Boston Chinatown hosting 66th North American Chinese Invitational Volleyball Tournament

September 3, 2010 by Chinatown Blogger.

Chinatown Knights team practicing for tournament.

Saturday, September 4, 2010 8:00 A.M.
Opening Ceremonies
Washington St/Traveler St Parking Lot

For complete schedule:
http://boston.nacivt.com/page5/SchedRslt.html

The Beginnings of Volleyball in Chinatown
In the late 1930’s, there was not much for young Chinese laundry workers to do other than work. Just about ten years earlier, the Immigration Act of 1924 had effectively shut the door on all immigration to the U.S. from Asia. It declared that all Asians were “not eligible” for citizenship. It then went on to say that persons not eligible for citizenship were barred from entering the United States. Since Asian were not eligible for citizenship, this meant that any Asian who was not a citizen of the United States at the time the law was passed could not leave the country if he or she ever wished to return later.

Recreation for laundry workers was extremely limited. Laundry work usually meant 10 to 18-hour days, 6 days a week. Sunday was their only day off. On Sunday they could do what they liked, but there was not much to do. The usual “American” entertainment was either prohibited to them, or did not make much sense. Usually they “hung out,” visited Chinatown or visited with other laundry workers.

Henry Oi was one of those young laundry workers who participated in the original tournaments. At 76 he is now retired from business, but is still very active in the life of community. As a young man, he worked in his father’s laundry. He still remembers the hard work, long hours, and how little he earned. He still remembers that on his day off from the laundry, he would hang out with other laundry workers at a local drug store on the corner of Beach and Washington Streets in Boston Chinatown, but this was not very interesting. Life for the young people of Chinatown was mostly “a matter of no time and no money” he says.

Some of them wanted to spend the few free hours they had to themselves doing something which was not breaking the law or getting into trouble. But more than this, they wanted something that would promote friendship. Friendship is essential to society. One thing they found they could do was go to the Chinatown YMCA.

The facilities of the Chinatown Y were quite limited. There, the young men found a table tennis table and a backyard. In this backyard they could play volleyball.

Reference: 55th NACIVT Program Book. Boston, 1999

For the entire story visit: http://boston.nacivt.com/page1/History.html

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Groton, Fate, and Films at the Gate

August 29, 2010 by Adam.

Today our family went out to Groton, MA. The reason is that someone in Gardner was selling one of those wooden play cubes, the kind with wires and beads and wheels that babies can make go around a little maze that is cut into wood. These things are pretty expensive. But this one was being sold for $15. A good deal, if you want to drive to Gardner.

As it turns out, Grace, my wife, did want to drive to Gardner and in between Gardner and Boston, is Groton.

What is so special about Groton? It just so happens this is where I went to boarding school, The Groton School.

Groton doesn’t really seem to carry a name in the circles I hang out with in Boston, but among certain crowds in New York and Hong Kong, the name carries a lot of weight. I’m sure with certain crowds in Boston too. But they would be surprised that I went there, because I am a stay at home dad, and not a successful businessman, lawyer, or well….uhh… I can change diapers real good.

But because I went to Groton, I got to meet some classmates from Hong Kong. One friend from Hong Kong I recently met up with. I had actually stayed in his house in Hong Kong for more than a month. I am so grateful that I had his experience and got to meet his close and distant relatives. It really helped me “find my Chinese side”. In fact for the past ten years. I feel like I have been finding my Chinese side. And only recently have I been focusing more on my European American Side. Which brings me back to Groton.

In all the four years I went to Groton, I walked into the town once. I noticed it was pretty classy compared to Ayer, which was where the train stop was when I came into Groton on the Fitchburg line. Now there is a big Korean Super Market at that train stop. I wish that had been there in my time. All I remember from that stop was the nice old ladies at Kelly’s that sold you the train tickets, and a Bar fight that hapened in the middle of the day. The police old guy who got knocked out from a steel toed construction boot to the Jaw from a young (may I say jacked?)man.

Old guy was known to the police. Both white, both drunk, neither one much of a fighter.

Anyway, we stopped at a couple of Farm stands around Groton and Ayer.Very beautiful and quaint. One was based on the honor system. I’ve never seen anything like that. I never knew Groton was so awesome.

Then we ate a Cafe. The food was amazing, the reuben sandwich wasn’t heavy and the kraut taste cut through meat, the squash soup was fres made with farm fresh ingredients. This cafe has parties with live Irish and other folk music where you can bring your own beer. Seems great. Were these places around when I was going to school their. How come our school didn’t have more interaction with the town. I have heard this said many times before actually, but I also never knew how an apparently awesome place Groton was. It seemed like people kind of looked down on “Townies”.

