Noah's Travel Journal - China, Fifth Entry

Previous Entry Return to my China Journal Next Entry

Outclassed and Never to Surpass: Ego at Half-Mast

One fault now on anyone's part means a disabilitating spinal injury for at least one person. Unerring concentration is chiseled into all eight participants' faces and constricted muscles. The safety rigging cheers from the wall on which it hangs, useless in such a complicated mockery of Newtonian physics. In hindsight, turning my camera's flash off would have been the smallest courtesy I could have afforded the 10-year-olds risking their lives instead of learning about the birds and bees in an American, 5th grade, conventional education. Countless hours of practice are distilled and shot down the barrel of my camera in less than a second.

An explanation of the maneuver sounds even more ridiculous than watching it live, so thankfully I took advantage of my camera's video function on their third execution (three maneuver executions, not pint-sized prodigies). I set my camera down to make a quick trip to the moldy, malaria-area of a bathroom and returned to find one of the acrobats replaced. The young girl being back-flipped under the front-flipper, had been benched with a bruise creeping across 40% of her face and neck, as the swelling warped the tear streaks below her left eye.

My new 28th story residence had put me right on the bus line out to the Fuyong Acrobatics School. My training arrangement was one of the sink-or-swim genre, or more appropriately fly-or-freefall. Careful not to botch my privilege of carte blanche participation, I never interfered with the exercises or resting times of the students. All of my inverted maneuvers were practiced without a spotter and during their lunchtime, until I polished them enough to join in the drills with those less than half my age. While they slept, I practiced with props from the Chinese circus in my customary attempt to steal and exploit the art and culture of the different countries I visit, just like my man, Paul Simon. I however, would be extremely hard-pressed to ever produce anything as epic and timeless as Graceland or Rhythm of the Saints.

After training for six hours each visit I ached for days while I conditioned and stretched in anticipation of my next bus commute. Not surprisingly my body adapted to the stress and I began to hurt more if I didn't stretch for an hour every day, than if I'd under-rotated on my flips. The coaches used my dedication and obsessive, perspiration-lubricated training at the school, in motivation attempts for the students devoid of sweat glands. My perseverance was fueled by a fun-loving creativity for the art that I had seen beaten and whipped out of the live-in students while I spied from behind a shower of balls and privilege. The technicality and danger of Chinese circus has no room for mistakes, clowning acts or anything less than complete dedication resulting from appointment, family lineage, and maybe even... by choice? It was the adolescents however, that were doing the actual motivation by being so hard-core I doubted if I was even worthy of breathing the same air.

Taking a training break and seeking a fabled troupe in Guangzhou, the capitol of our Guangdong province, Bhavana and I hopped a train that flanked rice patties, vegetation and farmland for the entire ride. It reminded me of those lands I'd seen so long ago, seemingly from a dream, with no building less than seven stories. Perhaps it was this reconnection with nature that set us up for such an ironic and horrifying contrast not one hour later.

I produced my business card, which was apparently valid for Chinese student admission prices at the Guangzhou Zoo; a cultural circus of a different kind. My first inkling that something was dreadfully wrong was the orangutan cage the size of my living room with nothing to climb on. Soon after, I learned that the grass under their feet was a huge luxury.

We walked past a group of local families supplementing two Brown bears' diet with candied fruit pieces, leaning over the "Do Not Feed" signs to get a better lobbing angle. A Grizzly bear had learned to use the reduced sanitation standards to its' advantage by skating four yards from one cement wall to the other, on the floor slick with decomposing feces. Every cat known to mankind was succinctly displayed in a line of standardized concrete cages divided with iron bars to promote conversation between neighbors. The cages were engineered for space efficiency (like any good zoo), ignoring variables like animal size or quantity of occupants.

Only two types of animals seemed to think the conditions merited an outcry. The lions never ceased their hoarse roars lobbying for a haircut, or at least a cage that allowed for minor shade from the ozone-free, ultra-violet rays. The only effective rebellion came from the crap-flinging, projectile-producing monkeys. Then again, that probably wasn't as much an outcry as it was fun in its' purest manifestation.

The zoo seemed to exhibit the same cultural trait that pervaded Chinese circus and other societal aspects. Perhaps most effectively summarized as: we will do it bigger and "better" because we have the resources and we CAN. We can stack six standing acrobats on each others' shoulders, now add the seven-year-old! We know that uninhibited consumerism generates money, now let's build Shenzhen!

