The Scenario has called this my “love letter to a certain dragon-slaying, flying, enlightened man who goes by the name of ‘The German Buddha’.” Although the premise is false, it is indeed a letter, and it’s filled with respect and affection for a very unique friend –– silent, Peter-Pan-ish, and who (I suspect) would befriend a dragon, sted of slaying it, if he ever meets one.

Pakinam Amer is an award-winning investigative journalist and travel writer. She’s currently living in the Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of Zen Buddhism and martial arts, in Henan province, China. Pakinam trains in traditional Shaolin Kung Fu at Lao Ta Gou, the best martial arts camp in the “Center of Heaven and Earth.” She sends weekly dispatches to CairoScene.com’s The Scenario, and in this mini-series, Shaolin Encounters, she talks about those who have inspired and awed her in China land.

If you meet the German Buddha on the road don’t kill him. Ask him to teach you some Kung Fu. Then kill him.

Everyone in Kung Fu school has something to say about Felix Fechner who, against his will, was forcefully nicknamed the ‘German Buddha’ mainly because of his shaved head, fiercely penetrative gaze, and his cult-like commitment to silence. Most of us here believe he’s thiiiiiiiiisss close to being enlightened.

He doesn’t want this nickname, of course. But we’re not budging either.

Felix ‘The German Buddha’ Fechner

Shen Jia, our Ta Gou Shifu and one of the best Kung Fu masters in Shaolin land, holds him in high esteem, sometimes calling him ‘tiger’; a compliment to his Kung Fu form’s agility, swiftness and power. Joan,  another classmate and a friend, is firmly convinced that Felix will one day become a monk, that he’s probably asexual or celibate (or both), and is perhaps destined to spend the rest of his life alone. And though when this was at first suggested, I quickly retorted that it’s “not true, Joan. You’re just jealous because he’s hot and you’re not,” I secretly believed Felix is a virgin too (… and that Joan is hot in his own way). Another classmate once said that Felix has a “strange presence” because of how meditative he is.

And finally yours truly likes to waver between unashamedly – perhaps even cheekily– declaring her unconditional fascination with his character and his brand of Kung Fu discipline (so much so that even CairoScene.com is convinced I have a crush on him), and ritualistically bullying him, because, well, you don’t get the chance to pick on a Buddha and make his life difficult every day, so why the hell not?

A Kung Fu and internal martial arts teacher himself in his hometown of Rostock and our group’s master student in China, Felix generally awes his classmates in the training hall. Forms, jumps, sparring, weapon use, acrobatics, you name it, he’s good at it all. And the young man receives the compliments as he would (our non-malicious) poking or sniggering – with a straight face.

He may blush a little at the compliments, sometimes.

Photo art by Ayman Wattar, original photography by Pakinam Amer

OK, OK, maybe Cairoscene.com is right and I do have a crush on him (and sure, if it makes the online magazine happy to know it, I firmly believe he has superpowers too, and can probably kill dragons and fly). But being over 30 automatically qualifies me for non-committal, brash and fearless sweet-talking and compliment-giving. It’s at once a rite of passage and  compensation for leaving the magical world of my twenties. I explained it very elegantly once to a friend: “I’m not bloody 19 anymore, if I see someone beautiful, guy or girl, I’m bloody well pointing it out…to their faces.”

Yes, I say “bloody” a lot, in a British accent, mind you. But I like to think I’m redeemable.

Besides, anyone who has met the Deutsch Buddha would find it hard not to gush about his Kung Fu skills. “If you decide to do something, do it with all your heart,” he says. And he does Kung Fu exactly like that – with heart.

Felix is one of the few trainees here who can spar with Sanda kick-boxers using traditional Kung Fu and win. In one spar with a Vietnamese Sanda student, the Vietnamese got momentarily distracted from the fight, asking Felix to repeat some moves that he used against him in attack or defense because they’re just “so cool.”

Explaining his method to humble martial-artists-in-training like myself, he says: “Always fight in your system. Not the system of the opponent.” When sparring with advanced boxing students, he even refuses to wear gloves, preferring to feel the punches on his bare fists, “the bare skin gives me a better feeler to how strong a blow is,” he says.

Between long bouts of silence, he shares his reflections on the martial arts – occasionally talking about it in the abstract while I pretend to get it. “What is Kung Fu?” he once asked rhetorically. “It’s a question you have to answer many times during the years. In different phases of your life, you’ll get a different answer. It’s not an absolute. That’s why you have to find your own Kung Fu. Adapt, depending on your history and needs. First comes form, then the formless.”

He smiled with that last reference to the popular Bruce Lee saying. Of course I nodded vigorously in agreement. I had no idea what that meant. And I often didn’t when fellow martial artists would say things like “be water, my friend,” as per Lee. I thank them warmly for the reminder then brood thinking “What the f*** was that about?”

Photo Art by Ayman Wattar, original photography by Katja Just

Back to Felix.

The German Buddha couldn’t tell me exactly when he started falling in love with Kung Fu. “It’s like breathing,” he responded when I pressed on. “It just happened. It has been with me since forever.”

Getting Felix to talk about his personal philosophy of Kung Fu – or to talk at all – wasn’t easy, and before our friendship blossomed, it took quite an effort from my part (I;m generally a chatter box when I’m out of my voluntary solitary confinement) to drag the German Buddha, naturally silent and contemplative, out of his cave.

We went a long way, from him telling me that I “talk too much” and that I should try to “stop talking for a while” –the sheer shock of his words shut me up for a couple of days – to us chatting for hours about everything from philosophy, religion, and  Ip Man (a famed martial arts legend), to his favorite fantasy character (it’s a dark elf called Drizzt Do’Urden, if you’re wondering). The crescendo was when he admitted that he’d love to learn “how to talk using hands” too. I even got to witness his tongue-in-cheek sense of humor before he packed up and left Shaolin.

One is also tempted to gush about the excellence of his form, because he doesn’t. Throw a compliment at the Buddha, and he nonchalantly shrugs his shoulder, gives you a small unreadable smile or dismisses it lightly. And if you’re observant, you can catch that split-of-a-second wince. I suspect that on some level compliments hurt to hear. But I don’t dig there, lest I thrash his privacy bubble (which I might very well do, if I’m not careful).

Seeing him in training, however, gives his secret away: he works hard. I don’t believe in talent, or genetic superiority. And I suspect Felix’s skill came after years of teeth-gritting and that same old ‘practice makes perfect’ maxim.

In fact, Felix was enrolled in Kung Fu school by his parents at the age of five (it was his birthday present – I know, don’t ask!), and he has been doing Kung Fu ever since. He studied gymnastics and sports as an undergraduate, and currently he’s finishing a masters degree in sports education. At 20, he started his training in China for the first time at the Shaolin Temple’s Ta Gou school, the harshest and hardest Kung Fu camp here, spending six months there in one go, with total 24-7 dedication to Kung Fu.

In Germany, he studied at two different schools including the prestigious Thammavong Schul  for Kung Fu, Qi Gong and Chinese Therapy, until he rose up the ranks and became an instructor himself.

Felix is also an expert in Qi Gong, which aligns breath and awareness to manipulate life energy (an internal art associated with the Shaolin tradition). He dabbled in a brand of Chinese massage called Tuina in addition to studying Traditional Chinese Medicine or TCM.

Acting as a co-teacher to our Shifu here in Ta Gou, years after his first visit to China, I experienced Felix’s teaching first-hand. I blogged earlier about an “incident” in the training hall where I disengaged from training and took it out on him and those around me (I tend to do that, I have a wide variety of demons and ghosts that haunt me on occasion, and some serious baggage from the past). I alluded to the fact that he is the kind of teacher than can be at once motivating and unapologetic about his expectations.

Felix Fechner in action

I don’t have to ask him to know that Felix doesn’t garner any respect for those who refuse to try, or just give up easily. Be as “haunted” by your past as you may, it’s your right to harbor mental or emotional pains, but as difficult as the training is, Felix believes in “showing up,” and after a few deep talks, some resistance on my part (and various excuses), the belief soon became contagious and I found myself believing in that too.

