Hijacking Shaolin Temple

Allow me to preface this by noting that I knew, as the previous entry indicates, that Shaolin Temple was a tourist trap. Perhaps I underestimated its trapping abilities though, because it got me. Here's what happened.

I arrived at the Zhengzhou Railway Station on schedule, at 7:00 AM, and having noted the previous night the long distance bus station was directly across the Railway station, I ignored and walked past all the hustlers and bustlers who run up to you asking if you want a room, a bus, where you're going, and other shady things. I successfully bought a bus ticket from the bus station to Shaolin Temple, and get on one of the public buses which says it's bound for Shaolin Temple.

I chat with a bank worker from Jiangsu about barefoot doctors, but as soon as the conversation becomes more complex and academic, I completely lose my Chinese vocabulary and end up nodding dumbly, until we both eventually nod ourselves to sleep. About an hour into the ride, just as we're approaching the Temple, we pull over on the side, and a tour guide jumps on the bus. She goes, "Before we go to Shaolin Temple, allow me to introduce a few other tourist attractions." She takes us to Zhongyue Temple, a Daoist Temple mentioned in the LP guidebook. Okay, I think, this isn't so bad.
An hour later, we board the bus, and I notice the "destination: Shaolin Temple" sign on the front of the bus has been replaced with a "Something something Tourism Service." Interesting. Now the tour guide wants to bring us to someplace else, and I go, a bit more reluctantly. Hey, at least this place, Songyang Academy, has cypress trees over 4500 years old. But the game is getting old really quickly. To amuse myself, I take an out-of-focus photo of the cypress tree.

I ask the tour guide when we'll get to Shaolin and she assures me it's the next stop. Doubt churns in my stomach. Sure enough, we end up at some pathetic little nunnery whose only tourists are tourists that have fallen prey to such fearmongering tour guides. I refuse to get off the bus and strike up a conversation with an elderly couple from Nanjing. They were also clueless about this little game the bus driver and tour guide got us into. Knowing that "real" Chinese people were also unaware makes me feel a little better, and the couple seem to be fired up from my good old American complaining. They ask about life in the US, and despite my attempts at playing it down, they are convinced the US is vastly superior to China, and don't believe me when I say I like China. "I'm Chinese American, of course I like China!" They then tell me that I'm welcome to visit them in Nanjing, and that they have an 18 year old daughter that I "should come talk with in English and become friends with."

Things are getting weirder by the minute, and I want out.
So as soon as we reach Shaolin, I tell the tour guide I don't want her, I never wanted her, and she offers her 5Y "tour guide fee" back, which I gladly accept. She continues playing passive-aggressive and harrasses me whenever she can in the temple, even　though I try to run away from her. Then this creepy old man starts following me, and approaches me several times asking me to “follow him." Even when I escape into the pagoda forest, I see him waiting for me, ever so patiently.

I walk 2 miles, and he's still following me, even though I've warned him several times to stop following me. Eventually I decide the best way to shake him off is to take the gondola up Songshan, a Daoist mountain outside of Shaolin Temple. I get on the gondola. Finally, peace. One of the nice things about travelling by yourself is that it's relatively easy to escape annoyances. I tend to think a lot more, too, but even I can grow angry and tired of myself.


It's getting lonely on the gondola.



I get to the top, and there is snow. It is cold and quiet.


This is what I wanted, just some peace and to be able to be by myself. I can't stay for long, though, since the gondola stops running at four, and the trek down the mountain would take too long.

I haven't said anything about Shaolin Temple. It's pretty amusing. A skimpily-clad girl introduces some teenage "monks" (quotes explaining shortly) who show off their kungfu skills. After the show, I see the monks change into their Nike sneakers and jumpsuits. Unlike Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan, there is little escape in this tourist trap. It's all for show-- who knows where the "real” monks are.

They're on top of the telephones. That's it for now, because I decide I don't want to spend the night at Shaolin and I　catch a bus back to Zhengzhou, then an overnighter back to Beijing.