“Damn!” I said to Deqing.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “They won’t carry you out on a stretcher.”
“No?”
“You are too tall for Chinese stretchers. They will leave you on the platform instead.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem.”
After a big dinner (there would be no more weigh-ins), Coach Cheng, Shou Ting, my date, and I went back to my room to relax. Deqing had left early to meet someone. After about an hour, he entered the room accompanied by an elderly man and a younger man in his late teens. From the way Deqing was ducking his head, he looked like he had been roped into doing something he didn’t want to do. He leaned over Coach Cheng and whispered in his ear.
“Absolutely not,” Coach Cheng replied.
Deqing stood up and shrugged his shoulders at the old man.
“It’s just a challenge match,” the old man said. “It won’t take much time.”
I walked over and asked Deqing what was happening.
“This is a martial arts instructor. He was one my master’s classmates,” Deqing said. “This is his disciple. They saw you fight today. The master wants his disciple to gain experience. He wants him to challenge you.”
I must have looked horrified, because Coach Cheng jumped in.
“What were you thinking? Lao Bao has to fight in the championship tomorrow.”
Deqing shrugged. What could he do? A classmate of one of his instructors had made a request. He was honor-bound to try to fulfill it.
I felt like a marked man. All I had done was beat a second-rate Korean. If I somehow found a way to beat the Champ tomorrow, they’d be standing in line for me. The absurdity of the situation set me back on my heels. I already was feeling tired and achy from my earlier fight. The top of my right foot was swelling from that first kick. I knew I needed to ice it down. I had absolutely no interest in a challenge match.
Thankfully, Coach Cheng repeated definitively, “Lao Bao will not fight him.”
Silence descended. This was frequent in Chinese negotiations. Someone made a ridiculous request, but the various webs of obligation required that some sort of satisfactory solution be found.
It was up to the old master to plead his case. “My student needs the experience. He needs a challenge match to test his skills.”
“My student has to fight tomorrow,” Coach Cheng replied. “What if he gets hurt? Can your disciple fight in his place in the tournament?”
More silence.
The old master leaned forward, “Maybe someone else can fight?”
Coach Cheng thought about it for a moment.
“Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll fight him in Lao Bao’s place.”
And with that, the relaxing, contemplative evening before my big fight ended. Never very stable in the best of circumstances, Shou Ting exploded.
“You can’t! Don’t do it! What if the police come?”
She came at Coach Cheng, who was about to be in a real fight, swinging. He grabbed her wrists and smiled that painful smile all men use when trying to calm hysterical women in front of friends.
“No problem, no problem, no problem,” Coach Cheng said while looking over at me and raising his eyebrow apologetically. His face said, What can I do with a woman like this?
“I will leave you!” Shou Ting yelped, her voice starting to crack, indicating to every male in the room that a flow of tears was soon to follow.
Coach Cheng stepped back, and Deqing, right on cue, stepped in between them.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “This is very common. No police will come.”
Our room emptied into the hallway of the twelfth floor of the Zheng Zhou International Hotel, a narrow affair—standing in the middle I could touch both walls with my fingertips. In the process of arranging ourselves, the disciple, his master, and Deqing found themselves facing us with their backs to where the elevators were located. Coach Cheng, Shou Ting, my date, and I had our backs to the window at the far end of the hallway. Somehow while exiting the room, Deqing had deftly exchanged places with me, and it was now my responsibility to physically restrain Shou Ting. Fortunately, she was no longer trying to attack Coach Cheng. She was content merely to shout invectives and threats about the future of their relationship at him. I felt like a police officer standing in front of a protestor. My date looked shell-shocked.
Not a single door opened—were the laowai cowering next to their peepholes?—but it did bring the twelfth-floor key girl running from her desk in front of the elevators.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
Deqing, who was nearest, intercepted her.
“It’s nothing. Just play,” Deqing said, beaming and laughing in his most charming way.
She tried to get closer, but Deqing gently stood in her way.
“Are they fighting?” she asked.
“No, it is not a fight. It is just a challenge match.”
The fine distinction between dajia (fighting) and qie cuo (a challenge match) was lost on her.
“You can’t do this here. We have guests.”
“No problem. They are all martial artists. They love challenge matches.”
“I will call the police.”
At this point, Deqing gently but firmly grabbed her arm while still laughing and pleading. “No need, no need, no need. It will be over soon. You have foreign guests here, right? You don’t want the police to disturb them. Your boss would be very angry with you.”
That quieted her down.
The disciple was now ready. So was Coach Cheng.
There was an electrified moment’s pause before the disciple attacked. It was a traditional kungfu attack, but I didn’t recognize the style. He slid forward very quickly along a right angle and then switched quickly to a left-angle approach before he was in kicking range, rotating his arms for defense. At that moment, Coach Cheng, who had remained completely still, let fly his supersonic right roundhouse kick to the head. The disciple pulled back his head just in time to save himself. The kick caught the tip of his nose instead of the side of his head, which would have been the end of him. Unlike me, Coach Cheng had remembered to turn his hips into the kick.
