Ditching Class

Richard decides to ditch breakfast. I head over. I eat quickly and walk back with Viki. She usually has some nuggets of wisdom to impart on me. Whether it’s traditional life in mid Wales or the rise of consumer culture in the West. Mainly it’s the recent Welsh defeat of England in the Six Nations. We head over to training and not there’s a lot of students in white silks. We wonder if it’ll be something to do with the film crew, which haven’t quite left yet. We don’t really care. We have more important things to worry about, standing. Once again we’re cranked down by Xiaoxing. The same corrections every time. At least I’m consistently crap. Later we go through the form and he corrects my posture by doing the same thing he does when I’m standing. We continue. There’s a large repeated section in part 3 of the form and we go over this large chunk in the morning. Even though we’ve gone over it. We still receive new tidbits from the Grandmaster. Soon it’s lunch time and we head over for grub. More excitement as we have some chicken and potatoes again. The cook rushes off as we arrive, apparently the rice cooker broke and she’s headed back to the school to get us some rice. Phew! I take my customary nap and as I come down for the afternoon session all the kids march out the school. Ziqiang informs us that they are filming in the ditch and Xiaoxing will be going down and we can come too. This is fantastic news as we had been prevented from entering the ditch. Training starts as usual with standing. We look at the next part of the form and do some solo work. Soon though, we are told it’s time to go. Although there’s an entrance to the ditch a minute’s walk from the school, we have to enter at the bottom. So we take a leisurely stroll through the village. Xiaoxing greets people at we go. Like a king walking through his kingdom. Just outside the village, on the main road, we find a huge market has been set up. Seeking foods of all sorts, bread made in an oven on the back of a pickup, spices, sweets and more, as well as any product you might feasibly want. Chairs, bras, shoes, light bulbs…the list goes on. We walk a short way to the entrance of the gou and are eventually let in. The old timers remark at all the changes that have taken place. New buildings, extensive landscaping and more has taken place here. We wander though the place where so many taiji videos have been filmed and take in the atmosphere of what has become a very tranquil place. We spend a lot of time taking pictures on various platforms in various poses. Soon though we are told we need to get out. I think the gatekeeper wanted to enjoy the market. We have time before dinner so we walk on and enjoy a different sort of atmosphere. We buy some fresh pastrys and Viki buys some rose tea. Soon we need to head back. We decide to drop off out stuff before dinner and returning to the school we are told it’s donkey night in Wenxian (the County Town pop 130 000)

Kim has been banging on about the delicious donkey hotpot spot in wenxian and how we have to go. It seems Ziqiang has noted this desire and wants to please. We mill about got a bit and then a little electric tourist bus appears. Ziqiang is going to drive us there himself. We all pile in and take a very leisurely pace into wenxian. A far more representative example of provincial China than the beautified village we’ve been staying in. Its a bit more run down but also a much much bigger place. We eventually stop outside a small establishment and are ushered into the back. Some starters are brought out and we enjoy cold donkey, pickled lotus root and brined(maybe) peanuts. Soon the star of the show comes out and its a big old bowl of noodles with a little bit of donkey meat in. Ifs ok, I wouldn’t be ordering it again. The donkey meat is nice but not to die for (unless you’re a donkey) Viki has some mysterious cake like substance she bought in the street market that she gets cut up. Very few take it up. I have some but it’s not particularly amazing. It’s edible though. We hop back in and slowly head back to the village. We take a shortcut and bump into a student of the village. A. Long dark walk away from the school. He jumps in. I ask Davidine to ask him what he was doing way out here. He says he was jogging. We don’t believe him. Davidine whispers something to him. But I wouldn’t lnk what she said even if I could have heard.

We make it back in once piece and Richard and I head to our room to pack. He leaves very early after our last day and probably won’t have a lot of time to pack tomorrow. I made some bulky present purchases today which may cause problems when trying to fit it into my suitcase. I may have to leave a few more things behind than intended. I already have an item of additional luggage that I have to take with me that will cause enough problems for me. One more day of training. 2 more standings and 6 more standing corrections to go…..