Luoyang

This weekend, IUP (that's my school) is taking EVERYBODY to Luoyang, a city in Henan province, south of Beijing. (When i say everybody, i mean 30 students and 30 teachers, plus assorted boyfriends/girlfriends, husbands/wives, and even CHILDREN. mother of god).

Anyway, Luoyang in the center of the Yellow River valley and was one of the seven ancient capitals of China. (the capital for 9 dynasties over 1500 years!--that's 96 emperors!)

A famous characteristic of Luoyang is the Longmen grottoes, a UNESCO World heritage site. It's an enormous complex of caves (over 1350) with over 100,000 Buddhist statues carved into the rock. This carving began in the 4th century and continued through til the 10th century. Basically, this stuff is REALLY OLD, but unfortunately, the massive amounts of air pollution are rapidly causing much of the carving at the grottoes to deteriorate. The quality of the art there is quickly diminishing as air pollution worsens and eats away at the living rock. It's good to have an opportunity to see this really neat cultural center now, before its UTTER DESTRUCTION!!!!

Additionally, and more importantly any Jackie Chan and/or Jet Li fans, Luoyang has the Shaolin temple, where Kung Fu was INVENTED! Apparently, kong fu was first developed at Shaolin Temple as a form of gymnastics to combat the immobility of meditation. Monks observed animals and carefully imitated their movements. Over time, kong fu turned into a mechanism of self defense.

Get this: Shaolin monks are enormously disciplined, and since childhood train everyday from dawn to dusk. Only after 20 years of training can someone consider himself proficient in kong fu. Some of the training they undergo daily includes: 1) for hand strengthening, thrust hands into bags of beans repeatedly, and then bags of sand when that gets too easy; 2) for fist strengthening, punch a brick wall repeatedly; 3) for leg strengthening, run with bags of sand tied to the knees; 4) for head strengthening, repeatedly strike the skull with bricks.

Go do that everyday for 20 years, and then you will be able to do the following:
1) break iron bars with your head and concrete slabs with your fists
2) balance on one finger
3) take a sledgehammer blow to the chest
4) hang from a tree by the neck

Apparently we will be able to see these feats when we go.

All 60 of us are taking an overnight train there and back (9 hrs each way). Sweet.