In contrast, the college I went to, Stonehill, was very involved in Brockton. Brockton has become arguably worse than Roxboury and Dorchester but us Stonehill kids were all over Brockton in various programs etc. But Groton’s “Townies” aren’t like Charlestown or South Boston kids. Groton Town has money, they have farm stands on the freak’n honor system. The most dangerous thing I heard was that there was a KKK chapter there, but this would be nothing for Old New York folk to worry about. Besides this is just a rumor.

Actually the one time I walked into town, I was with an African American girl. People were staring at her (maybe us) but the point is, we walked into town. We didn’t look down at Groton. We would take field trips there.

The “Townie”kids ended up hanging out more with the finacial aid students (like me) and the whole group of ABCD kids from the Bronx and Queens in New York. They identified more with us, than with the New york money that went to school. Well maybe I’m simplifying things in a bad light just because I didn’t have a good time. Maybe someone else would say everyone got along and partied at Groton… except Adam was a glum fellow, and there is some truth to that.

There is another prep school in the area, Lawrence Academy, that does have more interaction with the town though . In fact, that school’s students art work was hanging up in the Cafe we went to.

Nevertheless, I am grateful for my time at Groton and for the times I was hired y the school to play Chinese Dulcimer, do Chinese Lion Dance, and other performances they hired Woo Ching White Crane for. These performances were also open to the people surrounding the town. Also, I know the musical I starred in, Grease, was adverstised in the surrounding towns and many people came to see it. One of the main actresses in that play, was a day student, very talented, with an incredible natural singing voice (as it turns out also half-Chinese) I rememer her freinds in the audience screaming her name. Maybe she wouldn’t think there was really any disconnect at all. In fact the Class under ours seemed much happier.

Maybe its just my own fault I didn’t know Groton town was so awesome. I know I wouldn’t have went to a Cafe back then. I was too cheap.The women in the Cafe loved little Noah, which surprised Grace. she thought that white women wouldn’t thin that Shao Bao looks cute, because he looks so Chinese. Grace already kind of wants Noah to have a Chinese wife. Even though her husband, as far as most people are concerned, is white.

“Maybe later he will get a white woman.” said Grace regretfully.

“Just like his grandfather” I quipped smiling.

“Hey…!”

“Keeping it mixed.” I said.

Well when all that was done we headed back to Chinatown, where even though we don’t live, we basically belong. American food is good, but it’s true, I cannot survive on it for too long. I don’t know why, that’s just how it is. I pass for white but I simply am unable to fully assimilate. I’ve tried and failed.

So to my performance at Films at the gate.

After my students fire cupped my shoulder that was bothering me. we drank a looked through old pictures, and finally after they left I changed into my uniform and headed down to the Green way park by the Gate. I was invited to perform for 10 minutes or so to sort of kick start the movie.Actually my school was invited, butif I ask all the kids to come, I have to feed them, and feeding them costs a couple hundred dollars at least. This gig was for the community and so there was no money to earn. But as it turns out I got a free meal anyway, this is Fate.

After my performance, (I did a freestyle Drunken form followed by having a bunch of kids from the audience follow along for a form) people started asking questions about the school, prices, and why my Chinese was so good. One little girl told me to stop talking to her mother and get a drinking of water because I was out of breath and still sweating from the performance.

Then another voice came, “Sow mm sow ngau ahh!” or “Will you take me as a student?”

I guess I should call her Auntie. She was a close friend of both my parents.

Her daughter Tracy was there along with a cousin Jason who was visiting from California. They had just came back from New York when they heard my Kung Fu Sales pitch on the street. (Did I change names to protect privacy? How many Chinese Tracys and Jasons do you know that are from New York and Cali. Too many!)

Auntie invited me to go eat something. That was my free meal. Jason and Tracy were very interested in the movie that was no starting. Children of Invention. I am also interested. I am sorry I didn’t watch it. But it has been years since I saw Auntie. and Jason’s father as it turns out was also close to my father and had stayed with us. Movie or Family. Family.

Dinner discussion was one discussion in English with my age group and another discussion in Chinese with Auntie.

Discussion about my family life, taking care of a child, how I do that, how I don’t work, etc. Well lets just say Auntie says what she thinks, and sometimes maybe a young daughter is embarrassed  by words that could be considered insulting to me. But I am not insulted. Because I have known Auntie for a long time and she has done a lot for me. In fact, she was paying for this meal, even though the money she earns is through some factory job that is hard work, real hard work that I have never even done before, not for a week. I worked very hard once, for a couple of days during New Years at a Chinese restaurant when I was still at Groton. In a way it was fun. But I was young and it was two days. I know my life is easy. I am not insulted by what Auntie or many other women who are close to me have to say.

