15/05/2024
Something I wrote a while ago, before somecamnesia barriers broke down, writing intuitively,I guess…
“I have no clear memory of ever being in china, but this is what it is to me.
Qi gung practitioners - many of them - slowly and with great control and focus working through forms and shifting, manipulating desirable and undesirable energies.
Refined gentlemen, so observant of etiquette, of propriety, respectful of elders and appreciative of artistic culture. Discrete and subtle male-bodied femmes, whatever name you ascribe them as a group, healing and comforting, receptive and aware. Drag queens in shanghai, larger than life, peals of laughter, noise spilling out from a bar. Businessmen sly, pretending to be drunk, actually only tipsy, over chain smoking lunches carefully planned to be economical yet seem excessively generous with many dishes brought to the table. China is a mahjong player, china is an o***m addict.
Fate can seem cruel, it doesn’t mean the culture is. Demon infestations happen everywhere, bad spirits must be kept at bay. Clay yoghurt pots, hand pulled noodles, char sui, honey chicken, tea. These weapons used to dispel bad energy, make the body feel better from the tastebuds down. The kitchen is the armoury, the square with trees the training ground for forms of qi gung. China is the place you put out crispy broad-beans for the hungry ghosts because it is sensible to do so, one must be practical. China is the place where the right soup will fix you, it just will. Abroad people think of busy, overpopulated cities, many lights, stories of dynasties and ming vases. People romanticise concubines in culture without really understanding their place in society. The real china is kung fu, “hard work”. The real china wants to know who you are, get the measure of you, before transacting business. To me, it is the right way. China is not pretentious concepts of face and class, it is dignity and composure, time and place for emotion and private thoughts, self discipline and honour. Ethics and responsibility, the correctness of things. China is the moongate, the friendship garden, the portal to another world where we can gaze at the sky and court with poems, dressing in clothes we deem fine for our station and being at ease in and amongst nature”