be happy with it – flow naturally into life
Posts tagged china
Qingdao Learnings
Nov 21st
I’m back from Qingdao and because of the cold I caught these days, finally have time to write a little something (pictures are already up in the gallery Qingdao 09. My trip was really nice, most of the time I lived with my Shi Bo (Gongfu uncle) Yu Bin, who’s now proud father of a cute son. Our days were mostly very healthy waking up a t 6am for training, breakfast, relaxing/training, lunch, working, dinner, long talks about Gongfu and going to bed early at 10pm. Everyday I would learn a lot, but not forms (not counting the new Bashi (8 stances) we have in our family), but the very basics of energy and fighting. My notes for each day would be longer than they’ve been in years, learning about the small details and some traditional training methods of our family, but also clarifications of our history and theories. Even found out why our Beng Bu differs so much from other families.
Yu Bin gave me a task, which concluded writing an article about how traditional Gongfu (especially Tanglang Quan) should be trained and I’m happy to tell you, the first draft is already finished. For now it’s in German and will be posted here on this blog, but I’ll be working on a translation as soon as I finalize the German one.
We also talked about how to get the abstract theory and basics that are inherent to Tanglang Quan more clarified not just for students in our family, but for everyone out there. So (hopefully) starting soon, we’ll post more and more translations and explanations of the basic theories like 12 keywords, 5 principles, 7 long 8 short, 12 soft 8 hard on the website of the Wan Fu Qingdao School in the philosophy section (under training). Some are already online – thanks goes to Yu Bin’s Tudi Felix, who besides his job, managed to translate all those for the website. For now it’ll be just these bits and pieces, but maybe they’ll find their way into a book of sorts, but keep in mind all of these won’t make you a better practitioner, a good teacher and hard work does!
Scent of Iran
Apr 27th
I went out of the house, walking through the sun I smelled something familiar. It reminded me of spring in Teheran. There’s lots of similarities between Teheran and Beijing. Not only the masses, traffic and polution, but there’s the dry weather, workers watering the greens and flowers in spring and lots of small details that kind of subconciously make me like this city even more. Not many people see these simliarities, but even chinese and persian culture have lots of things in common. Is Beijing maybe the Teheran I always wanted?
It’s been more than 5 weeks since I moved here and I know it’s also been nearly a month since my last real post on this site. We took lots of pictures, but most of them are inside of restaurants. Seems like the only thing we’re doing these days is working, sleeping and – on weekends – watching movies and trying out nice food places – doesn’t sound very interesting, but it’s been relaxing and fun. I’ve also been cooking a bit more these days.
As for gongfu, it kind of looks like my blog activity. First I was busy, then I was lazy and now I got problems with my wrist, but I’m planning on definitely starting training in May! – I promise 
Hello Beijing
Mar 19th
Third day in Beijing. Had a nice realxing Tuesday alone with Pingping and met up with Fei Ai and her friend Aron yesterday. We had lunch together with Pingping and after picking up Aron’s suit we sat a little at Houhai, drank and talked a little.
Today I’m gonna look at some apartments around Wudaokou. Seems like there’s lots of nice and cheap ones free at the moment – the recession also has its’ good sides
Nothing very special these days. Seem to be allergic to something floating around in the air these days. Oh, nearly forgot: NEVER drink a “Green Tea Latte” at Starbucks!!! The “Green” in doesn’t mean real green tea (like any normal person would think), but some kind of sea-weed tea!! I posted a pic of that “delicous” brew and yes, it really tastes as bad as it looks!
Bye Bye Cologne
Mar 18th
So, yes, I’m moving back to Beijing! This time to write my final thesis in a project at Peking University.
The past weeks were filled with my last exams, a (really interesting) scientific paper we wrote, finding someone to take our apt in Cologne and miscellaneous – seemingly never ending – last preparations. But there were also lots of “goodbye meetings”, which – though kinda sad by definition – were lots of fun.
I really have to thank my girlfriend and my family for bearing me and my stress-induced moods.
But now I’m here and staying (at least for 6 month). And as lots of people asked me to keep them updated I thought of reviving this blog and add more personal posts to the automatic del.icio.us news and occasional videos I’ve been posting lately.
As I got a nice new cam (Canon IXUS 980 IS), I’m also gonna try to post some more pics from time to time.
The flight with Air Emirates was ok. More >
News around the Web for August 13th through August 17th
Aug 17th
These are my links for August 13th through August 17th:
- TechCrunchIT » Blog Archive » Pioco Experiments with Bluetooth Mobile Advertising – great idea to push ads through incentives
- Video tech uses photos to enhance, alter shots: it's the Photoshop of video, and no one is safe – Engadget – seems to work really nice, but only on stills for now
- TrendsSpotting Handbook Of Online China – For all who are thinkng of taking part in Online China
青岛 – Qingdao
Mar 22nd
Yesterday in the morning we (Hanno and me) arrived in 青岛. 于斌 was already waiting for us at the trainstation and after some food and watching his pictures of 西藏 (Tibet) and 杭州 (Hangzhou) while having a good 崂山茶 (Laoshan tea) at his place we got some cheap and good accomodation right around the corner. In the afternoon we had our first training at the parking lot of the hotel. While Hanno got his 小翻车 (Xiao Fan Che) corrected, I was bound to start learning 拦截 (Lan Jie), which according to my 师伯 is the oldest 套路 (form) in 螳螂拳 and therefore called the mother of 螳螂拳.
After training we got invited to 火锅 (hotpot) with some chinese friends of my 师伯 and too much beer. So training today in the morning was accompanied by a little hangover. At noon we (together with a korean taekwondo master and two men from chinese customs duty) got invited to lunch by some co-worker of my 师伯. The rest of the day is still not planned out, but it’s also good to have some time for relaxing (and writing blogentries) right now.