But when an old Chinese I don’t know starts saying things, honestly, I let her have it. I swear at her in English. I don’t care. I’m not a nice person at all. But I respect Auntie and other people like her. She has done a lot for me and what have I done for her or her children? I have tried to get Tracy a good job, but so far, I have done almost nothing for them, basically. Why does auntie and her husband do so much for me? Because my father and mother did a lot for them. This is very Chinese. Of course I am expected and I myself hope to do a lot for their children, but it just hasn’t happened.

“How come you always meet Tracy randomly?” said Auntie ,”This is fate that you always bump into each other when you perform Kung Fu.”

It’s true we all mulled, I have bumped into her on many lion dances, once even at her job. It was fate, wun hei, cloud air? It’s funny.

Conversation then turned to Kung Fu, and Bruce Lee the latest movies, moves, practice. I can talk about that for hours. And I know what I am talking about.

Ohh.. the funny thing is that when I came into the restaurant,  I was still wearing my Kung Fu uniform. I went to the bathroom to change but I was still sweating so much from the performance. I felt like I would get sick from “Feng” from the Air conditioning.

The whole time I sat and ate, sweat  poured down and settled on the part that was sitting. So when I stood up, my but was all wet. Perhaps it looked like I had peed myself. I saw the waiters giving me a funny look. I mentioned this to my friends, “Before maybe i would be embarrassed by this but actually I don’t care at all.”

Why is this? Because my son sometimes really does pee or poo or spit up on me. If I had a job, and my job was to wash my boss’s ass, sometimes with my hand, actually wash the feces from in between the cracks, how much do you think someone would need to get paid to do this? Before I would say, there is nothing that could make me do that, no amount of money, or it would have to be a large amount of money. And every day? How long would I last at this job. But for my son I gladly do this for free. Having kids is funny that way.

So anyway, we get outside and  I start talking to Jason about three moves I will show him.

These moves are famous in Taishan. They are called Chuen Pow Cup. They are famous because these three moves beat the hell out of all other types of Kung Fu in the area. Another Master in Chinatown once asked me if I knew the secret to White Crane, and then said these three moves while providing movements for them that were actually sort of a Choy Lei Fut equivalent, though they wouldn’t be so named in Choy lei fut either.I laughed because these moves are actually our basics. But is true that thy are quite powerful.

My Sifu once taught someone who taught someone else, who taught someone else, etc. these three moves. This was in China, in Guangzhou. Well tat students, students, students, student was, well…. a bandit of sorts. Back then the police didn’t have guns. They learned Moh Ging, which at that point consisted of Wing Chun and other grappling  Chin-na types moves to arrest people.

To think of them trying to do that to someone doing white crane is funny. That guy, who Sifu did not even know, fought twenty or so police men and was beating the hell out of them until slowly, slowly, they managed to subdue him. Sifu got in trouble for this, but also got a job teaching the police Kung Fu. Did they pay him? Actually I’m not sure about that. But its good to have police who are your students, even if your heart doesn’t agree with the Party in power. Not really like there is a choice in the matter anyway. After that Sifu wasn’t allowed to teach in Guangzhou, so went went back to the village, where people sought him out.

So here I was teaching Jason these same moves on the street in Chinatown. I don’t care that people are looking. Kung Fu is not as easy to steal as you think. It’s not even easy to learn, and besides, guns, bombs. poison, arson, and pollution are the modern dangers to society. If Berie Madoff knew kung fu, would he have done more damage? No he probably would have done less because he would have a different world view.

“You are teaching on the street!” said Auntie.

Yes I did. And people were staring at us. I don’t care. I think Tracy got a picture. e-mail it and I will post it up with this article. Maybe Jason will practice and become a master in his own way. That would be fate that he happened to be there when i was performing at the Films at the Gate. Its interesting where fate bring you and why. I thought Groton would bring away from Boston or at least to a lot of money. But I am even luckier taking care of my son than I would be working a difficult job I don’t like, even if it paid well. Fate is funny.

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Films at the Gate

August 28, 2010 by Chinatown Blogger.

This week, a vacant lot near Boston’s Chinatown Gate becomes a free, outdoor theater, showing Kung-Fu and classic Chinese-language films under the stars. In 2010, Films at the Gate is back for the fifth year, showing films from Thursday, August 26 through Sunday, August 29, 2010. Films at the Gate is presented by the Asian Community Development Corporation and Boston Street Lab. Email info@filmsatthegate.org

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August Moon Weekend.

August 16, 2010 by Adam.

This past weekend was the August Moon festival in Chinatown. The assumption is that it is called August Moon based on the chinese holiday (Jung chow jeet) and that it on the western calendar date of August 15th for…..convenience?

Ironically we actually celebrated the July holiday this weekend as the Chinese Holidays go by a Lunar calendar. (The July holiday is the Chinese Halloweeen. I would assume August/Harvest Moon/ Jung chow jeet is a month away.)

