I did want to go to the Olympics in 2008 and see wushu as a sport. But it won’t be included as an olympic event. Not even a demonstration of it. That’s crazy.

I think the city will be beautiful though. I wonder if there’ll still be some donkeys in the streets. I doubt the roads will be so dusty. I want to see the Chinese interact with the foreigners. And in the games, I want to see Team USA take home a gold medal in basketball. And I wanted to watch Team China take a gold in wushu. They say there will be a wushu competition at the same time but not part of the games.

Beijing 2008

八步螳螂拳 or Eight Step Praying Mantis Boxing, that’s the style of wushu I started learning under 師傅左顯富 (Master Zuo Xian-Fu).

Last Saturday I went to 阿媽’s again. The weather was beautiful last Saturday. What did we do? We hung out at the shop, played 麻將 (Mahjong) and slept in sleeping bags in a really cold room in the mountains. I went for a bike ride and took photos of the sunset on Christmas day. 阿祥 took me to see one his teachers, 李老師 (Li Laoshi), he taught them how to make wood pieces and furniture. I made a stool! I just did the sanding and hammering, 李老師 did most the work. On Sunday night we were going to go to 九分 (Jiufen) but 順子’s car broke down in Keelung. I practiced wushu too. How I would live if I didn’t live in the city?