Zhengzhou Things to Do

What once was legendary for it's martial arts development is, today, little more than a pathetic excuse for a tourist spot. Kung Fu's history dates back a heck of a long time, but little of that history is visible. It's not really funny that something the Chinese have been trying to destroy for so many years, they're now trying to get World Heritage status for. Indeed, I believe the place has been burned a few times, in fairly recent history.

Enter the massive parking lot and step off into a newly-built sea of tourist vendors and yet-to-open shops. Your ticket should cost about 100 RMB, a rip-off that soaks you like many Chinese tourist traps. Then you walk in the gate and buy more junk. About a kilometer later, you'll start coming to the interesting stuff. Up some stairs on the right (maybe 500m to 1000m in) is a small theater that would make western fire marshalls a little ticked... people who can't wait for the next show pile into the aisles, on the floor, everywhere they can, to catch a flimsy show of well-trained students of Wu Shu, a performance martial art based on a lot of aerials and not so much on actual Kung Fu. Well, it's nice to watch, and they get music and lights going, but the show's over before you really see much.

Stagger back out into the light, past the touts and down the stairs to the right, walking the rest of the way to the actual temple. The temple itself is beautiful. It's pretty big and parts of it were under reconstruction, but it's quite worth the visit. But before you get any wild and crazy ideas of monks working wonders with Kung Fu amidst foggy mountains and the desolate serenity of a Shaolin Temple, keep in mind you're in China. Let the full reality of that sink in: there is hardly a quite place in China, much less a quiet tourist spot. Get ready for a few monks diluted by hundreds of tourists and groups flocking into my shots. If I go to shoot something, you can guarantee someone will either walk into the shot or, if no one's around, gather behind me to see what I'm shooting. I suppose my professional photographic vision is why I get paid the big bucks to be a photographer. Now I just need the big bucks...

Anyway, the floods of tour groups notwithstanding, it's an interesting, yet highly disappointing place. I knew ahead of time what to expect, but still went to pay my respects to the origin of Kung Fu, interesting to me because of a background in martial arts.

Another boon to the nature of Chinese, we were waiting to buy tickets for a golf-cart up to the parking lot, and a guy cut in line ahead of us and jumped on the cart ahead of us with his group. We missed the taxis and had to speedwalk back to not miss our bus. It left without us, but a guy on the bus stayed behind to arrange another bus for us. You see the good in people and the bad.