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Taiwan – Around Town
Author: renejnavarro
Manila
1. Ed Maranan, Carlos Palanca Hall of Fame Awardee for Literature, to my right. His sister Ellen is to my left. I was his guest at the dinner ceremony.
2. Group shot of writers at the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature ceremony at the Peninsula Hotel. In front of me (seated) is Alfred “Krip” Yuson, professor of English literature at the Ateneo de Manila University.
3. Seated from left to right: RJN, Krip and Edgar.
4. RJN, F. Sionil Jose, and Edgar. Frankie S. Jose is a national artist for literature. I met him a few times in the course of 50 years in conferences, at his bookstore Solidaridad, and at the PEN congress in Cebu City. He was the speaker.
5. Edgar Maranan, who invited me to the ceremony, receiving his prize in the raffle in the amount of P50,000 roughly equivalent to $1200. Before the winner was announced, Ed said that he never won anything. I said he will win. A few moments later, his name was called from the stage. Coincidence?
6. Ed and Rene with Mikael de Lara Co and his wife. Mikael, an award-winning poet, read “Immigrant” by Lourdes Marie S. La Vina, prize-winner in poetry.
Post scriptum:
Ed and I first met in London about 7 to 8 years ago. He invited me and Patrick Rosal, a prize-winning poet from the US, to read at the Philippine Centre at the time. Ed and I used to have dinner together with Paolo Coghe of Sardegna, at a flat in Barnes overlooking the Thames. I cooked, Ed brought a bottle of wine. We had memorable and extended conversations about politics, religion and literature (sorry, nothing about sex, GBS).
Ed and I have met since then in Manila. He was my guest at my seminar on Tai chi chuan last time I was in Manila during my 70th birthday. To receive a Hall of Fame recognition, a writer has to have won at least 4 first prize awards in the main categories.
It was the first time Alfred “Krip” Yuson, a professor of literature at the Ateneo de Manila University, and I met although he and I have known each other through our literary work for years. He probably recognized me from my photo somewhere and approached me to say hello. Great to finally meet you, Krip. A much-awarded writer, fictionist and poet, Alfred has included my poetry in the books he co-edited: “Eros Pinoy: Erotic Poetry and Art in the Philippines,” “Father Poems,” and “Love Gathers All,” a book of love poems published simultaneously in Singapore and the Philippines. Believe it or not, Krip honored me with a complimentary cameo appearance in his award-winning novel “Voyeurs and Savages.” Please note that I was neither one of the voyeurs nor savages he was writing about. If you are curious about this bit, tell me and I will send an excerpt. It is amazing to appear with my real name in this work of “fiction.”
Kuala Lumpur – Ramadan
Last Night in Kuala Lumpur
August 27, 2011
The capital city has been observing Ramadan. There’s fasting every day from sunrise to sundown. But at night, there is a celebration. Possibly it was a partly a business promotion, but the buffet at 7:30 pm in the Royale Chulan Hotel in the Golden Triangle was quite indulgent. It cost $100 a head although seniors were entitled to a 50% discount. There were at least 100 dishes, not including appetizers and desserts, from the cuisines of different ethnic and cultural groups — Malayan, Indonesian, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese — in the garden downstairs. Curry was a dominant flavor, but there was a whole lamb roasting in a pit, as well as seafood and vegies. There was a fountain dripping with chocolate in one corner of the premises. There were fruits in another. I focused on a wok of Malayan Fish Head Curry with Okra and Eggplant. I had cooked it a few times since the late 70s. There was a small ensemble playing Middle Eastern instruments and singing on the stage. I have been to Egypt before, a few times, and to Istanbul, Turkey and northern Cyprus, but I did not really know about Ramadan even if my Muslim friends talked and wrote about it to me. Realizing my ignorance about this sacred rite, I tried to read up on the festival that is celebrated in the Muslim world of which I know nothing much. If only for this late discovery, the travel to KL is worth all the money and effort. I have noticed a few signs in the buildings around town and notices on TV that August 29/Monday will be a celebration of Hari Raya at the end of Ramadan. I had seen this in the Philippines before and did not know what it meant. Here is part of what I found on the internet. Sorry, I do not know who wrote it.
QUOTE UNQUOTE FROM THE INTERNET
This article over is essentially information about Ramadan and Eid ul-Fitr as it applies to Malaysia.
Bold text==Literal Translation== I refute the literal translation of Hari Raya Aidilfitri as “Celebration Day of Fasting”. Aidilfitri is a transliteration of the Arabic term Eid ul-Fitr. Hari Raya is a translation of Eid ul-Fitr. However, this is not at literal translation. Hari Raya and Aidilfitri put together in one expression hence becomes a tautology. In an article about a Malay phenomenon we want the literal translation of the Malay part of the term, which is Hari Raya or possibly Hari Raya Puasa. We should not accept a literal translation of a transliteration from Arabic mixed with Malay. Here it is important to clarify what it is that is being literally translated. “Hari Raya Aidilfitri (also seen as Hari Raya Idul Fitri and Hari Raya Puasa, literally ‘Celebration Day of Fasting'” is not a clear sentence).
Eid is an Arabic word meaning “festivity”, while Fitr means “to break fast”. But the literal translation from Malay to English should be from the Malay translation of Eid ul-Fitr, not the transliteration.
The best literal translation of raya is big. It does not mean celebration or festivity. Sambutan is celebration or festivity according to Kamus Dwibahasa Oxford Fajar edisi keempat. Kamus Dwibahasa Oxford Fajar translates raya only as a verb (merayakan) and defines it as celebrate. However, dictionaries in Malay language provide more nuance. Tesaurus Bahasa Melayu Dewan 1998, Kamus Pelajar and other Malay dictionaries defines raya only as an adjective meaning big (besar). Kamus Dewan Bahasa Edisi Tiga clarifies the misconception that can arise from the translation in Kamus Dwibahasa Oxford Fajar:
“merayakan memuliakan (memperingati, meramaikan) hari besar (hari peringatan, peristiwa penting, dll).” Loosely translated to English: merayakan to honour (and remember) a big day.
Meanwhile, as all other mono-lingual dictionaries, Kamus Dewan Bahasa Edisi Tiga defines raya as big (besar). So for anyone who understands Malay prefixes (imbuhan) it becomes clear that the translation of raya as celebrate is inappropriate. Merayakan certainly can be translated to celebrate but that is not the term we are translating. Raya in the context of Hari Raya or Hari Raya Puasa is clearly an adjective meaning big. This is why we can say berhari raya and merayakan hari raya.
End of quotation.
