Like many martial arts movie fanatics I eventually graduated to martial arts classes. I've studied Tae Kwon Do, Jeet Kun Do and a couple other martial arts. I studied these martial arts for around three years altogether, and during that time I was never in a fight, and I never joined any kind of tournament. Did martial arts make me more able to defend myself? I have no idea.
Many Western guys like me, many of those raised on a steady diet of Bruce Lee, afternoon karate classes and American Ninja, have spent a lot of time thinking about "Asia" before ever visiting the region. In their minds this "Asia" is a very romantic notion, quite far removed from reality. It's a place where magic still lives, often in the form of some little-practiced martial art.
They never bother themselves with the fact that life in modern Asia is usually quite different from the glimpses they've received though movies. Many of them, having witnessed the advent of the internet only after the onset of adulthood, also never bother to go online and look into the truth or falsehood of various Asia-centric fantasies.
"If I could just get there," many of them think, "Everything would be better. My true potential would be realized!"
I was well past my love affair with martial arts when I first arrived in Taiwan, but I've met a few guys who've come here imagining mist-shrouded temples and sword-wielding assassins. In hearing them talk I often imagine a much younger version of myself, a kid equally obsessed with ninjas, samurai and kung fu.
I've run into a couple Western guys in Taiwan still on that wavelength. One of them was into mixed martial arts. Another studied kung fu in the States. Both of them had that yearning, that desire for some secret only "Asia" could impart. One of them was convinced that Yunlin was the place to learn ancient Chinese secrets, a fact which made me chuckle when I thought of the part of Yunlin where my wife grew up. The other guy kept bringing up Taoism and obscure temples.
Thing is, there are people who actually study kung fu and other traditional arts in Yunlin. I've seen it firsthand. It's just that their "secret arts" are practiced more in relation to temple festivals, and aren't quite the lifestyle that unknowing foreigners imagine them to be. I don't know everything about Yunlin's "kung fu scene," but what I saw was distinctly unimpressive.
I'm also reminded of a foreign teacher I met in Pingtung not long ago. She told the following story with a straight face, in the presence of several others, and as far as I know she believed every word she said.
To hear her tell it, she'd watched the movie Doctor Strange not long before, and in the course of that film she came to believe in magic. Thus inspired with a belief in the supernatural, she sought out a "master" in the vicinity of Pingtung City. This "master," she told us with all due solemnity, was the son of a Japanese assassin, and he would teach her magical techniques "when she was ready."
Was she ever ready? Is she now able to pass through walls and fly through the air? I don't know. She got fired not long after telling us that story. But I enjoy the thought of her retelling this story throughout Taiwan, causing polite consternation in Taiwanese listeners and outright disbelief in expats. Many people will think she's a little unstable, some will even think she's crazy, but I like the thought of her bouncing around the island, believing wholeheartedly in magic. I wouldn't hire her for a cram school job, but she does make the world more colorful.
I can't tell you where to learn kung fu, but I can say this: chase your dreams. Maybe there is magic left in this world, and maybe you're destined to find it. And even if you aren't, you're likely to learn a lot in your search for it.
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NOTE: This will be the last Taiwan 101 entry. I've exceeded my "ten entry rule" with regard to this topic and it feels like time to put it to bed.
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