Sifu explained to me that Miao Hai is my training brother, Lien Shung Di. I have another training brother named Miao Ping. He is twenty-four years old and comes from Canton. He completed his education as a Microsoft Engineer before coming here. Although fifty or so other students live in the school, Miao Hai, Miao Ping and I report to the Sifu and train directly with him.

Training brothers are a very special relationship in Chinese society. Training brothers are bound for life. Sifu even told me, "You are the older brother; you have to take care of them."

At the end of my training I will receive a certificate book which states the lineage of my Sifu. It will also identify me to any training brothers I have in the world. Apparently, there are others in America, Europe and various places. They are all Chinese. As far as I know, I was the first foreigner to be given the title of training brother.

Strolling through the Shaolin Village, all you see is a sea of uniforms. Kung fu students roam the streets brandishing swords and other edged weapons with reckless abandon. I saw some kids playing with a spear, and I almost stepped in to take it away from them.

"You could put an eye out," I wanted to say. After all, I used to be a schoolteacher. I was going to say, "This spear is going in my desk and you can have it back at the end of the term."

But, of course, I did nothing, because the kids could probably have maimed me.

THURSDAY 03/06/2003

While the other students have to live in crowded rooms with bunk beds, I have my own room. It is a 12 X 12 concrete box, devoid of any amenities apart from my steel frame bed. There is no box-spring or even a mattress. My blanket is simply laid out on a wooden plank. The house itself is just a concrete block with no comforts. We have no running water.

Miao Ping helps me by having his little brother fill my water jug in the kitchen once a day. We are allotted one liter of drinking water per person, per day. There is no shower or even a toilet. We have to take a bus into town to take a shower, once a week. As for the toilet, it is a smelly, snow-covered hole that is a little too close to the kitchen for my tastes.

Our meals consist of vegetables, rice and mantao, three times a day. There is never any tea or beverage, apart from our meager drinking water. I learned to drink the water quickly, because sediment would collect in the bottom if you let it stand and make it even more foul tasting.

Last night, a seven-year-old performed for me. He was jumping, flipping, kicking and tying his legs in knots behind his head. Then he took off his shirt and posed. He had washboard abs and pencil-sized veins popping out of his biceps.

A twenty-one-year-old student named Duo Mo demonstrated the Shaolin low kick. I held the kick pad at knee height and he kicked it so hard that it nearly ripped my arm off. I don't want him kicking the side of my knee like that. With the advent of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), and with the popularity of Muay Thai in the West, we are all aware of the benefits of low kicks. But somehow we never practice them. After seeing Duo Mo kick, I thought, "What a crazy concept. If you want to be good at low kicks, you should practice low kicks."

Every minute of down time, they have me standing in horse stance, standing in bow stance, stretching, walking across the room kicking or throwing punches. They train constantly. I am used to being one of the best, but here I am the limping old guy who hobbles behind the team. It doesn't help that we train with all of our clothes on because it is so cold. It's hard to move in five layers of clothing. You train to keep warm. Then you get tired, so you want to take a rest. But as soon as you stand still, you get cold again. So, you always train. It is exhausting.

FRIDAY 03/07/2003

In Taiwan I used to complain that I had to train in a large basement and that we did the same kicks over and over again for hours. Here, I train in my room, which is completely bare except for the brown and gray dirt which covers the stone walls. It is brutally cold, just like a jail cell, à la Gulag Archipelago. I go back and forth doing my kicks, intermittently standing in horse stance.

This morning when I woke, all I wanted out of life was to take a hot shower and change my clothes. Coffee would also have been nice. Obviously none of those bourgeoisie luxuries were open to me. There is no shower, no hot water and often no water at all. After hours of training, I begged for some drinking water. But the answer was, "It's still too cold and the snow hasn't melted yet."

Miao Ping arranged for me to get my Shaolin uniform. It is a red tracksuit with Shaolin Temple written in Chinese and English. It looks a lot like that outfit Bruce Lee wore in "Game of Death," except that his was yellow.

SATURDAY 03/08/2003

Antonio's book, The Monk From Brooklyn, is available at barnesandnoble.com Contact the author at antonio_graceffo@hotmail.com

Miao Ping took me to practice kung fu in a martial arts park (Wushu Guan) this morning. There were endless armies of kung fu students running in formation, wearing various colored uniforms. The parade of color took forty minutes to pass at any given point. It wasn't a special occasion. It was just morning in Shaolin Village.

Miao Ping had me stand on top of posts, in horse stance, like in the "The Karate Kid" movie. I had to throw three hundred punches before he let me come down and practice kicks.

Because it is so cold, I am wearing four layers of clothing under my red kung fu tracksuit. I look like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. The hooded sweatshirt and the navy watch cap I wear make me look very Brooklyn, like I am here to collect money for Jimmy the Nose.

Apparently Shaolin Temple students are the only ones with shaved heads. So everyone knows at a glance what school I go to. In total, there are less than 80 Shaolin Temple students, in contrast to the tens of thousands of non-Shaolin students.

Yesterday, the old cook got a little lippy with Miao Ping. I was about to step in and say, "Not only is Miao Ping my friend, but he is an adult and if you ever talk to him like that again, I'll stick your head in the oven."

