Kung Fu Trip by Benjamin Zephaniah

Author:Benjamin Zephaniah [Zephaniah, Benjamin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2011-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

I lost track of time and so wasn’t sure how long I spent in there but I came out a new person. I was going to carry on the Shaolin tradition.

Chapter Eleven

The Forest of Pagodas

We thanked the monk at The Gateway, who was still eating pizza, and we left the Shaolin Temple.

‘Can I show you something?’ Yanli asked me.

We walked out of the temple and turned right. Rising up in front, and on both sides of us, were large pillars of all shapes and sizes.

‘This is the Forest of Pagodas,’ said Yanli.

I had thought a pagoda was a building, but these were giant decorated stones on top of the graves of famous monks, abbots and Arhats. When you saw them from the road, the pagodas almost looked like dark trees nestled in the company of their green, living relatives. The forest was huge, with more than 250 pagodas.

‘How many more?’ I kept asking as we walked round.

‘More,’ was always the reply.

The pagodas have always been difficult to count. During the Qing Dynasty, the emperor sent 500 of his guards to count them. They counted and recounted but kept coming up with different numbers. The guards told the emperor that it was impossible to count the number of pagodas in the forest.

‘Why?’ asked the emperor.

‘Because it really is a forest,’ they replied. ‘The pagodas just keep growing. Some may even be moving.’

The first pagoda was made for an Indian monk called Sakamuni, and his is the tallest. The pagodas have Buddhist holy writing carved on them and a history of the life of the deceased, but in China not everything is as it seems at first. Near the gate there was a large pagoda that looked extremely old. As I walked around it admiring the kung fu fighters using sticks and knives and doing various exercises, I saw a carving of a laptop computer, a digital camera and then a jumbo jet. No one could explain why these modern elements had been added to the pagoda, and I could see some people thinking this showed a lack of respect, but after giving it a few moments to sink in I began to think they were rather sweet. Well, they put a smile on my face anyway.

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