You see, the young man has been all through those mental battles, developing an impressive ability to see through the barriers that our minds set. I suspect the skill has to do with his own training in athletics. Maybe it’s something they teach in sports schools, or maybe it’s a gift, or a bit of both.

“The mind doesn’t go easy when we try to push it beyond a certain threshold or plateau,” he tells me. And if you lose concentration, you become weaker, more susceptible to attacks, “you’re not good enough, you missed many moves, your horse stance is weak…” the mind nags. “You train yourself to detach from this,” he says. “Listen to the mind. There’s no bad message. Or good message. It’s just a message.”

“Your body has a history,” Felix muses. “Circumstances you’ve passed through, emotions, what your parents gave you. Not everyone is the same. It helps to remember that. Because if you start thinking, based on this history, that you’re not good enough, that you can’t continue pushing, your body will keep that message. When you’re tired, it’s easier for the mind to feed you these messages again and again, and it’ll be easier for you then to believe them.”

I’m lucky that I keep running into people who remind me that the “negativity” is nothing but a mind glitch. How many of us desperately rebuff vicious offensives from the brain as soon as we start something new, decide to push our limits or even change a nasty habit in our daily lives? How many of us have been told, by our very own minds, that perhaps we’re destined to be failures, unloved, overweight, or uncoordinated or average or alone? How many were beckoned to give in?

“But it helps to be aware of all that, and to bring your body to be here, to feel your surroundings,” he adds. “I’m sitting with you now, being aware of the voices of trainees in the distance, the wind blowing on my right side, which got stronger in the last two minutes. It helps me to be in the now. And when you’re in the now, there are no borders [to what you can do]. Same with training. I try to bring the same spirit to my Kung Fu form. To be in the now.”

As if suddenly realizing this can all make him look good or something, he shifts in his seat slightly and quickly says, “Of course, I only try. I don’t get it all the time. As much as possible, I bring myself to calm down, listen, and observe what’s happening around me.”

We were sitting on a bench, amid greenery, outside the gates of our school, and nearer to the Shaolin Temple, it was getting dark as he told me those words, laughing a little at the end, and making some jokes lest I take him too seriously. He was right, the wind blew at our right, and I only noticed when he pointed it out. Before that, my awareness was somewhere else. I blame my monkey mind.

And now the German Buddha, like many others who pass through Shaolin, has left, and he took his silence with him, the one I used to poke fun at. That evening on the bench was his last here.

As visitors to the temple trickle away by the day and with the weather getting colder on the Songshan mountain, and the grounds emptier, it makes it easy to fall into a contemplative, nostalgic silence too … and it all made me realize that the German Buddha’s silence was so much different than the brand of silence, the emptiness, he’d left behind. Our classmate was right; he does have a presence.

The same goes for all those who came and departed, other Kung Fu warriors-in-training who have made me think, made me laugh, reassured me or captured my heart. Each left behind a certain silence. But that’s for another post.

Alas, silences are not the same.

(Yes, I said “Alas”).

Amituofo.

Note: The German Buddha, our Shifu [Kung Fu master] Shen Jia and yours truly have decided to give Egypt a taste of Shaolin in February 2013, fusing the “retreat” and the “bootcamp” experiences into a 10-day training camp in Shaolin Kung Fu, energy work and active meditation in one of Egypt’s most scenic and serenest spots between mountains and sea. If you’re interested in training with Mr. Fechner and Shifu Shen Jia (I’ll be a student there too), do check out our facebook page: www.facebook.com/ShaolinDragonCamp and our blog www.shaolindragoncamp.com. We spill out all the details there.

Follow us on Twitter: Myself at @pakinamamer and Felix at @Moving_F

Pakinam chronicles her China adventures, in text, videos and pictures, on her personal blog: http://pakinamlights.tumblr.com.

Pakinam Amer is an award-winning investigative journalist and travel writer. She’s currently living in the Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of Zen Buddhism and martial arts, in Henan province, China. Pakinam trains in traditional Shaolin Kung Fu at Lao Ta Gou, the best martial arts camp in the “Center of Heaven and Earth.” She sends weekly dispatches to The Scenario.

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat. “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

“You must be,” said the Cat. “Or you wouldn’t have come here.”

I have always been desperate to belong – to an idea, a country, a fan-base, a group of religious zealots, whatever. Somehow, and on an emotional level, I needed the protection and reassurance that came with being ‘one of us’ whoever the ‘us’ were.

Over the years, I’ve associated and dissociated with many ‘groups’.I was that girl who would go into something, with all her heart and passion, get all fiery or worked up about it, rise up the ranks with impressive speed, even lead, and (allow me to say) awe and inspire, then with the same intensity I’d stumble back down in disenchantment or boredom, or both, pack up and leave. I’d vanish as quickly as I’d appeared, always with a bang. Sometimes I’d look back in wonderment, or in regret, other times I’d hurl stones at that phase, sometimes I’m consumed by anger, or peaceful acceptance, but I’d always, always move on (even if I had to excruciatingly drag some leftover baggage along as I did).

I’ve crossed paths with Muslim Brotherhood members and Salafis, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings nerds, hardline journalists and hippies, intellectuals and skeptics, creative writers, fundamentalists, liberals, free spirits, comic book lovers and whatnot. And in those instances where our poles of existence merged into one, I genuinely thought I was one of them. I’m one of the pack, I’m part of a support system, an all for one, one for all fraternity and it felt good (as long as I periodically talked myself into believing it’s true).

Belonging is romantic.

Deep inside, I belonged no where. I was stranded. Always in the “in-between,” in that place where you’re among them but not one of them. The chronic loneliness was my northern star – it always led me back full circle to square one. It reminded me, in a very painful way, that I’m not one of that crowd or this crowd, no matter how much I pretended to be otherwise. And it killed me. It felt like being rejected, like Earth and its small communities the world over cannot accommodate me.

Now, here I am in a Kung Fu school in the Shaolin Temple, part inspired to discover what lies in the deepest recesses of my being, and part running away from old ghosts, and hoping they won’t catch up. And it feels safe to be here, and there are so many things that I can belong to with ease: Kung Fu, the foreigners’ camp, Lao Ta Gou, Shaolin warriors, Buddhism, travelers and wanderers, adventurers and more. And in China, you’re encouraged to be one of many, to be part of a bigger, stronger unit.

But I cannot get myself to completely relate to any of that with the same passion that I once dreamt I’d be able to muster. And I decided to accept that. I look around me, and everyone is different. Some students come here for the love of Kung Fu, others to get a career in teaching it, a few because they’re not wanted back home by family or friends or both (or because they feel unwanted), others because they were heartbroken and needed to flee, some do it as a form of therapy, some do it because “it feels right,” while some are hoping to find Buddha or Nirvana, or some old wisdom to reassure them that the world has some meaning after all, and that all of this show is not in vain.

Back in my old school Xiaolong, my Shifu once joked that I’m “crazy. Pakinam is a crazy girl.” Joan, a classmate from Spain, now a friend, immediately responded, “But who’s not crazy here? We all are.”

And suddenly it hit me: I belong, after all. Not to a name or a tag. Not to Buddha or Kung Fu, or Egypt or Islam or the Arab Nation. Or my friends, or Earth, or the animal kingdom. Sure, it’s all part of me, but it’s not me. And I don’t belong in the same way that I’d always dreamt I’d belong.

I belong here, to this moment, among this circus of dreamers, lost souls, idealists, truth-seekers, the confused, the weird and awkward, the wounded, the abandoned, the desperate, the silent, the boisterous, the enthusiasts, the want-to-be-believers, the agnostics, the mad, mad crowd.

If I’m here, like Alice, then I must be one of them.

Who are they? The aliens, each coming from a different planet, with a different baggage, issues, languages, ideas, and versions of reality, and who somehow landed on the same spot on Earth, and found each other.

What do we have in common? That we all don’t belong anywhere.

Neither here nor there.

