So this past holiday, I purchased a book for my brother called American Shaolin, and started reading it at the same time myself. It documents the story of an American (barely) twenty-something, Matt Polly, who decides to drop out of college for a couple of years midstream and study kung fu at the famed Shaolin Temple in China. The events in the book take place in the early ’90s. Mr Polly toughs it out over the course of two years in training to ultimately gain considerable skill in kickboxing and in speaking Chinese, despite the intervention of corrupt landlords, dysentery, (some) arrogant Shaolin monks, administrators and local townspeople who are fascinated by and yet often look down him at the same time, and the infrequent nags of homesickness and libido (he was barely 20, after all! 🙂 But he certainly prevails in the end, and despite dramatic differences in culture and mentality, shares several real, human connections with the reader he made along the way.
I liked this book. In part because of the fish out of water aspect, in part because of the ’98 pound weakling’ central character that the vast majority of American males growing up can certainly identify with (especially nerdy males like myself), and in part because over the past few years I have become far more interested in learning a lot more about Asia than I ever was in the past. I have spent some time overseas (Europe) at roughly the same age, and while my experience was in a student group, not by myself, there are definite similarities I could remember while reading Mr Polly’s story.
It’s also interesting to contrast this book with the Tokyo Vice book I read in November. That book takes place in largely the same timeframe, although I think Mr. Edelstein was slightly older, and of course he was in Japan, not China. But some of the same situations occurred, and it’s interesting to see how they both reacted to them, despite one being a reporting job and the other several years of martial arts regimen. The human element across both books has many common points, in other words. And certainly in both cases, it’s an interesting change to see a society that is more open about one-upmanship to each other. Here in the States, we like to pretend that sort of thing doesn’t exist and everyone is on the same playing field and competes with similar opportunities, but it’s simply not true. In these books it’s clear that in Japan and China (at least in the 90’s, may have changed a bit since) – you acknowledge those who may have power over you, but you are also allowed to work towards challenging and eventually replacing that same people. And it’s expected. Now certainly Mr. Polly points out many situations where this hierarchy system works to prevent nearly ANYTHING from getting done, and that’s a bad thing. But it’s still interesting to see how it works in practice vs. how we live here in the USA.
Check it out – you won’t be disappoointed. I think I may have to read Mr. Polly’s next book about MMA soon, too!
candybowl
