Natalia Korelina - It’s capoeira between us. Conversations with capoeiristas. Part 1

I needed to extend my visa to China, and I left for Hong Kong for just a few hours – to wander around the city and, of course, go to a capoeira class!

And I went to monitor Kazu. Kazu was born in Japan and studied in Brazil, where he began to practice capoeira and started working with Grande Mestre Cícero, then he moved back to Japan, opened a group there, then moved to Hong Kong and opened another group here. Fuh! Didn’t seem to miss anything. When I met to Kazu, he had been teaching for only a couple of months. At his class at the time of my visit, there was one girl from Portugal with some past capoeira experience, and 3 students from Japan, they were complete newbies.

After the class, we went to drink coffee and chat. Kazu’s girlfriend also came along. She happened to be a student of the Instrutora Zoinho 40 40 Zoinho is a derivative of «eyes». , who is a student of Mestre Parente and has lived in Hong Kong for several years. It was she that I had planned to talk to, but I’ll speak more to that later. She wasn’t in town that week.

Hong Kong is modern, traditional and dangerous…

Hong Kong is a city on a peninsula, which used to be a part of China, but then the UK rented it for a hundred years. One hundred years passed, and in 1997 Hong Kong returned to China.

Hong Kong won me over already at the train station – the contrast with China played its role. All apps and bank cards functioned here, there was free Wi-Fi everywhere, and everyone spoke English. Traffic in the city, like in Great Britain, is left sided. All taxis are painted red and white, fairly old Toyota models. And this all stands against the background of breathtaking skyscrapers, multi-lane and multi-level traffic. It’s a city of the future for sure. And this is so despite the fact that Hong Kong combines, it seems to me, the best that has been preserved from pre-communist China and that which was absorbed during the hundred years from the British mindset.

Traditions are seen in Buddhist temples, Chinese characters and language, which, unlike the rest of China, were not simplified in Hong Kong. At the same time, it has this cute English feature to only use double-decker buses and only allow taxis of a certain color. Hong Kong has an unbelievable number of banks and corporations and the most expensive brands in the world, which causes a feeling of inferiority in an ordinary Russian person, because, I can only go to such stores for an excursion. This I did at the Gucci store. There I was met and followed by a personal consultant, who, like all consultants, was dressed in a black trouser suit. She gave me a welcome speech in perfect English and silently, but with a smile, followed me with a tired look, knowing that I would not buy anything.

Hong Kong is a grandiose city. There you have to lift your head all the way up to see the tops of skyscrapers – I noticed I was holding my breath as I looked up. And the multi-level overpasses, which in new districts are intercrossed with shopping malls and the metro, makes your head spin and does not make tourists’ life easy. Somehow, this small peninsula also has quite a lot of greenery, mountains, beautiful views and wildlife that coexists with a crowded metropolis.

How a trip to a temple almost ended in tragedy.

During my second visit to Hong Kong, I decided to visit an amazing place – the Temple of 10,000 Buddhas. And everything seemed to be fine there: it is beautiful, has many steps, many golden Buddhas in different poses on the way to the temple, horoscope and Yin and Yang signs, jade amulets and souvenir coins for wealth. But there is one BUT – I went there on October 1st. Not that I had a choice, but it was the worst day to leave home in Hong Kong at all.

China celebrates its national day on October 1st, moreover, on October 1st, 2019, the Chinese Communist Party celebrated its 70th anniversary. Why is that bad?

Well, Hong Kong wasn’t at peace already and chaos reigned there due to mass protests. We will leave politics aside, but closed metro stations, closed streets, crowds of people in black T-shirts, uprooted and burnt ATMs created a rather overwhelming atmosphere.

I knew that the metro station next to the temple would be closed that day, so I took a bus. And everything was fine, well, except that the army of policemen on the way frightened me a little.

I was in the temple and had just found comfortable steps to take a couple of pictures upside down, when suddenly the workers began to move actively and close all the doors, saying, “Close door, close door.” It was still two hours before closing, and I didn’t understand why they were closing the doors. I assumed that they wanted to close earlier, and hastened to leave.

I got to the bus stop and started looking for my bus. I couldn’t see it anywhere, and from the information on the signs it was not clear where it was supposed to stop. Remember when I said that in Hong Kong, multi-level overpasses are intercrossed with subways and shopping malls? This was the case: there were overpasses, a closed metro station and the entrance to a multi-storied shopping center around. The bus stops were both a level above and a level below – it was not clear to me where to go.

I went into an empty shopping center, where the lights were dim, the doors to the shops were closed and taped with yellow tape, people were somehow chaotically wandering around, and the same alarming announcement was on repeat. It looked rather like a post-apocalypse…

Fortunately, I managed to connect to Wi-Fi and build a route home. But the stop was still at an unknown level, and I asked people around who informed me in an alarming voice that the buses were no longer operating due to the protests nearby. To my naive question, “How can I get out of here?” they just shrugged.

My brain began to draw scary pictures, but I hastened to get out of the web of overpasses and closed doors. I wanted to walk a couple of stops ahead, hoping that the bus stopped there. The only way out was through the mall. I followed well-dressed guys who were also clearly looking for an exit. It was impossible to see what was happening outside, as there were closed shops along the entire perimeter. Eventually, we got to the escalators that led down to the exit…

Step by step I approached the light… no, instead there were dozens, maybe hundreds of people in black T-shirts and respirators blocking the light. Firemen walked somewhere between them. There were skyscrapers and flyovers all around.

The only street went straight, my bus went along it, I had to go along it too, but it was blocked from my side by the protesters!

I still hoped that I could just walk past them further down the street, but that was not the case. Looking closely, I saw that part of the street was completely empty, and that a very large army of policemen was standing far ahead on the other side. Imagine this: I am in a bright yellow suit between protesters and an army of policemen going to look for my bus. Absurd, of course. I didn’t go anywhere, but for a couple of seconds, together with those guys, I looked around to understand where to run…

Nothing seemed to be happening, but that was clearly the calm before the storm. This was the case when intuition and subconscious worked more clearly and faster than usual. I analyzed dozens of scenarios in a minute. There was tension in the air. People around were talking, some were sitting and watching those who were in the forefront.

I remember the mixture of insecurity, calmness and fear in the eyes of the protesters. They were all very young, many did not want to be there – this was evident from the detachment in their eyes and the obvious body language: they sat sideways or even almost with their backs to the main activists, as if they were preparing to escape from there.