for eating these Chineseses, I'm bringing you some Chinese biltong Anton, Macau's apparently the best place in China for it, I ate the first batch but I'll buy more, promise. Dim Sum over here rocks, that's what you have for breakfast, but they also have these semi Portuguese pork chop sandwich shops where the locals can enjoy their other great passion: shouting at each other. These places are bear pits full of tiny old people shouting and pushing and eating. The only way to get a table is to stand next to someone eating and stare at them until they go. Flo's mom is especially shameless (if shame exists in such places) in this activity. I will not attempt further description of these mad houses, words like 'chaos' or 'pandemonium' come as close as any, but not really.
There are all these antique/replica shops near the wrecked church thing, we met up with this old kung fu buddie of Flo's and wandered about a bit looking at chunks of cool old stuff until we stumbled upon a genius. I'd wanted to get one of those Chinese signature stamps with my name on it (like I sign my paintings) and we found a guy who was doing just that. We got to talking and I asked him if he did all the carvings on the tops of the stones, he said yes, and he showed me something, a bit of Ivory about the size of a postage stamp with a bunch of tiny dots on it. Bear in mind I have 20/22 vision (2 points better than normal) I squinted and still saw faint pinpricks in rows. He put it under his microscope where he was working and I saw what he was on about: 400 poems in Chinese calligraphy neatly carved in rows. I've seen those pieces of rice with similar miniature characters, but still I said damn. Then dude was showing me an article in some Beijing art journal about him and we started picking out the rock to make my stamp. I asked him if the paintings (real nice Chinese ones) on the walls were his, no they were his student's, the portraits on the left were though. This guy did just about every skill-based art there was and at super nice level. One of the few times in my life I've been genuinely impressed by someone sitting right there in the room. Fucking genius. I'm picking up my rock in two days.
Last night Florence and Hung stayed up late talking about Kung Fu theory. Hung's got a bit of a bad back, so I don't think he can always practice, but I think this has made him swerve more toward the cerebral side of Kung Fu, Florence spends most of the time listening and asking questions, I'm ear wigging and the guy's talking a whole lot of sense. Hung knows his shit like a Kung Fu professor. He is a true disciple of the White Crane.
Continuing with the martial arts theme, today we went to the park early to look for Flo's old master, a woman named Go. At seven in the morning Chinese parks are chock full of old people doing Tai Chi, many with swords. They all seem like masters by western standards. Flo asks around and finally the shortest woman in the park (4ft.) calls her up and we're off on the bus to Tai Pa Island to meet up for dim sum. Did I tell you I like dim sum? Try it in China. It makes you happy.
Go is short, like many of her people, but she caries herself with a poise that tells you she 'aint from the mainland, there's about as much similarity between her and the old red guards as there is between a sparrow hawk and a Trafalgar Square pigeon. She meets us on an overpass right near a massive Olympic stadium construction project (that giant's blinking and scratching his nose now) Florence actually goes up to her and starts to ask for directions before she stops mid sentence and starts shouting happily in recognition. She is about fifty, not unattractive, dressed all in black with impeccable eye makeup and the air of an aristocratic predator. Not a social predator, more like a tackle something and eat it kind of predator.
We go back to her place and she gives us some red packets (Chinese people give each other little red envelopes full of money on new years, but only if their married, I'm cleaning up here!) and they talk for a bit, showing pictures of her troupe of very old and very young martial artists in Beijing, playing with a sword and generally catching up. Go demonstrates a cross kick to Flo at one point and she moves real fast. Her heavily heeled boot stops instantly when it touches Flo's leg and you can see the power in the move. The way that heel would have hit would have left me with stitches and probably bend Florence's little knee back in on itself like one of those grisly sports action replays you get when someone has a career ending injury.
Dim Sum time! I can still taste the stuff, Tai Pa is upscale from Macau Island (it's still part of Macau, just a bit more residential) and Go knows how to order like the native Macanese she is As they chat amongst themselves Florence gives me a translated summery every now and then to keep me perky. It comes out that Go is a master of Wu style Tai Chi. Same as the King of Tai Chi, the one who made her mum's boyfriend swallow his teeth. Uh oh, as Rhodes would say, I've seen that movie before; Go grew up wealthy and was taught by the King's best student privately. 
A beautiful girl and a rebel, she insisted on practicing in a Shanghai style dress and heels. She taught Florence Wu Shu, a competitive form of Shaolin Kung Fu that took my girl to the Asian Olympics and made her champion of Macau, but not her own, deadly style of Tai Chi. 
Go tells us she has the tape of the famous fight between Sefu and the King, she's the one who tells us about his teeth, supressing a smile as she says he swallowed them to prevent the crowd from seeing. Go recons the King was on top when they stopped the fight, but again we shall see when we see the tape. Her face is a ballet of controlled emotion as she talks to Florence, I can see her breathing change here and her eyes are intense, twinkling intermittently at some Cantonese phrase or other. She obviously has a good deal of affection for Florence, probably her best ever student, and there is real beef between Wu style Tai Chi and the White Crane School, I know that Florence has step dad issues with Sefu, but she is adamant that she did not know Go was from a rival school until her training was under way.
Florence tells me not to let her mom know where we''ve been today. This is becoming all too familiar. I have seen this movie, or one a bit like it: it stars Kurt Russell and it's called Big Trouble in Little China. I'm beginning to think this jambalaya of gamblers red guards and martial artists might just leave a stain if I'm not careful with my chopsticks...
Tune in next time for Chapter three of our thrilling adventure.