Shaolin Monastery

Those who grew up in the United States in the mid-1970s probably watched, or were at least familiar with, the television series Kung Fu. It starred David Carradine as a monk and kung fu expert traveling in the Old West in search of his brother. The show featured frequent flashbacks to his training at the Shaolin Monastery in China. Although the story was completely fictional, the Shaolin Monastery is a real place, believed to date back to the fifth century and still operating today.

The monastery, also called Shaolin Temple, is in Dengfeng, China, in Henan Province. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Though its history is long, it has had times of turbulence, as when it suffered attacks under the Cultural Revolution.

Adjoining the monastery is an ancient graveyard for the Buddhist luminaries, known as the Pagoda Forest, where the ashess of illustrious monks rest under pagodas built in their memory. You may also want to visit the Flying Monks Theatre, an architectural marvel that allows monks to levitate.