China Guide
The Yellow River
Shaolin Si
Set amidst the rugged, mountainous countryside of the Song Shan range, Shaolin Si is the place of legends. This is the temple where the sixth-century founder of Buddhism's Chan (Zen) sect, Bodhidarma, consolidated his teachings in China; and also where – surprisingly given Buddhism's peaceful doctrines – Chinese kung fu is said to have originated. Today, it's a tourist black spot, packed with noisy groups and commercial enterprises, though as an entertaining look into modern China's kung fu cult, it's a lot of fun. In September, the place is particularly busy, filling up with martial-arts enthusiasts from all over the world who come to attend the international Wushu Festival.
Kung fu was first developed at the Shaolin Si as a form of gymnastics to counterbalance the immobility of meditation. The monks studied the movement of animals and copied them – the way snakes crawled, tigers leapt and mantises danced – and coordinated these movements with meditational breathing routines. As the temple was isolated it was often prey to bandits, and gradually the monks turned their exercises into a form of self-defence.
The monks owed their strength to rigorous discipline. To strengthen their fists, they punched a thousand sheets of paper glued to a wall; over the years, the paper wore out and the young monks punched brick. To strengthen their legs, they ran around the courtyard with bags of sand tied to their knees. Only after twenty years of such exercises could someone consider themselves proficient in kung fu, by which time they were able to perform incredible feats, examples of which you can see illustrated in the murals at the temple. Apart from such commonplaces as breaking concrete slabs with their fists and iron bars with their heads, the monks can balance on one finger, take a sledgehammer blow to the chest, and hang from a tree by the neck.
You can visit Song Shan on a day-trip from either Luoyang or Zhengzhou, either of which is around ninety minutes away, though it's more satisfying to base yourself in the town of Dengfeng, 13km to the east.