My first Tai Ji lesson

I had my first Tai Ji lesson on Sunday. Apart from being 10 minutes late it went well, unexpected road works on Sichuan Road...doh!

Although you are moving slowly and don't look like you are doing much Tai Ji is actually quite strenuous, especially on the legs. After riding to the school and back and an hour and a half of Tai Ji I was knackered. I think I will certainly keep it up as it demands alot of attention and practice to get all the moves correct and in time and there are many subtle moves of the hands, feet and body that have to be coordinated to get the desired result. It will certainly need practice everyday to even remember the forms (a set of movements) as the first form has 30 movements and there are 89 forms in the style I am learning, which is Wu Southern Style.

The lessons I am doing are with another couple, who are Chinese, so most of the lesson is given in Chinese but the teacher, Chou Zhong Fu, does describe some of the more detailed points to me in English. In the main though I can pick it up by watching carefully and, after a chat with the teacher in the break, the more complex theory and practice will be layered in later on, once I have mastered the form's movements.


I didn't take any photos during the lesson as I thought it would be disrespectful but the pics here are of the centre I am learning at, which houses many styles of martial art and has a gym, and of me practicing at home. As you can see Tai Ji attracts all sorts.

Early birds

Yesterday we got up at 5:30am to check out a group of people who do Tai Chi Chuan in Fuxing (pronounced Fooshing) Park. They meet every morning at 6:15am to 6:45am and some even practice whatever the weather! As you can see it wasn't easy rising at such an early hour but I'm sure with a bit of practice we'll get into the swing of things. I have to, my Chinese course at university starts at 8am!

Shanghai was already wide awake as we rode to the park and when we got there I was surprised to see the park full to the brim with OAPs enjoying the first part of the day. We went there to find the group of people who were taught by instructors at a Tai Chi school Yaning had found for me and which we went to see on Sunday, but we had a bit of a problem finding them as there were so many different groups, some practicing Tai Chi, some learning traditional dances, some practicing Qi Gong and others doing just what they felt like to keep fit and wake up to the day. One thing that struck me was the contrast to the UK the scene would have made. In general, in Western culture, when you get old most people feel you are more or less ready for the knacker's yard but here they are still in good health and mobility, I saw one group of old ladies stretching against a fence with their legs up on the top rail!

The Tai Chi school I'm going to teaches Wu style, one of the oldest styles. It is a bit of a bike ride to get to and from but it looks very traditional and well established and apparently the head teacher has been to over 40 countries lecturing on Tai Chi. He seemed a nice and sincere fella too. The main problem is that the lessons are understandably given in Chinese, but there is one other Westerner there and the teacher is starting a smaller group on Sundays so I will join that one until I get up to speed and can join the main group. I'll make a post about how it goes on Sunday after my lesson.

I say Tai Chi Chuan but I believe the proper pronunciation in mainland China is Tai Ji Quan, Tai Chi is the Cantonese pronunciation and is more well known among the rest of the world as the majority of Chinese outside of China are from this area. The main difference is in the style of Tai Ji that is practiced. I only know of Wu and Yang styles but I am sure there are many more.

Through the keyhole...

Last night I sat down to a cold refreshing can of beer, no prizes for where they got the inspiration for the name from! I think they spent as much money on the product development as they did on the product advertising but it was cold and refreshing. I'm not much of a beer drinker but I have noticed that Chinese beer is not that strong but very gassy and, in restaurants especially, is served in small glasses, much like the Australians have midi's and probably due to the metric system. You can get a pint but you will pay through the nose as it is usually only served at English style bars/pubs which are very fashionable and only available to theose people with well paid jobs. On my way past one bar I saw a pint of draught Guiness for 59 yuan, about a fiver, which over here is a fortune to many people in China let alone Shanghai.

A few of you have requested some shots of the apartment to see how and where I am living so here they are:

This is lane 385, where our apartment complex is situated (up on the left) and on the corner is the Cheers bar. It was something else when I came over last September but has had a refurb and name change, as so many places do so quickly in Shanghai. Yaning is convinced it is a den of disrepute as you cannot see into it from the street and there were once large windows with curtains that never opened which have been filled in. She's dying to go inside and take a look...lol

This is the entrance to our apartment block, not much to look at.

Here is the main room of the house, the living room/kitchen/dining room. Many main rooms in China have multiple purposes and with a family living in small apartments the living room is also often the parent's bedroom. Walking around at night you can see many of the small shops are also peoples' homes and their bed becomes their workbench by day.