And that we have no advice or wisdom to offer; no answers to any of the existential questions, and no clue on who made the world, or what should happen next. And no matter how different our circumstances are, we’re together in how we feel estranged, even among our own people, like our home is always somewhere else, may be in the next stop, may be on the next planet, may be around the corner.

We get a glimpse of that sacred connectedness, that unity with the world, when we’re wandering like we do, running into other kindred spirits, criss-crossing paths with strangers who for some odd reason feel like friends, and revealing some truths about our own existence along the way.

And it might not be as romantic as loyalty to an idea, a uniform, a person, cult, a book or a faith group, but it works, and when it does, it’s beautiful and the loneliness almost dissipates and for a few moments the world feels right, balanced and whole.

* This post is dedicated to Shaolin Kung Fu Warriors Felix, Joan, Jin, Marry, Jack, Tolik, Daniella, and the Fawang Temple crowd. May you always find a path to light and love, wherever on this Earth you roam. 

Pakinam chronicles her China adventures, in text, videos and pictures, on her personal blog: http://pakinamlights.tumblr.com. She also tweets at @pakinamamer.

Pakinam Amer is an award-winning investigative journalist and travel writer. She is currently in Henan Province in China, living near the Shaolin Temple in the martial arts town known as Dengfeng, learning Kung Fu in a boarding school called “Little Dragon”, and chronicling her journey for CairoScene in “The Shaolin Letters: An Egyptian girl’s adventures in ‘Kung Fu China”…

At the end of April, I was greeted with what I initially regarded as a pleasant surprise: a fresh English-speaking foreigner who has just arrived in Xiaolong. Tiberias, an Austrian, is a tall sturdily-built 21-year-old who intends to spend the next year learning Kung Fu. When he arrived he was slightly timid, and in the initial phase of panic, reminding me with myself when I first arrived here.

When I met him in the dinning hall, he looked relieved to have met another foreigner. Because of the language difficulty and the strangeness of Chinese culture to outsiders, it often feels as if on one end of the Earth there’s China, and on the other there’s the rest of the world. All foreigners come from one huge country, and the Chinese, well, they all come from this remote island called China.

When my Shifu (Kung Fu teacher) saw how warmly I greeted an American classmate – the first non-Chinese I had run into when I first arrived at the school – he murmured that “foreigners seem to like only other foreigners.” He couldn’t get it. And the statement has some truth, simply because in China it’s just easier to deal with another foreigner than with a Chinese living in the mainland; a region that seems sheltered from the rest of the world, harbouring a distinctive yet odd flavour and culture. Foreigners are also regarded in the same way by many Chinese — we’re all one people, who come from a land far, far away.

After asking where I’m from, Tiberias—the blond Austrian student who doesn’t eat pork “because it says so in the Bible”— quickly asked, “Are there any other white boys?” He chuckled. Intuitively, I knew that he was in fact serious; he really wanted the reassurance that he wasn’t the only white boy. And I gave him that, telling him about John, the American and Chris, the Aussie.

Tiberias had never done Kung Fu, and before the ice was broken, he threw in the question, “Are you crazy to come here alone? All this way to learn Kung Fu? And you’re a girl.” I made a mental note to never assume that all Europeans or “Westerners” (for lack of a better term) are as open-minded about females being slightly eccentric as I’d like to think they are. My bad! “Well, I need a break from work, and I like Kung Fu movies, so it made sense,” I quietly responded. He smiled, and said in Austrian-accented English, “Yeah, me too. I love Kung Fu movies.”

I’d realised that every time someone asked me why I came here, I gave a slightly modified answer. Always a new response. It all made me wonder if I knew the real reason myself. Perhaps if I hadn’t come here, I would’ve lost my mind back in Cairo. I felt a desperate need to disengage. The desire to flee — albeit with a bang and a bit of flare — was eating me up.

If you must escape, don’t run off to the next town, I thought. That’s just boring. If you’re doing it anyway, if you’ve resigned your will to it, you might as well glue on a pair of wings and fly to the moon. We chatted about the food, and I told him how I got used to it, and actually craved it after initially finding it strange-tasting. He wondered about the small strips of meat in the vegetable dishes, and I explained that it’s pork. He said he doesn’t eat it —and I have to admit he’s the first Christian I meet who believes pork is forbidden by the Bible. I said that as a Muslim I usually don’t eat it either, but since there isn’t enough protein in the meals, I make exceptions.

“Ah, you’re a Muslim?”
“I am.”
“Not being a very good role model eating pork like that.”
“Not really, no,” I said, smiling. Long gone where the days when I’d feel an urge to justify my actions. It’s easier to nod, smile and agree.
“So you follow Quran?” Tiberias inquired.
“Yes, but not to the letter.”
“So you kill people?”
“I try not to, but I think about it a lot,” I said with a straight face.

He laughed, then sobered a bit, and suddenly, adopting a more formal, serious tone, he mused: “Those who kill people don’t really follow the Quran. The Quran says don’t kill people, be good.”

Tiberias spoke in intervals, pausing momentarily mid-sentences, seemingly to search for the right English words, or maybe just the right words. After chatting with him for a while I started mirroring this mannerism, pausing between short sentences or enunciating my words for the sake of clarity.

“Yeah,” was the only response I could give. I was reminded how it’s exhausting sometimes to talk about my religion and all the stereotypes associated with it. So I gave brief answers, occasionally just courteous nods. Later that night, and after gulping a few beers, he contradicted that view about the Quran, lecturing me on how the Muslim holy book demanded that believers kill people and “do violent things” if “they occupy a state.” By then, his manner of speaking gained a different momentum. His judgements —about Muslims, Catholics, and those “who don’t follow God in the right way”— reeked of a brand of fanaticism I knew too well.

However, during that first lunch, none of his stubborn beliefs or violent streak immediately surfaced, and after speaking briefly about Islam, Tiberias went on to tell me how he doesn’t follow the Roman Church, and that he believed the Church — as an institution— messes up religion. “They don’t know shit,” he said conclusively. “I just follow the Bible, I’m not part of a group or a movement.”

“I’m not part of a group either,” I said. Suddenly images of Salafis and Brotherhood members (who probably were at each other’s throats politically speaking at the time) flashed into my mind. I shook the vision off, wanting to clear my head of all things past. These images belong back home, I firmly ordered my mind. I’m here now. Only this exists.

I turned away from Tiberias, who sat at my right, and decided to give my attention to my now half-full food tray, picking up the plastic chopsticks and shoveling some steamed rice with tofu into my mouth. Controlling the mind is much easier in this part of the world, I thought.

“What weapon did you choose?” Tiberias’ voice budged in seconds later.

“I don’t use any weapons yet, just my bare hands at this stage. I’m still learning Taolu’s basic forms. Perhaps next month,” I said.

At the time I was only done with my first form — Xiao Hong Quan— and a short second one called Wu Bu Quan. I wasn’t eager to try with Kung Fu weapons. But I didn’t mind training with a stick or a sword. Whips and chains are pretty advanced weaponry, and back then I suspected I’d be striking and injuring myself silly instead of any “opponent” in a real fight with these. My Shifu is specialized in the Jiujiebian — the nine-section chain whip— but I find it awfully scary.

When push came to shove several weeks after that lunch, I started training with the staff, then my Shifu added the broadsword or “Dao” to my routine.

At the end of my lunch with Tiberias, Lucky showed up and asked in broken English if I got my passport back from Border Control. I said I should be getting it next week, hopefully with a 6-months residence permit. When he was gone, Tiberias asked, “Hey, was that guy speaking to you in Mandarin?”

“No, English of course.”

“It sounded like Chinese to me,” Tiberias said.

Amused, I assured him he’ll soon get used to the Chinese accent. I gave Tiberias a hurried orientation, told him where he should receive his uniform, and where to buy snacks between training. I gave him a brief of the training routine and schedule. I left him to make a cup of coffee in my room before the pre-training fast.

It was a short afternoon encounter, but it made me feel that old ghosts can still catch up with you, and that they come back to haunt you in many forms. Tiberias’ manic monologues about God and the state of affairs often made me feel sorry for him, in the same way that I felt sorry for stringently religious friends back home. Conversations with some people are more like spiritual experiences that remind me how healing it is to connect to human beings who’re at once mystified and fascinated by the world and its workings. But not with Tiberias and his likes.

