Karate Kid

I don't remember if I saw the old movie Karate Kid, I seem to remember a little bit but not very clear, perhaps I was very young back then, I remember the first movie I saw was "JAWS" in the theatre and I had nightmare 3 nights in a row then my mom blamed my sister so badly for taking me to watch such a horrifying movie.

Last night I watched "Karate Kid" new version with Jackie Chan and Will Smith's son, it was somewhat a family feel-good movie, I like to watch those before I go to sleep, I hate to watch too much fighting or killing or conspiracy inspired scene before I go to sleep. It is also a good habit to keep a good night sleep, do not put your brain into a too-active level 3 hours before your bedtime, everything has to be very calm and quiet. Normally we watched nature channel or something related to the universe, nothing has a real conclusion, Vic can't deal with animal eating scene so sometime NatGeo is not on the menu, he had this old sensation when he was a kid, he imagined animal from Africa is walking out from one of his wall in the bedroom to chase him and eat him.

Back to the "Karate Kid", the kid throws his jacket around. This is not a big deal as far as American parent was concerned, it is a big deal in a Chinese family I can tell you that. This action symbolized a selfish act, disrespectful to the person who has to pick up after you, all you care about is yourself but nobody else.

The first lesson he has to learn was to pick up your jacket, put it on, take it off, throw it on the floor, pick it up again....a cycle of motion repeating itself.

The kid thinks it is stupid, he wasn't learning "Kung Fu", he wanted some real action with punching and kicking.

He did not realize what he was doing with the jacket was the basic motion of "Wing Chung" hand's action. It was by far the most powerful close-contact Kung-Fu one can imagine, Judo from Japan was a copy from "Wing Chung" and Bruce Lee was an expert of that line.

Anyway, it was also his first lesson about Kung-Fu, a Chinese tradition --- of Discipline. I think my mom would be very surprised if she is still alive, hearing me to talk about "Discipline". I was the most "un-disciplined" kid in the family, everyone follows mom's order except me, I always had my own mind to do my own thing. Somehow it worked out fine, but I listened to my elder brothers and sister complaining all the time, which I was the luckiest among them.

Discipline, I did not understand its true meaning til I get to about 28 years old. Then I realized what mom teaches us was very important, discipline inside the household brings stability to society, which was a sense of responsibility to an individual in a healthy way.

Which I did not understand until I picked up golf at that age, discipline means so much in improving, self-control and respect to others.

One wonders why American kids are so wild in public and the parent don't know what to do, it lies in the teaching of discipline. An action of throwing your jacket around is not tolerable in my household, everyone knows its place and what he / she suppose to do once you walk into the house. The truly successful discipline method is the one like my mom used, does not have to make a noise, just give you a look and you immediately pick up your jacket, very effective.

That is probably why you rarely find an Asian household have kids DUI, fighting in school, involves in crime......etc. Everyone seems to know his / her place in the society, the training started early, at home while I started to walk. It was called "Discipline".