August 29, 2011, Manila, Philippines
After 5 days in Kuala Lumpur (KL to many people), I wanted to leave touristing behind. I wanted to sit down and relish the last few hours in this multi-ethnic city. My wake-up call for my flight was at 4:30. I wanted to carry some memories beyond the Petronas Twin Towers, the tallest buildings in the world at one point, and Chinatown. I had been up to the Batu Caves, sacred pilgrimage of Hindus, but I wanted an appropriate closure to Ramadan, the Muslim high holy day/holiday. I went to the courtyard at about 10 when the feast was winding down. The place was almost deserted, except for the workers cleaning up and the musicians putting their instruments away. I noticed these people seated at the next table in front of the stage listening to the Middle Eastern ensemble playing music. I was writing a postcard to a friend when I thought of writing “Inshallah” but was not sure how. I asked them if they knew it in Arabic. The dark woman wrote the transliteration: In sha Allah. The woman next to her left wrote: In Sha-a Allah. Three words, five syllables, she said. And then she wrote the Arabic script/character on the postcard. The man to her left was her boyfriend. The woman on the extreme right was the wife of a singer. I went backstage to take photos of the musicians. They asked me to pose with them instead. It was a night to remember: the sound of Arabia drifting in the night in Kuala Lumpur like the scent of desert a flower and the laughter of beautiful Muslim women breaking the stillness. I went up to my hotel room and could not sleep again until past midnight.
My correspondence with Amira, my wonderful Egyptian friend follows:
Dear Rene,
I remember writing to you on more than one occasion about Ramadan. It is a very special time spiritually. It is said that the bad spirits and devils are in chains. The energy of the whole month — not just parts of the day — is supposedly ultra-violet – which is the most spiritual colour. The fasting is meant to teach you patience and compassion for the hungry and to leave you purified, but most people eat too much after sunset which defeats the purpose of the fast.
When we’ve chatted in the last few weeks and I’ve told you that I am preparing or eating my midnight meal, it has been because I am fasting so at around 12:30. My mother (who is staying with me) and I eat a light meal of fruit and yoghurt before we go to bed. (Some people eat more substantial meals but I worry about getting indigestion or becoming thirsty.) Then I wake up again at 3:30 or 3:45 to pray and meditate till dawn, then pray again at dawn and go back to bed at around 4ish. And hopefully to sleep in late. Some people just stay awake till dawn prayers and then sleep in which case they will eat later in the night like at 2 or 3. I can’t keep going that long and prefer to sleep even for an hour before waking up for predawn and dawn prayers. I am always out on the terrace at this time and the stars and moon are fabulous and the air is so fresh and the flowers smell so sweet. It is my favourite time of the day.
The Eid is a celebration of the end of the fast which can be 29 or 30 days depending on the moon. They say it will be 30 days this year which means the Eid will be on Wednesday the 31st. People are out in the street the night it is announced joyously celebrating the end of the fast. It really wears you down by the end of the month and there is nothing nicer than waking up on Eid morning and having a cup of tea! Children wear new clothes and are given small gifts of money. Everyone gets money gifts in fact – called Eidiya – employees, children, poor people in the streets and so on. At 7 am there is a special Eid prayer with a beautiful chant that everyone sings together.
Well, enjoy the rest of your holiday. Have a great time in Manila and Taiwan and please send me a post card from Taroko Gorge (if you can)!
Amira x
Dear Amira,
Excerpt:
Fish head curry with some bao (Chinese bread) was practically all I had, except for the marang, jackfruit and lychees. I walked around the courtyard and checked out the food. A lot of curry-based food: chicken (a few pots of it from different countries), lamb, and fish. There was even a version of it from Kazakstan! It did not make much sense to eat meat at the time. I had a taste of the grilled lamb but it did not taste good without any sauce. And the roasted goat did not taste any better. I was eager to try different dishes but my mouth wasn’t ready for anything else.
Rene
Dear Rene,
Excerpt:
The problem with large buffet dinners is that you want to taste everything and you end up eating far too much! Even with a small taste of each dish it is a lot – but it is fun … Whole roast lamb or goat does look very impressive especially when they are placed on enormous platters of rice cooked with nuts and raisins. But I don’t eat lamb or goat so that’s two things less for me to taste!
It is 3 words: In Shaa Allah. In=If – Shaa= Wills – Allah= God.
I forgot to tell you the reason why my fave part of the day is when I am up in the small hours waiting for the dawn prayers. It’s because I hear all the different calls to prayer chanting at the same time from all the mosques around. Each guy has a slightly different style – a different voice – a different tempo – a different music, and it all just harmonizes wonderfully together in the night air against the backdrop of stars and moon and the smell of the flowers. It is very beautiful and moving…
Enjoy your time in Manila. I am sure it is always nice to go home and see old friends and family.
Love,
Amira
Kuala Lumpur – Batu Caves & Downtown
Batu Caves, just about 30 minutes outside of the city, have several Hindu temples inside. They can actually hold several buildings. Great place, but you have to walk up 292 steps to the top and another 50 in the inner temple. Multiply that by two.
The guide said that for every step you take going up and down one sin is forgiven. At least that is a little more difficult than buying indulgences or making a handsome donation to the church. There are actually other caves but they are not developed although a tour is offered by some travel company.
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Shanthi Project, Oct. 16th, 23rd and 30th
Shanthi Project
Presents
Rene J. Navarro
Tai Chi Chuan DaoRen and Xing Shen Zhuang Fa
Sunday October 16th, 23rd, and 30th
Xing Shen Zhuang Fa : 2-4:30 pm
Tai Chi Chuan : 5:30-8pm
Location: Alick Smith Nazareth Karate Academy 220 East Lawn Rd., Nazareth, PA 18064
All Proceeds to Benefit Shanthi Project
Shanthi Project is a non-profit organization that brings yoga, meditation, and life skills to incarcerated youth and adults, in-need and at-risk children, and community organizations. Shanthi Project teaches classes at Northampton County Juvenile Detention and Prison, teens that reside at Children’s Home of Easton, and Boys & Girls Club of Easton and in the past year has taught over 160 students. Visit www.shanthiproject.org for more information.
Xing Shen Zhuang Fa
Xing Shen Zhuang Fa is a method of moving qi through the spine and limbs and giving shape to the spirit. This particular sequence of 10 movements will focus on different parts of the spine and help students take care of obstructions in the physical and energy body. Xing Shen Zhuang has been adopted in Chinese hospitals both as a cure and rehabilitative therapy.
Tai Chi Chuan DaoRen
Tai Chi Chuan DaoRen is a short version based on the Traditional Yang Family form. It contains 8 classical movements – Ward-off, Rollback, Press, Push, Pull Down, Shoulder, Elbow, and Split. Its unhurried pace promotes relaxation, centering, joy, and inner peace. Among older people it can develop flexibility, balance, and mobility. Regular performance of Tai Chi Chuan improves muscle tone and blood pressure and can help develop concentration, serenity, and discipline. After more than 40 years of practicing the art, Rene J. Navarro choreographed this form showing the reality of energy as the student moves from posture to posture. The form takes you to different levels of experience the way Tai Chi Chuan should be done: magical, playful, and shamanic.
Fee Schedule
$275 for entire course; all sessions, if registered by October 1
($300 for entire course if registered after October 1)
$150 for just Xing Shen Zhuang Fa (3 sessions)
$150 for just Tai Chi Chuan DaoRen (3 sessions)
$60 for an individual class of Xing Shen Zhuang or Tai Chi
Make checks payable to “Shanthi Project”.
