Regular marked price: $15.00Discount Price: $5.99
Cost Savings: $9.01 (60%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.8155
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Gotham
Manufacturer: Gotham
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 384
Printing Date: December 27, 2007
Publishing house: Gotham
Sale Popularity Level: 17392
Studio: Gotham
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Bill Bryson meets Bruce Lee in this raucously funny story of one scrawny American’s quest to become a kung fu master at China’s legendary Shaolin Temple.
Growing up a ninety-pound weakling tormented by bullies in the schoolyards of Kansas, young Matthew Polly dreamed of one day journeying to the Shaolin Temple in China to become the toughest fighter in the world, like Caine in his favorite 1970s TV series, Kung Fu. While in college, Matthew decided the time had come to pursue this quixotic dream before it was too late. Much to the dismay of his parents, he dropped out of Princeton to spend two years training with the legendary sect of monks who invented kung fu and Zen Buddhism.
Expecting to find an isolated citadel populated by supernatural ascetics that he’d seen in countless badly dubbed chop-socky flicks, Matthew instead discovered a tacky tourist trap run by Communist party hacks. But the dedicated monks still trained in the rigorous age-old fighting forms—some even practicing the “iron kung fu” discipline, in which intensive training can make various body parts virtually indestructible (even the crotch). As Matthew grew in his knowledge of China and kung fu skill, he would come to represent the Temple in challenge matches and international competitions, and ultimately the monks would accept their new American initiate as close to one of their own as any Westerner had ever become.
Laced with humour and illuminated by cultural insight, American Shaolin is an unforgettable coming-of-age tale of one young man’s journey into the ancient art of kung fu—and a funny and poignant portrait of a quickly changing China.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
Held my interest! A lot about China and tradition mixed in with understanding, humor, and some relaly good stories.
Rated by buyers -
American Shaolin was a very light, entertaining read that I would absolutely recommend to anyone interested in Chinese culture, regardless of their martial arts experience.
Rated by buyers 
-
In the early 1990s author Matthew Polly dropped out of Princeton University, flew to China and set out to train at the Shaolin Temple. He was motivated by a mental list of "what's wrong with Matthew", including physical cowardice, spiritual confusion, etc. That list forms a loose structure for his book, as his year of living and training at Shaolin answers his questions and forces him to ask new ones that can't be answered living on top of a mountain with a bunch of Buddhist monks.
Polly begins training in a combination of Wushu and traditional Shaolin formal styles, learning to "eat bitter" in agonizing stretching and endurance exercises. He then discovers a talent for Sanda (kickboxing) and goes on to compete in that style, representing his school in one tournament and one challenge fight before heading back to the US.
Polly is a good writer (now a professional travel writer) and his book neatly mirrors his own journey (a classic fish-out-of-water/coming of age story) with the fast-paced progress of Chinese society itself over the past twenty years. The story is peppered with amusing anecdotes that convey the day-to-day reality of living in a foreign culture, especially a semi-mythical pressure cooker community like Shaolin, which attracts a lot of "extreme" personalities.
From the martial arts point of view, Polly has a realistic grasp of the relative values of Wushu and Sanda. He explains classical forms training as a way of preserving the past and (increasingly) as a performing art, whereas Sanda is explained as a stripped-down, no-nonsense combat sport. He also has an interesting theory about the proliferation of specialized Shaolin styles; you stick a bunch of celibate athletes up on top of a mountain for long enough and they will create new fighting styles out of sheer boredom.
My favorite quote from the book: "Chinese kung fu is the most glorious example of obsessive/compulsive behavior in the history of world culture."
Rated by buyers -
I couldn't put this book down. It's amazingly honest, incredibly funny, and makes one want to have lived the experience. If you don't like it you've got an iron heart.
Rated by buyers -
I really enjoyed this book. Not only
did I learn about the culture of China
and Shaolin, but it was a gripping
funny book. Truly a gifted author.
I wish he would write more.
Find other books like this one:
