Chapter One
“I want to be the First Kungfu Master, a super-rank one, The Invincible,” vowed Richard Chang, dressed in a white cotton kungfu suit, as he started sinking into a yoga cross-legged position on the accustomed spot of the carpet on the den floor, half-worn from long-time daily sitting. “No one can beat me.”
The handsome square-faced man had close-cropped ebony hair and tanned olive skin. He was five foot nine inches tall with a strong build but no fat, only muscles rippling in spite of his old age. He always ate black sesame seeds, which is said to keep the hair black.
“Right, just like nobody beats the WIZ,” leered his wife, leaning on the doorframe as she came to ask him what he'd like for dinner. She was thin, only five foot six inches, still keeping a good figure and fair skin, though the age told with a bit wrinkles on her forehead, a little white frost in the hair on her temples and some silver threads scattered here and there. She was wearing gray silk pants and a white silk blouse with an embroidered red peony flower on the upper left front side; her hair was pulled up in a twisted bun on top of her head. It was over eighty-seven degrees Fahrenheit outside, but the air-conditioning was not on because they believed in air-conditioning sickness. All the windows were open to let in some breezes.
The den served as Richard's kungfu practice room, as well as his study, with a mahogany desk, a leather swivel chair behind it on one side and a row of oakwood bookshelves on the other. Not every shelf was filled with books. He used one shelf to keep the stubs of bills and such things, one shelf for newspapers and another for the display of some small porcelain bottles in which he stored some Chinese medicine for cutting and bleeding, spraining and muscle aches, and all that.
He was sitting against the wall, facing the doorway, with his eyes closed. “Fried chicken, boiled shrimps, spinach, and rice, if it's not too much trouble for you.” He began to inhale and exhale slowly and deeply into the lower abdomen--dantian, in kungfu terms.
Richard was three-score-less-one years old, the right age to be mature and experienced enough to perform the Chinese kungfu feats to perfection. He had learned kungfu from a very famous master, a monk in Shaolin Temple in China, when he had been only ten. It was not necessary to be a monk to learn kungfu in the Temple. His late father had been a close friend of the head monk. When he left the Temple fifteen years later, he was the first among all the learners. He felt very proud of himself. His father would have been proud of him, too, if he had still been alive.
When anyone is taught kungfu, he must be able to grasp the gist of the master's instructions, which are unable to be explained clearly and fully in words, about how to exercise chi. One can actually feel chi going around inside his body while exercising it. If anyone is too dull to understand the master, he can never get the feel of chi inside. So he can only learn how to use his body and limbs--the outside karate actions, and can never become a master. The outside karate actions, backed by inside chi, is really Chinese traditional kungfu and has much more strength than mere outside actions. With the feel of chi going inside for the first stage, the next stage is to practice chi hard and correctly everyday so as to be able to emit it through hands or fingers. As the years go by, the chi one can emit becomes stronger and stronger and can actually hurt people from a certain distance. The stronger the chi, the greater the distance. But nowadays people have separated them. Some only exercise karate moves and others only do the chi practice. They can use chi to help other people with certain kinds of health problems. But few people can combine both now.
Richard was really a genius at kungfu. “Men are created equal” only applies to the area of human rights, not of IQ. The brain and wisdom can never be equalized. Now after another thirty-four years of daily practice, Richard was a renowned master, if not the first in rank yet. Certainly not “The Invincible”. He taught karate classes at home in the basement on rainy days or in fine weather in the backyard of his house on a secluded street in Edison, New Jersey. His wife, Judy, was of the same age, but a layman to karate. However, his pupils called her Mistress Chang according to Chinese tradition. They didn't have any children of their own. It was a pity in their life.
They were married for three decades plus four years already. On the Silver Jubilee Day, as far as Judy could remember, he had made her a gift of a sterling silver necklace with a heart-shaped pendant with the words “I love you forever” inscribed on one side and her name on the other. He had promised to give her a gift of gold for their golden anniversary and a present of diamonds for their diamond jubilee.