To register, contact Denise Veres, Shanthi Project at denise@shanthiproject.org or 610-737-8006
Pictures from Alaska
There is in every child-
hood imagination a dream
mountain.
Sometimes there is snow
on top. Sometimes the peak
is hidden by the clouds
or mist.
Sometimes it is just a bald
granite rock. In mine, there
is a shimmering light,
a distant inaccessibility,
a mystery, so that as
in the deepest meditation,
if I entered
it, I would be stepping
into emptiness,
into a frequency
so soft,
I would dissolve
in the arms
of the Great Mother
of all.
There were no tunnels
in my time. Nobody
blasted through
the mountain
with machines
or exploded
dynamites to open
a road. The trail
circled the boulders
and the rocks,
and where it could
be done, spared
the trees that stood
in the way. The tunnels
were the caverns
that were there
from who knows when.
We went inside
with a torch
and heard the wings
of the bats, smelled
their home,
felt the flow
of a hidden spring.
When the strangers
came looking
for gold, they
followed a straight
line to their goal,
lighted dynamites
in the thick granite
and blasted
a whole mountain
side.
You get up from your meditation
in the morning, open the curtain,
go outside your cabin, and
expecting darkness, find
this sea- and mountain-scape
looming in the distance. What
it triggers is part awe and
part humility and part gratitude.
You know you are lucky
to be there before it disappeared
from your sight or from
the earth. Such fragile
scenes do not last: it was there
thousands of years ago and now
the glacier has melted,
“retreated” back, diminished,
and is now just a shadow
of the past, and we can
not even imagine what
it looked like when its
history began. You take
a child to this place
to teach her the lessons
of nature and life, to learn how
to hold on to this beauty,
gently with her hands,
“while it is still there.” How
many of the landmarks
of our childhood are
gone? The old ricefield
or woodland has been
levelled to make way
for a warehouse
or housing development.
On the lot of the historic moviehouse stands
a skyscraper. Everything
is there for just a moment
and then disappears
from our sight.
The distant boat leaves
a white ribbon on its trail.
You aim the camera and shoot
sometimes a little too late,
sometimes a little too fast.
While looking through
the viewfinder, you
hope for the elements
of the scene to come together.
But the clouds and the boat
are both moving according
to their own pace, they do not
wait. Nothing
you can do, except press
and shoot, hoping you’ll capture
what is called the Moment,
that split-second experience
or image when everything
stands still and sometimes
if you are lucky, you are gifted
with an epiphany that is beyond
understanding,
beyond description.
The glaciers have been there
for millennia. Yet within
the last hundred years, they
have been retreating, have retreated,
more than the millennia before.
The planet has changed more
within the last
century than ever before.
What shift has our sun
taken as the earth
wobbled on its path?
Technology and the pollution,
and greed have also left
their ugly mark
on our world. And we,
the custodian of the earth,
still don’t realize what
we have done to it,
what we can do now.
It was on another train
somewhere in China.
Summer of 1983. I had
a glimpse of mountains,
ricefields, small villages,
caves on clay cliffs,
peasants hoeing
the ground,
and there was a quick
chance to shoot a dreamscape:
a mountain in the mist.
The camera, an SLR,
had to be adjusted
for speed and depth of field
and focus and there was
no time to compose.
It was an old Asahi
Pentax from the 60s
my brother gave me.
With a stationary object
like a building
or a flower,
you had time
to compose. But when
the subject was
in motion or
you were on a moving train,
would
the aperture catch
that split-second
image you wanted?
If you did not click,
the opportunity was
lost, so were the cloud
patterns over the top,
the angle, the colors.
It was only
an instant,
a thin slice of
the present
that flashed
into life
and was gone.
Where was I at the time
almost 30 years ago?
Three days and 2 nights
on a train between Shanghai
and Cheng-du
somewhere
in the hinterlands, crossing
territory that had no name.
Here in Alaska
many of the mountains
are nameless, too,
except perhaps
to a tribe,
and like dreams, they pass
in one’s vision
and are gone.
It was like a dream city
from the train as it must
have been to many
during the Gold Rush.
There were diamonds, too,
and jade and minerals.
How extract
the stones and metals
with machines,
chemicals,
and explosives.
Even now, we can see
the jewelry outlets
side by side
on the strip
of road
running from
the ship. A town
beckoning tourists
to buy trinkets, fishing
equipment
and camping gears
while up in the mountain
forests are being
cut down and
prospectors
are diverting
rivers and changing
the landscape
forever.
Without opening
her eyes, she knows from
the sounds
around her
how the day
will be. The color
of the sky
and clouds,
what school of fish
enter the bay,
the scent of strangers
coming around
with muskets.
When the child woke up today,
she looked through the door
that’s always open
to life,
and saw the woods
and the lake outside,
heard the geese
and the moose,
the splash of the halibut,
sometimes
the song
of the whales,
smelled the sea salt
and the pine,
the world
of Mother
Earth
all etched
on her mind.
That world
is gone now.
The empty clan house
still carries the smell
of the hunt, the fish
grilling on the fire,
and the lost voices
of the ancestors,
the stories
told and re-told
in chants
and totem poles.
“We did not borrow this land from our ancestors;
we borrow it from our children.” Haida Indian
Saying
Where the clan lived
is empty now. Enter
the open
door,
see a totem
on the opposite wall
first, and then dried skin,
weapons, snow shoes,
fishing gear,
blankets.A circle of stones
in the center for family meals.
Where did they go?
Where is the tribe
that told stories
with totems
and chants by the ancestral
fire, where
are they
who fished the waters,
held the sacred
halibut and the thunder-
bird in reverence,
and the clouds
and sky,
in trust
for
the children?
When you are young,
it is exhilarating to feel
the wind
and the chill,
as the train goes up
the mountain and
you look down the cliff
at the river, the white foam,
the waterfall,
the mist rising, and ahead,
snow-capped peaks. Always,
in your dreams, you can see
animals there, ferocious bears
and colorful snakes, and strange birds,
and giant tigers and dragons
and phoenixes.
The mountain brought back
a time in my hometown:
A child of 8 went up
the mountain, whispered
bari-bari Apu to honor
the presence of its spirit, sat
on a rock and, breathless, looked
at the landscape below.
There was Ingkong Poli’s
farm: mango trees, tomatoes,
eggplants, okra. And the
ricefields green now but
turning golden with harvest.
There’s the dam where
cousins would swim
in the brown water
and pick kangkong
leaves and balibid snails
for lunch. When you
are a kid, you have
to hunt and forage to survive
on wild plants, bamboo shoots,
catch and dress the frogs
and the birds
or the elusive iguana
that hides in the woods
and cook rice
in a length
of green bamboo
tube.
LOOKING AT AVA
When I was 10,
like you, a dragon child
but born in 1940,
my world was
a small town
bordered by
a mountain
range on one side
and the great plains
on the other.
