Accordingly. with a letter of recommendation from Grandmaster Kernspecht in my pocket, I made my way to Hong Kong’s Nathan Road to register for the ”National Instructors Seminar“ in Shunde (mainland China) from 22nd-24th October. At the headquarters, a roughly 50 sq. m. office and storage area, I was met by Robin, the assistant of Grandmaster Leung Ting, who fortunately speaks fluent English. I was also made very welcome by Leung Ting’s wife, who appeared shortly afterwards. She offered to collect me from my hotel on Friday and accompany me to the ferry which would take us to the seminar. I was also told I could come to that evening’s training session here in Nathan Road.

Naturally I accepted this offer, and after several years of successful WingTsun education I turned up at the school on time. There was nobody else there except the instructing Sifu, however: flexible working hours were usual in Hong Kong, I was told, and since many worked late they were never on time. During the next hour there were repeated knocks on the school door, and eventually a total of around twenty WT people had entered with loud greetings. Most of them went to change, but some of them – including the assistant instructor – preferred to stay in their jeans and shirt. The mobile phones which seem to be a vital necessity in Hong Kong were deposited in all available nooks and crannies by the students, so that they could be easily reached even during the lesson. After all I had heard about ”tradition“ and “discipline“ in China, I was pretty amazed at the continuous chatter and joking around, which was only interrupted by the melodious ringing of the mobiles.

There was only one woman apart from myself, and like all the men she started to giggle when I asked her if she wanted to ”roll arms” with me. Since my Chinese is limited to the approx. ten words one needs to survive, I have no idea what they were all saying about me, but the atmosphere was relaxed and I simply nodded and smiled back at everyone.

In technical terms my training partners in Berlin give me a great deal more trouble, though this could be because at least in this class, there were hardly any students of long standing. Nobody was wearing black except the instructor himself. After 1½ hours I took advantage of the flexitime and left to hurry to the German beer table, which was after all the purpose of my journey.

On Friday morning Mrs Leung and I went to the ferry, where we met seven Hong Kong Chinese and a South Korean. After 2 hours we arrived in Shunde and took a bus for the 30-minute journey to town. We then took our things to the hotel and went for a meal before the seminar began at 4 p.m.

There were ten Chinese already waiting at the flat, which had been converted ínto a school, and I was enthusiastically welcomed by Ning: she had feared that she would be the only woman there that weekend. Like the other nine mainland Chinese, she had travelled far just to come to this seminar. Whereas almost every small town now has a WT school in Germany, China is new territory in this respect. It is precisely to improve this situation that Grandmaster Leung Ting, who started the seminar on time with a brief welcome, holds these training seminars three times each year. As in Hong Kong, the atmosphere was extremely relaxed and casual.

Those who were thirsty took a drink, those who were tired sat down and every few hours there was a break to go and eat together. There were always two factions, however: the Hong Kong versus the mainland Chinese. My question why the two factions did not sit together at the table received a clear answer: wasn’t Germany also still divided into east and west? As the only European I quickly changed factions and went out with the Chinese after that. After all, I intended to travel around the country after the seminar and was looking for hints and contacts. This was not always easy for language reasons. While Robin fortunately translated everything for me during lessons, and almost everyone in the Hong Kong group spoke at least some English, I has to rely entirely on Ning and the Fatshan bodybuilder Dalin when I was with the Chinese. The rest of us just observed each other wordlessly and pushed and pulled around at each other’s arms and legs during the training sessions. We mainly practiced Chi-Sao and the forms, and GM Leung Ting sometimes showed everybody the same sequences irrespective of their grades, often interrupting the practical training to explain some aspect of the WingTsun fighting principles.

On Saturday all the participants went for a meal together, and GM Leung Ting spoke about his future plans for WingTsun in China. After three days of training (from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.!) I went to nearby Fatshan with Dalin, who had invited me to his home. I was pleasantly surprised by the Chinese hospitality and spent two very interesting days in the home town of my great-grandfather. Together with Dalin and his sister-in-law, who came along to translate, I visited the Yip Man Museum and several temples, followed by a reflex foot massage which clearly works – after all, the only point that really hurt for me was the one that stood for “sleep problems“. Nonetheless this massage was unable to switch off the snoring of Dalin’s mother-in-law, next to whom I spent the night on the traditional rush mat.

Next day I continued my journey to the west. On the way to Thailand I visited two more WingTsun siblings, attracted crowds in places that had never seen blond hair, ate noodle soup with chopsticks from bowls which resembled chamber pots and accepted invitations to various martial arts schools, where I demonstrated a ”little idea” of WingTsun. Thanks to our martial art I was able to spend three exciting and varied weeks – not in a picture postcard world for tourists, but in a small part of the real China.

Xièxiè, Thank-you!