The day after we completed this sweet boy's adoption we took BOTH sweet boys on a field trip to Shaolin Temple, the famous Buddhist temple and monastery that is also the most important site for teaching Kung Fu. It is about two hours to the southwest of the capital city, Zhengzhou, and we and one other family piled into a van for the adventure. It WAS an adventure!
About an hour into our trip, on a large toll road, everyone came to a sudden stop. In China (it seems) the casual attitude toward navigating congested traffic means that as soon as no one can move an inch, everyone leaps out of their cars and starts strolling around chatting, and hiking up the road to investigate. This was a serious traffic jam and in no time at all people were hauling parasols and small folding stools out of their Passats and Audis and Hyundais and getting comfortable in the shade between the cars. Our driver and our guide also got out, but the 10 of us sat, and sat, and sat in our rather smelly bus (one child had thrown up from motion sickness -- the only reason He Hu hadn't was because I had layered in several motion sickness prevention remedies and was applying pressure to the acupressure point in both his wrists for the entire ride, both ways).
We sat some more. Men began scaling the rock canyon walls to the side of the road. An hour passed. Word came that it was an 8-car pileup 20 km away. We eventually exited the van for some bathroom break time, although as there were no bathrooms this was a bit more of a creative effort than usual. Once out of the van, we became a temporary attraction -- 6 Caucasian Westerners with 4 Chinese children? Heck yeah! -- and people began sauntering casually toward us, and sort of "accidentally" taking pictures in our direction. Finally, people started running back down the road, and magically cars suddenly started weaving eel-like through a sea of parked cars. Parasols were folded, engines gunned, men leapt into the cabs of trucks, and we were off!
At length we arrived at Shaolin Temple. The change in countryside, from flat, to rolling hills, to impressive mountains with deep valleys between them, was quite noticeable. I completely enjoyed finding myself in a more rural and natural area after all this city life. The smog was a bit better too but not gone.
(Our agency guide, Rita, told me something about that, by the way. Apparently August was beautifully clear and blue, and here's why: In August the prime minister promised that the pollution would be at a 2.5 level for the G20 Summit so many buildings and factories had to shut down for a while, so there would be clear blue skies. Now that the G20 is over the factories and buildings open again and the smog is creeping back up each day.)
The area around Shaolin Temple has become a hot spot for kung fu boarding schools. There were so many! And it's clearly a big tourist destination. We saw restaurant after restaurant, with employees standing on the side walk, waving and beckoning vans and cars into their parking lots. When we got to the Temple itself, there were a few parking lots and lots of people strolling toward the central courtyard. 99% of the visitors were Chinese though, unlike the Great Wall, where there was a WIDE range of nationalities.
We started off in the main courtyard where Charlie was immediately and predictably sucked into a nearby sword and nunchuck shop -- the gravitational pull was far too great for him to withstand. At length, we removed him from it and all hopped on a little tram that cruised along a little winding path between tall mountain slopes and eventually deposited us right near the pagoda forest, a beautiful collection of stone towers that are very ancient tombs. The eldest dates back over 1000 years to the Tang Dynasty. Most of the visitors to the spot were sitting on benches covered by pavilions, chowing on noodles, or strolling up and down in front, so when we climbed into a path that ran behind the pagodas it was very peaceful and beautiful, and quiet enough that a flock of pigeons were down in the grass, finding food.
After we had wandered for a while, we hiked back toward the temple complex. We started seeing the occasional monk in pale gray robes and the tiled roofs of the temple buildings. The site itself is very old, with a number of trees said to be over a thousand years old, but all but one of the temple buildings was burned down in an act of revenge after one commander in the Chinese civil war captured the temple complex from another, so the temples we saw were rebuilt in the last century. There was apparently a pitched battle in the courtyards themselves and most of the old trees are pitted with craters where bullets hit them.
However, one temple building was untouched -- a sort of dojo for the monks to practice Kung fu. It has cool, faded paintings on the walls in the darkness, and a high ceiling. It was fascinating to imagine monks 300 years ago practicing their movements there.
After this we set out for the Kung fu show-- a demonstration of Kung fu skills that was definitely entertaining, especially for the younger ones in our group. No women did Kung fu in the show, though we were told about 10% of those learning there are female.
Then we visited one of the more vile potties we have encountered in China, bargained for a wooden sword for Charlie, hopped in the van and headed home to our hotel, for a mercifully vomit- and accident-free return trip. Success!
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