Though it was thirty-four years ago, he could still clearly see in his mind's eye their wedding day as if it were yesterday. He had been living at that time in a small village, not far from the Shoalin Temple. Their wedding had been held in the old fashion still prevalent at that time in small villages, though not in big cities. His bride had come in a red palanquin with the musicians walking in front and her relatives behind. The palanquin resembled a miniature Chinese pavilion with a decorated roof and a sturdy wooden bottom with a wooden board as the back wall, two wooden sides, each with a small curtained window, and a curtain in the front doorway. When the bride wanted to go in or out, she just needed to pull aside the front curtain. There were two poles attached to both sides for the shoulders of the carriers. The bride sat inside it on a plank set into the sides. The procession had lasted half a kilometer. A red cloth had covered the head of the bride, who had a bridal knot hairdo on the skull with a gold hairpin piercing through the knot. He himself had worn a Chinese-style black gown with a red paper-made flower pinned on the front of the gown. He had stood at the front door waiting for the bride, looking occasionally at the sunny sky and hearing the gaily tweeting birds, his heart fluttering with bliss and nervousness. When the bride had arrived, the red palanquin had been let down and firecrackers had thundered off to the frightened wailing of some small children among the throng gathered to observe the procession. An old woman, acting as the mistress of ceremony, had helped the bride out of the palanquin and thrust the end of a red cloth rope into her hands while he, the bridegroom, held the other end. The bride had been attired in a red satin Chinese-style coat, an aqua-colored ankle-length skirt of silk embroidered with multicolored threads in patterns of flowers, and a pair of red brocade shoes with a vivid pair of Mandarin ducks embroidered on each of them. He had led the bride into the house, to the center room where the ceremony would be held. It seemed that he was not leading his bride, but instead pulling a horse on a rein or a dog on a leash. Then they had stood side by side on a thick red rug facing a long narrow table on which incense and two red candles had been burning. On the wall behind the long table the red character of “Double Happiness” had been pasted.
The mistress of ceremony had sung out the words, “Now the bride and bridegroom, kowtow.” They had knelt before the long table on the red rug. “Kowtow, first, to Heaven and Earth!” They had kowtowed. “Kowtow, second, to ancestors!” They had done it again. “Kowtow, third, to each other!” They had turned to face each other and done it once more. “The ceremony is completed.” They had stood up; then kowtowed to their parents and other senior close relatives, and at the same time received some red packets with money in them. After that he led his bride into their newly decorated bedroom, still on the red cloth rope. Then the feast began and he came out to pay his respects to the guests by presenting them, one after another, with a cup of wine, while at the same time, drinking a cup himself. The result was often that the bridegroom got drunk before he could offer the wedding wine to every one of the guests. But oftentimes, friends of the bridegroom would drink the wine for him, keeping him sober so that after the feast, they could have other programs carried out. But before the tricky programs began, the bridegroom would pick up the red cloth that covered the head of the bride with a short stick so that the guests could appreciate the beauty of the bride first, if she was a beauty. Then the programs began. The tricks could include the following: an apple was hung by a string from the ceiling and the newlywed couple were asked to bite the apple from opposite sides without using their hands; or the couple should eat a piece of orange from both ends to the middle and at last their lips would be pressed together; or a female relative would hide something on the person of the bride and ask the bridegroom to find it. Of course, the bridegroom wouldn't search the bride's person before the guests, so he must do something else to entertain the guests as a penalty, like singing a song or telling a joke. Married people often played these tricks. The single ones were afraid to take part, because if they did, when they had their own wedding day this newlywed couple would enjoy the satisfaction of retaliation.
“A dollar for your thoughts!” He was back from his reverie and looked at his wife's smiling face.
“You see, your thoughts are more expensive than others. Theirs only cost some pennies,” his wife joked with him. They had invited some friends to a dinner party in some Chinese restaurant for the silver jubilee.
In his free time, his ambition would drive him everywhere to seek other kungfu masters. Whenever he met one, he would challenge him to a competitive fight to determine who was better in kungfu. That was an old Chinese tradition in the kungfu world, too. They named it “Learn From Each Other”, but sometimes they really killed people intentionally or unintentionally.