Here is the front room, attached to the main room, it should really be the living room but is serving as a storage area at the moment and will be even more full when I get my stuff shipped over...lol

Moving on to the bathroom, very small but serves our needs (and those of the mosquitoes!...lol). It's great to have a show as in this weather you need at least four or five a day. What's that Ma? At least his move over has improved his sanitary habits?....lol

Here is the bedroom, very spacious and with functioning air conditioning, thank God! Yaning said that the apartment upstairs has at least 10 guys living in there, all on shift work, so we have it quite comfortable.

And finally there is the patio. Only kidding, it is the washing area and some space for storing those items you don't want in the house like mops and buckets.

The apartment actually looks better in the photos than in reality but the rent is pretty cheap and it is clean. It does have its problems though as it is old and we got a little flooded when we had the storm the other week...lol By Shanhai's standards it is pretty comfortable as many people don't have it so spacious or functioning.

As you can see there is a great difference between the rich and the poor. A lot of old areas are being knocked down to make way for new devlopments and you can guess that those people displaced form their old homes will not be offered one of the new ones, but that's the price of progress, it's the same the world round.

The variety in living styles is vast and you can walk one block off any of the main affluent roads and see people living in cramped quarters.

This is a shot of a typical alley with work being done to keep the houses up and peoples washing stretched between the buildings on poles. In fact many of these types of alley don't look as nice as this one. As I said earlier, alot of people share their living space with their business and the only access to running water is a shared tap, you can often see people washing themselves or their clothes in the street in the evening.

New Balls Please!

Yesterday we took Tata, one of Yaning's cats, to the vet to get his crown jewels chopped off, poor fella. As you can see he is feeling pretty down and he is currently following us both about the flat looking for comfort.. Not only has he lost his nuts but he has to walk around with the orange cone on his head for a week, if it wasn't such a sorry sight seeing him navigate the furniture it would be quite funny. His name Tata is derived from ta, the chinese word for he, she and it. Yaning didn't know if he was a boy or girl when she got him as a kitten so she named him Tata (heshe). Sadly he is more 'she' than 'he' now...lol


I'm getting to grips with Shanghai traffic so today I'm going to take a ride to the university I've signed up with to time how long it wil take to get there in the mornings (8am start...bummer). While I'm there I'll also be popping into one of Shanghai's many B&Q's to pick up some bits for a job at Yaning's office. B&Q is quite popular in China and there are about 20 stores around the country, Shanghai having 4 including the main office. Judging by the pics on the website it looks like there is a bigger range of goods and better organisation than the stores back home too, I think they are competing with Ikea.

On yeh bike!

So, I'm now officially a local with the purchase of a shiny new mountain bike. A bargain at only 746 RMB (just under £54 to those of you not familiar with Yuan) plus 11 RMB for registration to ride it on the streets. Quite a smart bike it is too, I wonder how much more it would have cost in the UK? The purchase also helps to make my adopted chinese name, pei li ke, more official as I used it on the bike registration, which can just about be seen in the attached photo of my bike and registration card. Now I can ride with pride to my Chinese language course when I register for that next week. I'm looking forward to getting some experience on the streets of Shanghai, it's a jungle out there and everyone seems to do as they please which quite strangely equates to less road rage than I have seen back home, not that you don't see the odd kefuffle here and there.

We were quite lucky today, as not long after we got back from buying the bike it started to rain again, something it is doing quite a lot these days as we have just been passed over by a hurricane. Non-stop heavy rain and wind for two nights and a day, not the perscription for a good night's sleep...lol Although it has brought the temperature down which is a bonus. Another problem we've been having is the mosquitos. Not too big but a menace all the same as they are small enough to get through the nets on the doors and windows and are a bugger to control. I'm feeling like a bit of a pin cushion at the moment and have had to take to sleeping under a sheet, even though it is boiling hot at night. When I get a moment I've told Yaning that I will make a mosquito net for the bed so we can sleep in peace....lol

Manners cost nothing

Today Yaning and I went to look at a couple of universities offering courses in Mandarin to foreign students. It was quite a trip as, again, it was very hot and one of the universities was quite far away from the flat.

A couple of things they both had in common was the price and the lack of manners from the people working there. 'Customer care' was the order of the day, you are the customer, I don't care! Which looks as though it will be the standard for official organisation such as government offices, universities etc. One thing I must get used to as it doesn't pay to bring them up on their manners.

Unfortunately the uni closest to the flat was full, but the guy didn't seem interested in our queries as it was the end of the day so we will try again tomorrow due to the conflicting information Yaning got previously.

One thing I learned on Saturday is to carry my camera around if I want to get some interesting pics, so I will have to get into the habit of doing so, plus I'll post some on here too.

Unfortunately the uni cdlosest to the