Mount Tai Crushes the Head
By Gene Ching -- Head Shaolin & Tai Chi Instructor for Wing Lam Kung Fu, Sunnyvale

The winter months are hard here at Lam Kwoon. Despite living in sunny California, our Kwoon building was designed to keep in the cold. Originally, it was meat locker. Later it became an ice skating rink. Now, it is my very cold work space. But we Kung Fu practitioners are accustomed to hardship. After a good workout, steam is rising off everyone's heads. We thrive here, working in harmony with the seasons of nature. While those other schools with their central heating may be more comfortable, we embrace our environment and adapt. Submitted for your approval, is a winter's tale of Lam Kwoon - of how one of my idols manifested before me and reminded me of my first experience of a holy mountain of China. In my past columns, I have shared with you my experiences of Shaolin's holy Mount Song, but the first holy mountain of China that I would ascend in this lifetime was Mount Tai.

There is one constant here at Lam Kwoon. Be it winter, spring, summer, or fall, every day I listen to the whap! slap! chop! poke! of Sifu Lam training his iron palm. It reverberates in these chilly halls like the dire wolf knocking at my door. But this winter's day was different. Sifu had postponed his practice temporarily to welcome two Chinese gentlemen who were touring the school. One was obviously a mainlander, and he had that "look" - the cool, calm eyes of a powerful master. I have seen it many times before. In the martial circles, a good rule of thumb is to beware of those who rush to greet you. They are the "little people", "shao ren" as the Mandarin put it literally, too eager to impress. Seek the master that waits for you to go to him. This Lam Kwoon guest had that clear carriage of confidence that made me want to see what he had. He also looked faintly familiar. Sifu Lam picked up on my curiosity, and we were later introduced. That master was none other than Sun Jiankui.

Who? No, this gentleman has nothing to do with Sun Jianyun or any of Sun Lutang's Tai Chi lineage. To be honest, I didn't wouldn't have known him just by his name alone either. But I knew him. So does anyone who has seen Jet Li's 1982 debut film, Shaolinsi (Shaolin Temple). Shaolinsi was the most important movie for all true Shaolin aficionados. Had it not been for Shaolinsi, the original Shaolin Temple would probably still be in ruins, the monks would still be struggling in poverty, and you would not be reading this article that I am writing now. In this way Shaolin Temple shares something with many aspects of our modern world, just like answering machines, cell phones, microwaves, the internet, compact discs, video recorders and copy machines. There are many of us who are old enough to remember when we did not have these things. But times change. Now we can't live without them.

Today, Shaolin Temple has been fully restored, but this was only after Shaolinsi was released. If you watch that film carefully, it captures an earlier era of our sacred foundation. Gone are those tacky tourist shops that surround the temple. The majestic Temple of Four Directions, which stands today directly across from Shaolin's famous temple gate, did not exist back then. The streets were not even paved. There was nothing but fields. Anyway, to get back to the point, Sun Jiankui was one of the stars of that pivotal movie. In fact, he was my personal favorite performer. He was the drunken staff monk.

So what does this have to do with Mount Tai? Well, like I said, Shaolin Temple was in ruins when the movie was made. Following the Cultural Revolution, only a few dozen monks resided there and they led a very isolated existence. Although they cooperated with the film makers, few real monks choose to appear in small cameos in this motion picture. Like most all Shaolin movies, the monks in Shaolinsi were portrayed by martial arts masters as actors. Despite the significance of Shaolinsi, most of these masters are forgotten here in the West, even in our martial community. We remember Jet Li because of his notoriety as China's only five-time all-around national champion and his work in later films like Lethal Weapon 4. Furthermore, most of us recognize Pan Qingfu, since he has immigrated here following his involvement with Mark Saltzman's Iron & Silk. But few of us know the Shandong connection. When Shaolinsi director Chang Hsin Yen was looking to cast martial artists for monks, he went to China's most famous province for fighters, that other holy mountain, Mount Tai in Shandong.