The disciple retreated. There was a fine line of blood where the disciple’s nose attached to his face. He had pulled back just far enough to keep his nose from being ripped off. I thought that would be it, but his master pulled out some medical tape from his pocket and secured his student’s nose in place.
Facing each other again, the disciple approached the same way as before but with even more speed than the first time, sliding to his right and then to his left. As he came into range, Coach Cheng used his patented forward left side kick to the chest. He meant it to stop the disciple’s forward motion, and then he could follow up with punches.
But the disciple was traveling too fast. Coach Cheng’s kick crumpled against the disciple’s body as his forward motion carried him into punching range. The disciple fired a reverse palm strike, which is like backhanding someone across the face. Coach Cheng responded with the classic sanda counter. He ducked the punch and grabbed the disciple around the waist. The next move in the counter was to lift your opponent off the ground and throw him. But the disciple’s forward momentum pushed Coach Cheng backward. The disciple was wearing a jogging suit and rubber-soled wushu shoes; Coach Cheng, unfortunately, was in his best outfit—a button-front shirt, black slacks, and black leather shoes with hard plastic soles. They didn’t have any traction. As the disciple’s momentum pushed Coach Cheng backward, the shoes slid along the carpet and then slipped out from under him. As Coach Cheng fell to his knees with his arms locked around the disciple’s waist, he dragged the disciple to his knees as well.
The disciple’s upper body was above Coach Cheng, who had his head tucked against his opponent’s right hip. His arms, wrapped as they were around the disciple’s waist, were no longer free. Coach Cheng’s back was exposed, and he was unable to defend himself. In a red-eye
d panic the disciple started to wail away at Coach Cheng’s kidneys with his fists.
In a proper sanda or challenge match, the two fighters would break apart and stand up to fight again. Coach Cheng’s knees had hit the ground first, so he had lost this exchange. The point is to see who has the better technique while standing.
But the adrenaline-pumped disciple did not stop. He continued pounding away at Coach Cheng’s back, a definite no-no. Coach Cheng squeezed his arms trying to unbalance the disciple, so he could flip him over onto his back. But he only managed to move the disciple further down his back so that the disciple’s blows started landing on Coach Cheng’s backside.
It had happened in a matter of seconds. But the sight of Coach Cheng being spanked set everyone watching into motion. First, of course, was Shou Ting. She broke past me and jumped onto the disciple, slapping at his head.
“You hit his ass! Fuck your mother! You hit his ass?” she screamed.
I moved to grab Shou Ting around the waist and pull her off the pile. After that, Deqing and the master grabbed the stunned disciple to pull him off of Coach Cheng.
Coach Cheng stood up. He looked at me, a little shaken and also slightly embarrassed, “My shoes slipped. I should have taken them off. They are dress shoes. They slipped on the carpet.”
I said, “Yes, I know. It doesn’t matter.”
Shou Ting continued to scream, “What kind of challenge match is this? Fuck your mother. You pound his ass. You like to hit asses? I’ll fight you. You can hit my ass. Do you know who he is? This is Coach Cheng. He was the 1988 national sanda champion.”
At this the master visibly blanched.
“Oh, Coach Cheng. I did not realize it was you. We will go.”
He grabbed his disciple by the arm and yanked him back down the hallway past the stunned key girl.
Coach Cheng, who was still embarrassed and unhappy he had lost the previous round, didn’t want them to leave yet. In the most reasonable of voices, he smiled and said, “No, no, don’t go yet. Let’s try once more. No problem. No need to go. Let’s try once more.”
The master continued to pull his disciple down the hall while apologizing over his shoulder. Shou Ting, who’d broken my grip, continued to curse and challenge the disciple. All the while, Coach Cheng was cajoling them to stay and fight just one more time.
“You like to hit asses? I’ll fight you!” Shou Ting yelled. “Do you know who Coach Cheng is? Hit my ass and see what happens!”
“No, stay,” Coach Cheng coaxed in his calm voice. “Just one more round.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you, Coach Cheng,” the master said. “We will leave. Please.”
“You like to hit asses? Fight me!”
“Don’t go.”
“Hit my ass!”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
“Don’t go.”
“I am sorry, Coach Cheng.”
This scene repeated itself over and over again, until we reached the elevator bank.
As the doors slid open, the master and his disciple slipped inside. Coach Cheng had by this point put his hand on the master’s arm.
“We can go outside,” he said. “Just once more. No problem.”
The master was pushing on Coach Cheng’s chest to keep him from getting on the elevator with his left hand while he frantically pushed the button for the lobby with his right. As the doors started to close, my date, having decided with good reason we were all completely insane and wanting to escape from the asylum, darted inside the elevator.
She shrugged an apology as the doors closed.
Walking back to our rooms, Coach Cheng patted me on the shoulder.
“At least you won’t have weak legs for tomorrow,” he said.
Standing in the fighter’s room thirty minutes before my fight, I could hear the rumbling of the crowd in the stadium as it watched the final matches of the lower weight classes. After a long internal debate, I finally couldn’t stand it anymore. I tiptoed down the hallway into the stadium to furtively glance at the crowds. There they were: 10,000 Chinese waiting for the Champ to send me packing on a too-short stretcher.