***
There were Americans as well as Chinese-Americans in his karate classes, mostly young people. He really taught fighting skills, not just exercises for health. His classes were divided into three levels: the beginners, the mid-level and the high-level. The first two were taught mere karate actions while the high-level pupils were learning chi practice. The classes were allowed in the basement only on rainy and cold days while the pupils exercised in the backyard when it was fine and not too cold.
David Li belonged to the high-level class with two other young American guys. He always acted as if he was full of information about the people and affairs in the kungfu circle. If kungfu performance could be divided into ten levels, excluding the master level, David was at the fifth, which was good enough, considering the fact that kungfu is really no match for modern weapons and fewer people are indulged in it. However, kungfu has its own particular use. In the olden times, a learner was allowed to leave his master's place and wander independently into the world only when he reached the eighth or ninth level so that he could protect himself against most of the other kungfu people. But times changed and rules changed, too.
One day as the class was dismissed, David stayed behind for a little while, telling Master Chang that he heard that there was another master living somewhere in Piscataway, New Jersey. Richard could not remember that he had ever crossed swords with anyone living in that area. So that must be someone he had not met before. That's worth a try. His face was really beaming with excitement.
“What's his name?” he asked David, who replied “I don't know.”
“Where's he living exactly? On what street?” The Master stared at David menacingly.
“I'm not sure,” David answered evasively. He was of medium height, meager, tanned, with a slightly round face like on some commercial for baby food. He was simple-minded, easy to be at the beck and call of other people.
“Get the information for me,” the master ordered.
“I'll go round to ask and let Master know when I come next time,” he promised respectfully. He came in the evening three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
The master was impatient when David came on Friday, but he refrained himself until the class was over. An excellent master did everything deliberately, never in a hurry. Master's dignity.
“His name is Charles Pan,” David released the news, seeing the impatience depicted on Master Chang's face, and then gave him the address. Task completed, he left with a sinister smile on his otherwise good-looking visage.
“I want to be the First Kungfu Master, a super-rank one, The Invincible,” vowed Richard Chang, dressed in a white cotton kungfu suit, as he started sinking into a yoga cross-legged position on the accustomed spot of the carpet on the den floor, half-worn from long-time daily sitting. “No one can beat me.”
The handsome square-faced man had close-cropped ebony hair and tanned olive skin. He was five foot nine inches tall with a strong build but no fat, only muscles rippling in spite of his old age. He always ate black sesame seeds, which is said to keep the hair black.
“Right, just like nobody beats the WIZ,” leered his wife, leaning on the doorframe as she came to ask him what he'd like for dinner. She was thin, only five foot six inches, still keeping a good figure and fair skin, though the age told with a bit wrinkles on her forehead, a little white frost in the hair on her temples and some silver threads scattered here and there. She was wearing gray silk pants and a white silk blouse with an embroidered red peony flower on the upper left front side; her hair was pulled up in a twisted bun on top of her head. It was over eighty-seven degrees Fahrenheit outside, but the air-conditioning was not on because they believed in air-conditioning sickness. All the windows were open to let in some breezes.
The den served as Richard's kungfu practice room, as well as his study, with a mahogany desk, a leather swivel chair behind it on one side and a row of oakwood bookshelves on the other. Not every shelf was filled with books. He used one shelf to keep the stubs of bills and such things, one shelf for newspapers and another for the display of some small porcelain bottles in which he stored some Chinese medicine for cutting and bleeding, spraining and muscle aches, and all that.
He was sitting against the wall, facing the doorway, with his eyes closed. “Fried chicken, boiled shrimps, spinach, and rice, if it's not too much trouble for you.” He began to inhale and exhale slowly and deeply into the lower abdomen--dantian, in kungfu terms.
Richard was three-score-less-one years old, the right age to be mature and experienced enough to perform the Chinese kungfu feats to perfection. He had learned kungfu from a very famous master, a monk in Shaolin Temple in China, when he had been only ten. It was not necessary to be a monk to learn kungfu in the Temple. His late father had been a close friend of the head monk. When he left the Temple fifteen years later, he was the first among all the learners. He felt very proud of himself. His father would have been proud of him, too, if he had still been alive.
