Kung Fu Trip

by Benjamin Zephaniah

  Chapter Twelve

  Cash Money

  The next morning I was woken by someone knocking on the door of my hotel room. I looked at my watch. It was 10 a.m. Knowing that Iron Breath always turned up at midday, I thought it was the cleaners.

  ‘Come back later,’ I shouted, but the knocking continued.

  ‘Please. I’m sleeping. Could you please come back later?’

  The knocking didn’t stop.

  ‘I said later.’

  It looked as if the knocking was never going to end so I jumped up and looked through the spyhole in the door. Looking back at me was Iron Breath.

  ‘Iron Breath,’ I shouted. ‘What are you doing here so early? Wait a minute.’

  I ran to the bathroom, splashed some water over me, quickly put on the tracksuit that I trained in and opened the door.

  ‘Iron Breath. Sorry. You’re early.’

  Iron Breath was a man of little emotion at the best of times and this wasn’t even the best of times. He just stared at me as if he was going to kill me.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ I said.

  ‘Money,’ he replied.

  ‘Money. You need some money.’

  As I was speaking, I was waving my hands about. I hoped it would help him understand me. It works when he’s teaching me.

  It was no good. He just stood there saying, ‘Money.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I know what to do, I’ll call Yanli.’

  I explained to Yanli what was happening and gave Iron Breath the phone so that she could speak to him.

  They finished talking and Iron Breath passed me the phone.

  ‘What’s up, Yanli?’

  ‘He wants some more money,’ she said.

  ‘More money? What for? I paid him what he asked for up front, I’ve had no extra lessons, nothing has changed. Why does he want more?’

  ‘I know, Benjamin. I told him this but he just said he wants more. I can’t really argue with him, he’s my elder. It would be disrespectful.’

  ‘But Yanli, forget his age, he’s wrong. You can’t let anyone do anything to you just because they are old.’ I was angry.

  ‘Benjamin,’ she said, ‘calm down. He is only asking for another three thousand yuan.’

  ‘Another three thousand yuan? He can forget it.’

  As I was saying all this, Iron Breath was looking at me as cool as ice. He just looked at me and breathed. I, meanwhile, couldn’t understand why Yanli didn’t share my outrage.

  ‘So why can’t you say something to him on my behalf?’ I went on. ‘Tell him I’ve got no more money to give him, and we should just carry on like before because a deal is a deal.’

  ‘OK, Benjamin. Let me speak to him.’

  This was it. I expected something to kick off, and I didn’t care in what language it would happen, but no, they just talked on in a civilised manner and then Iron Breath handed me the phone again.

  ‘Benjamin,’ said Yanli, ‘he still says he wants three thousand yuan more.’

  ‘What’s come over him?

  ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t want to talk about anything with me, he just wants more money,’ she said.

  ‘But I only have three more lessons left with him. I know the form already. We’re just doing some extra fighting techniques and some breathing techniques. I could just stop now and go home.’

  ‘I know you could, and I told him that but he didn’t say anything.’

  I huffed and I puffed, and I said, ‘All right then. He can have his money.’

  I just couldn’t see the point of arguing any more. I thought I was paying too much already, but it was important to me to use all the time I had with the best teacher, and he was the best teacher. I didn’t want to go home and regret it.

  ‘Give him the phone,’ said Yanli.

  They spoke for a while and then Iron Breath handed the phone back to me.

  ‘He wants you to pay him now,’ said Yanli nervously.

  ‘Pay him now? I’ve just got out of bed, and anyway I haven’t got any Chinese money left. I need to change some money.’

  ‘There’s no need to get excited,’ she said calmly. ‘Just go downstairs, change some money, pay him, and he’ll carry on with the lessons.’

  ‘Yanli, are you working with him on this? Are you working with him to rip me off?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I just want peace.’

  ‘I want peace too. I’ll go and get the money now. Talk to you later.’

