Shaolin Orphanage

Today we landed in Dengfeng in the Shaolin Mountains, the birthplace of Kung Fu and Zen Buddhism.  This is home to the best Kung Fu schools in the world and their campuses are spattered throughout the town.  Boys from the wealthiest families and highest privilege are sent here to train. 

Our first stop was the Shaolin Orphanage which is quite a contrast to the extremely well to do operations about town.  Forty boys who have experienced tragedy call this their home and they are being cared for and taught the art of Kung Fu.  As part of our visit we purchased a large quantity of food for them and donated money to be taught King Fu by a real master.  This operation, like other orphanages in China, receives no government assistance and relies solely on private donations.  We were treated to a demonstration by the master and the orphans.  Here he is doing a King Fu form with a 50 lb. kettlebell type weight, throwing in the air and twisting it around his body.  This is one tough dude.

The students were impressive in their own right.

Then it was our turn.  That was hard work, these guys are not messing around.  As you can tell, we are in complete disarray.  All the tourist folks in this picture should be oriented and look just like the orange clad boy in the front.  From this photo it looks Iike none of them are.

We wanted to bring a gift to the orphans and realized when we arrived that our expectations were a bit off.  Somehow in our minds we had pictured girls and boys maybe Tara and Riley's age.  But these were all boys and the youngest was 9 and the oldest 19.  It is a good thing that we left the Playdoh and the Crayons behind and instead packed the Rocket Ballons.  Tara and Riley cranked up the first few and the boys were a bit hesitant other then a few brave souls, but when they warmed up to the idea they all went nuts.  Mass Rocket Balloon chaos broke out all over the courtyard.  There was only 3 pumps, but being the tough dudes they were they just used their lungs.  We had figured this stuff was made in China so maybe it was old news, but it continued to entertain them well into the evening.

We headed back to the hostel for the night to get some rest for the next day.  The room was pretty good with 2/3 of of it being covered with foam and a sheet that covered about 80% of the foam acting as our bottom sheet.  Our previous guide warned us that the owner of this hostel did not really understand western folks.  That was evidenced by the showers which you can see in the next Phrase Association post along with his welcome images on the front doors.

Images in the 2013 Shaolin.