I have been lucky to run into knowledge seekers in this part of the world, people with the right balance of skepticism, curiosity and compassion. Tiberias, meanwhile, seemed to have already formed unwaveringly concrete beliefs about everything around him – something I’ve seen plaguing my own people, the very thing that had once and twice driven me away from my home and my country to seek sanctuary elsewhere.

A month after our first encounter, Tiberias threatened to “smash my face with his fist” and beat me to a pulp when I refused to acknowledge that he’s “the strongest Kung Fu student in the school,” a tall order considering he has the worst technique I’ve seen, and he’s uncoordinated to a disastrously laughable degree. The threat, which was very real, and very unfunny, was the crescendo of weeks of Tiberias trying to convert me to his twisted version of Christianity, or undermining my spiritual inclinations (which include an affinity and a deep respect towards Buddhist and Taoist philosophies), in addition to attempting to convince me that the Big Bang didn’t happen and that the U.S. government is literally in cohorts with the Devil. I simply asked him not to talk to me again, and reported his behavior to the Shifu.

Whoever made the world didn’t assign these people to speak on his behalf, I thought.

That thought and the decision to put my foot down and cast out another destructive behavior (and person) from my life marked yet another departure from that world, where faith, fundamentalism, stereotypes, judgments and anger have painfully spoiled the reality that perhaps we’re here for something more transcendent than word play or wars in the name of God.

For more on Pakinam’s adventures you can check out her  personal blog here:http://pakinamlights.tumblr.com. She also tweets at @pakinamamer

This article first appeared on CairoScene.com and it’s part of a series  written exclusively for Cairo Scene: The Scenario

Before the awakening comes bad dreams …

It is said that before reaching samadhi —a state of total absorption, transcendence; a spiritual merging with the Divine— Buddha was sent dreams of world destruction, falling stars, collision and loss. In Buddhism dreams are false and illusory; they symbolize the imperfect nature of the senses.

To Buddhists, not unlike to Muslims, our dreams are dreams within dreams; it is believed that one day we will awaken from this life, in itself nothing but a false dream.

Many Buddhists also believe that whatever we overcome or cultivate in the dream state can be cultivated in reality; the dream is but a visualization of what we are capable of (even if not on a conscious level) in the awakened state.

So for instance, if you manage to overcome a fear in a dream or cultivate compassion in the face of suffering, you might be able to do the same in reality; it’s a message from your soul that you can do it. Both states mirror each other.

Whatever you do in one state, you can replicate in the other.

And whatever you fear or cower from in a state, comes out in the other too.

Chris dreamt he was being chased by snakes, while I dreamt of being stuck in a job I hated in Maspero, and of being robbed of all my belongings.

Chris is the super-ripped, and quite accomplished Aussie student who has been living on this Kung Fu camp for more than a year, after quitting a job in an oil company. He’s now taking lessons in Sanda-style fighting, and is in many ways a Kung Fu nerd. A few months ago, he used to live in the Chinese dorms inside the school and shared a room with at least three other Chinese students. While we were having breakfast one day in the great hall (humor me!), Chinese classmates kept coming up to him, recounting something in Mandarin, some suppressing giggles while others bursting with laughter. It looked to me like they were sharing some sort of an inside joke.

“It’s just that I had this nightmare last night,” Chris explained to me. “It was so scary, I practically jumped out of my bed, and into the one right next to me. I think I screamed too.”

He told me that his roommates found it hilarious and ended up telling their friends, and now word is going around school and the students are sharing the funny anecdote.

“What was the nightmare about?” I asked, humored by the story.

“Snakes,” he responded.

“It’s always snakes. Loads of them.”

“Were you attacked by any snakes here in the school, or in Dengfeng?” I asked, a tad bit alarmed.

“No, no. But we had snakes back in Australia,” he said.

“Poisonous?”

“Hell yeah,” said Chris.

It was certainly funny to imagine Chris —a hunk passionate about Kung Fu, deemed “unbeatable” by his Chinese classmates (he once knocked out his opponent cold during a tournament with a superb kick, and everyone refused to fight him afterward), usually gung ho and a little cheeky— coming out of a dream sweating, screaming, and bouncing off his bed.

I didn’t share with him the intricate details of my own dream experiences —also of fears originating from home, now a land so far away— but I told him I can definitely relate. Only a day before that conversation with Chris, it suddenly struck me while I was hiking in the hills near the Shaolin Temple that despite being absorbed in the training and this novel experience, I had been leading a separate, more turbulent life … in my dreams.

At that moment I whipped out my phone and decided to text my sister. “I’ve been having strange dreams lately,” I wrote. I was worried, because I didn’t know what they meant. It wasn’t like the dreams influenced my mood or affected my day; they didn’t. And I always wake up rested. “But the dreams, as I experience them, are very vivid, very powerful,” I explained to her.

Once in China, my old troubles seemed so far away. But there was something I was doing during the day —perhaps heightened concentration on learning something so fresh and foreign to me— that seemed to push down all other thoughts and worries, rendering them irrelevant.

“But whatever is suppressed during the day seems to be released during the night. It’s like I’m leading two separate lives,” I wrote to her.

She responded by saying that perhaps this is part of healing; that healing is not the absence of problems or fears but is how we separate ourselves from them, and how we prevent them from influencing us.

It was a good response, one that Buddha himself might have agreed with.

You see, in Buddhism, dreams are false, because they’re attachments to conditioned states. But they’re also a test: Are you ready to leave whatever you’re clinging to behind? Our souls are filled with afflictions and pains. To be enlightened is to be empty of all this, to stop needing all this. So perhaps like my sister said, I’m just emptying my vessel. The pains had left my awakened state, and descended into my dream state. And soon when I heal completely, they will leave my dreams too.

Perhaps then, there will be no need for illusions, suffering or dreams.

And I say “need” because we cling on, willingly. We hang on to pain sometimes simply because we know it too well, we’re afraid that without it we might not recognize ourselves anymore.

You see, reaching Nirvana is as much about asking questions, opening yourself up for compassion and love, as well as annihilation time after another, as it is about making a decision to let go.

It’s not only about the question of “how can I stop suffering?” but about “Do I want to?”

This post originally appeared on CairoScene.com 

Feel free to stalk me at @pakinamamer 

Pakinam Amer is an award-winning investigative journalist and travel writer. She is currently in Henan Province in China, living near the Shaolin Temple in the martial arts town known as Dengfeng, learning Kung Fu in a boarding school called “Little Dragon,” and chronicling her journey for CairoScene in “The Shaolin Letters: An Egyptian girl’s adventures in ‘Kung Fu China.”

I chugged warm green tea out of my over-sized plastic bottle, seated in uniform among hundreds of other Shaolin Kung Fu students, enviously eyeing our school’s chosen performers; some young as 10 and others in their early twenties. Most had shaved their heads in preparation for the school’s tournament, a celebrated event that took place twice a year in Shaolin Si Xiaolong.

The fighters donned proper Kung Fu attire with beautiful embroidery depicting colorful dragons and phoenixes (powerful Yin and Yang symbols among martial artists). The older ones were either shirtless despite the chill in the air or wore sleeveless tops that showed off their intricately designed arm and hand tattoos, as well as their ripped and toned muscles.

Instead of being psyched up, the competitive, electrifying atmosphere tensed and intimidated me, though I was far-flung from competing as could be. Being painfully aware that I’m a beginner, with little sports background, a late start into the martial arts, and no fitness conditioning in the past decade to save face, I felt the odds well-stacked against me to ever compete in this sport. What the hell am I doing here? I thought darkly.

On the makeshift stage, a group of students ascended, greeted the line-up of seated Shifus – Kung Fu teachers and masters – who were acting as judges. They froze into a ready stance, and awaited their cue.