  I went down to the reception with Iron Breath following me. I felt rather strange asking the receptionist to change some money for me when Iron Breath was standing so close behind me. I felt like explaining to the person behind the desk that he was actually a friend and not holding a gun to my back. But that was the least of my problems.

  ‘Sir,’ said the receptionist, ‘we cannot change your money. We do not change pounds.’

  ‘What have you got against pounds?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing, sir. We just don’t change them.’

  I looked towards a board on the wall showing all the exchange rates.

  ‘But you have the rates up there,’ I said, pointing to the board.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ she said blankly.

  Call me old-fashioned, call me British, but I have this thing. When I travel, I hate using what people call American dollars, or what I call USA dollars. I want to use the currency of the country that I’m in, or the currency of my home country. Then, as I looked up at the board, I remembered I had a few USA dollars.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Can you change some American dollars for me?’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘We don’t change money here.’

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  ‘What do you mean you don’t change money? There’s a currency chart there and you call yourself an international hotel. Have I missed something?’

  ‘Sorry, sir. We don’t change money. You can try the bank.’

  Well, I couldn’t try the bank because it was a holiday and the banks were closed, but as I walked around the reception area talking to myself with Iron Breath following me, I was stopped by a man in his late twenties.

  ‘What’s the matter, man? Do you have a problem here?’ he said, sounding like a New York cop.

  ‘I can’t change any money,’ I said. ‘I’m in an international hotel where they display the currency exchange rates of twenty countries in their reception, but they say they don’t change money. Go to the bank, they say, but no banks are open. So what do I do?’

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  ‘Can you change money?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I know a woman who can.’

  ‘Can I bring my Shifu?’ I asked, looking towards Iron Breath.

  ‘No problem. What’s your name?’

  ‘I’m Benjamin. My teacher’s called Iron Breath. He doesn’t say much. And yours?’

  ‘John.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said, ‘you can tell me your Chinese name, I’ll try to pronounce it and if I can’t, just correct me.’

  ‘John’s my name,’ he said. ‘My family are Christians so my parents gave me a Christian name. There are lots of Christians here. You know that, don’t you? Because I’ve heard that outside China some people don’t know that there are Christians here. I know a Paul and a Matthew, and a Mary, but she’s no saint,’ he added with a grin and a wink.

  John had never left China but spoke English with a very strong American accent. He had studied English at school and university but his accent came from watching films from the USA.

  As we drove, he told me about his big dilemma. He loved his car, it drove wonderfully, it was reliable, his mother loved it, his friends loved it, but there was a problem. The car was Japanese and he hated the Japanese. When I asked him why he hated the Japanese, he gave me the reply so many Chinese people had given me.

  ‘Nanking,’ he said.

  He was speaking about what is known as the Rape of Nanking. Nanking is now called
Nanjing. In December 1937 the invading Japanese army went into Nanking and commited one of the most terrible crimes of all time. Over six weeks some 80,000 women were raped and many of them were then mutilated or murdered. Over 30,000 people were killed. Most Japanese people do not know the truth about the horrors that took place as many Japanese history books simply say that there was a battle in Nanking, some heavy stuff happened, and they won. No Japanese government has apologised for what happened at Nanking, but because the events were so well photographed and filmed (by the Japanese) Chinese people of all ages will never forget this dreadful moment in history.

  ‘I hate the Japanese,’ said John. ‘They make me sick. I want to kill them, but they make really good cars, and computer games, and motorbikes, and DVD players, and . . .’

  He went on for quite a while about all the great things made in Japan so I just had to say what I did.

  ‘You sound like you love the Japanese to me.’

  ‘I hate them.’

  At this point I gave my much used speech about forgiveness. I told him that most Japanese don’t know what really happened in Nanjing, just like Chinese people don’t really know what happened in Tibet. I explained that most people from the USA don’t know what really happened in Japan, and most white people don’t really understand what happened to black people in slavery, but we must move forward.

