Xiao Zhuan

When I first came to Yongtai, China, the walls were crumbling and the windows rattled in the wind. The nuns had only just begun restoring the place, and my classroom was a storage room with a cracked floor. But I had made a decision. I would stay.

That was eleven years ago. I am now 37 and have lived in the Song Shan range ever since. I teach Kung Fu to teenage girls in a boarding school hidden in a narrow valley. The girls call it a convent, though few of them understand what that means. It’s cold in winter, hot in summer, and discipline hangs in the air like incense.

Seventy students live here, sharing everything—food, bunks, bruises. Their dream: to become Kung Fu fighters. Not just students. Fighters. I admire their clarity. At eighteen, Guo Jia is already one of the strongest. She arrived small and wiry, too serious for her age. Now she moves with sharpness, like the edge of a sword that’s never known rust.

Her day begins at 5:30 sharp. I watch them from the courtyard as they do laps around the compound. No talking allowed. After breakfast—steamed buns and soup—there’s weapons training: sabers, spears, swords. We practice forms, combinations, sparring. Then they go to academic classes while I review drills and correct postures. Kung Fu isn’t in the fists. It’s in the spine, the knees, the breath.

The girls only get Sundays off. Most take the bus to Dengfeng to shower. It’s loud there—Kung Fu City. I hate the noise. But they return happy, smelling of shampoo, full of stories.

Soon we’ll go to the sports festival. They’ll compete with boys from mixed schools. I’ve told them: fight with control, not rage. We're honored to train this month with a Shaolin monk—old, thin, and faster than any of us. He says: “Modern Kung Fu is for trophies. Ours is for the soul.”

I nod but say nothing. I’m not a monk. I’m just a woman who chose the mountain.