But then I thought better of it. This is their culture. If they want to mistreat each other, it's none of my business. The other thought that crossed my mind was that the cook probably knew kung fu. I had visions of that fight scene in Dragon, the Bruce Lee Story, where Jason Scott Lee, playing Bruce Lee, gets in a fight with the four cooks at Ruby Fu's Restaurant in San Francisco. Of course, Jason Scott Lee's kung fu is better than mine. So, I backed down.

Later in the day I found out that I had decided correctly. The assistant cook must have done something to piss off the old cook. The old cook beat the living tar out of him with some of the most violent kung fu I have ever seen.

"Note to self. Don't upset the cook."

WEDNESDAY 03/12/2003

Made it a week! I know I will make it longer, but I am really feeling my age. We have three training sessions each day. We have one from 5:30 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. Then we eat breakfast. Next, we train until about 12:00. We have a two-hour nap and then resume training until 6:00 PM.

As hard as the training is, the sanitary conditions are actually even harder on me. The students spit on the floor everywhere, including inside the house. The floor is covered with a thick slime of yellow lung jelly. They also blow their nose on the floor, even while eating. They hock green and yellow lugies right next to the table while they are eating. In fact, the only people who eat at a table are the instructors and me. Everyone else squats on the floor, inches above their own mucus, happily shoveling food into their mouths with chopsticks. Anything that winds up in their mouth that they don't want, like bones, seeds, inedible leaf fragments, or small stones, are just spit out on the table or on the floor.

Toddlers, in China, don't wear diapers. They wear little jumpers with a slit up the back. When they need to go to the bathroom, they just squat and go wherever they are, even indoors.

We sparred around a bit for twenty minutes or so. His foot speed was incredible, and he could probably cripple me with a kick. I did land a few punches, however. I accidentally drew blood on him, which was embarrassing, especially since -- if he had wanted to -- he could have really hurt me.

Sanda is very similar to Thai boxing, except Sanda has more grappling and all of the throws come from leg grabs, as opposed to head grabs in Thai Boxing. Another difference is that the kicks are even lower in Sanda. In Thai Boxing, or UFC, you kick your opponent's thighs to wear him down. In Sanda, you also kick the opponent's calves and ankles. Those kicks really hurt. A single kick to the ankle could end a fight.

Sanda fighters are terrible boxers. The strategy I eventually learned to employ when fighting them was to go low, catch a kick or two on my forearms, but then move in and take the opponent out with a combination of punches.

I sparred the Sanda instructor again. I was extremely nervous that he might try to hurt me to regain face. I meant to let him win, but he did something stupid. Instead of staying at a distance and kicking -- which I completely couldn't have defended against -- this time he tried a Sanda technique called shuai jiao, ducking his head and grabbing my waist in an attempt to throw me. I caught him in a guillotine choke and then went to the ground with him, arching my back and cutting off the blood flow to his brain. I kept waiting for him to tap out, to signal that he had enough, but the signal never came. When his body went limp I released my hold. It turned out that he didn't know about tapping out. Apparently in Sanda, when people try to throw you, you are supposed to have the good manners to fall down.

Now I am worried. Maybe he will jump me when I'm not looking. Actually it wouldn't matter if I were looking. He could kill me with those kicks.

My instructor today was named Da Se. He had me standing in horse stance for periods of five minutes, with a one-minute rest in between. We did the same for bow stance, on both the left and right side. Next, he had me do my form about five thousand times. Each time I finished, he said, "Ok, begin." We kept this up for four hours.

The apprentice monk asked me about the cross I wear around my neck. I told him, "I am Catholic."

"Is that the Jesus religion?" he asked.

I knew from previous experience that Chinese have trouble telling the difference between Protestant and Catholic. Once, a Chinese friend had asked me if I attended "Jesus Church" or "Mary Church." So I told the young monk, "I attend Mary Church." And suddenly he understood.

Da Se wanted to show me how strong he was, so he held out his arm and said, "Feel." In the West when someone does this they want you to feel their bicep. Here, they want you to feel their wrist. Their thinking is "anyone can get big biceps. But big wrists, that is really something." This guy's wrists were as hard as stone, and as big as a normal man's thighs. I am exaggerating, of course. But when he grabbed my hand, I was powerless to defend myself. He could have crushed my bones like a vice. I was looking at him thinking, he must be about 45 but he is in such great shape for his age. It turned out that he is 26. People lead hard lives in China.

Da Se told me that he has lived in the temple since he was six. His kung fu is amazing, but what does that do to your psyche in the long run? He can just barely read and write. He has never had a job, never had a bank account. He has probably never been with a woman. The other weird thing is, he's not a monk. He is just an instructor. He is allowed to drink alcohol, eat meat... even marry. But how would he marry if he is living in a monastery? And if he did marry, where would they live?

Da Se hasn't seen much TV and very few movies. He doesn't know popular music. He's never read a book... Imagine having no knowledge of the outside world! No MTV, no CNN.

I look at Miao Hai and the younger kids and think, "Man, you're missing out on so much." But then I think, there isn't all that much opportunity in China. Maybe they aren't missing out on anything. They have food, occupation, activity and they love their life and their kung fu. Maybe that is enough. If nothing else, they are better off than if they were Chinese kids not living in a temple. Those kids have nothing.

The only thing they ever talk about is kung fu. I asked some of the non-monks what their plans were. None of them seem to have a plan. Before I came I was told that the dream of anyone at these schools is to go get a good job with the police or the army after graduating from the temple. But only one kid has mentioned that to me. The rest of them plan to live here forever.

The story continues...