Aventurina King

I just finished watching the first half of Red Cliff, a 2 CD Chinese blockbuster that stars Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung. They are China’s two hottest male actors, and up to now, the only apparent reason for the film’s box office success.

The movie’s bad because the Chinese high-budget war epic has been done tens of times in exactly the same way: screaming violins, slow-motions, pained expressions and blood … blood … blood.
It’s also bad because scenes are forced to fit a purpose, instead of naturally forwarding the plot. Takeshi Kaneshiro plays a brilliant army strategist with heart. Proof: five minute scene in which he looks up a mare’s bottom and pulls a foal out from it. Tony Leung is a general with artistic sensitivity. Proof: he waves a feathered scepter and his whole army makes silence for a young boy’s tentative flute playing. Leung then walks over to the boy and delicately peels the flute’s holes with his dagger to improve the sound. In the following scene, he restores a stolen ox to the boy’s grandfather.

So far, my favorite moment of comic relief: the ruler of the Wu state cuts off a corner of a table. Murderously glaring at his old advisors, he yells: “I have decided to make war with Cao Cao, whoever mentions surrender will end up like this table!!”

I’ve begun reading “The Art of Happiness” by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler.  So far, I haven’t found it intellectually challenging ( but then again, many self-helpy books pale in comparison with the analytical depth of Nathaniel Branden’s “Honoring the Self”).  Sometimes questions feel incompletely or simplistically addressed.  And yet, inexplicably, reading it leaves me inspired, happy and this evening, after I put the book down, I found myself brainstorming how to help people in my life.

The purpose of life is the achievement of happiness.  That’s the first lesson of the book and I like it.  Avoid what makes you unhappy, embrace what makes you happy.

And there are two things right now that make me happy: Hip Hop and Yoga lessons.
I’m taking a fantastic Hip Hop class in East City Culture Center, between BeiXin Bridge and Jiaodao Kou.  Up to now, I had always been obsessed with Hip Hop–as a teen, there I was replaying Britney’s “Baby One More Time” MTV, mimicking her school-girl moves–but classes bored me to death. 

This class doesn’t, although it should.  It’s practicing basic basic moves for a good two hours on Saturday and Wednesday.  Barely any choreography.  The last class spent an hour and a half on three basics: the side lift, the back roll, the oblique shoulders (I don’t have the vocab for these things!).  During the side lift, you push your knees to the left without moving your torso, then comes a hit of the hips towards the left as your torso falls to the right, your torso lifts as your head tilts right, your torso rolls straight as your head follows.  Basically, the body looks like a blade of grass straigtening itself after a gust of wind.

The Yoga Yard is on the 6th floor of a building facing Beijing’s worker stadium (the stadium now looks like a Christo super-sized Christmas package, wrapped in blue and red Olympic posters).  You take a glass elevator that slides up the side of the building.  It opens  onto a cozy reception area with piles of shoes and Yoga magazines.

My favorite part of the 6th floor is the locker room.  You gently brush aside a blue and white patterned silk cloth that serves as a door.  Soft light melts through the liquid glass windows.  Warm colored tiles shine a silent white.  Painted porcelain sinks, dark wooden cabinets, spacious showers hidden by generous folds of plastic curtains.  The area breathes a clean warmth.