So I ‘ve begun to wonder…. if the Dragon boat festival can be on a sunday that is pretty close to the actual holiday… why not the August Moon festival? Why don’t we have a Moon Lady at the August Moon festival?

I understand that its good to have a summer festival in Chinatown. And we should keep it, but why not celebrate the traditional holidays close to the actual dates? Chinese New Year is done this way… and so is the Dragon Boat festival.  Well…. moving on

Our Kung Fu School, Woo Ching White Crane performed midday at this festival because we had a wedding performance later that day. We also had a wedding performance the day before… but more on those later.

For the festival we were going to just throw something together, but Sifu suggested that since it has been a few years since we’ve done stilts or done a fighting form that we should do them this year. we insisted we didn’t have enough people, would be to tired, etc. but in the end saw that Sifu was right. (he is always right)

We can do this stuff, why not just do it.

I actully did choy chiang on stlits, but we did not parade aroundas we did in the old days, due to convenience, politics, and lacking the manpower to stop someone from trying to intentionally knock me off the stilts.

As it turns out, many of the Kwong Kow kids I tech were there. Suddenly their sometimes mean kung fu teacher was someone they wanted to wave to and even admit to knowing.

Next came Kung Fu. I heard our kids did great and I also saw our friend  Moi Sifu, perform looking more bad-ass than the last performance. Why? The stage was larger and the weather was cool, as opposed to an oppressive heat.

I heard from Grace, who was holding our child and taking pictures that My fighting form looked pretty good. I also heard that the Old ladies near Si Mo were gasping with fear that my blade was so close to cutting my partners head of each time.This was probably the smoothest performance of the form we have done yet.

I also enjoyed watching the audience (especially the old men) during My Si Hing’s Kwan Gung vs. Choy Yerng form. I could see at the part where he does the motions of putting the five beards back in place that the men would turn to each other saying “I told you so… I knew it was Kwan Gung” Th young people just see it as a cool big knife probably.

To end  Ika  Hsiao performed yo-yo. This time the gusts of wind mad it difficult to maintain spin, but Ika’s Performace hi time was stillbetter than last. She moved aroundthe stage more and added new tricks, jumping rope up to three times with the string while the yo-yo was in the air, and then catching it. I could hear the crowd cheering over my drumming. So we brought out many types of things this year for traditionalists, kids, and danger lovers.

Now for the weddings. I have to mention one first that might actually start a trend. The Bride and Groom requested that they do the lion dance as they come in as a surprise.  Then they would come out of the heads and we switchedwith them and that’s how they presented themselves. Never heard of it being done and it must have been pretty cool. Too bad I couldn’t see the audience’s face because I was in the tail.

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Spring Roll fist, Chicken Finger Claws

August 7, 2010 by Adam.

I’m teaching a bunch of mostly Americanized Chinese Americans at Kwong Kow this summer, and so I’m having them learn the names of different Kung Fu names in Cantonese.
I got some negative feedback that one Taiwanese child was crying because it wasn’t in Mandarin but I didn’t see it myself. In fact I tried to teach it in Mandarin one class through the help of a Mandarin teacher but the next week, well, i think she needed a break from shouting out things for the class to do as that class was a very rowdy bunch.
A few of the kids who yell out the names very loudly are from a Mandarin o English speaking background.

But what is most funny is what happened with the kids who are actually Cantonese speakers but someone Americanized. The changed the names to English Sounding equivalents, or indeed Chinese sounding equivalents with completely different meaning. These new names tell you a lot about Chinese American Culture.

It started when Chuen kuen or Penetrating Fist became  Chuen Goon, or Spring Roll.
Then the next obvious one to change was to change Long Jow, or Dragon Claw, into Fun Jow.. Phoenix Claw. Phoenix Claw is of course the name of the popular Dim Sum dish which is delicious and succulent chincken feet that you put in your mouth whole, spitting the bones out onto your plate. The tendons and all that just seem to almost dissolve away.

But that was just the first week. Now these kids have been practicing for a month and have incorporated English into their comedy.

The first basic move “Shuen Yew Joon sun” which means twisting waist turning body is yelled out by me and then they are supposed to yell it back. I hear one boy scream back quite seriously before cracking a smile “Mohegan Sun!”
Then in the form, “Cup Kuen” or stamping fist becomes “Cupcake”

Hei gerk or sometimes they say fei gerk which means “leg up” or “flying kick” respectively, this modification actually makes sense. But then some kids started saying “Hey girl!” instead of “Hei gerk”

I guess you can tell by the names they choose, what is prominent in their lives, or the lives of their parents. American things like cupcake, getting girls to pay attention to you, Dim Sum, and then of course the Casinos.

(This article was also published on my personal Blog 1000monkeycave)

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