Yes, a seven person stack is not often replicated in any circus culture. Yes, Shenzhen is a finely-tuned, money machine set on permanent wash-cycle. Granted, the zoo did contain a wider array of prisoners in a smaller total area than any facility I'd ever visited, but why err on the side of quantity instead of quality? Name plates devoid of animal statistics conjure an image of a zoology file cabinet, not a place to show children the splendor of nature's diversity. This disregard for sustainability is a global phenomenon, but different cultures exhibit it in their own unique and special way.

More than slightly perturbed by the gross defiance of wild beauty, we sought refuge at the monastery up the road. We'd seen the bell tower/cathedral from the backside as we wandered along a street lined with flamboyant costume shops and fine arts schools, hoping to catch a glimpse of an airborne artist behind a wall, bound for the heavens. We had to skirt around an entire city block before finding the huge arched entrance with the bell tower looming up in the background. There upon the archway were stamped three words, the certification of divine approval: Guangzhou Acrobatics Troupe.

After minor hassles with the gateman, we were ushered into the main courtyard by the resident Abbot Jason, moonlighting as International Event Booking Coordinator. The courtyard was surrounded on three sides by living quarters that formed corridors snaking into other parts of the compound, housing 120 acrobats in total. The cathedral with vaulted ceilings reaching 10+ stories was actually one of three training/performing centers large enough to accommodate aerial, high-wire and trapeze acts, while seating a healthy audience.

In the smallest of the gymnasiums we found the intermediate age and skill level monks, training on the Russian Bars (a long, thin, narrow flexible plank held on two people's shoulders to continuously catapult a twisting torso skyward) and traversing three trampolines through hanging hoops. Jason explained that if by this adolescent age, facial features had not continually developed in an aesthetic way, the acrobat was unceremoniously ousted... after a minimum of half a decade of conditioning.

The main training center for the "lifer" monks with 10+ years of dedication, made most gymnastics centers look like McDonald's Play Palaces with french-fries in their ball pits. Every manner of unbelievable act was being performed flawlessly. Many I'd never heard of for they had been invented in that very room by some of the top performers in all of China. From tap-dancing-badminton-racket-jugglers, feet-only-basketball-shooters and high-wire-hand-standers, I couldn't decide what spectacle was more deserving of my attention.

The frightful inevitability finally arrived and all 30 acrobats stopped their training for my skill exchange. Contact juggling is a relatively new juggling art and I capitalized on its' capacity to captivate, and the devil stick's sure-to-please native Chinese status. After emptying my bag of tricks and toys for a courtesy applause, the resident master juggler and I traded juggling techniques with a quick mutual comprehension. Before they finished their training for the day, I provided them with an unintentional dose of slapstick trampoline clowning with a happily minimal amount of back spraining.

As we departed through the courtyard, my 10-ring-juggling friend brought ice-cold Coca-Colas contingent upon my participation in their concrete, four-on-four rotational soccer tournament. Contrary to my imagined acrobatic soccer match of handstand kick assists to front-flipping header goals, I held my own against the master manipulators. The only time I thought I was in over my head was when I rushed the high-wire-handstand goalie on a loose ball and laid him out flat on the concrete. I don't know the extent of the punishment for effectively nullifying a 12-year investment of the Chinese government, but I didn't want to find out, from what I'd heard about families being billed for a relative's execution bullet.

The acrobats' training facilities, residences, computers, DSL internet and salary are all still fully funded by the Chinese government. While Chairman Mao Tze-Tung launched culturally genocidal campaigns against older Chinese art forms like opera and painting, he was a huge proponent of acrobatic devotion and development. Chalk one up for the Cultural Revolution...

After countless matches I parted ways with the footballers, sore as hell and sweating steam in the cold air. They all clasped my hand in parting and instructed me to return as soon as possible. I was subsequently informed by Jason via email, that the Chinese Cultural Bureau would probably not be so keen on my future visitation, even though he greatly enjoyed the cultural exchange. Someone had obviously tipped him off about my plot to undermine his troupe by eliminating one performer every soccer match.

I had received a piece of destiny's ineffable puzzle, still not fully comprehending the magnitude of being able to connect all the border pieces into an outline. I had been privy to impossible feats of bodily mastery and I accepted the fact that I could dedicate my life to mimicry and still never achieve such abilities. Instead of disheartening, this information crystallized the unique performing niche I was capable of. "I will never be as bad-ass as a 10-year-old Chinese girl," became my twisted mantra. I was aiming for something that 23 and a half years had been preparing me for, and China kindly offered me its' trade secrets: belief and dedication.

"Like anything else, prolonged imitative drilling will promote mechanical precision; however, the margin of freedom of expression grows narrower and narrower... My concerns are for those who are unknowingly being conditioned and solidified by a partialized and highly classical structure, with only 'routine efficiency' rather than the freedom to express oneself."

Bruce Lee

Jeet Kune Do (original manuscript)