kung fu | Into the Middle Kingdom

Back in the late ’90’s I was directing a study abroad group of students in Mainland China. At the conclusion of our studies at Nanjing University, we spent a couple weeks traveling around China. One of our stops was the famous Shaolin Buddhist Temple in the Songshan Mountains in Henan Province, not too far from the city of Luoyang. The Shaolin Temple is said to be the birthplace Chan or Zen Buddhism and also where martial arts originated. Today it is a major tourist attraction, and UNESCO World Heritage Site, but it is still a place for serious Buddhist study, meditation, and practice.

Most visitors are just there for the Shaolin Kungfu. The actual temple is rather small as far as Buddhist temples are concerned. On the grounds is also a cemetery where large stupas mark the resting places of previous eminent monks. It’s a peaceful, serene place.

Because of the Shaolin Temple’s importance to martial arts, the area has attracted many martial arts schools, where even foreigners can go to learn Shaolin kungfu. The monks of the Shaolin Temple, most assuredly pressured by government officials, have capitalized on the tourist trade. The have regular shows in an auditorium showcasing the monks’ martial arts skills.

One of many martial arts schools on Songshan Mountain

During our visit there, we attended one of those shows. Monks broke iron bars over their heads, did amazing acrobatic routines, did handstands on two fingers, and so on. One of the most impressive feats was when a monk got a long spear on a flexible bamboo pole. He placed the sharp metal spear tip to his throat, placed the end of the bamboo pole against a wall and slowly walked forward until the spear shaft had a big bend in it. Then other monks placed cinder blocks on his back (he was bent over), and another monk swung a heavy sledge hammer smashing the blocks. The sharp spear point never punctured his skin.

Now for the bloody encounter I had. Several monks walked out onto the stage. One monk removed the top of his orange robe so he was bare chested. He then spent several minutes focussing the Qi into his stomach area. Another monk handed him a bowl, and he carefully suctioned it to his belly. It was a metal bowl with a ceramic or glass coating on it. They then invited people from the audience to come up and try to pull the bowl off his belly. Three or four people tried with no success. My students goaded me up there where I began pulling. I was rock climbing a lot in those days and had pretty good finger strength. After a minute or two I began dragging the monk across the stage. A couple fellow monks grabbed his shoulders to hold him in place, and a couple of my students grabbed me. Then, suddenly, the base of the bowl shattered and we flew apart!

As base of the bowl tore loose from the bowl the now jagged glass edge sliced deep into my thumb. I think everyone was pretty astonished, especially when blood began spurting from my thumb with each beat of my heart. I grabbed my thumb and walked off the stage. The monks took a few steps back while my students mopped up the blood with some tissues. The monks simply placed a new bowl on the monk’s belly and continued the show. I walked outside holding my throbbing thumb. A Chinese doctor from the audience followed me out. He sprinkled some bái yào 白藥 (a coagulating powder) onto it then wrapped it with gauze and taped it tightly.

It definitely needed stitches, but being in a rural part of China, there was no way I was going to have that done. So I kept it clean and bandaged for a couple weeks until it healed up. I spent the next couple weeks traveling around China by train with a very sore thumb. It turns out that I must have severed some nerves as I lost feeling along one side of my thumb and now have a very sensitive nerve bundle at the base of my thumb.

So did I get credit for pulling the bowl off the monk’s belly? I don’t think so. Rumor has it that the only person who was successful was an attractive young women who walked up, kissed the monk lightly on the cheek, whereupon the bowl popped off his belly. I have no idea if that is true, but if it is, it would have been a true act of disrespect.

So there you have it, my true story of a bloody encounter with a Shaolin monk. The photo above shows impeccable timing by one of my students who shot this with a disposable film camera.

Ancestors Temple (祖廟 zǔmiào) in Foshan, Guangdong Province

In February of this year I spent a couple weeks in the Guanzhou area of southern China. While I was there I had the good fortune of meeting the parents of one of my colleagues. They were gracious enough to show me around, invite me to meals, and so on. Since they were both retired, they had time on their hands. One day we traveled together to the nearby city of Foshan. I was doing some research on various topics related to Chinese popular culture and wanted to visit the Buddhist temple at Foshan as it is a famous place for Chinese martial arts. This is where the famous martial artist Wong Fei-hung came from . It is also the birthplace of the other famous martial artist, Yip Man.

Ancestors Temple buildings

We spent a couple hours wandering around the beautiful monastery enjoying the gardens and the various buildings.

Lots of flowers at the temple

Chrysanthemum

Lotus; an important symbol in Buddhism

There was also an outdoor martial arts show that we watched as well. It was pretty touristy but the many Chinese tourists seemed to enjoy it.

