An American at the Shaolin Temple

The field was cold, barren, and wind swept. Flurries of snow still hung in the air as we practiced, on the frozen, muddy ground. We had been up since five. At ten o’clock, we still had two hours to go. And I hadn’t had any coffee yet. Actually, I hadn’t had any coffee since arriving at the Shaolin Temple. Every day, for the previous two weeks, I had practiced a single kung fu form, U Bu Chuen, The Five Step Form, over and over again, for hours. My thighs were so sore from the constant squatting, in horse stance, I though I would cry. From horse stance, I had to balance on my toes, and press, up with one foot in the air, my knee against my chest, and my arm up, over my head. Next, I had to drop low, on that same knee, into Pu Bu stance, where my head was not supposed to be higher than the instructor’s waist. It was sheer torture. My muscles screamed.



To keep my mind busy, during the interminable hours of repetition, I would try to calculate how many times I did the form in a single day. It took roughly three minutes to get through the form. That meant twenty times per hour. Eight hours per day, so I did U Bu Chuen 160 times per day.

U Bu Chuen wasn’t our only exercise. At the beginning of each training session, three sessions per day, we did a routine of Shaolin kicks. We also held horse stance for periods of up to fifteen minutes, several times a day. To take my mind off of the pain, I would try to calculate how many kicks we did in a day. First, we got on line, at double arm intervals from one another. At the command, “Zo!” we made our way, approximately 20 meters, across the training field, throwing a front kick, over our head. At the far end of the field, we turned around, and kicked our way back. After we had made five round trips, we did the identical exercise, but with a round kick to the left side, followed by a round kick to the right side. If each kick brought you one meter closer to the far end, then it must have taken twenty kicks to cross the field. Twenty kicks, each way, that’s forty kicks. Times, five trips, times three kinds of kicks, that was 600 kicks, times three sessions per day, plus all of the kicks in the forms…It was a lot of kicks.

Occasionally, after doing U Bu Chuen for too long, I would just pop out of position, cursing. “Make up your mind!” I shouted. “If you want me up on one foot, that’s fine. You want me down on the ground? That’s OK too. You want me kicking? Great. But no more of this constant up and down! I’m getting motion sickness, already.”

The instructors were all young, Jiao Liens, non-monks, who generally had graduated from the ranks of the students. They tended to be about nineteen years old, on average. Most had very little knowledge of the outside world. Once they became instructors, their lives didn’t change much. They continued to live in the barracks, and keep the same schedule as the students. They were as up-for-a-laugh as any of my Chinese friends. When I would loose my cool, and start dancing around, cursing and complaining, they would usually crack up.



Being the only foreigner in the Shaolin Temple school, I was generally the source of much amusement, for the students and instructors alike. The students ranged in age from six to twenty four. They loved to see me struggling, at age 36, with the Kung Fu positions, which they found so easy to do. They also got a kick out of watching me shave in the morning, thinking this some exotic display of foreign culture. If I really wanted to make them laugh, all I had to do was start writing in my diary. This they found inconceivable, that anyone cold write so many English words.

Normally, the Jiao Liens would let me decide when I needed a break. But when the Sifu was there, the mood changed, to one of serious intensity. He would march out onto the training field, in his heavy robes and tall fur hat, and begin shouting orders and making corrections. He carried a three-foot long cane with him, and would beat mercilessly, anyone who he found making even the slightest mistake.

My face and hands were completely numb, from windburn. Many of the students had open, festering wounds on their ears, from prolonged exposure to the cold. The arctic air burned deep in my lungs, making me feel like a chain smoker. Once, I stopped for literally, two seconds, to catch my breath. The Sifu saw me, and began screaming. “NII, LIEN GONG!” You, practice! It could be because I looked so much different from everyone else that he was able t pick me out of a sea of seventy students. As a foreigner it is hard to get away with anything in China. You don’t exactly blend into the crowd.

The school was divided into four groups, each with an instructor. There were two groups of little kids, one of advanced students, and one composed completely of older boys, which was the San Da (Chinese kick boxing team). We all wore red tracksuits, with the Shaolin name, written in English and Chinese characters on them. As proud as I was, after a lifetime of martial arts training, to be wearing a Shaolin uniform, it was little protection from the biting cold. So I was also wearing four layers of t-shirt, thermals and sweatshirts. As soon as we started training, this extra clothing would become drenched with sweat. When we stopped to eat, the wet cloth would make me cold. I tried various experiments of taking off and putting on layers of clothing. But somehow, it just never worked. Most of us wore a thick, woolen cap to protect our baldheads from the frigid wind. But we still became chapped, and at the end of the day, huge chunks of scalp snowed down on us like soap flakes.




Before each session we had to stand in military formation, and count off. Although my Chinese was good I would inevitably miss the count. It would go something like this “fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,” then, when it got to me, I was supposed to say “seventeen.” But instead, I would say “thirty-five” or whatever jus happened to come to mind. Back at the foreign language school, in Taiwan, my home, we also hadn’t learned the words for left and right face. So, when they called for us to drill or march I inevitably turned the wrong way, destroying the formation, and bumping into my friends. If the Sifu wasn’t there, we all got a huge laugh out of it. If he were prowling around, when it came my turn to count, my training brother, Miao Hai, would lower his voice, and do the count for me. At the command “left face” or “right face,” he would tap me on the appropriate shoulder, so I would know which way to turn.
I had been assigned to two training brothers, Miao Hai and Miao Ping. Miao High was twenty-one and had been living in temples since he was fifteen. He loved Kung Fu, but was ambivalent, at best, about Buddhism. A master of going through the motions, he taught me how to light the incense and do prostrations. In the evenings, when we had eight hours of training behind us, he would ask me to teach him boxing. Then we would go round after round of San Da, fighting bare knuckles, out in the training field.

Miao Ping, on the other hand, was a devout Buddhist. He was twenty-four years old, and one of the only students who could read and write Chinese well. Any time the boys needed to write a letter they would ask Miao Ping to do it for them. Where Miao Hai was a purely physical being, my relationship with Miao Ping was more intellectual. We would have long debates about religion and even about the Chinese government. At times, he surprised me with his candor, admitting the failings of the Chinese system. But, at other times, he frightened me, by repeating, without a moment’s hesitation, what the party had instructed him to think.

There were sixty Kung Fu schools around the Shaolin Temple, in Deng Feng village, Henan Province, many of which bore the Shaolin name. But in reality, most of these schools had no connection to the Temple. According to Shi Hung Fu, my Sifu, only our school, and one other, were actually affiliated with the temple. For this reason our teacher was a monk, and we had to do duty at the temple, maintaining the stupas, and ringing the gong during prayers. At the other 58 or so schools, the teachers were non-monks. In the west we have come to use the word Sifu to mean kung fu instructor. Strictly speaking, this is not correct. Sifu is a term of respect used when addressing a monk. In fact you should never even use the second person pronoun you (nii) when speaking to a monk. You must always say Sifu, such as “Would Sifu like some tea? Would Sifu like me to practice my form now?” The non-monk instructors were called Jiao Lien, which literally translated meant “teach practice.”

Although a number of Chinese martial arts could be traced back to the temple, today the main art, which is taught, is Wu Su. This is because there is a huge push, from Beijing, to prepare for the 2008 Olympics. That is not to say that other arts were not on offer at all. When we would run in the mornings we would pass by a school, which taught Tai Chi. Some of the larger schools, like Tago, had full programs, including Tae Kwan Do, San Da, Chi Gong, and probably even judo and wrestling. But the main focus in and around the village was Wu Su. It was an impressive sight in the mornings to see the tens of thousands of kung fu students, in various colored uniforms, standing out in an open field, practicing their forms. The leaps and kicks would have been well suited to an Olympic gymnast. The flexibility, stance, and control were incredible. Almost more impressive was when they would practice with weapons. Whole groups of one hundred students all wielding swords, would flash, stab, turn, parry, thrust, and kick in unison. In another corner were students with staffs. And still others practiced with the whip.

