Buddhist Monk

Ok, this one's going to be fairly short and probably unfunny, but it's somewhat topical so I thought I'd include this anecdote. For anyone who has seen me recently, I have trimmed (nee, shaved) my beastly hair and, for the first time since November, I'm also clean shaven. I look like a normal person, which is not normal for me. This is not the first time I've done this, as last year in China (see, these posts always go somewhere after a crappy introduction) I pulled the same routine, though I was paid to do so last time (damn Chinese electric razors don't work in America). So, I shaved my head in April last year, about a week or so before Spring Break. Now, my Spring Break trip found me, with four other compatriots, in central China, namely Zhengzhou, Chongqing, Kaifeng, the Yangtze River, and several other places. This post is not the Officialy Spring Break Post, however. That'd take too long and we all know I have no attention span when the sun is shining its death rays upon us all. So after the cruise down the Yangtze, we decided to visit the Shaolin Temple because that seemed like a badass thing to do (and there aren't exactly a plethora of tourism options in central China. You kinda just choose the temple/historic city X and just go). We toured the grounds of the temple and saw some sweet gong fu and pagodas and even chatted with a lady from America who said she was sending her four year old son there to study, even though he didn't speak a lick of Chinese (tuition is actually pretty cheap there, if some parents are looking for cheap alternatives to the American public school system and want their child to be proficient in lethal hand to hand combat). After seeing all there was to see, we decided to climb Song Shan (Mt. Shan) one of the five holy Taoist mountains in China. Disregarding the advice of everyone whom we told our plan to (at this point, we were distrustful of all Chinese, thinking they were all out to screw us over instead of, you know, providing helpful advice), we decided to make the hike up the mountain instead of taking the cable car. Luckily most of this hike was under the cover of trees because it was at least 90 degrees that day and we were carrying our backpacks with a week's worth of clothes/supplies in them. While walking up the mountain, we saw groups of Red Army soldiers in training running up and down the mountain, which was pretty cool. We finally made it to the top of the mountain and sat down to relax/take some sweet pics since the view was amazing. Now, before I continue, I should mention that the Shaolin Temple is a Buddhist monastery and, coincidentally, there are alot of Buddhist monks of the grounds and it is a popular destination for Buddhist pilgrims. With my freshly shaven head/face, I apparently resembled one of these Buddhist monks/pilgrims even though I had clearly climbed with a group of white non-Buddhist peoples. This case of mistaken identity led to several people clamoring for pictures with me because I was a "Buddhist." One person even went so far as to force me to wear his blessed beads with him in a photo for "good luck" or something like that. Regardless, the episode was somewhat embarrassing because no one would listen to me when I protested that I wasn't Buddhist. Therefore, I got to be a pretend Buddhist for a solid 15-20 minutes, which gives me an air of superiority wheneven Buddhism comes up in class discussions. I'll finish this story at some point with details of the whole trip, including the harrowing conclusion of us climbing down (and up...and down..... and up.... and down) Song Shan before making our way to Zhengzhou.