Martial artists doing a lion dance

In one hall of the monastery there was a museum dedicated to Wong Fei-hung (huáng fēi hóng 黃飛鴻). Most of the space was dedicated to talking about all the movies that have been made about his life (more than 100). It was a pretty interesting exhibit. It is interesting how legends are born and propagated.

Statue of Wong Fei-hung

The Wong Fei-hung museum

Painting of Wong Fei-hung

Kung Fu studio

Kung Fu weapons

While we were in the exhibit talking about the importance of martial arts in Chinese culture, I remembered an event that happened many years ago, which I shared with my friends. This is the story.

Shortly after I was hired at BYU to teach Chinese I was contacted by a martial arts instructor, the late Ron Heimburger, about some translation work. He was a Wing Chun Kung-fu (詠春功夫 yǒng chūn gōngfū) master who had been trained in Hong Kong. Many of the names of the various kung fu moves were in Cantonese and he needed some help translating the terms. It sounded pretty interesting so I agreed. We met a couple times and I helped him translate some terms. He was a very nice guy and I enjoyed chatting with him. About a year later he contacted me again with another offer. A Wing Chun Kung-fu Grandmaster (the person he was trained by) was coming to Utah to conduct a kung-fu camp. He did not speak any English and they needed someone to come to the camp to interpret for him. This Grandmaster was Yip Ching (葉正 yè zhèng), son of the famous martial artist Yip Man (葉文 yè wén). I had no idea at the time who any of these guys were. Again, it sounded interesting, so I once again agreed to help out. This was in 1997.

The camp was held at a ranch in the hills outside Fairview, Utah. This is a rural farming community about 120 miles south of Salt Lake City. I spent two days at this kung-fu camp interpreting for Yip Ching. He was a nice old man and I enjoyed hanging out with him. The highlight for most of the participants, which consisted of about 100 Wing Chun martial artists from around Utah, was when we all gathered one evening in the lodge and Yip Ching told the story of his kung-fu lineage. This is pretty important to marital artists. He explained who trained him, and who trained him, etc. all the way back to the famed Shaolin Temple where Chinese martial arts originated hundreds of years ago. It was an interesting story. It was also interesting to see how enamored these kung-fu students were to actually be in his presence. One guy whispered to his friend, “he touched my arm!”

He was trained by his father, Yip Man, in Foshan, in Guangdong Province. His father was also the kung-fu master for the famous Bruce Lee. Yip Ching and Bruce Lee were trained together at the same time by his father. I once asked him about Bruce Lee, and he replied that he was a mediocre martial artist, and was more into show than anything else. Yip Ching and I got to know each other fairly well during those three days, and before I left he gave me his card and told me that if I was ever in Hong Kong, to look him up.

One year later I was passing through Hong Kong after spending a couple months in Mainland China directing a study abroad program. I gave him a call. He invited me over to his house for tea. It was a typical, small, modest flat in the Mong Kok area of Kowloon. I met his wife and we chatted for awhile. We then walked over to his kung-fu studio that was nearby and he gave me a tour of the place. It was nice seeing him again.

I told this story to my friends and they were totally blown away. They couldn’t believe that I actually had met and knew Yip Ching, son of the famous Yip Man. They went around telling strangers in the museum that I was Yip Ching’s interpreter. I thought that was pretty funny.

Now back to my visit to Foshan. As we were leaving I noticed another hall that we had not visited, and I noticed that it said Yip Man Hall.

The Yip Man Museum

We went over and it was a new museum all about Yip Man. It was even more interesting than the Wong Fei-hung museum. There were lots of artifacts, photos, and stories about his life.

Photograph of Yip Man

Photo of Yip Man with his two sons, Yip Ching and Yip Chun

Photos of Yip Man in action

The wooden dummy used to practice Wing Chun kung fu

Then we entered one room that was dedicated to how Wing Chun kung-fu has spread around the world. It showed photos of Yip Ching holding kung-fu camps around the world and training all kinds of foreigners in Wing Chun kung-fu. Then, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was the story about the Utah camp, and there was a photo of the camp’s participants, and there I was in the photo. Granted the photo was too small and grainy to really make out the faces too well.

Photo of the Utah camp. I am second to right of Yip Ching with shadow across my face.

Photo of the Utah camp. I am second to the right of Yip Ching with shadow across my face.

If my friends were impressed before, now they could hardly contain themselves. I was very amused by all this and thought, what are the chances of this happening. It was pretty incredible. Needless to say, they were very impressed and practically treated me like a celebrity.

So that’s my kung-fu story. I have another one too, about a visit to the Shaolin Monastery in China, but I’ll save that for another post.

Here are a few more photos from the Ancestors Temple.