Kung fu warriors here for exhibition

JAKARTA (JP): Monkey style fighting, orange robes and somersaults marked the entrance of 32 young kung fu warriors from the Shaolin Temple of China here yesterday.

It was a brief demonstration of skills performed by three of them in a restaurant in Senayan, Central Jakarta yesterday, to applause from curious diners.

Like in kung fu films, the warriors will perform various movements, displaying armed and unarmed techniques, in a show at the Senayan Indoor Tennis Stadium from May 3 to May 10 starting at 8 p.m.

Three days later, from May 13 to May 16, they will be showing their skills at Istora Senayan sports hall, also at eight. On Saturdays, Sundays or holidays there will be an additional performance at 10.30 a.m.

Ticket are sold at Rp 125,000 (US$38.7) for a "very VIP" seat, Rp 100,000 for a VIP seat, Rp 50,000 for a first-class seat and Rp 30,000 for an ordinary second-class seat.

The young men, mostly in their twenties, are fresh from the interior of the Song mountain in Henan province, one and a half hour by plane and four hours drive from Beijing.

They have lived and trained in the temple since they were small. They train every day, about an hour in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. Most of them were sent to the temple by their parents.

Kung fu is an ancient martial art, both a form of exercise with a spiritual dimension in concentration and self-discipline, and a primarily unarmed mode of individual combat.

As combat, kung fu can be traced back to the Chou dynasty (1111-255 BC) or even earlier. As an exercise it was first practiced by the Taoists in the fifth century BC. (arf)