Culture in the Blender

I am visiting my parents at the moment, and while I’m here I thought it might be a nice idea of do some 太极拳 (tàijíquán) with my mother, since we learned in the same context. She bought some 太极拳 (tàijíquán) VCDs in China, and we were going to watch them and follow the instructions to make sure we were doing everything somewhat right. Alas, upon insertion into their DVD player, all we got was sound and a spinning black-and-white picture, which we have gotten to know well as PAL video displayed on an NTSC screen. When I was buying a TV in the States, I tried looking for one that could do both PAL and NTSC, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen when the Best Buy employee I grabbed to ask which of their TVs could show both PAL and NTSC looked puzzled and said he would find someone who knew what PAL and NTSC were to assist me. As you can imagine, both our TVs can only display NTSC. (After all, who could possibly need to display PAL video?) Fortunately for me, I can make my DVD player always output NTSC, even if the DVD or VCD is PAL originally. Apparently, my parents’ DVD player can only force output of video to PAL, but not NTSC, so the only solution is to watch the VCD on a computer. However, it isn’t entirely easy to follow someone on a laptop screen when you need space to move in. We may have to simply have to recall from memory, or watch the VCD first and then try to keep it all in mind.

It would be easier to have a teacher, but there aren’t many 太极拳 (tàijíquán) masters where we live. The course I took earlier was given by an American who was taught by a Korean. The teacher counted in Korean, which confused me endlessly. I get confused if 太极拳 (tàijíquán) is presented clearly outside a Chinese cultural context. Some sort of fusion or third culture context works too, but if the keynote isn’t Chinese I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to do or how I’m supposed to relate to the teacher. It seems easier to put myself mentally in China and remember without support than to associate another culture with 太极拳 (tàijíquán). (I’m sure this is how cultural mismemories among immigrants and expats are formed.) But nonetheless, having been foiled by PAL video on an NTSC TV, we’ll just have to use distant proximities to imagine ourselves in the room where we practiced with fog and green bamboo outside in the valley, or in one of our parks with new concrete paths and sculpted landscapes, or on the roof of our building with the 扬子江 (Yángzǐ Jiāng) flowing beneath us, visible through the special fog- and pollution-mediated light. It’s surprisingly easy sometimes.