The Tai-chi Master [仅在北京] 太极师父

A Singaporean classmate of mine recently invited me to meet one of her mentors, or as she phrased it, “my shifu.” Whereas most professors use the title laoshi, which means teacher, a shifu is a master of a certain skill, which in this instance was the ancient craft of tai-chi. I have no experience in martial arts, but I nonetheless wanted to meet this shifu by the name of Li.Passing turf soccer fields enclosed by a towering metal fence, we arrived at a three-story building fashioned in the style of traditional Chinese architecture. The peeling paint and caulk-stained walls betrayed the inauthenticity of the exterior; a weathered sign on the door read, “Chinese Culture and Wellbeing Research Center,” a juxtaposition of ideas that makes little sense in English but more in Mandarin. Hidden in a cramped booth inside the doorway, Master Li rose with regal posture and greeted us with a warm smile.
Climbing to the third floor, a dank staircase opened into a gorgeous tai-chi practice room flooded in mid-morning sunlight. Unlike the rest of the building, this room had undergone recent renovation, and massive landscapes and calligraphies adorned the walls. Master Li gestured for us to take a seat at the tea table on a raised platform to the left of the entrance.

While teaching at Peking University for over twenty years, Master Li developed a style of tai-chi that does away with the need to memorize countless forms. Rather, he draws on students’ knowledge of Chinese characters. As he believes, writing each character involves a delicate balance of yin and yang, a push and pull that translates well into tai-chi. I felt as if he himself were in perfect equilibrium, his eyes as piercing as they were inviting. A man in his 40s, Master Li gave a modern sensibility to ancient practices. Bringing his palms together as if in prayer, he mused, “If you think about it, Christians can use tai-chi as well. Unless you have correct form, God can’t hear what you’re saying!”
As we sipped on tea and munched on sesame crackers imported from North Korea, our conversation started to circle outward. While discussing politics, Master Li at one point exclaimed, “In China, you can do anything, buy anything, and say anything. Just look at us now! Is this not democracy?” I still can’t decide if his statement was genius, nonsense, or equal parts both. We changed our tea leaves and welcomed another guest, a vibrant 30-some yoga instructor who retold her dreams in hopes that Master Li might help distill some meaning from them.
We sat, we talked, and we drank more tea. Aside from his Saturday tai-chi classes, Master Li entertains guests all day long, and I suspect that our group’s eclecticism was nothing extraordinary. When it was at last time for us to go, we bid farewell to our host, whom I can only assume descended back to his solitary booth to await his next caller.