There was no
library or movie
house, no phones,
no hobby shops.
You carved your own
slingshot, or sword,
played the ancient
games,
and lived a life
demarcated
by family and tribe,
and grandfather’s
farm, a school
to which you walked
barefoot or with clogs.
How different it is
now: to travel
to places the ancestors
did not know, to learn
about the earth
and the stars
with the touch
of a button,
breathe the startling
journey
and see new
vistas far
from home,
ride a cruise ship
the size of a village,
to reach beyond
boundaries,
to link
oneself
to a universe
of forests, water,
glaciers,
valleys
and mountains,
and embrace the world
with
your body,
spirit and mind.
Interview for the New England School of Acupuncture Newsletter
What did you do before coming to acupuncture?
I was a lawyer and then an office manager for Legal Services, the poverty agency serving the poor in Long Island and then NJ. I was a member of the NY Bar having passed the bar exams in 1978. I stopped lawyering in early 1986 and focused on studying and teaching martial arts. I was studying Healing Tao with Mantak Chia too. One time I had an acupuncture treatment for a wrist injury. One treatment did it and I was impressed. I took a weekend acupuncture course in New York and a seminar on Chinese herbs and I decided Chinese medicine was what I wanted to do in midlife.
Why did you come to NESA?
It was serendipitous really. Partly because I wanted to study with the Tai Chi Master Gin Soon Chu who was in Boston and partly because of the high reputation of NESA. Also because I had friends in Boston.
You have been involved in the martial arts and self-cultivation and you’ve seen and experienced some amazing things in your travels. Would you share a few with your NESA colleagues?
In October 2007, I visited the beautiful mountains of Huangshan, China for a second time. I trained in a lineage of the Lei Shan Dao (Thunder and Lightning Path). Included in the foundation classes were Xing Shen Zhuang Fa and Sheng Zheng Gong, basic courses encoded by David Verdesi Shen, a disciple of
the Lei Shan Dao Damo lineage. During the training, his master Jiang Shifu was in attendance. He did treatments on us. He diagnosed partly with what is known as “yin yang gong,” the mating of the yin and yang in the lower dantian, which is manifested as electricity. Jiang Shifu is the main disciple of the Grandmaster (whose name will not be mentioned to respect his privacy) a 100 year old hermit with incredible powers of pyrokinesis and telekinesis. The Grandmaster was also present to do demonstrations. He could project intense heat and move objects from a distance.
In February 2006, I was in Java, Indonesia, as a guest of David Verdesi. He wanted me to meet John Chang, the famous Magus of Java. Two books have been written about this Daoist master by Kostas Danaos entitled “TheMagus of Java: The Teachings of a Taoist Immortal” and “Nei-Kung: The Secrets of the Warrior Sages.” For the month I was there, David, Ana Vladirimova and I visited the Magus almost every day. The first time I met the Magus, David asked him to do a little demo for me. The Magus raised his arm and asked me to touch it. I did and I was shocked by the intensely strong current I felt. He said it was just 5% of his power. He asked me to touch his belly at CV 6 and I felt the same strong current. David asked him to test my qi. TheMagus put his
index finger on my belly and it felt like shooting electricity up and down my body. He said my dantian was 20% full. I did not know if I should be embarrassed or proud. But that set the tone of my perspective on Lei Shan Dao.
I asked him if he could treat me for a rotator cuff injury that had been bothering me for 2 years. Surgery was recommended by a doctor but I refused. We all repaired to his small clinic. I laid down on one of the tables and he asked Ana to take off her shoes and hold my arm. I understood this was meant to ground me. When he inserted the needle and manipulated it, the stimulation was so powerful, it went up and down my whole body. He inserted and manipulated 3 needles and each time the qi was extremely strong. The Magus did 3 treatments over a period of days. The injury that had immobilized my right arm was healed completely.
My focus in recent years is the study of Lei Shan Dao, a mysterious lineage. One thread of it was supposed to have been developed by Mo-Tzu/Mozi and it is called theMo Pai. The master associated with it is John Chang. The other thread is traced to Boddhidharma of the Shaolin Temple and its most visible representative is Jiang shifu of Huangshan.
What are you doing now?
I’m basically retired now and living a very productive life. I have been writing essays and poetry, which have been published in the US, Europe, and Asia. I am still committed to pursuing the different lineages: Lei Shan Dao, Angka, Classical Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan, and Healing Tao. Hopefully I will be able start studying Miao Tong Dao, a lineage directly attributed to Lao Zi, the author of the Dao De Jing. I also plan to continue sharing what I’ve experienced and learned in seminars in the US, Europe and the Phillipines.
Learn more about Rene Navarro at www.ourownvoice.com and on this site. You can read Rene’s essay
“Thunder Path in Huangshan”, a background study on David and the Lei Shan Dao, one the Writings page of this site.
Mike Arsenault ’99 practices in Ipswich, MA and Winchester Hospital and is the founder the herbal skin care line Emily Skin Soothers.
Temples and Condoms
Just got back from a trip to the temples of Angkor Wat/Angkor Thom in Siem Reap, Cambodia; Vientiane and Luang Prabang, Laos; and Bangkok, Thailand. I have been to Thailand several times before, sometimes for a month at a time, in Bangkok and Chiangmai.
Well, I am terribly jet-lagged and trying to recover lost sleep and rest my legs sore from going up and down the temples. At my age, it seems to be getting more and more difficult to recover: I get sleepy at odd hours of the day, stay awake at night and in the morning I am in a daze. Here is what I was able to cobble together from the photos I took. I brought two cameras: a Canon powershot G9, a gift from my son Albert and his wife Laura, and an Olympus Camedia C 5060. The latter took excellent shots but broke down at Angkor Wat.
(Below is a selection of photos – to see the full gallery with larger photos scroll to the bottom of the page.)
The different gates and temples with tall trees growing out of them. The umbrella through the entrance caught my eyes and I could not resist pointing my Canon powershot camera. There are many impressive sights in Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, as if the jungle literally sprouted unnoticed for centuries, which is probably what happened before they were discovered again at least a hundred years ago. How did the Cambodians from the 12th century build these incredible edifices without cement and without nails and screws? And what kind of culture and civilization would construct such a temple complex? I had the same sense of marvel at Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom I had when I saw the temples and pyramids of Egypt.
The 3 female statues in Angkor Wat are fondled well by unknown pilgrims, as we can see from the shiny and dark parts of their anatomy. Usually, among Christian saints, the feet or the hands are the objects of touching.
Like the Greeks and Indians, the Cambodians know the epics and myths as if the characters were part of their daily life. The photo shows the characters in masks from Ramayana: Sita, Rama, Hanuman and Ravana, among others.
A photo shows two faces of Brahma. He was supposed to have had 5, the 4 to see the cardinal directions and 5th to follow his beloved consort Sarasvati. I read that the 5th was destroyed by Shiva during an altercation.
