While I was waiting for my Chinese Visa in Hong Kong, I used to chat with a friend giving her some advise about Myanmar, which I've shortly visited. After telling her that I was going to China, she sent me an interesting link about a Shaolin Temple next to Dali in the Yunnan Province. Before her an other friend told me that Dali and Yunnan Province are nice. In Foshan, when I was telling that I'll probably go to Dali, the one volunteer of the bnb stopped me an said: "I'm from Dali!". So I think it was not just a coincidence to stay one week at the Wu Wei Si Shaolin Temple next to Dali.

The link of my friend was really good and helpful (http://www.traveldudes.org/travel-tips/learn-kung-fu-shaolin-monks-china/60400), I knew for example that I should arrive on Friday evening because the training week starts on Saturday morning. After staying 3 days in the beautiful rural village Xizhou I made my decision and moved to the temple. It was a good decision and I spent a beautiful week far away from the crowded touristic walking streets of Old Dali. On the hill there was just the nature, the temple, the monks, the helpers, the animals and we. We were the Kung Fu or Tai Chi students. The Shaolin monks were really famous because of their deadly Kung Fu skills and Zen Buddhism's practices.

During the Cultural Revolution in 1966 the Red Guards destroyed all the Buddhas, painted all walls of the first Shaolin Temple in Shaolin with maoist slogans and sent all the monks working to the fields. All the Shaolin literature was burned and Kung Fu martial art was attacked from the communist ideologists and declared as "feudal rubbish". In the '60 the first Kung Fu movies made in Hong Kong reached a lot of people all over the world and with Bruce Lee the martial arts became really popular. After the death of Mao in 1976 the government saw the touristic and financial potential of the martial arts and decided to reopen the Shaolin Temple and suddenly Kung Fu was a good thing to practice: "Good for the individual, good for the home country"... [Source: "Behind the Forbidden Door: Travels in Unknown China" Tiziano Terzani, 1986]

For me it was an honour to learn some Shaolin Kung Fu moves and stay with the monks in the Temple. After doing Wing Chun Kung Fu in Foshan, the Shaolin Kung Fu was a completely different kind of learning because I was all time there in the temple, it isn't just 1-2 hours training and than back home or to work. A guy decided stay at the Temple, just because he watched the movie animation "Kung Fu Panda". Actually it seams to be exactly Wu Wei Si Temple in the movie, so I'm curios to see how the Shifu (Grandmaster) or the Temple looks like in the cartoon.

At the Temple I liked the required discipline and the rules. The day was planned like in the army: wake up at 5:30, running at 6:00, breakfast at 8:00, morning lesson at 9:00, lunch at 12:00, rest, afternoon lesson at 16:00, dinner at 18:00, rest. Before running and during the afternoon and evening rests the monks and the helpers were praying, singing and doing the religious celebrations all time. I liked a lot the peaceful location of the Temple middle in the forest with the running squirrels and tweeting birds during the day and the singing crickets and bright stars at night. I didn't like the noisy squirrels at night. I liked also the gongs of the big Temple bells and the smelling of incense which was smoking everywhere. The food was vegetarian, so I think it was first time for me eating no meat for one week! I enjoyed it: in the morning noddles with some vegetables or sauces, at lunch or dinner rice with more than 6 varieties vegetables, sometimes fried cheese, soup, sauces and kind of rice-water. One day we ate many filled steamed buns which be salty or sweet. Their name is "baozi" and they are very yummy! The living condition were very simple and basic: a small room with no electricity and no water, just a bed, a small bench and a window. We had to take to water over the Temple at a small fountain, the common restrooms and showers were not too far away. Thanks some solar panels we had hot water in the shower, so it was a kind of luxury. An other thing I liked too, like taking our own water it was, that we had to finish all the food we put in our bowl. If something fallow on the table or on the floor we had to pic it up and eat it. Sometimes it was a challenge with the chop stick for us western travellers! We had to say "A Mi Tuo Fo" to the Sifu before and after eating or when we met him in the Temple. Before doing the Kung Fu "form" (a sequence of moves, punches and kicks) we said it too. It means "Buddha".

One day I walked uphill through the forest and I discovered a kind of tree platform 3 to 5 meters from the bottom. Sometimes I spent my free time there between the branches in the wind. I tried to do 20-30 minutes meditation before each Kung Fu lesson as well. I liked to observe a young monk staying in his standing fighting position meditating for long time without moving. I red about how the "original" Shaolin Monks train and it's really hard. That's why Shifu could break a 10 cm thick stone with a single kick or cut down a tree with his fist!

I could learn, do and see other many things but I don't want to tell you all. You should go there and try it by your self! A Mi Tuo Fo