介绍:
For AJ Donnelly coming to China was the first bold step to achieving his childhood dream. As a kid, he had always fantasised about becoming a martial artist and hoped one day to train with the greatest Chinese Kungfu masters.
Listen to him walk us through his adventurous and fascinating journey living in China today, in the attached audio link.
As a child he had always been fascinated by the mystery that China was then, and wanted to discover more about this enigmatic country that everyone had talked so vaguely about.
“So I started taking karate classes but then when those were cancelled I went to Chinese martial arts. That's when this whole journey basically began” AJ says.
In this episode of My China Story, AJ recalls how he was a victim of bullying throughout his childhood. And how the experience of being tyrannised by his peers triggered his interest in Martial arts, as a means to cushion himself, perhaps from what seemed as a morose and cruel society.
His passion for martial arts was also inspired and much more elevated by watching martial arts films. In fact, it was the original Karate Kid film (not the one with Jayden Smith, but the 1980’s one), that brought about his ultimate determination.
But it wasn’t until he was a teenager, when AJ relocated to China and ended up in Shijiazhuang where he enrolled himself at a local university to major in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) while undertaking martial arts classes on the side.
Unfortunately for AJ, what he had envisioned, like many of us Laowai do before we come here, had not materialised to meet and greet his expectations.
You see, he had imagined a China that every individual would be their own little Master Shifu And that meant, it would be easier to find a teacher to mentor him and help steer his Kungfu ambitions.
“Before I came here I thought that every other person would be doing martial arts and there would be schools in every corner like you see in the movies” he recalls.
Wrong!
Decades on today, AJ is a revered master and teacher in Taichi at his new company Cultural Keys, where apart from training, he organises packaged trips for interested parties to visit and experience a life with the monks at the prestigious Shaolin Temple.
He reckons that it is his China life's experiences and living his dream in the mainland that have ultimately changed his entire outlook on life.
And believe me when I say, 30 minutes talking with this guy, totally changed my whole outlook on life too. And that’s just from his experiences.
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