A photo shows a kneeling bull — Nandi — at the entrance to a temple of Angkor Thom. The bull is sacred, indeed a god in the Hindu pantheon. It is also considered the main vehicle of Vishnu. I lighted a candle and incense sticks at its feet.
The musicians were disabled by the mines and bombs in Cambodia. Many of the unexploded cluster bombs, bombs and mines are still sitting in the fields in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia where they were dropped by the US during the American War (that’s what it is called in the region, not Vietnam War) and campaign of carpet bombing in the 70s. Many of these disabled men (perhaps they were children at the time they lost their arm or leg) were probably farmers working in the field. I have no information about Agent Orange in Laos and Cambodia, except articles and photos in the media, but even now there are children in Vietnam who are born with severe congenital defects apparently because of the chemical.
The children in the photos are some of the many small barefoot children who eke out a living selling native handicraft. It reminded me of the time in the late 40s when I was a kid selling chicklets/chewing gum at dances in the basketball court in the old hometown.
The best Thai massage on this trip was in Siem Reap, Cambodia outside of Angkor Wat from a young girl who studied in Thailand. Her name was Shante … perhaps spelled Shantih as in the Upanishads. She had one of the most composed faces I had seen during my recent journey. That’s she who is smiling at the camera. I asked for an hour of foot massage but when I realized she was good, I asked for another hour of full-body Thai massage. I came back the next day after the tour of Angkor Thom. Two of the best body-workers I know are from Chiangmai. Last time I was in Chiangmai in September, I called them on the phone but I was told I got the wrong number. Sadly, these bodyworkers receive only a small fraction of the fee (about $2) from their employers; without a generous tip from the customers, I do not know how they manage to survive.
It is always amazing to travel through Bangkok, with its variety of colors and neighborhoods. Temples and Buddha statues sit side by side with shopping malls and pedestrian markets. Restaurants, massage parlors, and stalls selling native handicrafts can be found in the red light district.
The Night Markets in different cities — Siem Reap, Cambodia; Vientiane and Luang Prabang, Laos; and Bangkok, Thailand — are often visited by tourists who are looking for bargain goods and native products. They also offer cheap meals and massage, especially to young European backpackers on a limited budget. If you are on a tour you’ll invariably be taken to silk factories, ceramic shops, woodworking centers (using teak wood) and silversmiths. A photo shows a young woman in Luang Prabang. I bought a couple of dragon bracelets from her. After paying, I discovered that the horn of one dragon was broken. She took it back and asked me to return the next day for the replacement. I did go back and she had a new bracelet for me. Every day, these vendors would set up their goods — sometimes hundreds of miniature buddhas — on a carpet and when they were done, they would pack them all over again. Haggling is an accepted mode of negotiation in many countries in the Third World. Remember to go to about 1/3 of the initial price and take it from there. You’ll be surprised to find out that the vendor is actually willing to accept your offer.
A truly relaxing divertissement was a trip upriver on the Mekong. After two hours on a boat between Laos and northern Thailand, you’ll reach a granite mountain. Climb the steep stairs and you’ll find yourself in a huge cave with a thousand buddha statues of differing sizes. There are restaurants on the river with river fish on the menu, along with papaya salad, tom yum soup and pad thai. Remember to avoid raw food. One useful rule from a travel guide: do not eat food that is not cooked; do not drink water that is not boiled; do not eat fruit that is not peeled. I learned my lesson from the time my friend Chaiyuth Prasingh, took me to a greasy spoon joint and ordered noodle soup with raw egg for breakfast. I was too timid to object. A couple of weeks later, I had an ulcer. This respected master died from a heart attack about 5 years ago probably from overwork. Arguably the best masseur in Chiangmai, he gave 4-hour massages and worked past midnight in some cases.
The trip focused on the temples but it was nice to sail along the canals outside Bangkok and see the Floating Market. I realized after seeing so many temples that you can get templed-out! Bangkok is heavily polluted and crowded. But the people have such a stillness about them, you do not notice that you are in one of the most densely-populated cities in Asia. Probably it has something to do with the fact that at least 90% of the people are Buddhist.
The idea of “jai yen,”or “cool heart,” according to the travel guides, is embraced wholeheartedly by the Thais. So they would say “mai ren pai” (never mind, what can we do, forget it) when something unpleasant happens. One time, a group of us from the Tao Garden in Chiangmai were in a car and nearly hit a Thai couple on a motorcycle. It was a “close shave” or a “near-miss.” But the couple just smiled and went on their way. Small wonder Thailand is called the land of smiles. They have a deep belief in karma, serendipity, fate and synchronicity, so whatever happens is taken as a part of destiny. For instance, the siting and geomancy of Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep in Chiangmai, one of the most beautiful temples in the north, was arrived at randomly, almost by “accident.” A white elephant was allowed to wander up the mountain and when it stopped and died from exhaustion, the spot where he lay down was chosen as the location for the temple.
If you are interested in meditation, do not expect to be able to do it in the temples. There are too many tourists walking back and forth and offering incense and flashing cameras. You can join one of the temples that offer a free room and food and an opportunity to join in the chanting. I have never done it myself, but a few of my friends have and they spoke highly of the experience. There is a temple in Doi Saket, Chiangmai, about 45 minutes northeast of downtown, that sits on a mountain and has some of the most interesting paintings on the wall. The temple has a school for monks and probably accepts lay guests.
The pink taxi is a common sight in Bangkok.
The poster is from the Cabbages and Condoms restaurant in Bangkok, a project of the Population and Development Association (PDA), that has several branches in Thailand. PDA was initiated by Vichai Virabaldya ( I am not sure about the name and identity). It has different projects: free vasectomies, income-generating programs in villages, mobile clinics, reforestation, health education, safe sex and family planning, among others. Cabbages and Condoms is a very unusual place that is located near the red-light district! When you eat at the restaurant you receive colorful condoms with the bill! The restaurant has a handicraft store too vending native products, shirts, skirts, coffee cups (with photos of condoms), scarves, headgears made by women from villages around India, China and Thailand. Well, the food ain’t bad either! Try something different from Pad Thai and spring rolls like the steamed whole bass with lemon. It is a very popular Thai dish and is served on a fish-shaped metal tray over charcoal. Warning: it is very spicy. When I had it a couple of times at Cabbages and Condoms, it had at least 10 spicy red and green pepper. I also had it many times at the Night Bazaar in Chiangmai. Seems like even if you tell the waiter to cut down on the pepper, the dish always comes with the chopped pepper scattered almost irretrievably in the broth.
I met a Japanese girl who, like me, was waiting for the sunset over Angkor Wat from the top of Angkor Thom. I do not know how it happened, but as we were talking, she asked me where I was from, I said Philippines and I began humming a Japanese folk song, Sakura/Cherry Blossoms, and she joined me. Before we knew it, we were humming another tune, probably the Bridge to Edo. Three days later, when the tsunami and earthquake hit northern Japan, I thought about her. She gave me her name but not her address. She showed me the journal she was keeping of her travels. Every so often I think about her wondering if we will meet again.