Warmth began to course through my veins, as I gulped the tea, the calming effect more emotional than physical. Despite my Shifu’s attempts to help me be mentally tough, the only “toughness” I exercised so far remained confined to the area of mental flogging. I’m always mad at myself, either for not taking care of my body in the past or for failing to immediately rise up to my peers’ level in the present. Harsh, I know, but uncontrollable for the most part.

Then again, the kindest feedback I got for my Kung Fu thus far was “very cute.” My Chinese Shifu humorously said it while evaluating my form; I joked later on Twitter that “to those unfamiliar with Shaolin Kung Fu jargon, ‘very cute’ is right between ‘you’re a Kung Fu dork’ and ‘go home, Kung Fu is not for you.’”

But I survived. 

On stage, the grinding began. Fists punching, legs twirling in the air, and bodies flipping elegantly.They make it look so easy. 

At that moment, a voice deep inside (Miss Compassion, I call it) whispered an afterthought, “You know better.”

And I do. In essence, I wasn’t part of the enthralled audience that claps in awe at a magician’s illusory tricks, and wonders in amazement how it’s done – not anymore.

I know what it takes to be excellent, like those kids. 

I knew it as a journalist, carving her way up from complete anonymity and less than average skills to some solid published work and a good measure of reassuring recognition by peers and senior editors. I know it now as a Kung Fu student, negotiating the fundamentals, and snuggled in self-doubt at the bottom of the Shaolin food chain.

It takes a whole lot of pain, falling apart, tripping over again and again, strenuous hours of exercise, waking at the break of dawn, shutting yourself off from the world, beating yourself over the head for missing training or slacking off, braving the elements and sometimes extreme boredom, loneliness and lack of motivation to press on, dealing with body image issues and some baggage from the past. It takes trying to meditate and failing, then trying and succeeding, then trying and failing again. It takes knee-pain, back pain, sore muscles, twists and sprains, and lots and lots of frustration. It takes getting up and doing it, over and over and over again, like a song on an endless loop.

It can very well make you what you want to be, or drive you to the brink of madness.

It takes waking up every day to the idea that you’re average and ordinary at best, in the hope that one day you will wake up and realise you’re not anymore; that you’re finally a pro. And you know what? Deep inside, you know that it makes no difference, because even superheroes have to practice. So once on top, you’ll still have to go on, and practice. Again.

You see, this is the nuts and bolts of getting good at something; in a twisted way, it is a socially accepted brand of masochism, and self-flagellation.

“No one has to do this. I don’t have to do it, really, but I’m here,” Miss Compassion said. “And that must mean something. Perhaps I’m getting a kick out of all this.” 

Lots of kicks actually, like the ones I’m dreaming one day I’ll be able to do.  

The students on stage finish their form demonstration, and their friends and admirers cheer and clap enthusiastically.

My own group – Taolu Group Number Nine–  has some Kung Fu misfits; a kid with a huge pair of thicker-than-average specs, another with a thicker-than-average brain, one who’s significantly overweight, and one who looks anorexic to balance things out. There’s one who’s completely withdrawn and one who’s terribly coordinated, yet oddly comfortable with his shortcomings. That last one is the class clown.

Every group has its share of people who shouldn’t, by any means, belong in a Kung Fu school, but they stay, and surprisingly still proclaim their love for the sport that they so suck at.

And maybe that’s really what it takes.

Perhaps at the core, it’s not about dragging yourself to the training hall every single day (although that helps too), but about staying. It’s about continuing to suck, until you don’t. And enduring all the odds the world throws against you, while refusing to budge.

For more on Pakinam’s adventures you can check out her  personal blog here:http://pakinamlights.tumblr.com. She also tweets at @pakinamamer (www.twitter.com/pakinamamer)

This post was originally published on CairoScene.com 

*Comic Art by Marwan Imam

Pakinam Amer is an award-winning investigative journalist and travel writer. She is currently in Henan Province in China, living near the Shaolin Temple in the martial arts town known as Dengfeng, learning Kung Fu in a boarding school called “Little Dragon,” and chronicling her journey for CairoScene.com in “The Shaolin Letters: An Egyptian girl’s adventures in ‘Kung Fu China.”

“People here are so ignorant of the outside world. They really don’t know anything about the rest of the world, and it doesn’t look like they want to,” declared John, the Sanshou American student who used to live on the foreign camp’s dorms in Shaolin Si Xiaolong Wuyuan, my boarding Kung Fu school, near the Shaolin Temple. At the time, were discussing how “different and unplugged” the Chinese living in Dengfeng are.

Dengfeng, part of Henan province, a town that sprung around the temple and ever since has been swarming with Kung Fu students, masters and monks, is deep in the heart of mainland China – raw and unmodernized.

“You know what John?,” I responded at the time, more than three months back. “If I hadn’t been here and if you’d told me that exact same phrase back in Egypt, I would’ve thought you’re just another arrogant, judgmental American, but now, I agree. It’s just shocking how little information they have about anything beyond this area,” I said.

In addition to being unprivileged when it comes to education, knowledge of other cultures and technology, small differences in habits often surprise them. For instance, Chinese in this area drink hot water, believing it’s healthier. I tried to probe to know the wisdom behind that, but none was given. I asked Chris “Luka,” the Aussie being the savvy student among us, and he responded laughingly, “There probably isn’t any wisdom. Some guy said it a thousand years ago, so they do it.”

A day later, during break, I was summoned by several Shifus (“Shifu” means master and father, and it is used as a respectful title to address one’s Kung Fu teacher). They wanted to chat. As is the case with almost everyone here, they barely knew any English, so my Shifu Li Yong Hui, acted as the translator. They asked where I’m from, and I said, “Egypt.” And all they knew about the country was the fact that it has pyramids and “black people.”

They asked about my job, and I explained that “I write in a newspaper,” gesturing with my hands, and they looked impressed. They don’t get newspapers in the school, but some places sell them in town. They asked if Egypt had any Kung Fu schools. I said it probably has a few, but added that we have Karate schools, abundantly. My Shifu nodded murmuring, “ah, Japanese Kung Fu.” That’s how they know it here.

I was the first Egyptian they meet. And at that moment, I felt I was the teacher, as we sat cross-legged in a tight circle, and they listened attentively.

During the interjections of silence, I could hear the echo of hundreds of battle cries, sword clanking, and whip cracking as thousands of Kung Fu students trained across the school. Even during breaks, the performing monks and some advanced students persisted in training.

Momentarily, I felt I was in a different era; transported back in time several decades.

One Shifu said he was surprised my skin is not darker, adding amusedly that I’m the same color as them, but that my features look more like the “Chinese living in the North.” I responded by saying that “Egyptians come in all colors.” That drew some smiles. Others also asked if we “cultivate rice in Egypt.” I said we do, not understanding why that piece of information would be significant to anyone.

Secretly, I thought to myself, perhaps they actually think I live in a pyramid. But somehow, this notion didn’t in the least bit offend me. And I didn’t bother to try and correct it or explain that Egypt is very modern in comparison to Dengfeng.

I don’t even know if that’s a plus.

Despite the ruggedness and the simplicity of life here, it still has a special something that distinguishes it from a big city, despite the multitude of services and comforts the latter provides.

Mind you, life here is rugged, especially on Xiaolong camp. John, Chris and I joked once that some prison facilities in the West might be friendlier, comfier and cleaner than most of the sleeping and dinning halls here.

But its invisible edge ––the magical touch this place has–– could very well be due to the fact that it feels stranded, amid sky-high green mountains, suspended in time, and unconcerned with the burdens the rest of the world carries. Perhaps it’s the fact that life revolves around small things: training, eating, exchanging some harmless, humorous gossip, enjoying a good hot shower or a sound sleep.

It’s true that people here are in a strange kind of bubble, separated from our very connected world — bustling with broadcasts, chatter and virtual images, and the buzz of millions interacting via the Internet, phones, cinema, art, politics or what have you. And it does seem like ––excuse my bluntness–– people here are, well, ignorant.

But really, do they need to know what we know or have what we have in order to be “cultured”  or “knowledgeable”?

And has knowledge brought us happiness, or peace of mind?

