Kung Fu Trip

by Benjamin Zephaniah

  There were times in my session with Iron Breath when I just couldn’t work out how to do a move. It was at these times that you could see the difference in teaching methods between east and west. In the west, if you are doing a move that you cannot get right the teacher will get you to do it over and over again. In China, when you are having problems the teacher will ask you to stop, sit down and go through it in your mind.

  The first time Iron Breath asked me to do this I was trying to do a difficult move which involved tricky hand, foot and twisting movements. When he saw that I was struggling to do all this at the same time, he sat down and, copying him, so did I. Then he pointed to his head and closed his eyes, and then he pointed to my head. I realised that he wanted me to think about the form. I did, and when I stood up I just seemed to float through the movements. This approach has changed the way I train ever since.

  We trained for two hours and by the end I was pouring with sweat and in desperate need of the comfort of my mother, but I knew that I had a great teacher in Iron Breath. We set a time for our next lessons – twelve o’clock every day – then he left and I fell asleep.

  Chapter Nine

  The Art of Long Tongue

  I was continuing to lose the fight against jet lag. I woke up at 10 p.m. and I wasn’t able to get to sleep again until six in the morning, only to be woken up by Iron Breath knocking at my door at midday. I felt as if I had just finished one kung fu lesson, had a snooze and started another one. The second session was harder than the first one. Iron Breath added more moves and he also added an hour to the time. It was hard, sweaty and painful, but I loved it.

  I called Yanli and we agreed to meet later and look for a vegan restaurant. With a couple of hours to spare before our meeting I went for another walk. As always I did what I loved doing most, strolling through the tiny back streets.

  Everywhere I walked I was stared at. Women would run indoors to tell other women to come out and see me, men would shout names at me like Eddie Murphy and Denzel Washington, and one man even called me Kofi Annan – the ex-Secretary-General of the United Nations.

  I went into a supermarket and business stopped as all the extremely young staff just followed me around, watching as I tried to read the contents on packets. I saw some fruit that I wanted, so I went to get me some. Suddenly there was a rush towards me, and everyone wanted to help. I settled for five helpers and the others watched. They made life so easy for me. I would point to the fruits I needed, a girl would pick them up, another girl checked that they were OK. She would then hand them to a boy who put them into a bag that was being held by another boy. Person number five was an older girl who seemed to be telling the rest what to do. They all looked happy to help me. True service with a smile.

  I stepped out of the supermarket to find that it was pouring with rain, which was welcome because it seemed to clear the polluted air. There didn’t seem to be any kind of controls on vehicle emissions. A couple of times I saw exhaust fumes that were so black I couldn’t see what they were coming out of.

  Yanli came to my hotel later with good news.

  ‘It was difficult but I have found one vegan restaurant. It’s run by women and it’s open right now,’ she said.

  ‘Hey, that sounds like my kind of place,’ I said, rubbing my hands together and licking my lips.

  It did turn out to be my kind of place, although I had never seen anywhere quite like it. The restaurant was attached to a temple called the Yong Tai Temple, which was very close to the Shaolin Temple.

  Yong Tai Temple was built in ad 521. Princess Yong Tai lived, fought and studied kung fu there. She insisted on being treated like the other nuns, but when she left they renamed it after her. To this day nuns live in the temple and unlike so many others that have turned into tourist attractions, this is still a place of worship.

  Most tourists go to Shaolin, so two visitors like us, who were willing to spend a bit of money, were very welcome. The food was wonderful, and before we left I bought a few souvenirs. I didn’t need or want them but I wanted to help the temple.

  On the way back we went back to the Shaolin Temple. It was getting late but I needed to get to know my spiritual home.

  When we arrived, most of the tourists had gone, and the stallholders were packing up and leaving. I took a photo of the front of the temple and Yanli and I headed for the entrance, where we found a middle-aged monk eating a pizza.

  ‘Can we go in?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Closed,’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘We just want a quick look around.’

  ‘Sorry. Closed,’ he said, filling up on pizza.

  Then he noticed Yanli next to me and jumped to attention. They spoke to each other excitedly and then he waved us in.

  ‘What happened then?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing. He’s just an old friend. I haven’t seen him for some time. He’s a serious monk now but he used to be a club DJ in Shanghai.’

  ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘No, I’m serious,’ she said. ‘He was called DJ Long Tongue.’

  ‘DJ Long Tongue. So why Long Tongue?’

  ‘Because he’s always had this thing about pizzas, and when he was working the stereo decks he used to hold a piece of pizza in his mouth and it looked like he had a long pizza tongue.’

  It was good for a laugh but I didn’t believe her.

  ‘Very funny, and I suppose he played at the Ministry of Sound?’

  ‘Almost. He was booked but he couldn’t get a visa. I know it sounds crazy but it’s true. Anyway, he says we’ve got an hour. Let’s get moving.’