When anyone is taught kungfu, he must be able to grasp the gist of the master's instructions, which are unable to be explained clearly and fully in words, about how to exercise chi. One can actually feel chi going around inside his body while exercising it. If anyone is too dull to understand the master, he can never get the feel of chi inside. So he can only learn how to use his body and limbs--the outside karate actions, and can never become a master. The outside karate actions, backed by inside chi, is really Chinese traditional kungfu and has much more strength than mere outside actions. With the feel of chi going inside for the first stage, the next stage is to practice chi hard and correctly everyday so as to be able to emit it through hands or fingers. As the years go by, the chi one can emit becomes stronger and stronger and can actually hurt people from a certain distance. The stronger the chi, the greater the distance. But nowadays people have separated them. Some only exercise karate moves and others only do the chi practice. They can use chi to help other people with certain kinds of health problems. But few people can combine both now.
Richard was really a genius at kungfu. “Men are created equal” only applies to the area of human rights, not of IQ. The brain and wisdom can never be equalized. Now after another thirty-four years of daily practice, Richard was a renowned master, if not the first in rank yet. Certainly not “The Invincible”. He taught karate classes at home in the basement on rainy days or in fine weather in the backyard of his house on a secluded street in Edison, New Jersey. His wife, Judy, was of the same age, but a layman to karate. However, his pupils called her Mistress Chang according to Chinese tradition. They didn't have any children of their own. It was a pity in their life.
They were married for three decades plus four years already. On the Silver Jubilee Day, as far as Judy could remember, he had made her a gift of a sterling silver necklace with a heart-shaped pendant with the words “I love you forever” inscribed on one side and her name on the other. He had promised to give her a gift of gold for their golden anniversary and a present of diamonds for their diamond jubilee.
Though it was thirty-four years ago, he could still clearly see in his mind's eye their wedding day as if it were yesterday. He had been living at that time in a small village, not far from the Shoalin Temple. Their wedding had been held in the old fashion still prevalent at that time in small villages, though not in big cities. His bride had come in a red palanquin with the musicians walking in front and her relatives behind. The palanquin resembled a miniature Chinese pavilion with a decorated roof and a sturdy wooden bottom with a wooden board as the back wall, two wooden sides, each with a small curtained window, and a curtain in the front doorway. When the bride wanted to go in or out, she just needed to pull aside the front curtain. There were two poles attached to both sides for the shoulders of the carriers. The bride sat inside it on a plank set into the sides. The procession had lasted half a kilometer. A red cloth had covered the head of the bride, who had a bridal knot hairdo on the skull with a gold hairpin piercing through the knot. He himself had worn a Chinese-style black gown with a red paper-made flower pinned on the front of the gown. He had stood at the front door waiting for the bride, looking occasionally at the sunny sky and hearing the gaily tweeting birds, his heart fluttering with bliss and nervousness. When the bride had arrived, the red palanquin had been let down and firecrackers had thundered off to the frightened wailing of some small children among the throng gathered to observe the procession. An old woman, acting as the mistress of ceremony, had helped the bride out of the palanquin and thrust the end of a red cloth rope into her hands while he, the bridegroom, held the other end. The bride had been attired in a red satin Chinese-style coat, an aqua-colored ankle-length skirt of silk embroidered with multicolored threads in patterns of flowers, and a pair of red brocade shoes with a vivid pair of Mandarin ducks embroidered on each of them. He had led the bride into the house, to the center room where the ceremony would be held. It seemed that he was not leading his bride, but instead pulling a horse on a rein or a dog on a leash. Then they had stood side by side on a thick red rug facing a long narrow table on which incense and two red candles had been burning. On the wall behind the long table the red character of “Double Happiness” had been pasted.