  Then I paused and said, ‘If black people hated every nation that did bad things to them, we would hate everyone.’

  ‘I guess you’re right, but it’s a difficult one to get over,’ he said seriously.

  Soon John and I arrived at a shop that sold arts and crafts. Iron Breath sat on the back seat like a statue of the Buddha while John and I went in. Inside John did a bit of whispering to a stern-looking woman behind the counter and I changed four hundred pounds into yuan at a very poor exchange rate. As we were saying goodbye, John told me another problem he had with the Japanese.

  ‘Girls,’ he said. ‘Japanese girls. They look really nice, man.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Acid Rain Takeaway

  The next day things were back to normal. Iron Breath turned up at my hotel on time and worked me hard. I knew that I should be getting used to this level of training, and that my body would adapt, but in reality it was getting harder and harder.

  Much of the lesson was spent doing nothing – doing nothing in the horse stance. The horse stance improves the strength of your legs. It’s simple to do. Just stand with your knees bent and your legs well apart as if you were sitting on a horse. After a minute you will want to get up, but you must stay, and it gets more difficult. When you really feel that this should come to an end, you are told to go lower. The lower you get the more painful it is.

  This is what Iron Breath did to me, and when I was as low as I could get he took two cups from the table, filled them with water and put them on my thighs. As I struggled to stay low, and to stay still, he sat in front of me, with a wise smile on his face and said, ‘Good. Very good.’

  When the session was over, I called Yanli. I wanted her to suggest to Iron Breath that I have a day off. I needed a day to recover, a day when maybe I could get out and see some of the countryside, but Iron Breath’s reply (in Chinese) was, ‘No way.’

  That’s what Yanli told me he said. He also said, ‘If he wants a day off, he can have a day off when the training is over. If he needs a day off now, the course will finish here and now and there will be no refund.’

  As Yanli was telling me this, I was looking at Iron Breath standing right in front of me. He just didn’t seem like the same man whose words were being spoken to me. Who was he anyway? I knew nothing about him, nothing. I didn’t know where he came from. I didn’t know if he had ever been in love. I didn’t know if he liked football. I didn’t even know if he liked me. All I knew was that he was a good teacher who liked to be well paid for his services.

  ‘It’s up to you,’ said Yanli.

  ‘Forget it,’ I replied.

  I handed the phone to Iron Breath and when they had spoken for a while he handed it back to me.

  ‘Benjamin,’ she said, ‘he said you are a good student but you must train harder. He said from now on he will not do warm-up exercises with you. He will expect you to do them before he comes, and he will train you harder than before. He was training you at a child’s level before, now he will train you at a man’s level. If you complain, you must go home. He said this is kung fu, not dancing.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said.

  Iron Breath went home and I sat on my bed wondering if he was joking. I got back on the phone to Yanli.

  ‘Yanli, tell me straight. Is he joking?’

  ‘No,’ said Yanli. ‘He may seem strange, but no.’

  We arranged to meet up later that evening and I fell asleep.

  I woke up late in the afternoon weak and hungry, so I decided to make the trip up the hill to the Yong Tai Temple restaurant. The moment I stepped out of the taxi there was a frenzy of activity.

  Two girls stood at the entrance and it seemed like their job was simply to bow to me. Another girl showed me to my seat, while another girl drew back the chair for me to sit in. At the same time different girls got me a menu, some water, some tea, brought me a warm towel, and brought me a little fluffy dragon for good luck.

  It was as if they had been waiting for me before they sprang into action. They remembered to bring me an English menu and not a Chinese one; they remembered that I liked the air conditioning turned off; and they remembered to bring me knives, forks and spoons because I couldn’t use chopsticks. One thing they didn’t remember, or chose not to remember, was that I liked small portions. I love my vegan food but I really don’t like eating a lot, and I also don’t like wasting food.