Here they are, living a bare life, but managing to laugh loudly, speak with passion, bend their legs and arms in every direction, kick and punch with gusto and no anger, sleep like babies and wake at sunrise. And back there, in the now-modern lands of the pyramids or in other big cities, I’ve seen people leading much more sophisticated lives, blessed with superior learning, yet struggling with insomnia, anxiety, drenched in worries; their minds going in loops, and slowly driving them crazy.

I asked Shifu Li if he ever thought of leaving, going to America or the Middle East to teach Kung Fu there. He said he’d been to Germany, France, and other countries in Europe as part of delegations and international Shaolin shows. But “I always like to come back here.”

I don’t want to overly romanticize it. But may be — just may be — it’s OK to be protected from the modern world and its deep pockets of knowledge. May be “our knowledge” is the rabbit hole we all fell into, got too fascinated with (and a little mad) that we became disconnected from the reality that life, after all, boils down to very simple things; if you can sleep well, wake up with a clear head, if the sun’s warmth can make you smile, you’re probably in zen.

And no amount of world education compares to that.

For more on Pakinam’s adventures check out her personal blog here:http://pakinamlights.tumblr.com. She also tweets at @pakinamamer (www.twitter.com/pakinamamer)

This post was originally published on CairoScene.com

Fourteen weeks earlier and on the second day of my arrival in Shaolin Si Xiaolong Wuyuan, my Shaolin Temple Kung Fu boarding school, I was thrown head first into the fray. By 5:45 am I was in my uniform, standing like a soldier, among roughly 5,000 Chinese students clothed in similar fashion: a sea of red and black, divided into units of 15-20.
    As I stood there chafing some warmth into my chilled palms, the other students began their ritualistic guttural singing in Chinese. When they were done, our Xiaolong Kung Fu army marched outside the school gates –myself included– and onto the road, stumping with their feet in unison not unlike real troops, with the leaders shouting, “Left! Right!” in Chinese.
    Like a battalion, each unit gets herded by its Shifu (the Kung Fu master).
    To be part of a formation like this, part of throngs upon throngs of identical crowds, felt both strange and glorious. Fighting for independence for most of my adult life, I was surprised at how comfortable it was to just be part of a mass, just following, and at being OK with being shunted left and right.
    That first encounter with the famed “morning run,” was back in April, when the weather was still cold and on some days a little punishing during the wee hours. During the summer, it’s stuffy and hot. And both states made me grateful we don’t run a few hundred stairs up to the Dharma Cave, every single morning, like the Shaolin monks do –– getting chilled to the bones in winter or parched in summers.
     However, as the Kung Fu students scuttled back into school, I wasn’t part of the flock, being erm … the slowest. Oh, yes! Of the 5,000 students of different ages, I was among a rare few who were knocked off course for losing breath and slowing down halfway. And I ended up to be the last to enter back into the school.
    I despise running but I did press on though, I told myself. I made it, and this is what counts. So now do I get to eat something, slump into a comfy chair and celebrate my victory?
    Not really. It was time for the morning drills.
    That included hopping like a frog up and down flights of stairs (or in my case crawling and dragging dead, soft limbs … just to maintain some air of dignity and in a desperate effort not to give up entirely during my first few hours ever in training), doing high kicks, punches, getting pushed into backbends as I frantically flapped at thin air, or being forced into splits a 31-year-old like myself cannot –repeat CANNOT– do without several days (read a few decades) of practice. Those in particular left me with pulled thigh muscles, that made me wince and moan every time I walk up stairs. During practice, I squirmed out of each move helplessly to no avail.
    The Shifus are merciless.
     In the interest of perpetuating my humiliation, on one of those beautiful mornings and after a few embarrassing attempts at doing a headstand, I was attacked by Shifu and an older student who decided to flip me over “to show me it’s OK to be upside down.” I screamed of course and made a bid for freedom as they shoved my wobbly legs upwards, and I ended up creating a very entertaining sideshow for the rest of the students, some of which laughed at me.
    “What are you doing?” I shouted at Shifu once released and back to an upright position.“Helping you!” responded the Shifu innocently. “Helping me? That wasn’t helping. That was gang rape!”
    The Shifu looked inscrutable, so I emphasized gesticulating wildly for effect, “Yoga teachers would never do that. They’d ease you into the move. Slowly. Softly. Until you’re familiar with it.”
    “We’re not Yoga teachers,” my Shifu said simply.
    And it suddenly hit me. I looked around me. Macho faces, some shaved heads and light mustaches, coarse voices, hairy legs, battle cries ringing, the smell of male sweat. Warhorns to wake us up. China.
    I wasn’t training in an air-conditioned Jasmine-smelling Yoga studio blitzed with “Namaste” poetry posters. That was a very bare training hall with flaking doors and windows, and a very sharp pungent stench, weather-worn faded carpets, and sturdy miserable-looking punching bags hanging like corpses waiting to be battered.
    Shit, it’s a man’s world.
    Deciding to be the survivalist only a night earlier, I swallowed any retort I was going to make, and flumped my hands down on the floor for another wobbly headstand.
    Alas, now I feel a little violated when I do an inversion, sometimes. But in my good moments, when I’m perched up side down, my head on the floor, feet in the sky, breath even, eyes watching everything from the opposite end, I laugh softly when I remember my first one. Not Yoga teachers indeed.
    Have I evolved? Not entirely! Now, I skip the morning run almost every day, simply because I decided it’s not good for my self-esteem. Yes, yes, I gave up, and unlike the enlightened, I still care a little about my position in the pecking order.
    Oh well, I’m not Buddha … eh, yet.

This post was originally published by Cairo Scene.

Before coming to China, I was told a lot about how Kung Fu practice is about character building, conquering day-to-day challenges at every corner, and training both body and mind around the clock. OK, OK, I wasn’t told, I saw it in Jet Li movies. But you get the idea.

Well, it’s true.

For instance, in order for me to pass across from the dining hall door to the dinning hall counters where the food is served following a long day of training, I have to trapeze, skid and slide on a thin layer of the day’s soup mixed with slimy soap from the sloppy cleaning done earlier, all the while seeing fellow students fall right and left as they slip and fall prey to that Shaolin hidden trap – trays flung and flying in the air, and more food and soup splashing.

If that’s not unnerving when you’re at your weakest and most vulnerable, I don’t know what is. Jack, the Chinese-British Sanshou student who joined the camp recently, joked that it was “all on purpose, it’s part of the training, you know.”

Food counters reached? The frugal meal is still not guaranteed.

You see, hungry Kung Fu students don’t believe in queues. Queues are against the tenets of their faith, or at least they act like they are.

They also believe that elbowing your way to pinch a steamed bread bun, or to grab the same pair of chopsticks you’re reaching for, is a noble and essential part of the Xiaolong dinning experience. Many of them also don’t mind feeling the bread – their hands still unwashed and dirty after a few hours of training– before they take their pick.

They’re also firm believers in spitting. Everywhere. And yes, it happens while we’re all eating. They liberally regurgitate chewed food whenever they feel like it too, in case it doesn’t taste as they think it should.

No apologies. No warnings.

So even while eating, a Kung Fu student (or at least someone like myself who used to pick fights with people who talked a little while chewing their food) must learn to “zen” it, shut off the world, and let it fall away – at least for the duration of the meal, in order to avoid the thumping urge to vomit right then and there, or boycott food altogether and starve to death.

During the training itself, and in addition to the already complex moves and choreography of Taulo Kung Fu, I also get out of my way (and sometimes abruptly jerk myself out of it) to avoid all the mysterious gooeyness and dirt on the ground when say I’m flipping myself around during form, or jumping high in a kick, but noticing a split of a second before my feet touch the ground some sickly goo right where I should land.

I also have to make sure to keep away from tiny five or six-year old students hopping giddily around as I wave my staff or slash my sword in practice (often stopping clumsily midway through patterns, doing a quick surveillance then resuming). One time, and after almost, almost perfecting a difficult pattern, I flubbed it, and instead of doing an elegant pirouette, staff in hand, I ended up hurtling myself head first into the ground when a beaming kid appeared out of nowhere right in the planned trajectory of my staff.