  Chapter Ten

  The Shaolin Temple

  Shaolin Temple was built in ad 495 and became the centre of Buddhist learning in China. When Bodhidharma first came to the temple in ad 540, the monks would not let him in as they thought he was just a passing tourist. Even back then, tourists were trying to get in. Bodhidharma went instead to a nearby cave, where it is said that he meditated for nine years. He meditated so much that he didn’t notice when birds built a nest on his shoulder, and his shadow became embedded in the cave wall. The nest has gone but it is said his shadow is still there now. When he came down from the cave, the monks let him in at last.

  Today the temple is one of the busiest in China, so I was feeling quite chuffed at having a private tour.

  I had expected one big temple building, but it’s more of a complex of buildings with some great names. OK, the gateway is just called The Gateway, but that takes you into the Permanent Resident Compound. This is really another gateway decorated with giant dragons. The central path is called the Forest of Steles and takes you into the heart of the complex. Even this is special because on both sides of the path there are tablets and headstones in honour of famous monks and martial artists. As I read their names, I tried to imagine what some of these great fighting monks looked like.

  Parts of the temple have been knocked down and rebuilt several times but other parts are original. Yanli took me into a beautifully decorated hall called Devajara Hall. It had statues of two really scary warriors called Hum and Haw at the entrance. The gateway had been rebuilt in 1983, but it still looked really old. In the Devajara Hall there were many statues, the most famous of them being the Four Heavenly Kings. They didn’t look like heavenly kings, they looked like really angry Chinese bouncers, but maybe that’s just a cultural thing, a club culture thing.

  Most of the halls had statues, and statues to protect the statues. Like all good temples in China there was also a Drum Tower and a Bell Tower. They are like watchtowers rising high above the other buildings.

  There were two halls that I really wanted to see, and Yanli left them both until last. It was as if she knew that they would be special to me.

  The first was the Thousand Buddha Hall. This hall has a very famous painting that is made up of lots of smaller paintings showing some of the most important Arhats, or elders, ever to have lived. But what I really love about this hall is the floor. It still h
as its original bricks, with lots of worn places made by the monks as they practised their kung fu. In some of the ancient dents you can almost see the shape of their toe prints. I went and put my feet in some of these prints and did a bit of practice myself to carry on the tradition.

  The second hall was the Baiyi Hall. If ever there was a place I had wanted to see, this was it. I had been to Ethiopia, I had been to Palestine, Babylon and Graceland, but this was the only pilgrimage that I had ever really, and I mean really, wanted to make. I had heard about it as a child. My first karate teacher had told me about it, I had seen posters of it, and I had seen it in many martial arts books and films. Now I was stepping into it – little old me, big old it.

  Yanli waited outside. She knew this was a very meaningful personal and spiritual moment for me. Like all of the halls we had seen in the temple, it was smaller than you would expect. In the centre was a large statue of the Buddha sitting in the lotus position with incense burning in front of him, but I was more interested in the walls. These were covered with large frescoes, or paintings, which are the earliest known works of art showing monks practising kung fu. At first the monks look quite comical, fat and overdressed and not at all like the martial artists of today. But when you look more closely they tell us a lot about the development and the practice of kung fu.

  The frescoes show clearly what the buildings looked like all those years ago and how kung fu training was carried out, with a mixture of weapons and empty hand fighting. What impressed me more than anything else was that the fighters came from many nationalities. The paintings tell us that the temple was an international meeting place and such a coming together of cultures represented everything I believe in. I wanted to worship here, but I also wanted to show the images to people back in London who say multiculturalism can’t work, and say,‘Look, Shaolin kung fu fighters from all over the world have come together for hundreds of years. This tradition is still going strong, so get your act together. There is beauty and strength in diversity.’

  I lost track of time and so wasn’t sure how long I spent in there but I came out a new person. I was going to carry on the Shaolin tradition.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Forest of Pagodas

  We thanked the monk at The Gateway, who was still eating pizza, and we left the Shaolin Temple.

  ‘Can I show you something?’ Yanli asked me.

  We walked out of the temple and turned right. Rising up in front, and on both sides of us, were large pillars of all shapes and sizes.

  ‘This is the Forest of Pagodas,’ said Yanli.

  I had thought a pagoda was a building, but these were giant decorated stones on top of the graves of famous monks, abbots and Arhats. When you saw them from the road, the pagodas almost looked like dark trees nestled in the company of their green, living relatives. The forest was huge, with more than 250 pagodas.

  ‘How many more?’ I kept asking as we walked round.

  ‘More,’ was always the reply.

  The pagodas have always been difficult to count. During the Qing Dynasty, the emperor sent 500 of his guards to count them. They counted and recounted but kept coming up with different numbers. The guards told the emperor that it was impossible to count the number of pagodas in the forest.

  ‘Why?’ asked the emperor.

  ‘Because it really is a forest,’ they replied. ‘The pagodas just keep growing. Some may even be moving.’

