LETTER

Here is an e-mail I wrote to my Uncle that basically sums up how I'm doing out here in China. I apologize for any informalities in the language and any inside jokes you may not understand:

Haha, well I'm going to be beginning my 4th week at Kunyu Mountain Shaolin Martial Arts Academy in China. The living quarters are quite dismal, but other than that the training is great. I am studying Mantis boxing at the moment, and my master likes us to train in the mountains above our academy where we at least once or twice a week I have to condition every part my arms by beating them against trees. I feel that my progress has been amazingly fast, probably due to my previous kung fu experience. I've made lots of friends here at the academy, and have become resident translator for when we go out, so my conversational Chinese skill has been increasing exponentially.

I’ve also been constantly thinking of new riffs, because I brought that traveler guitar with me, and recording them on my computer. Also, my first week and a half, I ways having major writer’s block, probably because for the first week and a half I was at the academy it didn’t stop raining. But after the sun came back out, the lyrics began to flow. I have a sweet journal I’ve been writing in. I also completed that basic Buddhism book, and have began reading Lao Tzu’s Tao de China, which is some really deep stuff. It took me a week of pondering to understand the first poem! Anyways, I’m really glad that I came to China to study Kung Fu. I’m surrounded by mountains, and the mountain we actually run up and down every Friday and have my mantis class at is one of the holiest places in Daoism, the cave of the 8 Immortals is right there. In fact Daoism was actually born in this area of the Kunyu Mountains, so that is really cool. You can be training kung fu in the mountains, and you see a Daoist monk pass by, and then you realize he is chatting away on his cell phone, haha. Talk to you soon Uncle J.


MUCH LOVE TO EVERYONE, I MISS YOU ALL VERY MUCH