Most of my visits were in the region of Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan. On one visit, I noted to my colleague that I had noticed a sign to the Shaolin Temple, which was near to Zhengzhou. If movies have taught me anything – apart from the fact that I really should have mastered the Jedi mind trick by now – it is that the Shaolin Temple is the spiritual home of Chinese kung fu (or in China “gongfu”).[1] And I suggested that next time we were in the area, we ought to try and make a visit.

            My colleagues often had a pleasing habit of hearing my throw-away comments like that and taking them seriously, and so on our next trip back to Zhengzhou, my colleague Keith told me that he had booked us to visit the Temple. Before making the trip, I did some vital research (I watched a couple of enjoyably violent Donnie Yen films), and after our last meeting for the day had finished, we were on our way.

            Our client arranged a car for us and added that one of the Shaolin monks, named Yong Qi, was going to accompany us. Sure enough, a tall, shaven-headed man in bright saffron robes met us, taking the time to greet us all with a Buddhist praying and bowing motion and then a fairly unreligious discussion on his mobile phone.

            Before touring round the Temple, we had lunch with the Deputy Director of the Temple. The client had sold to the Temple the story that I was some big-shot international banker, and so they were laying on the red carpet treatment for me; either that, or they had taken to heart another client’s drunken comment, at our dinner the night before, that I looked like Tony Blair. Maybe they thought that I was our Tone come to visit the monks and no doubt tell them where they were going wrong. Have a look at the photos in this book – Tony Blair? Really?

[1] Henan is renowned as being the original source of both gongfu and tai jiquan.