taiji

[shlevy]

hi all.

my name is shahar, i'm 26 and i'm from israel.
i'm planning on going to china to study internal arts like bagua, xingyi, taiji...
currently i'm looking for any schools or private teachers, mainly private teachers.
also i'm not limiting my time in china (in short as long as i can).
if anyone can give any advice i would be thankfull.

by the way: any information you have on visa, money, cost... that you think is important is also a big help

lots of thanks to you all
shahar.

[Broadsword2004]

Well, I don't know if you have already done this or not, but one thing that can really help is learn the Chinese language. And learn to read and write simplified Chinese since that is what they use there; in Hong Kong, I believe they speak Cantonese, not sure if they use simplified written Chinese. Beijing they speak Mandarin and use simplified. Taiwan they use traditional written Chinese which is much more difficult than simplified. Be sure you learn the right written and spoken Chinese though; I know a few people who spent the time learning to speak Chinese and learn the written language then they go to China and find they learned the wrong one (oops!). There's also the pinyin too, which is Phoenic or Phoenitic (however it's spelled---Enlgish letters I'll say, liek we're typing with), but written to sound like Chinese words. Chinese use these on computers so they can type stuff out (or certain computers anyhow).