China Kung Fu Tour from Zhengzhou

Upon your arrival, your private tour guide will pick you up from the railway station or the airport. Then you will be transferred to the hotel for a good rest.

Free Time Suggestion:

If time permits, you may go to the Henan Museum (closed each Monday). Henan Museum was founded in 1927 and is one of the earliest museums in China. With a construction area of more than 55,000 square meters, the museum houses a collection of more than 170,000 pieces of cultural relics. Most of the cultural relics on display come from the archaeological excavations in Luoyang, Anyang, Kaifeng, and other places of Henan Province in the early 20th century. The exhibition features prehistoric relics, bronze wares belonging to Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) and Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BC), pottery, and jade wares. Entering the Henan Museum, you will travel back thousands of years to explore the ancient Henan. It is certainly worth a visit.

In the morning, we will drive southwest to Shaolin Temple in Dengfeng. It is about 90 kilometers away from Zhengzhou and takes about one and a half hours to get there. Shaolin Temple is a holy shrine of Chinese Buddhism and the cradle of Chinese Kung Fu. When you arrive, you will first visit the main buildings of Shaolin Temple, including the Main Gate, the Hall of Heavenly Kings, the Grand Hall, and the Thousand Buddha Hall. One interesting scene you will see in the Thousand Buddha Hall is that there are 48 shallow pits orderly arranged in four rows on the ground. You may wonder how these pits were formed. Then, let me tell you. Shaolin Temple is the birthplace of Chinese Kung Fu and pays special attention to the strength and skills of the legs. In the past, high-level Shaolin monks often practiced Kung Fu in the Thousand Buddha Hall. Due to the limitation of space, 48 monks at most were allowed to practice at the same time. Therefore, all the high-level monks were split up into groups (48 monks in each group) and took turns to practice Kung Fu in the hall. The monks always stood at the fixed positions to strengthen their legs every day. Over time, the ground where the monks stood was sunken, thus forming the 48 shallow pits.

After visiting the Thousand Buddha Hall, don’t miss the Pagoda Forest, the tomb cluster of accomplished monks in Shaolin Temple. After a prestigious monk died, his ashes would be buried underground and a brick or stone pagoda would be built on the ground to commemorate his contributions and achievements. In total, there are more than 240 pagodas built since the Tang Dynasty (618-907), making it the largest Pagoda Forest existing in China.

Most famous for Shaolin Kung Fu, Shaolin Temple is a coveted destination for Chinese Kung Fu fans. A live Shaolin Kung Fu Show is a must-see on your trip to Shaolin Temple. During the show, highly skilled Shaolin monks will demonstrate a variety of Shaolin Kung Fu styles. The show used to be performed in the Shaolin Kung Fu Hall with about 300 seats. However, it was so popular that a lot of people had to sit on the floor in front of the stage because of no more seats. Therefore, outdoor performance was added later. Nowadays, due to the Covid-19, the Kung Fu Show is changed to outdoor performance. There are five performances arranged in one day, two performances in the morning and three in the afternoon. The performances start respectively at 10:30, 11:30, 14:00, 15:00, and 16:00, each lasting for half an hour.

After the Kung Fu Show, you will be driven back to Luoyang.

Shaolin Temple

Pagoda Forest

After breakfast, you will follow your guide to visit White Horse Temple. The White Horse Temple was founded in 68 AD during the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD). It is the first temple funded and built by the government after Buddhism was introduced to China. It has been honored as the “patriarch’s courtyard” and “origin of Buddhism”. Why is it called “White Horse Temple?” There is a story of a white horse carrying the Buddhist scriptures spreading among the folks. It is said that one night in 64 AD, Emperor Liu Zhuang dreamed of Buddha Sakyamuni surrounded by golden light flying from the west and landing in front of him. Believing that it was guidance from the Buddha, the emperor sent a team of envoys to ancient India to ask for Buddhist scriptures. On their way to India, they met two eminent Indian monks who were propagating Buddhism with some Buddhist scriptures and a statue of Buddha Sakyamuni. Therefore, they sincerely invited the two monks to Luoyang, the capital city at that time. In 67 AD, the two monks, together with a white horse carrying the Buddhist scriptures and the Buddha statue, arrived at Luoyang and warmly welcomed by the emperor. In 68 AD, the temple was built at the emperor’s order to house the two Indian monks. To commemorate the merits of the white horse that carried the scriptures back, the temple was named “White Horse Temple”.

The afternoon will be dedicated to Longmen Grottoes. It is a huge Buddhist grotto cluster and ranks the top among the “Four Great Grottoes in China”. The grottoes are densely distributed on the cliffs on both sides of the Yi River, stretching for over one kilometer from north to south. There are as many as 100,000 statues included in the existing 2,345 grottoes. These statues vary in size. The largest statue is the statue of Buddha Vairocana. It is 17.14 meters high in total with a head length of 4 meters and an ear length of 1.9 meters. It is said that the statue of Buddha Vairocana was carved according to the appearance of Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in China’s history. The smallest statue is just 2 centimeters high. If you are interested, you may try to find it out.

Leaving the Longmen Grottoes, you will be transferred to the railway station or the airport according to your subsequent itinerary.

Longmen Grottoes

White Horse Temple

Author: Lingyun Zhou

Proofreader: Betsy He