In Siem Reap, Cambodia, a fellow tourist asked me why the Philippines does not have these Buddhist and Hindu temples and culture. It was not a well-thought out answer I gave at the time, but in retrospect, I can say within this limited space that the Philippines is geographically isolated from most of Asia and did not receive a significant influence from these two religions. While Buddhism and Daoism were introduced to Korea and Japan and Hinduism to Indonesia, Ceylon, and other countries, the Philippines “came under the influence of Spain and Roman Catholicism.” (The words in inverted commas are a euphemism for conquest.) And then in the late 1890s, the US invaded the Philippines and introduced Protestant Christianity (Methodist and Baptist). A wit remarked that the history of the Philippines is “300 years in a convent and 50 years in Hollywood.” A partial result of these conquests is that instead of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana and Journey to the West, the Philippines has the Odyssey and Iliad; instead of Laozi and Zhuangzi, we have Socrates, Plato and Aristotle; instead of Li Bai and Dufu, the Philippines reads Shakespeare and Longfellow; instead of Daoism and Buddhism, the Philippines has Christianity. I will write about this part more fully later.
Oops! I inadvertently attached the photo of a huge sign from the produce section of Wegmans, a popular grocery store, in Nazareth, PA.
Full Photo Gallery: click on the thumbnail photos to see the full-size version.
Masters and Mentors
Len Roberts: Poet
It was in the mid-80s, perhaps ‘84, probably ‘85, that I first met Len Roberts. Ted Kloss, chair of the English Department at Lafayette College in Easton, PA was conducting a weekly poetry workshop and I was one of the community residents who attended regularly. One day Ted got sick and Len took his place.
I had submitted a couple of poems. One was about kite-flying with my children in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, the other was a war poem about a child in the ruins of a town in an island in the Philippines.
Len said that he liked the war poem, that writing political poetry is very difficult. After the workshop, Len told me that I should bring some of my poems to him at his office at the college. That I did. At that time, I was writing a sheaf of poems about Hiroshima. I still have a copy of the notes he had written at the time about 25 years ago. I have kept them like the other letters he had written to me over the years, mostly comments on drafts of poems I had sent him from wherever I was as I traveled the world.
Four years ago, as I packed my things to move to another house, I saw these letters again and re-read them.
These comments were not only meticulous, they also were generous and gentle. Len would ask for details, suggest another word, or hint that perhaps there is another poem sitting behind what I had written. He would say something truly encouraging and mark certain lines that he liked. There was never a time when he was cruel or nasty. And always he was thoughtful and kind.
Len Roberts and Rene in Hellerstown. Photo by Nancy Roberts.
So over a period of more than two decades, Len helped me with my poetry. I sent him and his wife Nancy postcards – from Egypt, UK, Thailand, China, wherever I was. I visited him at his house, sometimes slept over. He would get a pizza or Nancy would cook, I would bring a bottle of red wine, and the three of us would sit in the living room. One time we listened to Yoyo Ma, another time I showed a Tai chi DVD I had done and talked about my Taoist practices – Tai chi, acupuncture, internal alchemy, qigong. A favorite subject of his was his new project – building a house on an island in Nassau. Always his son Joshua was a concern. Travels with Nancy were a topic that generated much laughter. Sometimes Len and I took a walk in the backyard up the hill where he had planted black walnuts and a grove of pine trees. One night, sitting in front of the fireplace, with a bottle of wine on the table, he read his favorite poems from Thomas Hardy and DH Laurence. For the first time, I saw the other facet of these two fictionists’ brilliance.
One summer afternoon, I brought him a new poem I had written in London. Let’s think about it, he said and jumped in the pool, did a few laps, and when he came back he had a few ideas to improve my poem. Water always seemed to invigorate him: he loved the sea and planned to spend his retirement at the home he was building in the islands.
We often wrote to each other, sometimes long letters, often just short notes. We read together in the Philipsburg Art Center, NJ. Here is our correspondence about a reading the two of us did in Allentown, PA:
At 01:13 PM 3/28/00:
Dear Len,
Thank you for making me a part of that poetry reading at Borders. I truly enjoyed doing it. The tea with you and the others was fun, too. SometimesI need a break from my otherwise solitary life and the regimen of meditation, qigong and Tai chi chuan.
It’s easier now to do these things. I do bits and pieces often. I can go out at any time of the day and do a sword or spear form like it’s not really a routine but just the flow of the universe.
Breathe well!
Rene
Dear Rene,
I had a fine time, too, reading with you! One of my students who was there praised and praised your reading presence as well as the poems. Thank you
for the kind dedication at the start, also. I am touched whenever I think I have had anything to do with your fine poems.
I admire your practice and wish I could incorporate some of what you do daily into my poetry life. But the world encroaches, snares …
Hopefully this summer will open up new avenues. As well as provide time to see you here!
All best,
Len
His poetry often explored and engaged the everyday life: none of the big issues of the world but the ordinary happenings in school, at home, in his life. He wrote about the tools of carpentry, the search for the best Christmas tree in the backyard, shopping at the grocery store, doing the laundry, shoveling snow. He talked about the ordinary objects in the house and neighborhood: the gold carp, copper frog, mocking bird mobile, crickets, the periwinkle. Many of the poems are about his childhood at a Catholic school or about alcoholism, recovery, his parents and his brother. Sometimes he wrote about his early sexual experiences, which were more funny and awkward than erotic.
Even if the poems dealt with the quotidian, they were often metaphors for a bigger, larger universe or symbols of existential conflicts. He wrote about a snapping turtle that wandered in his lawn:
… his departing hiss at me a warning,
I did not take lightly,
having seen those eyes before,
and that thick shell,
that reptile brain,
knowing even as I let him go
that he would be back again.
In a memorable letter-poem, to his friend poet Hayden Carruth, who was sick and dying in a hospital, Len wrote:
… and because I know you’re close enough
to death now so you feel its breath,
its stink you’ve written so often about,
old man who used to sit at our round
oak table those blue-gray dawns
to stare out at the pond, waiting
to catch just one more glimpse
of the great blue heron flapping,
clumsy, its prehistoric wings
as it rose over the telephone wires
and trees, into the mountain
that has no name.
One of my favorite poems “Talking to the Poison Sumac” recalls his older brother who went mad, was confined to the VA hospital for 24 years and received electric shocks treatment:
And I didn’t know why I was out there
thinking of his soft body I had not held
for more than twenty years, repeating
his story when I knew that nothing
I did or said mattered, that the sky
was powerless, and the sun setting
powerless, that the snow that started
to fall, the beautiful falling
itself, was nothing, the field, the world,
the unlivable, burning stars, the emptiness
of it all contained here in one small human heart.
He did not use any big words. You understood every single word, every single sentence, because they referred to things that we know, things that are familiar, but somehow, there was something else there, something we had to decipher, something we had to translate, something much bigger than the things he seemed to be writing about.
