On the 3rd day of my trip I felt like checking out the monks who like to fight, so I travelled from Luoyang to Shaolin temple: 1,5 h & 100 RMB later (for Shaolin ticket) I was granted an entrance to the world of ancient mystery of Shaolin - the centre of pilgrimage for martial arts enthusiasts and a good place to get quality kung fu training!
Shaolin temple (Shàolín Sì) is a place of many legends and mystery and the birthplace of Kung Fu.
The most famous name associated with Shaolin is Bodhidharma or Dámó, an Indian monk who travelled to China in 5th century to teach Buddhism. After entering Shaolin, he found the monks out of shape from a lifetime spent in study and meditation, so he introduced a work out program which later developed into kung fu.
The monks studied the movements of animals and copied them - crawling snakes, leaping tigers... From childhood, Shaolin monks subjected themselves to a hard training five hours a day, every day. The monks spent as many hours praying and meditating as they did in kung fu training. They adhered to a moral code in which self-defense was the only acceptable reason for fighting and killing one's opponent was to be avoided if possible.
Now let me be honest..having seen quite a large number of different temples around China Shaolin temple didn`t impress me...just another Chinese temple :)....especially considering it`s been rebuilt many times and there`s not much (if anything) left from the original temple...
But then again I didn`t come for the temple...I came for the kung fu monks :)
"Today's resident "monks" at Shaolin are highly skilled fighters, but cannot be considered genuine Shaolin monks, for the spiritual side of their discipline is now virtually absent. There are still genuine Shaolin monks in China, but they keep a low profile and are not to be found at Shaolin."
So no great luck with fighting monks either ;)
All you can hope for is checking out the kung fu show & observing kung fu wannabes training ...which is actually pretty cool! But they are not real monks...
The real ones seem to be hiding somewhere in China, so I`ll keep looking ;)
The coolest thing I experienced in Shaolin was being massaged by a monk (given he wore monk`s robe)! As I wondered around the temple I managed to find a quieter area (that turned out to be dedicated to Shaolin medicine) and couldn`t resist such a tempting offer :) (especially considering that my backpack was almost all the time with me and my shoulders were starting "to complain" :)
Shaolin temple pharmacy :)
And this "shiny friend" was being passionately massaged by locals (and by me as well ;) to make sure all the body parts function well :) (at least that`s what I understood ;)
And then there was Pagoda forest!
228 stone or brick pagodas built from 791 AD to today. The levels on the pagodas must be odd numbers (from 1 to 7) and are based on the achievements of the Buddhist masters they were built for. The pagoda forest in Shaolin is the largest pagoda forest in China.
Stay tuned for NANJIECUN (new village of socialism) visit!
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