Читать книгу It’s capoeira between us. Conversations with capoeiristas. Part 1 - Natalia Korelina - Страница 7

China is not an easy country. There are too many people here, and this is not just statistics. Shanghai airport and railway station are overcrowded. Just to get into a taxi, I had to wait in line for 40 minutes. Roads, overpasses and bridges are multi-level and multi-lane. There are separate lanes and even tunnels for scooters and bicycles, because there are too many of them as well. The traffic is confusing, chaotic. Everyone runs and drives, and it seems that if you stop even for a second, you will be run over or trampled. Prices range from ridiculous to sky-high. And many foreigners believe that all products in China are counterfeit. Kinder and Nutella are not tasty here, for example.

There are too many McDonald’s and Starbucks cafes here for a country that has blocked almost all major American sites and apps such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. When I say they are blocked, I mean you literally can’t download or use them unless you have a good VPN and some luck! Imagine this. I was devastated because I couldn’t talk to my family for almost two months.

There are also many foreigners here. Everyone has to learn Chinese, because there is no other way to survive. The Chinese do not speak English in taxis, shops or cafes. Catching free Wi-Fi is almost impossible, without a local SIM card and VPN it will be difficult to use the usual Internet. All life, communication, payment for absolutely everything: food delivery, taxi and even government services are concentrated in the WeChat application. If you don’t have this app – consider that you do not exist in China either. Even homeless people here accept money on WeChat!

And what about capoeira? The history of capoeira in China began in Italy. Yes, in Italy. And I will have to learn that history when I go to Italy, because the person who brought capoeira to Shanghai, and then spread it to several more cities, returned to Italy years ago.

Nonetheless, I attended the local group of Capoeira Mandinga in Shanghai and was pleasantly surprised by the number of students there. There were about 20 of us. The teacher’s name is Nico or Instrutor29 Virtual, he is originally from France and was giving the classes in English. There were 2 more girls from other countries, the rest of the students were Chinese. The level of playing in the roda was very impressive – a good base was visible.

Notes from China

After the Saturday roda in Shanghai, I went to the city of Shenzhen located on the border with Hong Kong. This city is considered the capital of watchmaking in China. I found out about this little detail by translating an article about the manufacture of replica watches in China for my work – a funny coincidence. I don’t often work on texts that are so directly connected to my life.

So, I came to work as an English teacher in an early learning center – where there were no children yet – it did make my life a lot easier. I would create lessons and use a lot of ideas from capoeira classes, which I conducted, together with my teacher, Professor Biruta30 in Rostov-on-Don. I chopped a bamboo branch with a kitchen knife, hanging from the second floor, repaired the printer (in Chinese, yeah), painted a photo corner for the Mid-Autumn Festival and tried to put my colleagues on the right path in terms of healthy eating (well, you can’t just eat fried, spicy and salty stuff every day, even if it’s vegetables). For some reason I showed 2-year-old children a presentation about Vietnam, although they don’t even understand what a country is. There, I also had to learn to read fairy tales in English beautifully and expressively while recording all of them on video.

The city was very green and hot. There was also high humidity and tropical showers, Tesla cars passed every 5—10 minutes. Every now and then I met foreigners. Unlike South Korea, where all foreigners live mainly in Seoul, in China they can be found almost everywhere.

The guys from Shanghai gave me some contacts of capoeiristas in Shenzhen. It was already great luck that capoeira existed there.

The first person I wrote to was a guy named Matthew from France, who previously worked with the Capoeira Ginga Nago group, and at the time of my stay in Shenzhen – in the Capoeira Brasil group under the direction of Mestre Chumbinho. The master was originally from Australia and at that time lived in Hong Kong. And yes, every Sunday he came to another city, and actually to another country, to give a capoeira class.

In my first week in China, three things happened:

– I found two more capoeiristas: a guy from Portugal from the Rabo de Arraia group named Tiago and his girlfriend from Belgium from the Beijing branch of the Mandinga group named Yuni. Tiago taught free classes in the university lobby twice a week. I met them on the Friday.

– I was invited to a Brazilian party on Saturday night and was added to the city capoeira chat where this very party was discussed. The master asked who was going there, and I was the first to answer. Furthermore, the first six people who volunteered to perform could receive tickets to the buffet. Brazilian food. Any. Even churrasco. For free. I was ready, but nobody had known me yet, so I was not included in the list.

– On Sunday, I went to train with Mestre Chumbinho. Capoeira Brasil are classic representatives of the Regional31 style. Well, there were a lot of kicks, trips and a kind of «the last survivor» – who will last the longest in the game. I was participating in the last round with one guy, but when the game became completely monotonous and ugly, and my head was throbbing and was about to explode from overheating, I gave up.

And now, everything in order.

