"When I was young, I told my mother that I would go to China to learn Kung Fu one day. She didn't believe it at the time. When I got there, I1 called her and said, ‘Mum, guess where I am, I'm at the Shaolin Temple!' ,"says Max Yollando, a young man from the Cote d'Ivoire,2 his love for Chinese culture.
At the time, Yollando was a student at the Felix Houphouet-Boigny University in Abidjan. Out of his3 for Chinese culture, he entered the Confucius Institute(孔子学院) to study Chinese. In late 2016, he had the 4 to visit the temple in Henan province on a three month exchange. This experience 5 his understanding of traditional Chinese culture.
"The spirit of martial arts( 武术) displayed by my fellow disciples(弟子) deeply6 me. I truly fell in love and felt 7 that this was the place I had8 since childhood，" he says.
After9 to the Cote d'Ivoire， Yollando continued to practise Chinese and study traditional culture. In July 2017, he returned to Shaolin Temple and10 there for six years. His years at the temple reading, exercising， practising martial arts greatly changed him, and allowed him to11 understand and appreciate traditional Chinese culture. He says the most impressive things he noticed that were rooted in Chinese culture are the love of work, respect, and recognition.
At the end of 2022， when he12 his studies at the temple, he began working at a Shaolin cultural centre in Zambia. For Yollando, the13 of studying Chinese culture was to be able to return to Africa to introduce Chinese14 to his countrymen." When I make 15 between Chinese and African culture, it seems to me that they have a lot in common, he says.
