How I became a King Fu Master: Dengfeng

We were lucky enough to visit an orphanage in Dengfeng, and in return for a few bags of rice and a very poorly organized English lesson we were taught how to be Kung Fu Masters! I know, I know, you’re all thinking “Wow! How cool?!” along with “Emily’s so well suited to being a Kung Fu Master, how has she never gotten into this life skill before?” Well now I have, and I’m a lethal weapon, as the following pictures document.

Our teacher, who was trained at the nearby Shaolin Temple which we visited the next day, taught us two fairly basic routines, (one with a shield/knife thing!). Our efforts were pretty poor. 5 year old children did handstands on their fingertips and tripled somersaulted over each other around us, putting us to shame. It was hard work, but by the end I was certain I could break a stack of bricks with my head, I was feeling so zen.

The next day feeling suitable pumped we headed to the Shaolin Temple, reported home of Kung Fu and Zen Buddhism. It’s literally a city of temples. The Kung Fu school, which is famous for being one of the best Kung Fu schools in the world put on a show that is seriously incredible…kids bend metal with their mind and pop balloons through glass without shattering it. I’ve seen it and I still don’t get it. We also felt super cool because we were all wearing the same shoes that the Kung Fu kids train in, having bought them at the orphanage the day before.

There’s lots to do at the site; you can watch the kids train, walk up a shit load of steps to a cave where a monk apparently sat for a really long time (this story was cool but Wikipedia isn’t doing me any favours right now so it’s not getting included, I obviously didn’t do it because of the steps) or get a cable car and walk around the hill tops to magic-performing platforms and other cool stuff. My favourite bit of the day was when we tried to get another ‘zen’ photo and I invited randomers to join in. This is what happens when Chinese, Japanese and Korean tourists are invited to be in a photo with a group of westerners. Jokes!