The mistress of ceremony had sung out the words, “Now the bride and bridegroom, kowtow.” They had knelt before the long table on the red rug. “Kowtow, first, to Heaven and Earth!” They had kowtowed. “Kowtow, second, to ancestors!” They had done it again. “Kowtow, third, to each other!” They had turned to face each other and done it once more. “The ceremony is completed.” They had stood up; then kowtowed to their parents and other senior close relatives, and at the same time received some red packets with money in them. After that he led his bride into their newly decorated bedroom, still on the red cloth rope. Then the feast began and he came out to pay his respects to the guests by presenting them, one after another, with a cup of wine, while at the same time, drinking a cup himself. The result was often that the bridegroom got drunk before he could offer the wedding wine to every one of the guests. But oftentimes, friends of the bridegroom would drink the wine for him, keeping him sober so that after the feast, they could have other programs carried out. But before the tricky programs began, the bridegroom would pick up the red cloth that covered the head of the bride with a short stick so that the guests could appreciate the beauty of the bride first, if she was a beauty. Then the programs began. The tricks could include the following: an apple was hung by a string from the ceiling and the newlywed couple were asked to bite the apple from opposite sides without using their hands; or the couple should eat a piece of orange from both ends to the middle and at last their lips would be pressed together; or a female relative would hide something on the person of the bride and ask the bridegroom to find it. Of course, the bridegroom wouldn't search the bride's person before the guests, so he must do something else to entertain the guests as a penalty, like singing a song or telling a joke. Married people often played these tricks. The single ones were afraid to take part, because if they did, when they had their own wedding day this newlywed couple would enjoy the satisfaction of retaliation.
“A dollar for your thoughts!” He was back from his reverie and looked at his wife's smiling face.
“You see, your thoughts are more expensive than others. Theirs only cost some pennies,” his wife joked with him. They had invited some friends to a dinner party in some Chinese restaurant for the silver jubilee.
In his free time, his ambition would drive him everywhere to seek other kungfu masters. Whenever he met one, he would challenge him to a competitive fight to determine who was better in kungfu. That was an old Chinese tradition in the kungfu world, too. They named it “Learn From Each Other”, but sometimes they really killed people intentionally or unintentionally.
***
There were Americans as well as Chinese-Americans in his karate classes, mostly young people. He really taught fighting skills, not just exercises for health. His classes were divided into three levels: the beginners, the mid-level and the high-level. The first two were taught mere karate actions while the high-level pupils were learning chi practice. The classes were allowed in the basement only on rainy and cold days while the pupils exercised in the backyard when it was fine and not too cold.
David Li belonged to the high-level class with two other young American guys. He always acted as if he was full of information about the people and affairs in the kungfu circle. If kungfu performance could be divided into ten levels, excluding the master level, David was at the fifth, which was good enough, considering the fact that kungfu is really no match for modern weapons and fewer people are indulged in it. However, kungfu has its own particular use. In the olden times, a learner was allowed to leave his master's place and wander independently into the world only when he reached the eighth or ninth level so that he could protect himself against most of the other kungfu people. But times changed and rules changed, too.
One day as the class was dismissed, David stayed behind for a little while, telling Master Chang that he heard that there was another master living somewhere in Piscataway, New Jersey. Richard could not remember that he had ever crossed swords with anyone living in that area. So that must be someone he had not met before. That's worth a try. His face was really beaming with excitement.
“What's his name?” he asked David, who replied “I don't know.”
“Where's he living exactly? On what street?” The Master stared at David menacingly.
“I'm not sure,” David answered evasively. He was of medium height, meager, tanned, with a slightly round face like on some commercial for baby food. He was simple-minded, easy to be at the beck and call of other people.
“Get the information for me,” the master ordered.
“I'll go round to ask and let Master know when I come next time,” he promised respectfully. He came in the evening three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
The master was impatient when David came on Friday, but he refrained himself until the class was over. An excellent master did everything deliberately, never in a hurry. Master's dignity.
“His name is Charles Pan,” David released the news, seeing the impatience depicted on Master Chang's face, and then gave him the address. Task completed, he left with a sinister smile on his otherwise good-looking visage.