  The Chinese eat big. It amazes me how much some of them can eat and still stay so small. If a Chinese person is in a restaurant and they think they’ve had enough, they will not leave and allow the food to be thrown away. They will ask for the Dabao or a doggy bag as it’s sometimes called. It is considered normal to take home what’s left over. It’s something that I think we should all do. I always think it’s wrong that most uneaten food ends up in rubbish bins or down drains.

  I ate as much as I could, took my little doggy bag and said goodbye to my kind hosts. When I got outside the restaurant, I found the taxi driver who had taken me there waiting for me.

  ‘We go back,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘I want to walk back.’

  ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘Too far.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll be OK,’ I said as I set off.

  It was downhill all the way. It feels so much longer when you’re doing it on foot, and this was just the road down from the temple to the main road. Near the end of the temple road I heard a car coming down behind me so I began to walk as close to the edge of the road as possible but the car slowed down and drove alongside me.

  It was the taxi again. The driver shouted out of the window, ‘OK, sir. Good walk. Now I take you to hotel.’

  ‘No, I told you, I want to walk.’

  ‘It is far, sir.’

  ‘I know it’s far, but I want to walk. Please leave me alone.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, and he drove off.

  It was a long walk. I walked for about two kilometres before I came to my favourite place with the kung fu kids. There were schools on both sides of the road with hundreds of young boys and girls practising their moves. If I had another shot at education, I’d study religious beliefs, but if I had another shot at being a child, I’d be a kung fu kid, in a kung fu school, in China. But I would come home for holidays. There’s nothing quite like Blackpool in the summer.

  I went on walking and checking out the schools and it began to drizzle. But the falling rain was no problem. I kept walking, wondering what was going through the minds of these young people, and what they thought of me looking on. I could see that many of them were being distracted by me so I never stayed outs
ide any one school for too long.

  When I stopped at a street stall to buy some iced tea, the taxi driver pulled up next to me again.

  ‘Are you ready now, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I replied grumpily, ‘and I’ll never be ready. I want to walk. I like walking. These feet were made for walking. Walking, that’s what I do.’

  I thought he got the message that time. He sped off towards the town and I got my tea and went on my way. Soon after, I came across a group of boys and girls who had finished their classes and were taking some time out. They came up to me looking at my dreadlocks and discussing if they were real or not. I hadn’t suddenly learnt how to understand Chinese, by the way, I just knew that this was the usual starting point for discussions about my locks.

  I was beginning to feel like a UFO that had landed, until one boy pointed to me and said, ‘Manchester United.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Aston Villa.’

  ‘Aston Villa no good,’ he said. ‘Manchester United.’

  Just then two girls stepped forward.

  ‘Me, she, Aston Villa,’ said one of the girls.

  ‘Very good,’ I replied.

  ‘Yes,’ she went on. ‘Up the Villa.’

  ‘Up the Villa,’ I replied. Here I was, at the home of kung fu, with people who could well be the kung fu masters of the future, and we were talking about which English football team we supported. This wasn’t right.

  ‘You want to be kung fu monk?’ I asked.

  There were blank stares from all of them, so I tried something else. The Chinese words for ‘Buddha bless you’.

  ‘Er me tuo fo.’

  ‘No, no,’ said one of the boys. ‘Not er me tuo fo.’

  I pointed to him, did a kung fu hand movement and said, ‘You, er me tuo fo?’

  ‘No. Me Li Lianjie,’ he replied.

  ‘Li Lianjie,’ I said. ‘I know him. He’s very good.’

  Li Lianjie is the Chinese name for Jet Li, a big kung fu film star. He was also a student at one of the many schools around the Shaolin Temple, and starred in a classic film called Shaolin Temple. Most of the young people training at these schools have no wish to live the lonely life of a monk. They want to be movie stars, they want to make it big in Chinese films and then go on to Hollywood, or to be bodyguards for the rich and famous so they can mix with the movie stars.