Westerners are often unfamiliar with Shandong's rich martial legacy. This is due to the fact that most of us learn about martial legends through the Kung Fu movies. The majority of these movies were produced in Hong Kong. Accordingly, they focus on folktales of nearby Canton, primarily the story of the betrayal of the southern Shaolin Temple by a Wudang priest. It has contributed to a bias in Western Kung Fu. With the vast diversity of China, many limit their martial knowledge to these folktales. This is like believing that all of the U.S.A. is just like San Francisco. Shaolin, Canton, even Wudang are familiar to us, but Shandong is overlooked.

However, any Chinese (or any well-read student of the martial arts) knows Shandong. It was the setting of the popular martial epic Outlaws of the Marsh. This classic book is the ultimate martial saga and has provided the basis for many of the plots in our beloved Kung Fu movies, as well as many fighting styles like in Wu Song Breaks Manacles and Yangqingquan. Outlaws of the Marsh is legend based on history, not unlike our own tale of King Arthur. It is set in Shandong (which literally means "eastern mountain") because that is where it took place. The geography of this region made it a disputed territory for dynasties. Accordingly, its people developed tremendous fighting skills, like praying mantis, over generations of battle.

Shaolinsi director Chang went to Shandong because of it's reputation for excellence in martial arts and culled some of the best of the best masters of China. Sun Jiankui is an award-winning master of broadsword and spear. Yu Hai (see Chinese Wushu Series Praying Mantis Boxing), who played the head monk, was the chief coach of the Shandong team and specializes in mantis. Other participants included Liu Huailiang, a rope dart and 3-section staff specialist and Wang Changkai, a master of single and double sword who assisted in the choreography. It was like the masters of Mount Tai coming to help their martial brothers on Mount Song.

From Mount Tai, to Mount Song, to San Francisco, what the Chinese call Jiujinshan of "Old Gold Mountain", Master Sun had come a long way to visit us on a cold winter's day. He had come as an emissary of the 4th Annual Jinan Traditional Martial Arts Festival. Sifu Lam had led his primary instructors (including me) to this tournament in 1991. It was the first time that any of us had set foot into mainland China and it was tremendous. They have invited us back every year since. This time, master Sun had come in person, bearing a banner for our school.

We westerners could learn something from the way tournaments are run in China. They are lavish affairs, true celebrations of martial brotherhood. In '91, the Jinan tournament staff made sure that we were well looked after in every way. Not only did they set us special training seminars on rare forms (I learned some mantis and a unique two-handed sword form), we participated in Cultural exchanges with the old masters, attended extraordinary banquets, and were nationally televised. In fact, our Jinan two-video set was that very television broadcast, in it's entirety. Plus they gave us some delightful mementos: a carry bag, a briefcase, a pocket business card holder, an enamel pin - all proudly bearing the logo of the tournament. In addition, they gave each of us a stunning martial arts embroidery and some Chinese liquor that Sifu said was top quality (although most of us had not developed a palette for such exotic liquors yet, so we found it a little challenging). Then there were the trophies: hand carved plates and large ceramic vases. Our team placed second, right behind the Chinese team, which is about as good as anyone could do against China at the time. After our victory, we had to cart crates of this precious pottery across China. Our train compartments were so full with trophies that there wasn't any room to walk. And now, Jinan had sent us a martial celebrity to personally invite us to attend another such event. With such a gracious show of face, how could we refuse?

So out of our cold school we went and into a warm dim sum restaurant - Master Sun, his friend, Sifu Lam, his wife Simu and me. He shared some wonderful stories of his life, complete with pictures from movie sets and practice halls around the world. I found myself entranced, a "little person" in the presence of such martial excellence, hoping for an autograph (which he kindly provided). As the chaotic feeding frenzy of the restaurant swirled around us, I was sitting inconspicuously in the company of one of China's best masters and brightest stars of the Kung Fu movie genre. Here was someone who had inspired me on the silver screen almost two decades ago - a true Shaolin hero. After it was all over, Sifu, Simu and I returned to chill of our Kwoon and began planning our 1999 Kung Fu Study tour to include Jinan.

Now I am listening again to that droning rhythm of Sifu's Iron Palm practice, trying to warm my own hands as I type. Winter is slowly giving birth to spring, and soon another summer will be upon us. And that summer will bring another journey to Mount Tai, where a "little person" like me can ascend like an emperor and speak to the gods. I hope you can be with us.