"Dengfeng, USA"
It was not uncommon to train all day with Shi De Cheng, and then either spend lunch time or dinner and the early evening with him. Or both. But the real party began when his disciples, and my friends, Shi Xing Wei and Shi Xing Qi arrived from an annual gong fu expedition somewhere down south of China. Then, it was every night, when a varied amount of monks and I did dinner, "out on the town", somewhere in the small city of Dengfeng.
And what evenings those tended to be. Especially when we fought over who would have the honor of paying the bill.
Despite one hell of a fight, on a nightly basis, I always lost....
Shi Xing Wei, Shi De Jun, me, Shi De Cheng, and Shi Xing Qi
Shi De Cheng has traveled rather extensively to Italy, Austria, and France, and continues to travel to those places on a yearly basis, to teach at schools that he's known at. And over the years, he's picked up some knowledge of the local languages. So, between my English, French and a smattering of Chinese, and his Chinese, and a smattering of French, Italian, German, and English, the conversations tend to be, well, "enlightening". And hugely entertaining. Needless to say, facial expressions say a lot.
One thing that is certain about Shi De Cheng, other than the fact that he's a veritable storehouse of gong fu information. He's a hell of a lot of fun to be around. For some reason, the bunch of us always tended to be the absolute loudest in the restaurants.
Which may be one reason why we never returned to the same one twice....
But one night, after eating at a Chinese buffet at some nearby hotel restaurant, Shi Xing Qi came up with this brilliant idea to eat at the new McDonald's restaurant, right here in Dengfeng. Yes, McDonald's. That meant, real hamburgers. Not that typical cardboard and god knows what else ground beef shit the Chinese tend to press together and call burgers. Real hamburgers. Real Coke (you should taste the Chinese imitation of that one day...) Yes, needless to say, I was delighted. So, plans were made for McD's the following night. The photos tell the rest of the story....
The menu at the "Dengfeng USA" (Shi De Cheng's term) McDonalds. Note the hat that I made him get...
Shi Xing Qi and Shi Xing Wei, holding the menus of the "Dengfeng USA McDonalds".
The Godfather. Shi De Cheng loves mimicry. While discussing something in Italian and French, he just automatically broke out in this mimic of an Italian taliking....
Shi Xing Qi's latest plans, for the next evening meal, are to go to the new Kentucky Fried Chicken, that just opened in Dengfeng.
I just can't wait.