Foreign disciples of Wudang celebrate the Spring Festival together

During the Spring Festival of Chinese Dragon Year, foreign disciples of Wudang celebrate the festival and experience Chinese culture in various ways.

Foreign disciples experienced Chinese folk-culture in Wudang

The Great Cold of solar term on January 20 (December 27 in the lunar calendar), was the coldest day during a year. In the morning drizzle, the folk performance team of the Wudang Tourism Special Economic Zone came to the traditional martial club near Yuxugong Temple, and celebrated the Spring Festival with foreign disciples from the United State, France, Germany, Australia and other countries. The splendid performances started and visitors took photos and videos for memory. Other folk performances such as drum dance, driving donkey, paddling land boat, carrying wedding sedan chairs was also a great sight to see. The various performances made foreign disciples excited and some of them even experienced the land boat on the ground.

After the performance, the martial club held a competition to make Chinese dumplings. Many visitors joined in. The coach delivered New Year gifts of blessing notes that were written by the curator to the foreign disciples.

The dumplings and food were ready and the Chinese lunch began in a harmonious atmosphere. The foreign disciples continued their Kongfu training during the Spring Festival and had training lessons in the afternoon.

Spring Festival of Wudang attracted CCTV Media's focus

Li Da and Danna, the French couple from the Wudang martial club and American disciple Patrick and his Chinese girlfriend, climbed to the top of Wudang Mountain and enjoyed the beautiful scenery in snow on January 24 (the second day of the first lunar month).

At the top of Wudang Mountain, the snow had just cleared and the mountain was covered in misty clouds. It was like a world of beautiful jade towers and crystal palaces with sparkling snow-laden trees and flowers. Maybe the beautiful scenery inspired people's sentiments as Li Da and Patrick performed a Wudang sword practice together. The elegant action attracted many people and Li Da showed a Taiji ball to visitors. The crystal ball turned up and down on his hand and body and won a loud cheer from the crowd.

This marvelous moment was recorded by a journalist and recommended to CCTV. The news was briefly reported on News Broadcast in CCTV-1 channel on January 25 and comprehensively reported on CCTV-news channel on January 27.

In addition, the CCTV French channel continued to broadcast the documentary film taiji and Wudang in nine days during the Spring Festival, and CETV-3 also introduced the Wudang culture on their Discover China program. Hubei TV and Hangzhou TV broadcasted the special reports to Wudang during the Spring Festival.

Taiji stimulated the cultural communication between China and the world

The overseas disciples also caught people's eyes. On January 27, CCTV-news reported a true story about a British disciple and her ten years' Kongfu learning process in Wudang.

Lucia, a British female disciple of Wudang, started to learn Taiji in 2002. Throughout the duration of ten years, she overcame difficulties and went to Wudang many times to learn Taiji and the Chinese language. Finally, she won the silver metal at the 5th International WuDang Tai Chi Tournament and became a regular disciple of Wudang. Under the guidance of her coach, she consciously shouldered the mission to spread Chinese Wudang Kongfu aboard. Now she has set up a Wudang Kongfu training class in her hometown of London and has become a folk ambassador of cultural communication.

There are other experiences and stories similar to Lucia's. Her ten years learning Taiji shows the great charm of the Wudang culture. About 20,000 to 30,000 foreign disciples come to Wudang and learn Kongfu every year and make new contributions to cultural communication between China and the world.