Seminar

[feuervogel]

So, my taijiquan school hosted a pair of masters from China (one is Chinese, the other is English, but she lives in Shanghai and translates for him). One of my kung fu brothers studied with them while he was in China, so he organized the thing. (Master Wang and Master Rose were traveling in the UK, then Canada, then here.)

It was cool. There was a lot of lecture and some practice, but I learned a couple new ways of looking at things for push hands.

They had a little flyer for a camp they're doing the end of next November in Shanghai. Tuition is $2400 (for 9 days of training and some sightseeing, including room and board). Airfare will probably be around $1200, then there's the matter of a visa (fees, idk, $150?) So, like, close to $4000 all told. I don't have that sort of money.

Of course, I also have health issues, and I don't know how much sleep I'd be able to get. Breakfast is at 7, and there's classes until 9:30 (with multiple rest periods, so I could nap then maybe). Then there's the thing where I don't eat meat and I can't have caffeine. In Japan, I got by with telling people "Buddhist vegetarian," since to them no meat means there may be fish or pork or chicken in it :/ (The term is shokudou ryouri.) I don't know if they can accommodate that.

I do have contact information, and I can ask Master Rose these questions. The low sleep triggers migraines thing kind of sucks. I also like being able to eat.

So anyway. If they can accommodate my food restrictions and health issues, I'd probably try to find a way to get four grand. A friend of mine had success with indiegogo for tuition for a prestigious Shakespeare school; I don't know if I know enough people who'd do that to help (or what goodies I could award). I could probably ask Dr Jay if he could spread the word throughout the school or help me fundraise somehow.

But Ben was like "I wanna go too," not that he'd train; there's an option for going as a partner for $1600 (plus airfare). :P So then it's more like $7000. Gah.

I dunno, what do y'all think?

Comments

[pharna.livejournal.com]

Shokudou is a cafeteria but Shojin is monk food. It's good but expensive as all fuck. At least it's easy to avoid caffeine.

[feuervogel]

Shojin, huh? Hm, I thought the phrase I was told would translate to "Buddhist food/cooking," but I forgot the middle bit and went with 道 when maybe I should have gone with 寺. If I weren't lazy, I'd go back to 2008 and look for the post where Skuld told me what it was. :/

Green tea is full of caffeine, though, and they have it everywhere. I don't want to be rude and be like "no, I can't have that tea that everyone else is drinking." Argh.

[pharna.livejournal.com]

You are correct about green tea, buuuuuuuuuuut:
there's wheat tea, barley tea, soba tea, black bean tea, yuzu tea, a coca cola product called Sokenbicha which is wheat/barley/random other herbs that you can get almost everywhere.
You can always ask for just plain ole water too. Ice or hot.

If you want food so good it makes me consider being vegan, go here:
http://eng.shukubo.net/vegetarian-cooking.html

[feuervogel]

We had really awesome tofu near the zen temple in Kyoto. It was fresh and in this nicely-flavored broth. Mmm.

[beth_leonard]

I would wonder if there's good high-quality camp-style training you could get here for less? $4K is the same price as year of private lessons at 3 half-hour lessons/week at $50/hr. How much training could you handle in 9 days vs. a year of private lessons?

--Beth

[feuervogel]

There really isn't much in the way of week-long intensive study here. The Taste of China Festival just had its final event ever; the taiji farm (where my teacher's teacher taught) is closed. Maybe my teacher knows some others, but I don't, and google doesn't turn much up.

Private lessons at my school are $60/hour, usually for a full hour or 90 minutes, and not usually more than once a week because of the teachers' busy schedules.

Also, studying in China with Chinese masters is an entirely different experience than studying with my American teachers (who aren't masters). It's like saying "why not stay here and take voice lessons with your teacher instead of going to a camp at Julliard?"

[beth_leonard]

That's too bad that there's nothing less expensive in the United States which could help further your education :-( It's great to hear you're so passionate about excellent instruction. I know it makes a difference and seek it out whenever possible.

--Beth

[luckykitty.livejournal.com]

My grandmother is a buddhist vegetarian. There are all vegetarian restaurants for people like her. There is even a specific word (I only know the Cantonese) for that type of food. I think on the diet front, you would be fine.

If Ben wants to go and can aford it for both of you, it's a great experience.

[feuervogel]

The camp fee includes food in their cafeteria (except on traveling days I guess), so I'm concerned they wouldn't be able to accommodate me there. Of course, the only way to find out is to ask. Aren't the hanzi the same between Cantonese & Mandarin, just pronounced differently? I could take a note card with "I eat Buddhist food" or whatever written on it. (Er, I forget, do you read/write Chinese?)

I just have no idea where I can scrounge up the money for it, or if enough people like me to help me out through indiegogo. I was trying to figure out rewards I could offer, and I was like, uh, postcards from China? Crocheted smartphone/tablet sleeve? Kung fu uniform (you provide materials & measurements; top only unless I figure out an easy way to make pants)? Gah.