And his long lines are something else again. You read through a whole poem non-stop, possibly in a single breath, as if the poet cannot stop the flow of his narrative, he has to take in the whole experience in one gulp. I tried the style – which my father perhaps influenced by Victor Hugo, also used back when I was in high school — and found it very effective.
The body of his work describes a life, from the grades to maturity, the slow transformation and redemption of a human being through the anguish and pain of growing up in a totally dysfunctional family, through separations and divorces, and nervous breakdowns and drunkenness, and self-inflicted suffering. Somehow, we know that poetry played a great part in that life, poetry shed light on the darkness, cleared the way for him and fulfilled the destiny that was waiting like a hidden treasure in his heart.
I look at his attainment: selection of “Black Wings” for the National Poetry Series, grants from National Endowment of the Arts and Fulbright and awards from the Guggenheim. There is also an award for his translation of Sandor Csoori’s poems. Eight books of poetry and a couple of chapbooks. Decades as a teacher. It is a solid achievement.
When I read his obit in the local newspaper a few days after his death on May 25, 2007, I was struck dumb. I was standing at Wegman’s in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, paying for my lunch, and in front of the cashier, I could not hold back the tears. My family consoled me because they knew how much I loved and respected this man. He touched my soul and my life, both, and I’ve never been the same since the first time I met him at Lafayette College a quarter of a century ago.
Len Roberts’ books
Poetry:
The Disappearing Trick (posthumous)
The Silent Singer: New and Selected Poems
The Trouble-Making Finch
Counting the Black Angels
Dangerous Angels
Black Wings
Sweet Ones
From the Dark
Cohoes Theatre
Translations from Hungarian:
Waiting and Incurable Wounds (chapbook of Sandor Csoori)
Selected Poems of Sandor Csoori
Call to me in My Mother Tongue (chapbook of Sandor Csoori)
*** The quoted excerpts are from “The Silent Singer: New and Selected Poems.” Copyright 2001 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago.
Johnny F. Chiuten: Fighter
I was in the Tao Garden, Doi Saket, Chiangmai, Thailand, attending the International Congress of the Healing Tao last September 2010. Recovering from jet lag, I received the first of many messages in the evening. One was from Ned Nepangue, a friend from Cebu, Philippines, asking me to call Johnny. Then another e-mail from Vic Ramos, a fraternity brother of Johnny’s, came within a few minutes telling me that Johnny, my “old sparring partner,” had passed away. Myla Salanga, his daughter, who lives in California, sent me the same message. So did Jopet Laraya, my martial arts classmate and Johnny’s disciple, from Hongkong.
A few more messages came, confirming Johnny’s death and sending me condolences.
I am reluctant to print this photo because I avoid focusing on the fighting aspect of
self-cultivation. For more about Johnny, go to www.beta-sigma.org
The next few days I walked in a daze. I taught a couple of classes at the conference, one of them a sequence called “Twin Dragons Chasing the Pearl,” from a form – Cross Fist — I learned from Johnny in 1964.
Johnny was my first Shaolin master. He was one of the constants in my life, a great influence on my journey. I met him back in the early 1960s, a great presence in the university campus, a respected member of the Beta Sigma Fraternity. He used to come to my dorm room to teach my fraternity brother, a student of law like me. They would practice right there in the small space beside the bunk beds.
One day, Johnny and I met at the law school cafeteria and sat down at the same table. He asked me why I was not studying with him. I said I did not know that I could. We made an appointment for a lesson right then and there. It was the most important decision I had made at that juncture in my life.
On my first lesson, Johnny told me to stay in a very low horse position when we began. What he did to me for the next 3 hours or so was incredibly graphic — and painful. He kicked me, pushed me, rode on my thighs and back, asked me to walk around, slapped me all over. It was something I had not seen even in the kung-fu movies where the hero was asked to do 100 repetitions of a technique until he was bone-weary. Johnny’s method, presumably transmitted from Grandmaster Lao Kim, was meticulously sadistic in a benevolent way. I mean it was meant for a purpose, and that purpose was to test my patience, endurance and determination, and inculcate in me certain mystical values, and to build me into a warrior. Well, I don’t know if I became a warrior, but it certainly tested my patience. As for the mystical experience, I think I attained that, too, because at a certain point when I was about to collapse, I felt an enormous energy welling up, I saw a different reality, I reached a different level of awareness. I came back the next week and took some more of the same punishment. By that time, the novelty was gone, and I was ready to endure because I knew that to have a view of what it is at the top, you have to climb the mountain, by yourself.
When he graduated with a degree in pharmacy, after shuttling from one course to another to prolong his Kung-Fu studies with Grandmaster Lao Kim in Manila, he went home to the island of Cebu to run the family business. On one of his visits to Manila, he introduced me to Lao shifu, then in his 70s, and asked him to take me as a private student. The old man could not turn him down because Johnny was like his own son. It was a rare opportunity for anybody to be taught as an indoor disciple by Lao Kim, at the time considered to be the patriarch of Chinese Kung-Fu in the secretive world of martial arts in Manila.
GM Johnny F. Chiuten with Dr. Jopet Laraya, martial arts
master in HK, and Rene J. Navarro, 5 years ago, in the
University of the Philippines.
Whenever Johnny visited Manila, we would get together to take lessons and have dinner with Lao Kim. Johnny would also show me his new fighting techniques. One time, he stayed in Manila for a month and he and I studied Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan and Pa-Kua Chuan at Hua Eng Athletic Club in Binondo. He learned both 108 solo form and Pa-Kua in just a couple of weeks. When I saw him again, he had added astonishing components to his system: potent jing and trapping. That’s how he was, a serious and dedicated searcher. He studied karate, kundalini yoga, Tetada Kalimasada, he was a black belter in aikido. He was into cross-training and mixed martial arts even before there was a name for them.
In late 1970, I migrated to the US. I studied with Mat Marinas, an arnis de mano/Philippine stickfighting master in Queens, NY. Meantime, Johnny began exploring the different styles of stickfighting (also called escrima) in Cebu. He studied different styles and eventually developed his own system called “Arnis de Cadena Pronus Supinus.”
There were times when yet another foreign delegation would come to see him. Johnny would make them wait on mainland Cebu while he stayed in Bantayan, an island that until recently was accessible only by land transportation and by ferry. I was with him in Bantayan in 2004 when he said how tired he was of the endless challenges he had to face in his life. But in his search he wanted to test himself against the best.
He had had several serious cardiac procedures since the mid-80s, one of them in Texas, and I did not think he should be fighting again and other practitioners should have respected the fact that Johnny’s body was no longer as supple and strong as in the 60’s and 70’s when he used to fight 4 opponents at the same time. Nonetheless, in the prevailing martial arts culture, there was no rest for the master.
