Hong Kong has class
IMMERSION | Tourists can bone up on feng shui, tai chi, tea and opera
HONG KONG -- A crowd of about 30 people -- Midwestern college students, grandparents, a very pregnant woman, German tourists -- gathered outside the Hong Kong Museum of Art at 8 a.m. on a sunny Monday in March, ready to try the ancient Chinese art of tai chi.
The instructors: one of Hong Kong's best-known tai chi masters, William Ng, a small, elderly man with a big smile, and his accomplice Pandora, a petite woman in blue silk pajamas. Pandora had an uncanny ability to convert curious onlookers into participants.
(Lori Rackl/Chris Fusco/Sun-Times)
"Come! Come! Free tai chi class!" Pandora beckoned to just about everyone who happened to be taking a morning stroll along Hong Kong's picturesque Victoria Harbor.
Tai chi classes are just one of the Cultural Kaleidoscope programs offered by the Hong Kong Tourism Board. More than a dozen English-speaking classes and tours -- most of them free -- are held year-round for tourists wanting to learn about this Chinese territory's traditions and customs.
Over the years, I've occasionally seen people going through the graceful, slow-motion movements of tai chi. I figured this was as good a chance as any to check it out.
"It's mainly for the harmony of the body and the mind," explained Ng, who's performed tai chi for the likes of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Ng bent his arms into the shape of a circle and began a series of poses -- Grasping the Bird's Tail, Needle at Sea Bottom, White Crane Flaps Its Wings -- that we dutifully tried to mimic.
Chinese music garbled by static played over Ng's boom box as he told us to breathe in, breathe out and "enjoy the view." That last part was easy, since the backdrop was the dynamic Victoria Harbor. The tree-covered hills and skyscrapers of Hong Kong Island stood on the other side of the water, where we could see the famous green and white Star Ferries that have been shuttling passengers across the harbor for more than a century.
Tai chi, sometimes called "meditation in motion," includes roughly 100 movements and positions designed to reduce stress, lift the spirits and improve flexibility and strength. We were about to learn it's also a form of self-defense.
"Pandora and I will now show you what to do when rascals approach," Ng said. With that, he and Pandora busted out a bunch of moves that didn't look like they'd work if someone were trying to snatch my purse in Chicago -- unless the goal was to disarm my attacker with laughter.
While I didn't come away from the class with any secret moves to fend off thugs, I did get to spend a memorable hour balancing my yin and yang in a beautifully serene setting.
In addition to tai chi, tourists can take classes in Chinese medicine, feng shui, tea and Cantonese opera, among other things.
I snagged the last open spot in a Chinese cake-making class at Wing Wah, a Hong Kong institution since 1950. The bakery chain churns out award-winning mooncakes and "wife cakes" served at holidays and special occasions.
Ten of us tourists lined up along a table in the narrow Wing Wah shop as two chefs in toques demonstrated how to roll out pastry dough and stuff a sweet filling into the so-called wife cakes.
A hip young lady with long hair and thick-framed glasses explained that wife cakes date to feudal times. Legend has it that a Chinese woman put herself up for sale to raise money so her sick father-in-law could get medical treatment. The woman's husband tried to buy back his spouse by baking gourmet cakes and selling them at the bazaar. Apparently he was quite the pastry chef because he hawked enough cakes to reclaim his bride.
After an hour in class, we washed the flour off our hands and sampled our hot-out-of-the-oven creations.
We each walked away with a copy of the labor-intensive recipe, which, like my tai chi self-defense moves, were fun to learn in Hong Kong -- even if I never use them in Chicago.