"Let's see your Tiger-Crane style match my Eagle's Claw!"

Ah, the immortal words of dueling Shaolin warriors. Though dialog like this is mainly the stuff of low-budget Hong Kong movies, there is in fact a place where such challenges are still uttered. Not to the death, of course, but between students at Shaolin Si, China's most famous Kung Fu temple.

Located atop the western peak of the sacred Song Shan Mountain in northern Henan province, 800 year-old Shaolin Si has been destroyed and rebuilt time and again, weathering attacks by emperors, warlords, cultural revolutions, and now its most reoccurring invaders the modern tour group.

In fact, not until the advent of the 1970s Kung Fu movie craze and the popular 1982 film "Shaolin Temple," did annual tourism perform a CGI-like leap from 200,000 to 2 million, prompting the Chinese government to list the temple as a protected heritage site.

But while the venerable temple gates see an almost endless stream of tourists wishing to get a glimpse of a real-life Shaolin monk and take in a demonstration performance, a more permanent residence of Kung Fu enthusiasts exists in the outlying hillsides.

These are the sons and daughters of Shaolin, young students who have given up secular life for a strict regimen and forsaken conventional curriculum for physical conditioning. At Shaolin Si, the sword is truly mightier than the pen.

-CROUCHING TIGERS-

Kung Fu (Gungfu in Mandarin) was originally a Chan Buddhist practice with the dual purpose of purifying the soul and building strength through Zen spiritual doctrine and martial arts.

Shaolin priests complimented their monastic ways by harnessing their life force with meditation and releasing this energy, or Qi, through practical offense and defense maneuvers, something traditionalists complain has been diluted over the centuries for the thrill of competition and the vanity of exhibition.

Opening up the temple to outsiders began in the mid-16th century, whence military officers of the Ming Dynasty court attended Shaolin to study the monks' unique fighting techniques. Resultingly, today's Kung Fu schools have become big business.

The oldest and perhaps most visible school, the Wushu Institute at Tagou, is at the front entrance of Shaolin Si itself. One mountain may have no space for two tigers, says the old Chinese proverb, but the privately-run Tagou boasts over ten thousand! The courtyard is at any given moment a killer-bee swarm of students

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