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December 05, 2007
Meeting Bagua Master Lu Zijian
It was a four hour drive at ninety miles per hour from Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan and Chongqing, where Chiang Kaishek had moved his government during the Japanese invasion. I was with my former teacher, Zhang Yuan Ming and my ex-wife, Zhang Xia, the niece of Zhang Yuan Ming. With us was a teacher from a Chengdu wushu arts school and a chauffer. The highway was brand new, only a year or two old, and we passed more people leading cattle and on bikes than cars.
We arrived at a banquet room in Chongqing in the afternoon and sat at tables facing each other as my teacher took out some magazine articles from his briefcase and gave instructions to Xia as she held his video camera. A very old man with a powerful build and long, white beard sat and passed out cigarettes and chain smoked while my teacher and each of the five other men took turns speaking.
The old man was asked to get up and give us a demonstration and he ran through a short bagua sequence as though he were spinning silk. He then came over to me and invited me to pry his arms apart as he held them in front of his chest. He stood there grinning as futilely struggled to budge them. After the old man sat down and gave a speech we all got into cars and went back to his house.
The old man took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and handed a cigarette to me and then offered one to everyone in the house. About six of the others accepted and the crowd of 12-15 milled around the old man's house. The walls were decorated with numerous awards and pictures and paintings, artifacts of homage to the great achievements of his life. In the front of the house was the exercise room where he still practiced daily the Kung Fu that had made him an icon. The room had a few large stands of spears and other weapons. The wall had racks of various swords. A heavy bag was on a stand on one side and one of his students with a pot belly kicked it a few times.
I walked through a hallway with books and manuscripts and boxes lining the walls to a corner room in the back with windows that overlooked a courtyard. This was the old man's sanctuary. It was his own personal museum and shrine. There was his altar with its statuary and incense holder, his personal swords, laminated certificates, aged pictures of himself at various points of his life at tournaments and with dignitaries, antique jade objects and an ancient red velvet throne. In the corner near the windows was a large desk cluttered with calligraphy brushes, paintings and a large ash tray filled with cigarette butts.
The old man lit another cigarette and continued to talk with my teacher as my young wife filmed the room at the instruction of her uncle. Zhang Yuan Ming took out his camera and took pictures of the room and the old man doing calligraphy, then he asked the old man to get his photo identification out and show me. The old man smiled and took it out of his pocket and laid it on the desk, and I raised my eyebrows when I read the year of his birth-1893. The old man was 111 years old!
The old man put the identification back in his pocket and lit another cigarette. My teacher ushered him over to his throne and the old man obliged. Xia obediently listened to her uncle and continued taping the event as the teacher got on his knees and bowed before the old man. After getting up and telling Xia to take his picture with the old master he reached into a pocket and handed the old man a huge wad of cash. At first the old man refused, but my teacher insisted and the old man took it and handed to an old woman holding a cigarette who took it somewhere out of sight.
We walked back into the inner room where the rest of the group was discussing the paintings and calligraphy and took seats in a circle. Someone passed out more cigarettes and we all took turns passing them out as we listened to the old man talk about kung fu. Afterwards, we all went to a local restaurant and sat for 3 hours, gorging ourselves and toasting each other, passing around cigarettes and talking about Kung Fu. The old man ate very light, but had with him two crafted tobacco pipes which he filled many times as he talked and lectured and explained to the group that Zhang Yuan Ming had integrity and wasn't teaching Kung Fu for money. By the way, that old man's name was Lu Zi Jian.
