Kung-fu - a word synonymous with breaking bricks and flying kicks. Made famous by the never-ending parade of Hollywood action movies. During my trip across China I made a detour to visit the Shaolin temple, the home of kung-fu, to learn what goes into the making of a legendary kung-fu master.
The Concrete Dojos
I imagined that Shaolin would be a small rustic village nestled at the foot of a rocky mountain, a large stone stairway leading to a mighty temple, its pagodas peeking through the morning mist. The actual Shaolin village I arrived into was a small, densely packed cluster of cinder-block buildings accessible by one very steep and narrow road. Each building was fronted by a large concrete slab driveway and each of these driveways was occupied by 20 - 30 young children dressed in monk robes practising kung-fu. These were the kung-fu academies of Shaolin. Some schools were perfecting synchronised routines, other were performing front flip and flying kicks landing on well used crash mats.
I reached my hotel in the centre of town, the tallest and least occupied building in the village. It seemed I was the only guest. Tomorrow I would visit the famous Shaolin temple.
The Spear Benders
Nothing wakes you up more promptly at 5am than the sound of several hundred Shaolin children shouting furiously. Peering through my hotel window I could see that the Shaolin schools had all amassed on their concrete driveway dojos to perform their morning training.
It was a short walk from the village to the famous temple complex. Not a steep stairway depicted in the movies but a flat tourist-friendly path. The famous temple itself is a small, single story, red building. Beautiful, but very modest and indistinguishable.
After walking through the temple complex I went to see a kung-fu demonstration in a small adjacent purpose-built theatre, a single square spotlit stage surrounded by seats. Here young Shaolin monks, aged from around 8 to 18, performed several synchronised routines followed by individual demonstrations of the famous Shaolin "feats of strength".
First a young monk repeatedly performed front-flips landing solely on his back. It made me wonder what those crash mats were for, they didn't seem to need them. A younger monk then took to the stage wielding a rectangular iron bar. After some mental preparation he shouted and smashed the bar over his head so hard that the bar snapped in two, the trailing piece clanging as it hit the floor. An older (teenage) monk then demonstrated the incredibly dexterous skill of throwing a nail through a pane of glass. The most shocking feat of strength was saved until last. A monk, the most experienced in his group marched onto the stage holding a spear. He placed the spear at a 45 degree angle with the base against the ground and the metal spike embedded against his throat. With arms outstretched he lunged forward buckling the shaft of the spear.
There was also some light-hearted audience participation in-between the demonstrations to add some comedy to the very serious performance.
I spent the evening at the only eatery still open. Noodles and large bottle of Tsington beer, my staple evening rations in China. A friendly, elderly (and drunk) businessman invited me to his table, curious to learn more about me. He pulled out a decorated bottle of some unknown Chinese spirit and offered me a few shots. Whatever it was, it was about as strong as some of the monks I had seen that day. After a few shots I decided to have a early night, knowing the dawn chorus would wake me again at 5am and that more of that spirit would result in a hangover akin to having a iron bar smashed over my head.
From Humble Beginnings
The time in between visiting the temple I had been reading about the Shaolin monks and learnt the almost sad reality of their existence. A lot of the young children are here as a result of poverty. They come from poor families who can't afford to raise them. This makes some of the Shaolin kung-fu academies somewhere between a boarding school and an orphanage. A few may find lucrative work in tourism, demonstrating their Shaolin mastery to tourists across the world. Most however will return home to poverty.
Kung-fu and the Shaolin Temple might be heavily distorted by the drama-tinted lens of Hollywood but the monks are not. The dedication, discipline and inhuman strength of these, sometimes very young, monks is very genuine and hard to believe.
