why is it that i am always a bit disappointed after those weekend trips from beijing? it probably has something to do with travelling the whole night just to wake up in a foggy landscape. even on the countryside each square meter seems to be in use, i always get that acute sense of overpopulation. roll into a dusty nameless city of several million people, past abandoned buildings covered with white tiles and humid brick apartments with vegetables on the balconies. the square in front of the railway station is the pride of the city, the statement of their modernity and sense of importance. the station necessarily features a pair of towers; at least one hotel on the square is higher and prides itself on a rooftop restaurant. the geometry and size of the surrounding streets indicate that not one of these constructions is actually older than a few decades in this country that attributes itself a 5000 year history. not far away the newest monstrous addition can be found: a giant shopping mall in neo-classicist style that is becoming the centre of urban life. welcome to china.

dressed to kill

a children's town

shaolin is an unusual place. you can't really call it a town; there are some farmer families living around the kongfu school and temple, but that's it. somehow the place has been spared from the white tiles. only kids around here. thousands of them study at the kongfu school, all dressed identically. they live in basic conditions, a dozen bunk beds in a humid room decorated with a few pop star posters. sundays they can be seen washing their clothes or playing less serious games on the training fields. after spending some years in this famous place, they become security guards in the city, or policemen. maybe a few become the next bruce lee, or can tour the world to perform. saturday night we find a couple of thousands of these kids watching a hong kong movie in orderly rows under the stars. the screen cloth hung between the goal posts is waving in the wind.

hope they are learning anything else besides kongfu

tourists are driven in by tour buses, dropped in front of the temple and the pagoda forest surrounded by hundreds of tourist shops selling kongfu weapons. of course you can also have your picture taken on the back of a horse or a camel. then they disappear the same way they came. a few groups do make time to hike up to the boddhidarma statue. kids shout up and down while cheap music resonates from the valley, fathers in their sunday suit keep smoking all the way up. we hesitate to take a picture of some kongfu guys all dressed up, but they in fact ask us if we can pose with them.

i am going to stay in beijing the next couple of weekends.

october 2003