During my stay at Shaolin two significant pieces of government legislation occurred which would greatly effect the future of Kung Fu. The first was that they ordered the entire Shaolin Village to be vacated. Every building, with the exception of the temple, was emptied of its inhabitants, and then the whole town was razed, to make way for new construction. This forced all of the schools to move further away from the temple, most of them, of course, chose to move to Deng Feng village, so they would still be as close as possible to the Temple. Next, in a landmark case, the government allowed the name Shaolin to be trademarked and copyright protected. According to the court ruling, only schools, actually endorsed by the Shaolin Temple, could bear the Shaolin name. This should reduce the number of “fake” schools and false “Shaolin Temples.” As I understand the rules, only the original Shaolin Temple, near Deng Feng, and the Southern Shaolin Temple, in Fujian, are permitted to continue using the Shaolin name. There is, however, an artificial temple, currently named Northern Shaolin Temple, which, as far as I know, has no connection, whatsoever with the original Shaolin Temple. This is a temple, which I believe is owned by the Chinese government, and only admits foreign students. At Northern Shaolin Temple, Kung Fu is taught, in English, for $500 US a month. This Northern Shaolin Temple is the only one, which has a strong presence on the Internet. And, it would be interesting to see if this one, too, is required to change its name.

There has been much speculation among the Kung Fu community that the Shaolin name may be sold, as a franchise, as a means of bringing dollars into the Chinese economy. As of the time of this writing, this has not occurred. However, the temple administration has announced plans to open a Shaolin Temple in Hong Kong and one in Taipei.

The first several days at the Shaolin Temple were all about learning the routine. A monk, Shi Hung Dong, took me around to all of the different stupas, (small shrines), on the temple grounds, explaining the history and meaning of each. He said to me. “It is important not only to learn the Kung Fu of the Shaolin Temple, but also to learn the culture.”

He was right. The temple had its own culture. It functioned almost as an independent state, with its own hierarchy, traditions, rules, and regulations. I could have learned much more from Shi Hung Dong, but after allowing me to share his room in the monks’ quarters, for two days, he told me. “To continue your training, you will need to give me five thousand US dollars.”

I had already paid him a bribe of $200 US just to get in the gates of the famous temple. Now he wanted more money. I had been told before I went, that the temple was no longer a place of pure Buddhism and learning. After I had been there for a while, I met a Mexican, named Rafael, who had been living in the temple for four years, studying to be a Buddhist monk. His answer was even more shocking. He said that the temple had never been a place of purity. “Historically, it has always been a den of bandits, thieves, and revolutionaries.” He said. “Why do you think the government burned it to the ground so many times?”

For a guy who had grown up watching David Carradine in the “Kung Fu” TV show, this was pretty heart breaking. People had warned me that the temple was a phony, established to steal money, based on the Shaolin name. After having lived there for three months, I will have to say, the monks were definitely fixated on money. When I refused to pay Shi Hung Dong his outrageous fee, he handed me off to another monk, Shi Hung Fu, who agreed to train me for $200 per month. In the end, Shi Hung Fu would also wind up stealing some cash from me.

Although I was angry about being taken advantage of, my time at the Temple was a singular experience, which few westerners would ever have. And, authentic or not, we did practice kung fu, eight hours a day. I lost weight, got into shape, increased my flexibility, improved my Chinese, and made a lot of new friends. These are the reasons I had gone to the temple. So, I found everything I was looking for. As for the money that was stolen from me, it totaled less than $500 US dollars. Although that may seem like a lot, the difference in price between studying at one of the many schools, which cater to foreign students, versus studying at in a completely Chinese program, as I had, would have been about $1,500. So, even including the cost of the theft, I came out ahead, financially.

The most common questions people ask me are, “Would you do it again?” and “Would you recommend the Shaolin Temple to others?” The answer to both of those would be “yes.” I am planning, most likely, to go back to one of the larger schools and study San Da exclusively. As for recommending the Temple, as long as a foreign student understands what he is walking into, then he could have a very rewarding experience there.

The options open to a foreigner would include programs, as short as one week, where you would literally live in a hotel, eat fine food, and commute to an English speaking teacher each day. In this scenario, your training partners would most likely be German, American, or Canadian. Those programs could cost into the hundreds of dollars per day. The cheapest option is to do what I did, walk in and ask to be accepted as a student. I paid $200 per month for room, board, and tuition. And all of my teammates were Chinese. But, the living conditions were hard. We slept on a wooden plank, in an unheated concrete dormitory, with no running water. The only toilet was a huge, smelly open trench, in front of the house. The food was filthy and practically inedible. When I left the temple, I hadn’t had a shower in five weeks.

It was hard, but I had gone to China to live as a Chinese. And when I left, I knew that I had had an authentic experience.