Tiago and Yuni are wonderful people and capoeiristas. They met in Spain when Yuni attended a local capoeira group event she had never heard of before. Tiago was there. Well, so it started. He visited her in Belgium, then in China, where she had been working at the university for many years. Then he came to China and stayed.

When I arrived, Tiago had been in the city for less than six months, but he had already worked in a sports club and taught capoeira to kids, and was looking for a studio for an adult group. His classes were amazing, and my only complaint was, «Why is the class is over already? I want more!»

From conversations with Tiago, I learned a few things about capoeira in Portugal, about European Portuguese and decided to go there one day.

In Tiago’s training, I met several more students from other countries and groups. It was very interesting. Each person had their own history; the group was a mixture of cultures and spoke several foreign languages, ahh. I am having goosebumps as I write this. It was incredible to touch other worlds, personalities and cultures through capoeira, and still feel at home.

The Brazilian party.

Well, what can you tell us about a party? – you would ask. Everybody performs, everybody goes to parties. And what will you say to six people from five different groups and six different countries who are gathered for the performance? And we put on a show together as if we had known each other for ages, like old friends.

I had never seen anything like this. Against this background of experiencing unity through capoeira, even the delicious Brazilian food lost its importance. Mestre Chumbinho hosted the entire show, sang and played the berimbau32. And we, without any preparation, simply followed his instructions. Everything went like clockwork. People clapped, groaned and admired. There were even two volunteers who learned a couple of movements and amused the audience with their impromptu fight.

Initially, I was not on the list of performers, but they lacked one person, and I had brought white pants and a white T-shirt with the CDO logo with me. Just in case, you know. All participants in some miraculous way brought only white T-shirts. Everyone had white pants with their school logo:

• Mestre Chumbinho – Capoeira Brasil – Australia

• Taf – Capoeira Brasil – UK

• Matthieu – Capoeira Ginga Nago – France

• Tiago – Rabo de Arraia – Portugal

• Yuni – Capoeira Mandinga – Belgium

• I (Curiosa) – Cordão de Ouro – Russia

Moments like these are worth living for!

It all ended with sincere conversations about where everyone was from, which school they represented and how they ended up in China.

Training in the Capoeira Brasil Group.

Late, but I arrived for the class. The master conducts training with humor, but makes you sweat with a lot of repetitions. There was only one Chinese student among us. There was also another Russian girl and all the same faces: Taf and Matthew.

At that training session, I felt out of place as never before. This was not my capoeira. The very approach to training was completely different. Although I must admit that such training was necessary for me on a regular basis in order to learn to play quickly and strongly at a new level.

Conversation with Instrutor Virtual.

Let's go back to Shanghai and talk to Nico a bit.

Curiosa: What is the state of capoeira in China?

Nico: Officially, Capoeira Mandinga Shanghai was established in 2008, then it came to Beijing and then to Taiwan. Then a student from Russia who started with me moved to Hangzhou (a city one hour away from Shanghai). There were already some people who were doing capoeira there, but it was a very small group, which wasn’t really affiliated with anyone. After some time, they also wanted to join the group of capoeira Mandinga. There’s also one guy in Hefei who has 3 or 4 students already. One girl from Hangzhou also moved to a city close to the border with Thailand, she already has around ten students. So, there are three major cities and these two little groups. In Shanghai, there are two groups of capoeira Mandinga now. The person who moved to Hangzhou came back and started his own group. Now the two groups meet for a Saturday open rodas once a month.

The other teacher’s name is Alex, Chupateta. His group has about 5 to 15 people, whereas my group has 6 to 25 students depending on the day of the week. Students of the Capoeira Brasil group also come to the Saturday open rodas.

Curiosa: Many students left Shanghai and started groups in many other cities. Were all these students advanced enough to start teaching adults on their own?

Nico: When Diego came to Shanghai in 2005, he had only three years in capoeira, he didn’t find any capoeira group there and asked his master in Italy if he could start teaching capoeira. His master said that he could not and that his only option was to stop doing capoeira.

Diego didn’t listen to his master and started to teach. Then they invited Mestre Marcelo and became Capoeira Mandinga. So, when he started, he was just a yellow belt and then for many years he had the highest level in China. But then Capoeira Brasil came and people there had a higher level. I started to teach with dark green belt. Once in a while I would teach what I knew.

Then when you go to another city and there’s no capoeira, so what do you do? You’re like: hello, I have three years in capoeira, do you want to try? And it starts like that.»

Curiosa: What belts do your students have?

Nico: The highest level in my group is yellow belt. Half of the people in my group started with Diego and all the beginners started with me.

There is another guy in Shanghai that is even more advanced than me. He is from the USA and used to be part of Mandinga group but decided to leave. He is not affiliated with any group now. He teaches capoeira in a gym and supports all the rodas.