As if that wasn’t humbling enough, the kid stood there pointing and laughing at me.

Character training, all of it. I mean imagine what brand of will and restraint it took not to throttle the giggling kid to death and bury him in the mountains?

Even in halls in the foreigners’ camp – where one should sleep, rest and supposedly find some peace – Jack, Chris, Tolik, and Zhuyan, the classmates living on my floor (all young men in their twenties, mind you) have suddenly decided that the grueling training, the Shaolin medieval weapons and all the jumping around during the day aren’t enough, and they must do something about it.

So they bought BB guns.

Now my floor endures sleep-disturbing rackets at night, and raging gun battles and guerilla wars during morning breaks. It’s literally Northern Ireland in the 80s right outside my door everyday. Sometimes the violence spills into my room, which somehow has turned into a safe-house for random guys who rush in to hide or reload their guns.

The gun pellets actually puncture small holes in you. I snapped pictures to prove it (I was in half mind to buy one of those navy blue war zone vests and stitch ‘Press’ on it so I could saunter out without fear of being caught in the cross-fire).

But what really turns the scrimmage into a full-fledged circus is Peevish Mrs. Knotts’ continuous shrieks every time she hears a rumble. The plump and sour-tempered matron would walk up from her room a floor below and in frantic Chinese, squeal and scream at the big boys to stop – while I, a mere mortal looking for enlightenment and a few hours of sleep, suffers on the sidelines squashing my ears with my pillows to shut off Mrs. Knotts excruciatingly high-pitched squeals.

Of course, realising this all can’t be a coincidence (you know, for the benefit of my personal sanity), and that it must, must be part of the bigger plan to make me a more able, adaptable, patient, composed, non-suicidal Kung Fu fighter, and after a few incidents of being too scared to step outside my room lest I fall victim to a stray pellet, I decided to up the ante and steal one of Chris’ shotguns (the most powerful of the arsenal) –– now resting beside my Dao sword, wooden staff, kindle, and my basket of moisturizing creams and nail polish bottles.

What else could a lone girl do? It’s a dog-eat-dog world on this building.

But now all I need to do to feel safe or to force a momentary lull in the action is to point the muzzle outside of my door frame. Then I hear the rush of people shuffling hastily into their rooms (to avoid the wrath of the crazy Arab girl with a big gun) followed by an earnest hush of beautiful silence.

And for what it’s worth, difficult as it may, I think I’m starting to wrap my head around the rules of the ‘Shaolin’ character training game.

Bring it on Xiaolong. Bring it on.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––—–––––––––

From Xiaolong’s Foreigners Camp:

Zhuyan (my Vietnamese Kung Fu classmate): Hey Pakinam, I’m coming for the shotgun. Can I take it please?

Pakinam: No, it’s my only protection against all of you guys. I’m the only girl here. I need my gun.

Zhuyan: But I really want it.

Pakinam: I can’t part with it. Why do you want it that bad anyway?

Zhuyan: To kill Tuhao.

Pakinam: The Shaolin monk?

Zhuyan (grinning): Yeah, yeah.

Pakinam: Ok. But give it back right after you kill him. Like immediately.

Zhuyan: OK, OK (runs off with shotgun)

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––—–––––––––

This post was originally published on Cairo Scenario.

Art by John Spelling.

Pakinam Amer is an award-winning investigative journalist and travel writer. She is currently in Henan Province in China, living near the Shaolin Temple in the martial arts town known as Dengfeng, learning Kung Fu in a boarding school called “Little Dragon”, and chronicling her journey for CairoScene in “The Shaolin Letters: An Egyptian girl’s adventures in ‘Kung Fu China” …

… I was woken up by a loud army-like horn. I thought may be it’s my luck, and China is declaring war, and then I’d have to be evacuated.

Problem solved, I thought cheerfully, I’ll just go back to my old life. No one will call me a wimp or a coward. No one will be disappointed. You see, my dear parents and friends, I was forced to leave, I had no choice, I would say.

Five minutes later, a young Chinese man in a uniform of a black jacket carrying the school’s emblem, and black pants came knocking on my door. Little did I know that I’d see that face every single day for most of the day for my entire stay in Shaolin Si Xiaolong Wuyan, which is the Shaolin Temple martial arts boarding school I was to attend for the next few months, and in whose dorms I was staying. Xiaolong means Little Dragon, so the name literally means: “Shaolin Temple Little Dragon School.”

The man introduced himself as “Li Yong Hui,” Li being his family name and Yong Hui his given name. He will be my Kung Fu teacher, he said, and he came to give me an orientation, and to ask if I’m ready for training. Tango, my travel agent gave me a call, a few minutes later, and I wondered if the entire country wakes up at 6:00 am. He confirmed what Li Yong Hui said, “but of course, you won’t call him by his name. You can call him Master, or teacher, or Shifu (meaning Kung Fu master),” said Tango.

I gave my “master” a snide look, studying him for a moment as I held the phone to my ears; he was relatively handsome, with a shaven face, and very young. “But he’s so young, how can he be my master,” I breathed the words into my cell phone, moving away from Li Yong Hui as much as possible so he wouldn’t be offended by my protests. “Are you sure he’s good? How old is he? 23?”

I heard Tango laugh through the receiver, “No, no, Miss Pakinam,” he said. “He’s 26, but he’s a Kung Fu expert, he has 15 years of experience under his belt. He has been training since he was six years old. He’s an excellent teacher.” I gave my so-called “master” another desperate look. “Ok, ok, I’ll try him,” I said, ending the call.

I was given a uniform – red jacket carrying the school’s name, red shirt, and two pairs of black pants and a pair of light Kung Fu shoes– and was taken to the dinning halls. The food is served on metal trays very much like in prison, the halls lined with long identical metal tables, and metal chairs.

Cold, heartless metal.

Who am I kidding? It was exactly like in prison. I was also told that the horns were Xiaolong’s equivalent of “bells.”

Instead of ringing bells to announce waking, class times, eating times, and sleeping hours, they use horns, “like the army” my new teacher said with a wide, almost proud grin.

Ah, the army. Such a warm, welcoming atmosphere.

When the horn was sounded, I sat among the students, all dressed in identical uniforms, and ate a medley of cooked vegetables which I couldn’t recognize, weakly grappling with a pair of chopsticks and nibbling at some steamed rice.

Everything smelled.

But it was how bare it all was that made me lose my appetite halfway and get up when my tray was still half-full.

This is it, this is when the rubber meets the road, I told myself. And there’s no turning back.

A river of calmness suddenly swept through me (people in near death experience recount similar sensations by the way) and I decided I’m OK, I’m making peace with this shithole. It’s all part of the experience. Tomorrow, I told myself, I’ll visit the temple, which was a 40-minute hike away and only a few minutes by car, and meditate. And all will be fine.

Immediately following this zen-like moment – and as if the Temple listened– I ran into a small miracle. An American student. John. He was among four other foreigners staying at the school. Finally, someone I could speak to and compare notes. I was almost in tears when I saw him, and I think I scared him a little bit.

A couple of hours later, I would see the thousands upon thousands of students filing out into the training grounds from every corner of the school, cheerful, gung-ho, lively as they started Kung-Fu-ing in groups and in flawless formations. Suddenly, it all seemed like a dream, and days later –after settling in – I wondered why I hated it all so much upon arrival.

I was told later that Dengfeng is home to more than a hundred Kung Fu or Wushu (martial arts) Schools, but there are only a few schools/camps that are sponsored by the Shaolin Temple, among which is Xiaolong, one of the best four schools in town, besides the main Wushu Guan, two minutes away from the temple, Ta Gou (the largest camp in town with 30,000 students) and Epo (the Ritz of Dengfeng Kung Fu Schools mainly because the well-to-do students can get king-sized beds in their dorms, and hotel-like room service, and –rumor has it– western options for food).

