WAN Shan Qing had finally arrived. In defiance of his parents and carrying only a blanket, the 13-year-old had traveled more than 900 miles from his home province on the east coast of China to the ...

The hushed silence that descends over the old courtyard inside the Shaolin Temple carries the expectation of something magical. Abbot Shi Yongxin, a rotund Buddhist monk with a shaved head and a ...