New Year's Eve

While the illegal smoky noisy New Year's fireworks slowly begin, like a thunderstorm building off in the distance, scaring the catshit out of The Yellow Emperor, I watch a Netflix-acquired DVD, Mysterious China: Holy Mountain, a spiritual travelogue I stumbled across in my recent queue update, about Wudangshan and Taoism.  It's like watching Hawaii 5-0. (I guess; I never do that, really.)  But Wudang... Hey, I know that temple, I've been on that peak, up those stairs.That's the tea shop...the medicine shop! I've hugged that hermit, and he's hugged me.  (I broke his chair and he gave me dates.) The video convinces me that the one Taoist art I really would like to acquire is Tai Chi sword.  You see women doing that a lot.  Why might that be?

Peppered with a lot of elegant Wudang Taoist qigong and kungfu performances in exquisite settings, the video ends with an astonishing display of contortion by an attractive guy who looks just like Nicholas Tse doing things with his joints and feet that seem impossible and un-Taoist-ly unnatural, but suggesting that Chinese acrobatics started on Wudang Mountain.  Forget that head-butting brick-breaking karate-style stuff the Shaolin guys do; can you put your right foot behind your left ear while balancing on your index fingers?

But I shouldn't be so callous.  I am inspired to return to Wudang. As the video concludes,  "Once you have been exposed the magic of Wudang Mountain and immersed yourself in The Way, the spirit of Taoism will stay in your heart forever."



In the meantime, I return to episode 39 of 51 of Emperor of the Sea and fantasize about a little sword play with Song Il-guk as Yum Moon (at this point in the drama named Yum Jang...but still Yummy).  Not a bad way to spend New Year's Eve.

Yum Whoever