There are two types of Kung Fu taught in Shaolin: Taolu and Sanda. Taolu is aesthetically beautiful, graceful like a dance but deadly when executed with finesse, and power. It is quite choreographed consisting mainly of forms with bare hands, and/or an array of weapons that include chain whips, staffs, knives, swords, and spears. It’s the version we see in movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Sanda or Sanshou is a bare-handed free-fighting technique, incorporating elements of boxing, kickboxing and taekwondo. Both are very powerful.

Naturally I chose to train in Taolu, mainly because of the aesthetics (and the movies), but also because I underwent two surgeries in my left eye shortly before I came to China and I was afraid warnings of “please avoid hitting my eyes” will be lost in translation and from what I saw among the Sanda guys there’s a whole lot of vicious hitting to the head, and face during training. 

In the days following my arrival, I was to meet Chris, the painfully handsome Aussie hunk who introduced me to his “smashing walls” wisdom, Tuhao, the Shaolin monk who sells merchandise to tourists and robs them blind, likes to party KTV-style and who often sleeps over in Xiaolong on weekends, Zuyan, the bored (and very sweet) Vietnamese, who happens to be the son of a drug dealer, and my class, a motley of interesting characters and some very uncoordinated wanna-be Kung Fu fighters. And finally, the “other Shifu,” macho, aggressive and loud, and so bloody strong … and who incidentally became the object of my obsession for a few weeks, and eventually my ultimate Kung-Fu crush. (You can laugh at me, it’s OK).

As I began training, testing my limits and “raping” martial arts and desecrating some forms beyond repair, and as my circle of friends and acquaintances (I even made an enemy) grew bigger, everything changed.

Or may be I changed.

But the fact remains: the past few months were unforgettable; full of pains (loads of ibuprofen and Deep Heat), laughs, discoveries, culture shocks, reflections, warrior monks, steamed rice and stir-fried tofu, and a whole lot of badass, supercool Kung Fu.

And despite being nothing, nothing like Batman Begins, and more like the first half hour of the first installment of Kung Fu Panda, believe me, you want to hear all about it.

Amituofo.

–––––––––––

For more on Pakinam’s adventures you can check out her personal blog here: http://pakinamlights.tumblr.com . She also tweets at @pakinamamer (www.twitter.com/pakinamamer)

This article was originally published by Cairo Scenario.

Art by Marwan Imam, special for Pakinam Lights blog.

This is the first installment of “Shaolin Letters,” a travel blog I’m writing regularly for Cairo Scenario, tells the ‘China’ story in chronological order. Enjoy and please share …

Everyone called it my Eat, Pray, Love experience; my stomach turned every time I heard that, but I almost always managed to draw a begrudging smile in response, mumbling, “Yeah, yeah.” (Except for that time when I impatiently retorted, “Let’s just call it my Batman Begins or Starfleet or Star Wars experience, alright? Batman, cadets and Jedis are cooler, and I’m going to the SHAOLIN TEMPLE Kung Fu school, not to a wimpy spiritual retreat.”)

The reasons why I hated comparing my big trip to The-New-York-Times-bestselling-book were:

A) I didn’t want to think of my little adventure as another ‘new age’ excursion into the East, where a culture-shocked-girl-cum-illuminated-Buddha returns with an immaculate record of a spiritual journey where she found love, peace, and a measure of ancient wisdom, which she wittingly peppered with some modern humor in the re-telling;

B) It takes originality out of the idea;

C) Eat, Pray, Love was womanish and fluffy;

D) I really liked the book, so maybe I was influenced;

E) Everyone was probably right.

May be it would be my Eat, Pray, Love moment. Perhaps that was what I was secretly hoping for.

Stomach churns.

Back in April, however, at the very moment I set a foot in Dengfeng – the town lying at the foot of Mount Song, housing the Shaolin Temple, the cradle of zen Buddhism and martial arts – I immediately knew we were all wrong. This was neither Batman Begins or Eat, Pray, Love, or even the darkest episode of Star Wars. I found myself plunged into a gloomy, dark village in mainland China; dirty and, by the looks of it, still stranded in the Middle Ages. AND I was to be there alone, trying to learn an exalted form of Kung Fu when I can’t even kick above the waist.

Suddenly, it wasn’t Hollywood-like, spiritual and surreal, like my fantasy promised. It was very real, in a very non-Batmanish way.

A school bus with the Shaolin Temple logo had picked me up from the Zhengzhou Airport, roughly a two-hour drive away from my final destination. When I arrived in Dengfeng, it was well after midnight, following a grueling 26-hour journey, 11 hours of which I spent flying and the rest in transit. I was starving and thirsty but all the small shabby shops around were bolted shut; the place looked deserted, and disheveled – like a storm had recently swept through it leaving everything covered in grime.  No emerald woods, flowery shrubs, or wild bamboo forests a la House of Flying Daggers. And none of the Kung Fu heartthrobs (Takeshi Kaneshiro, Andy Lau or even Jet Li) were waiting for me at the gates.

It was horrifying to suddenly realise I’d be tethered to this town for a few months. My escort couldn’t speak English, at the time I knew zero Chinese. A large metal gate opened for us just enough to let the car in. The school was hushed and dark.

The head matron who received me at the dorms (and who was probably awoken up from a deep slumber, by the looks of it) was grumpy and aggressive. She showed me to my room: spacious, dim and layered with dust. She shoved some clean sheets and a thin, floppy pillow into my arms, and after some miscommunication and sign language, she managed to get me a bottle of water and a pot of chili-flavoured instant noodles. In my head, I gave the sullen woman a three-part name, as per Chinese traditions. Peevish-Mrs-Knots. It suited her. That habit of inventing names and giving them to the Chinese people I deal with daily would stay with me and, in the course of this blog, you will be introduced to people carrying names like Moon-Cloud, All-Frowns, Flower-Who-Cooks-so-Well, etc.

On that night, the dorms were quiet, the surrounding hills menacing, and my room overlooked a large patch of land that was more like a tree cemetery. I felt I was the only soul in the school, besides Mrs-Knots. I also felt like crying hysterically, but I held it in, and instead wrote a hurried text message to my younger sister, updating her, and asking, “Did I make a mistake?” A few minutes later, my phone beeped – the only sound I heard that night apart from my own breathing and the distant wind – with my sister’s response: “No, we’re all proud of you. Now, don’t use your phone to get assurance from us or channel any negative energy. Remember this is your adventure. We’re not here anymore. Forget about us, and the rest of the world. You’re on your own.”

Brilliant, I thought. As if I needed to be reminded.

In retrospect, I did. And for a split of a second, a fleeting eureka-like realisation came upon me:  I am on my own, and this is the best thing that ever happened to me. No job to worry about, no scuffles with friends or foes, no politics, no revolution, no Cairo traffic, or social networks. It’s just me.

Let’s back track a few months: I was stuck in a rut back in Cairo; my was job making me miserable, the politics were stressing me out and the aftermath of the January 25^th Revolution, in which I was heavily invested, was pushing me to the brink of madness. The “China Plan” ––to come here, take time out from work and the mundane, and learn Kung Fu for a few months, learn about a new culture and religion, and fulfill a childhood fantasy–– seemed like an epiphany. It was “the thing that will save me,” as I explained to a friend.

But on that first night, the fantasy came crashing down around my ears. I have left everything behind, but I have taken ‘me’ and therein lies the main challenge; to clear my mind, to focus on the experience, to adapt, and to toughen up a bit. No experience could save anyone, I quickly realised. Only I could save myself. So grow a thicker skin, I told myself that night, as I popped two pills of Panadol Night. Tomorrow will be a surprise, I thought. I whispered the words “I’m on my own,” repeatedly like a mantra until the magic of Panadol kicked in and hurled me into a deep, dreamless sleep.

To Be Continued

***************

Pakinam Amer is an award-winning investigative journalist and travel writer. She is currently in Henan Province in China, living near the Shaolin Temple in the martial arts town known as Dengfeng, learning Kung Fu in a boarding school called “Little Dragon”, and chronicling her journey. She blogs regularly about this experience here: http://pakinamlights.tumblr.com and she tweets at @pakinamamer