Many martial arts practitioners pursued him for his combat expertise and his instructions but he never did divorce martial arts from the energetic and philosophical aspects of self-cultivation. He was always looking for techniques that used the mind and Qi without relying on the physical. He wanted to use Qi to heal himself and others. He was a fount of combat knowledge but he was also a wise man, a very rare combination in the martial world that is inhabited by many violent types and rarely by refinement. He was always respectful of others, even those who were cross and rude. To Johnny, fighting was pursued with the detachment of zen. He never did fight anybody out of anger or resentment or personal issues. In this he was unique in the martial arts world, I believe. After a fight, he usually shared his techniques with his opponent. He had an open and benevolent nature. He had a generosity and wisdom that was beyond the comprehension of the ordinary man. And he was always humble, never denigrating anybody, even those he had defeated in combat. He was a paradox in the martial arts world, gentle, thoughtful, hospitable, fluid. I could have sworn that he was a Taoist sage!
When he passed away on September 10, 2010, I lost a friend, master and guide.
Om Shantih Shantih Shantih
____________________________________
Stories about Johnny:
He told me about his encounter with a famous Filipino fighter who tried to ingratiate himself to him by taking him to places in California when Johnny was there to visit his daughter Myla and her family. Johnny expressed his doubts about the man’s intentions when we saw each other in NY while he was visiting his brother. “I do not know what he wants from me,” he said. When Johnny returned to California, the intention of the man became clear: he wanted a fight. This man was known as somebody who boasted about beating up people apparently to build the legend of his prowess. He also claimed he was a “psychic healer” and bragged about his exploits with women. As Johnny related the episode, this man said:
“Johnny, what posture will you take if I attacked you?”
“You will see if you attack me.”
The man attacked and Johnny pushed him against a wall. Johnny could have inflicted serious injury, but he used the Press technique from Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan that was partly meant to stop an attack in its track. I do not know if that was enough to bring this man back to his senses, he was not hurt but it was a shock and an eye-opener for him. Perhaps he learned a lesson from Johnny, but then again, I do not know. Johnny was terribly disappointed by the episode partly because this man tried to befriend him and abusing Johnny’s trusting nature, tried to exploit it.
Johnny F. Chiuten with doble baston. He studied different
systems of Philippine stickfighting/arnis de mano,
Wudang and Shaolin. He also studied with a grandmaster
of a Northern Praying Mantis style in HK in the 70s.
He has videos of the forms.
This second story happened back in the mid-60s when Johnny was a student in the University of the Philippines. It was late at night and Johnny had just got off the bus from Manila where he had been training with GM Lao Kim. As Johnny was walking home, he encountered a group from a rival fraternity. He was surrounded by about 30 of them. When somebody attacked him, Johnny went into what he called “ground fighting.” In this technique, it was difficult to hit him because he was down there most of the time, kicking and rolling. He managed to escape and inflict some serious damage to the muggers. Later a cop from the campus security knocked on his door and asked him to go to the police precinct. The chief told him that there were complaints that he had attacked and beat up some fratmen. But it was a charge that was impossible to prove because Johnny was alone against a big group. The charge was dropped.
The third story I can authenticate myself. In the 60s we used to spend hours doing nothing but forms and sparring. In 1966, on a Wednesday at about 12 am, it was during the Holy Week, if I remember, we had a memorable match. We had had numerous fights before, at different places. Sometimes we started at 8 o’clock in the morning and we carried the exchanges off and on until 1 in the afternoon. But this was the first time he had resorted to the technique. During a furious exchange, he stabbed my left leg and I fell. A bubble of blood formed instantly. It was one of those moments when life passes in front of your eyes. Johnny showed me how to massage the leg and put the blood back into the vein. Later, the bubble appeared again and grew to the size of a baseball. I went to see Johnny at his house in the campus. He slapped the baseball and spread the blood all over my leg. He made me drink two cups of dit da jow liniment made of 36 herbs. The recipe came from Lao Kim. My leg was black and blue for a few weeks. It was one of the scariest times of my life. Asked about it years later, he replied, “You were going to kill me. I had to defend myself.” I am sure he was exaggerating my abilities — and intention — because during the years we sparred I had never been able to touch him. I have photos to show what Johnny did, one of them I cannot publish because it shows the moment he delivered the thrust of the finger. Footnote: Dr. Guillermo Lengson, vice president of the Karate Federation of the Philippines under Johnny in the 60s, who also studied with Johnny, said of his sparring sessions with Johnny: “Sinagasa ako,” (literally translated as “run over”) referring to the technique of non-stop attack that Johnny had honed to perfection.
Egypt
What happened in Egypt the last few weeks was strangely familiar. It was in many ways like a replay of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines in 1986. The relatively peaceful demonstrations, the involvement of the clerics and religious and the massive participation of the people were three of the characteristics they shared.
The peaceful and unprecedented uprising against Ferdinand Marcos was an inspiration to the world. It showed the possibility that the masses, if united, can actually topple an entrenched dictator and truly transform politics, government and society in a peaceful way.
I was drawn to the TV and newspapers. I followed the developments in Egypt. I hoped that the situation would not explode into mayhem and bloodshed. I wrote to friends in Cairo asking how they were. With great anxiety, I waited to hear from them. It was a relief when both Amira and Rana answered.
It was just after the millennium that I started going to Egypt. A group of Egyptians whom I met in the Tao Garden in Chiang-mai, Thailand had invited me to teach in Cairo. During several visits, I taught Tai Chi Chuan, Qigong, meditation and DragonWell Chi Nei Tsang internal organs massage in both Cairo and Heliopolis. One time, for a week, I did healing on a boat on the Nile just outside of Cairo. I visited the temples in Luxor and Upper Egypt like Abydos, Dendera, Karnak … and the pyramids in Giza and Saqqara … and took the midnight train from Luxor to Cairo. For more of my experiences in Egypt, go to: “Letter from Cyprus,” Our Own Voice (www.oovrag.com) 7/9/04 issue.
When I think of Egypt, it is not the scenes of protest that strike me, nor the bravery of the demonstrators. I know they are important and I hope the demonstrators will eventually achieve their goals. The memories that come rushing back are … faces of the people I taught and befriended, the landscapes along the Nile, the people in the street and markets. In my mind, the recent mass movement to unseat President Mubarak was important, but it was similar to a gate being opened: an opportunity to democratize the country, provide a decent livelihood and education to the people, and allow free expression and egalitarian changes. The unequal distribution of wealth and power, the poverty of the mass of people, the low status of women, have been there, probably since the time of the pharaohs. Will there be genuine changes in society?
In the Philippines, in 1986, Ferdinand Marcos was unseated through mass action. There was widespread celebration. A new Constitution was written, a new Congress was elected, a new government was put in place. But did it change much of anything? Did it improve the lot of the masses? Did it diminish graft and corruption? Did it reduce the power of the military?
The images from the Freedom Square in Cairo are iconic. They show, most of them, moments of heroism and courage. What endure in my mind in Egypt are the views of the pyramids, the healing sessions and seminars, the faces of friends and strangers in the streets, the ordinary workers at their job, the market vendors. Somehow, to me, they are as a poet said, evanescent and eternal. They show the monuments of history, the enduring vignettes of life, in the here and now, that we capture with brush, chisel, words, and camera.
Here are some photos. (Click on the small photo to see the full size version and caption.)