[tiurin.livejournal.com]

Didn't you say you were worried about money a few months ago? In light of that, I can't see how spending $7000 could possibly a good idea. That's what, 3 months' worth of expenses? I think you'd be far better off using most of that money to pay off credit card debt if you have any, and putting it into savings- especially if you don't have the standard financial lifevest of 6 months' of expenses saved up. Splurge on a couple of hours of private classes, maybe- but I can't see how a $4000-7000 expenditure makes sense if you're worried about your uncertain job situation.

[thesmallwonder.livejournal.com]

This sums up my thoughts too.

[feuervogel]

See my reply to tiurin.

[feuervogel]

So, that was the point of this part of my post:

If they can accommodate my food restrictions and health issues, I'd probably try to find a way to get four grand. A friend of mine had success with indiegogo for tuition for a prestigious Shakespeare school; I don't know if I know enough people who'd do that to help (or what goodies I could award). I could probably ask Dr Jay if he could spread the word throughout the school or help me fundraise somehow.

But if my friends won't even support me, how can I expect strangers on the internet to support me?

[thesmallwonder.livejournal.com]

Supporting you and giving you money aren't necessarily the same thing. :v

[feuervogel]

I don't really consider "Don't even try to go to China" terribly supportive.

[thesmallwonder.livejournal.com]

You did write, "I dunno, what do y'all think?"

If you didn't want to hear that we didn't think it was the best choice, perhaps you could have phrased your question differently? I actually find people who will tell me what they think because they're worried my choice might end badly to be very supportive. I like it a lot better then people who agree with me all the time.

Frankly, you want to travel to Berlin and you want to live there. Both are going to take a shitton of savings to pull off. You also often post about being stressed about a lack of disposable income. If I had these situations in front of me, I wouldn't even think about going to China, as awesome as it would be. You asked what I thought, and that's what I think.

[feuervogel]

My question, which I realize was unclear, was meant to be "Can I successfully raise funds for this through crowdsourcing?" (and selling old doujin and art books and whatever, which I want to do anyway)

I know moving overseas is going to be expensive as fuck. If I ever manage to earn money again, I'm going to put a fraction of my paycheck into savings for that. If I don't, well, the principal on our house is under 90k right now, and houses in our neighborhood are selling for 250k+, which would leave us a sizable chunk to play with (pay off moving expenses, etc), especially in another 5-8 years, when we'll get the principal down to 60k or less (I don't have the exact breakdown of principal/interest in our monthly payment right here). And Ben has apparently a lot of money in investments (see below).

(Actually, Ben's parents would pay for the whole summer/Xmas trip to Berlin. Them paying for things like that used to make me uncomfortable, but I've gotten used to it. Also, they have a lot of money apparently.)

I sent email to my teacher asking for advice. I don't know when he'll get back to me; he's usually pretty busy.

[tiurin.livejournal.com]

How many people did your friend raise money from, and what were the average and median donations? Is Shakespeare/acting their primary ambition/means of income/hobby? Does she have significantly wealthier friends? I guess what I'm wondering is how much of that was people contributing $10 and how much was people contributing $500.

While it probably doesn't hurt to put something up and see if it works, I would tend to doubt that you'd be able to raise (assuming selling stuff got you $1000) $3000-6000 unless Ben's parents got interested. Suppose you reached 200 people with the Indiegogo thing, and half of them have spare disposable income. Say half of those have at least a small inclination towards donating. You'd still need to raise $60-120 from every one of them, which seems quite optimistic.

Additionally, this doesn't seem to be your "primary" ambition. Personally, I'd be far more likely to donate $10-20 to send you to a well-regarded writing workshop than to a kung fu workshop. And if people are more likely to donate to a first Indiegogo request than a second one (e.g. you end up doing it again for a writing workshop), you probably want to make sure that the first one is what you want most.

[feuervogel]

Rebecca's an actress in SFO (friends with R & R & A & V et al). Her campaign is here. She got a couple of big donations and the rest were 5-50.

That's a good point, actually. While I enjoy studying taiji, and I've thought about entering the teacher training program, it's not my main thing in life. (I'm actually a horrible student and I don't practice nearly enough. Though I'm always inspired after a workshop.) The reason I didn't apply for Viable Paradise (writing workshop) this year was money--tuition's $1100 next year, I'd have to pay airfare to Martha's Vineyard, and then there's room & board at around $75-100/day. So it approaches $2000 easily.

It's an application thing, so you find out in mid-late June if you got in, then tuition's due July 15. That would have to be a super fast indiegogo campaign. (If I applied, I'd have the campaign planned out and ready to go as soon as I got the news.)

Though I'm also worried about VP in that people are fueled by caffeine because they don't get enough sleep, and a) too little sleep=migraine and b) I can't have caffeine :|

And I have to have *something* in decent enough shape to submit as the application.

[kirin]

I don't want to go into too many details here, but I think people may have a skewed idea of our finances due to only seeing posts about akiko feeling stressed about not having an income. We have no debt other than our mortgage, which is well above water since housing prices near us never bubbled and crashed. I have >6mo expenses in various savings and investments. The stress isn't from not being able to pay bills, it's from having outflow that gets slightly higher than current income whenever there's extra expenses.

(Which, yes, could certainly argue against a $4-7k optional expense, but that's why she's looking into fundraising / trying to save extra between now and then.)