Overview

A hilarious memoir by the first skinny white American to learn Kung Fu from the original Shaolin masters. AMERICAN SHAOLIN is the brilliantly funny memoir from the first American - and a 90 pound weakling at that - to study kung fu with monks at the original Shaolin temple in China, in a two-year martial arts odyssey that includes gruelling days of training, a forbidden romance with a local woman, and ultimately a challenge match against a rival Kung Fu master with the Temple's honour at stake.

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"A sensibility more alien to my own than Matthew Polly's is hard to imagine. I consider foreign cultures to be really . . . foreign. I don't spiritually quest; I go to church. As for the martial arts, I own a gun. But I loved AMERICAN SHAOLIN. Reading it was like being abducted by an alien -- a brilliant, funny, and hospitable alien who took me to another universe of sensibility. There I enjoyed myself immensely - P.J. O'Rourke Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li and David Carradine all played Shaolin Monks, but Matthew Polly actually lived it. In American Shaolin, he enters China's most famous temple, the birthplace of zen and martial arts, and uncovers unique insights on religion, - Gene Ching, KUNG FU TAI CHI MAGAZINE Smoothly written . . . Polly has a good eye for characters and introduces the reader to a Finnish messiah, a practitioner of ""iron crotch"" kung fu, and his nagging girlfriend. We get the inside dope on Chinese dating, Chinese drinking games and a medical system apparently modelled on the Spanish Inquisition - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (US) A lively, humorous, and thought-provoking memoir - DISCOVER GREAT NEW WRITERS, Barnes & Noble spring 2007 selection"

Memoir of the author's quest for personal growth and wisdom by way of a trip to the birthplace of Zen and kung fu.Polly confesses to having become obsessed with martial arts at age nine, when he saw an episode of Kung Fu. David Carradine's character, he writes, seemed to be as strange and helpless as I felt, and yet he was a total badass. Leaving hometown Topeka to attend Princeton, he started taking kung fu classes and studying Mandarin. But he still didn't feel like much of a badass, so in 1992 he headed for the ultimate sleep-away sports camp, the fabled Shaolin Temple Wushu Center in Henan Province in the heart of Communist China. The tall, blue-eyed laowai (foreigner) found Shaolin, established some 1,500 years before, a bit seedy. His Zen masters could curse as well as fight; Polly learned drinking games and dirty jokes along with fighting techniques. Getting whacked upside his head, Bao Mosi (as he was called in Chinese) became tough, dispensing some nasty blows himself. Polly met specialists Master Wu, Coach Big Wang and Monk Dong (don't ask about his specialty). He ogled beautiful Lotus, one of only five female students, and shook his head over assorted foreign nut cases. Bao Mosi found the combat sports beautiful, the height of civilization. His adventure in a Cultural Exchange Mutual Benefit exercise proved that he definitely wasn't in Kansas anymore.A nicely developed narrative. (Kirkus Reviews)

'A sensibility more alien to my own than Matthew Polly's is hard to imagine. I consider foreign cultures to be really ... foreign. I don't spiritually quest; I go to church. As for the martial arts, I own a gun. But I loved American Shaolin. Reading it was like being abducted by an alien -- a brilliant, funny, and hospitable alien who took me to another universe of sensibility. There I enjoyed myself immensely' P.J. O'Rourke 'Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li and David Carradine all played Shaolin Monks, but Matthew Polly actually lived it. In American Shaolin, he enters China's most famous temple, the birthplace of zen and martial arts, and uncovers unique insights on religion, sex, politics, and kicking butt-a revealing confession of monastic life in modern China.' Gene Ching, KUNG FU TAI CHI MAGAZINE

Author Information

Matthew Polly is a freelance writer living in NYC. His work has appeared in Esquire, Playboy, The Nation, and Slate. Joe Veltre sold NA rights to Brendan Cahill at Gotham Books. Howie Sanders is handling film rights. Author Location: New York

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