The Fear, which had been gently feeling around my guts in order to get a better grip, finally squeezed as I knew it would. A victim of fairly severe stage fright, I was experienced with the sensation. Everything inside of me had to come out immediately, one way or another. I made a dash to the bathroom, which was a typical holes-in-the-ground job, but a good deal cleaner than the one in the Deng Feng hospital. Still, it was a trick to avoid tipping over while fully ensconced in kickboxing pads.
When I returned to the fighter’s room, fifteen minutes remained. Coach Cheng and Deqing looked worried. I was perspiring heavily and pale with panic. Coach asked me if I was okay. But as soon as I said I was, the Fear gripped me again. It hadn’t quite cleaned me out the first time. I raised a finger to indicate that this would just take a minute, turned tail, and ran back to the bathroom.
As I squatted this second time, the minutes ticked past as the Fear squeezed and then let up and then squeezed again. I felt tears streaming down my face. I wanted to go home. I wanted to stay in that bathroom forever. I wanted to do anything but get on top of a platform and face the Champ in front of 10,000 screaming Chinese. I schemed over the various possibilities for flight. But there weren’t any good ones. It was a matter of face. Mine didn’t matter to me at the moment, but Deqing’s and Coach Cheng’s did. And then it occurred to me on a complete tangent, as my jagged brain zoomed around for something else to occupy it, that this was why armies are always organized in small platoons: Men can rationalize away personal cowardice when alone but can’t stand to shame themselves in front of their buddies. We’re pack animals.
Right after that bathroom epiphany, it dawned on me with a certain gallows humor that I was literally scared shitless. This made me chuckle, and as soon as I started laughing my moment of crisis was over. Having passed through the crucible, my spirits lifted dramatically.
On my return, I found Coach Cheng and a referee arguing. Coach Cheng had a strong grip on the ref ’s arm, which he released when he saw me. Coach Cheng was furious, but trying not to show it.
“Are you okay now?” he asked.
“Mei shi, mei shi, mei shi,” I said. “No problem.”
“If you need to use the bathroom again,” he said, “do it in your pants.”
I was laughing. I was buoyant. I was literally bouncing down the hallway. What was this? Nothing. A kickboxing match? Nothing. Where was the challenge in this? Send me into a real battle. A reckless courage pumped my veins. I was ready to defend the Ardennes, charge the Turkish lines at Gallipoli, hold the pass at Thermopylae. My heart grappled with my brain to see which was bigger as my ego shouted encouragement from the sidelines. Coach Cheng, who’d seen this fever in other fighers before, gripped my shoulder to make certain I didn’t crack.
I went up and stood next to the Champ, who was waiting at the edge of the arena.
“You fought well yesterday,” I said.
“So did you.”
We fell into silence. I felt awkward, but not because we were about to climb onto a platform and start fighting. I felt awkward because I liked him and we were about to climb onto a platform and start fighting. In all my previous matches, there was something that irritated me or that I didn’t respect about my opponent, but I liked the Champ. He was laoshi. There was no bullshit about him. He was just one of those solid, straightforward peasant kids who came to Shaolin from his parents’ farm and had trained really hard for the last decade and was now the best in the world at what he did. And while there was no way for me to know for certain, I was pretty sure he liked me, too.
“Wo ju ni chenggong,” I said. “I wish you success.”
It is what everyone says to a fighter before a match, everyone but his opponent, of course, because he’d be wishing for his own defeat.
It took the Champ a moment, his brow furrowed, before he got the joke a
nd smiled.
“No, no, no,” he replied, “I wish you success.”
“No, no, no, I wish you success,” I replied in the repetitive custom of Chinese self-effacement.
“No, no, no, no, I wish you success.”
We were both grinning when the head referee waved for us to enter the arena. In sanda tradition, fighters were expected to run out together to show their enthusiasm and mutual respect. As we started running, the Champ grabbed my hand, which was an extremely unusual show of solidarity—I’d never seen it done before, let alone experienced it. The crowd roared its approval. Looking back it strikes me that if only we’d started skipping, it would have been the gayest fighter’s entrance in the history of combat sports.
On top of the platform we went to opposite sides to stretch. The Champ’s splits were perfect, so despite my six-inch height advantage he’d be able to kick me in the head. I stopped glancing over at him.
As we approached the center of the ring, the noise of the crowd rose and the disparate shouts joined into a singular distinct voice crying two phrases over and over again in a steady drumlike beat:
Shale ta! (Kill him!)
Da si laowai! (Beat the foreigner to death!)
I shot a look over at Coach Cheng.
Once again my only anchor, he shrugged apologetically.
Amituofo.
To be fair, the crowd had no way of knowing I spoke Chinese. I’m certain if they had, they wouldn’t have been chanting for my death. They would have been too self-conscious. But ignorant that I understood them, they kept at: Beat the foreigner to death! Kill him!
American Shaolin Page 31