The Shaolin Zone

[Drunk Monk]

80 degrees 82% humidity

Luohe is a sauna

[thatguy]

Is that where the phrase "green donkey d*cks" comes from?

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

I can honestly say I’ve never heard that phrase before.

Just did some qigong and Kung fu for Decheng. Just a little because it’s sweltering and I’m dizzy from the travel. I got a few quick pointers which is enough. I couldn’t come to his school and not practice.

[Drunk Monk]

After another meal at my Shifu’s school, I bid Bon voyage to the French students as I will have left before they return for their evening class. I don’t understand any French, but as always, I learned a little spending the day with them. They spoke only French. Decheng speaks a little of everything so there’s this unique language we all share - like he defaults to the Italian ‘finito’ for finish as do we all now. 

Now I’m alone in his school sitting in front of the air filter fan, once again digesting a bigger meal than I intended to eat.

I’ll leave for the train station in an hour or so. After that, I don’t know where my next wifi might be. Might be radio silence for a while…

[thatguy]

it's quiet...maybe too quiet!

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

Well alright. Let’s turn it up.

Successfully made it to DengFeng - in the hotel building 3 rm 640 - roommate is Arturo Martinez from Mexico who mostly speaks Spanish. We only spoke briefly then he crashed. Switching from English to Spanish to mandarin breaks my brain.

Had a great visit with Shifu. So glad I made the extra effort. He’s studying tea now and served me for the last hour of our visit. He was very impressed that Huijin is in Lishi school.  With our phone translators we had a great chat.

The high speed rail was intense. The stations were huge and only in Chinese so navigation was challenging but I made it. Took me a while to find my contact Mr. Wang because our meeting place, west square was ginormous, surrounded by a tangle of cars, and brutally hot. But we connected and I caught up to the team at this restaurant that was decorated like an ancient bastion library. More outrageous exotic food. Plenty of veg including several local fruits and leaves that was only found here. 

DengFeng has changed dramatically. So big now. We went to the Shaolin zen music show which has a cast of over a thousand performers set on a stage built in a mountain ravine with traditional folk dance, Buddhist chanting, drumming and horns, Kung fu, lasers and a soundtrack by Tan Dun. It was … well it had some amazing moments but crazy - like a herd of goats crosses the stage for one song & martial artists are lit with lighting cable and fly across the mountains on wires. Too much.

Met a ton of friends in the lobby. Shaoliners from all over the world. 

Tomorrow the event begins. I’ll probably only have wifi at the hotel here.

[Greg]

Excellent.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Sounds amazing. Time to write another book, I think.

[Drunk Monk]

This huge friar tuck type dude introduced himself to me in the lobby and said he was a fan of my writing. Musta been 6’ 5’ with a massive beard and a linebacker build. Louis. I think we’ll be friends.

It’s 3 am and the time zone has worn off. Arturo snores but I do too.q

---

I drank way too much tea with Shifu….

[Drunk Monk]

Shaolin has boba! I tried some - it wasn’t true boba. Watermelon juice with something like grass jelly cubes. It was refreshing but needed tea. 

Had lunch at shaolin’s vegetarian restaurant, was was quite good - lotus roots, tofu noodles, a savory soup with some tasty protein chunks (gluten maybe), a sprouts dish, a weird veg that Gigi knew - some kind of small root stem. I’m eating too much, but it’s such an adventure in cuisine. 

We had a private tea in the abbots chambers with the abbot. He gave us an interview and signed a new book he wrote on zen Shaolin archery. 

It was wild to see the temple. They’ve improved it with more statues and details to the roofs and trims. Plus there’s a new medical area with traditional diagnosis and cures. All the old buildings are gone, replaced by trees and bamboo. It’s very green now.

Today was in the high 80s, 80%+ humidity

Then it was ours of committee meetings. You know how I love committees. So slow because some is translated. Some. Sometimes Chinese & English. Sometimes Chinese & chinglish. Sometimes Chinese, English, Spanish & French. Sometimes just Chinese. At one point I realized I was in a Chinese only meeting and I was the only person in the room who didn’t speak it. I was like a dog, listening to the tones, hoping someone might toss me a biscuit.

[Drunk Monk]

Tonight there was a welcoming banquet but no tables or chairs. We were just supposed to stand around and mingle. A test of Shaolin skills - eat and not spill. We should’ve done it in horse stance. I was secretly hoping a food fight would break out.

Tomorrow’s presentation so Shaolin. They asked us all to prepare long presentations. Ours is 30 slides. Then because there was so many responses, we only have 5 minutes to deliver it in Chinese & English so only 2.5 min, or 5 seconds a slide. Impossible. Wish us luck!

[Greg]

Pretty much par for the course, right?

[Drunk Monk]

Indeed

Shaolin always tests me. It’s part of the practice.

---

Btw it’s 3am again but I changed my strategy. Instead of taking all my melatonin when I went to sleep, I saved half for now. Itw starting to take hold.

Breakfast is at 6:30, bus to the temple is 7am. Temps still high 80s but the humidity is supposed to drop to mid 70s. Might rain tomorrow. 

The tournament is direct eliminations. Two competitors compete side by side and one moves up. Half will be cut today. Finale tomorrow will be televised.

Has there been Facebook coverage? You can follow the links to the abbots page that  I posted on my page before I left.

[Greg]

The Abbott has made a few short posts. Nothing elaborate.

How does he gets to use FB and you don't?

I see that Emilio is there as well as Kung Fu Dragon USA. Zhenlong Yu. (I was blanking on his name)

[Drunk Monk]

The abbot gets all sorts of stuff I don’t get, like a personal tour of Meta, remember? He’s the abbot. I got to see some of this private collection of treasures at his residence. He’s got so much cool stuff.

Emilio came and went before this started, which was good because while I’m sure he’d delight in seeing everyone, the crowds and the chaos would’ve spoiled his trip.

Yu Zhenlong is here. I sat next to him at the first meeting. Yanxu & Yanyi are here too.