  The first pagoda was made for an Indian monk called Sakamuni, and his is the tallest. The pagodas have Buddhist holy writing carved on them and a history of the life of the deceased, but in China not everything is as it seems at first. Near the gate there was a large pagoda that looked extremely old. As I walked around it admiring the kung fu fighters using sticks and knives and doing various exercises, I saw a carving of a laptop computer, a digital camera and then a jumbo jet. No one could explain why these modern elements had been added to the pagoda, and I could see some people thinking this showed a lack of respect, but after giving it a few moments to sink in I began to think they were rather sweet. Well, they put a smile on my face anyway.

  As Yanli and I were leaving the Forest of Pagodas, I heard a voice calling.

  ‘Hey, Birmingham guy. Come here.’

  I looked up to see Fat Thumb. He was waving me over.

  ‘I’m busy,’ I shouted.

  ‘Come here. Just for a minute. I’ve got something to tell you.’

  I walked over to him.

  ‘What’s up, man?’

  ‘I have something to tell you,’ Fat Thumb said. ‘The early worm gets the chicken.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

  ‘It means the late dog gets nothing.’

  ‘What are you on, and what did you call me over for?’ I was getting irritated again.

  ‘You told me that you were sick of learning from second-rate kung fu teachers and you wanted the real thing.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I replied.

  ‘Have you been having any lessons?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what are they like?’

  ‘They’re OK. I train hard, it gets painful sometimes, but that’s cool.’

  ‘That’s not cool,’ he shouted. ‘This no pain, no gain thing is rubbish. These teachers fool you into believing that if you are working hard and feeling pain you are doing well, but that’s not true. You’re wasting your money. Here’s the deal. For the small fee of one hundred yuan a lesson, I will teach you the art of Smelly Finger, also known as the art of fighting without thinking.’

  ‘You’re talking rubbish,’ I said.

  Fat Thumb looked at me from head to toe and then from toe to head. ‘How is your silence?’

  ‘How is my silence?’ I said. ‘I dunno. I haven’t spoken to it for a while.’

  ‘You must find your silence and speak to it,’ he said. ‘You came for kung fu training, but you have not trained at all until you have trained with me.’

  ‘I have started my lessons with Iron Breath. He knows his stuff and it’s going OK,’ I said.

  Fat Thumb started doing that half smiling and half frowning thing with his face that wise people do.

  ‘I know of Iron Breath. His kung fu is no good. It is like water in paper – it leaks. It is like bird in cage, it is limited. It is like a doctor with no brain.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

  ‘That means the doctor is dead and cannot make you better. I will be your teacher and your power will increase. The Smelly Finger style cannot be bettered. It is beyond Shaolin. It is beyond Birmingham.’

  ‘I’ve already paid for my lessons and I only have a short time left in Shaolin. Thanks for offering to help, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.’

  He handed me a book that he had been holding. It was a paperback, not very long, but old.

  ‘I have bought something for you.’

  ‘What’s this about?’ I asked.

  Fat Thumb went all serious.

  ‘These are the secrets of my style. Very few people have read this book. It is only for the chosen few, and you have been chosen.’

  The book felt very fragile. I opened it slowly.

  ‘It’s all in Chinese,’ I said, as if he didn’t know.

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Just having the book with you will do you good. Take it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ he said.

  I was beginning to feel nervous. I didn’t want to owe him anything. Actually, I didn’t want to see him again for the rest of my life.

  ‘Look, I can’t read the book and I don’t need the book.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘The book can read you.’

  ‘OK, if you insist. I don’t see the point, but if you insist. I really have to go now,’ I said, walking away. ‘Thanks anyway.’

  I kept the book to myself until we were in the taxi heading back, then I took it out.

  ‘I have been given this book,’ I said t
o Yanli. ‘Could you please tell me what it’s about?’

  She took it from me very carefully. As she looked at it, her expression changed.

  She looked up at me. ‘Benjamin. Where did you get this from?’

  ‘The guy with the long beard gave it to me. What’s it about?’

  ‘This really is something,’ she said.

  ‘What is it?’ I said.

  ‘Can I borrow it?’ she asked.

  ‘Yanli,’ I whispered urgently. ‘What is it about?’

  ‘It’s about soya,’ she said.

  ‘Soya?’

  ‘Yes, soya.’

  ‘What’s soya got to do with anything?’ I said, baffled.

  Yanli looked down at the book. ‘I don’t know, but it’s really interesting. I didn’t know that soya beans are so useful. It says here that there are hundreds of different types of soya bean and as well as using them for food they can be used to make clothes, rope, containers, even lipstick.’

  ‘Why would he want to give me that?’ I said, thinking aloud.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Yanli, handing the book back to me, ‘but it’s very interesting. I’d like to read it when you have finished with it.’

  Yanli dropped me at the hotel. I was left with not much to do but look at a book about the soya bean in a language that I couldn’t read. Being a vegan means that I turn to the humble soya bean for many things. So a bit more information about the bean could have been useful, but I just couldn’t work out why that weird guy, Fat Thumb, would want to give me this knowledge. I ended up sending a couple of emails, watching Comrade Mao’s Long March on TV and practising my kung fu moves.