Are you ready to start your Kung Fu training at Qufu Shaolin Kung Fu School?
Here are some tips you might find useful from our students and Joy, our consultant for over 10 years, who replies to all applicant emails. You can get information in this page about application, visa, weather, insurance, vaccination, preparations, what to bring, flights, and travel in this page.
We would like to help you organize your trip after you submit the application form and pay the application fee:
Before we start, the most important thing is: Get your mind ready.
Kung Fu movements look fancy but to train 5 to 6 hours a day 5 days a week is not easy. You may experience a culture shock, different weather, food, customs, languages, and some muscle aching and pain. It is important to have an open mind to accept and understand others and to speak out and communicate with others. The school community is open and friendly. We are one big family.

Application
We suggest you apply at least one month ahead of your planned date of arrival to get enough time to organize your trip. The apply process should be easy by following the instructions on the Apply page.

Visa
After you get you reserve a place in our school you need to start your visa application as soon as possible. Please first find your nearest embassy look up their website or call them to check exactly what kind of documents they require. Usually you will need :

• Passport (valid date should be 6 months longer than the duration you plan to stay in China, it is complicated to renew passport in China),
• Photos (the size required by the Embassy),
• Visa apply form ( you can download from the Chinese Embassy's website)
• Admission letter from our school.
For the letter, usually the scanned version will work, but there is some very strict Consulates that require the original letter. We are able to post it if needed. An air-mail takes at least 2 weeks. This is the reason we suggest you to apply for visa as early as possible.
• If you got required to offer our school certifications please email us.

Note: As a private school and a government verified "Foreign Affairs Unit", we can help you apply for the types of X2 visa, by the reason short-term” study. When you apply from the oversea Embassy, they can give 90 days maximum. If you are staying longer our school can help you get it extended up to a year. If you are planning to stay for more than a year, you need to leave Mainland China for minimum 48 hours to apply for visa then you can reenter China. Some of our students travel to neighboring countries like Hong Kong or Thailand to reapply for visa after one year.

It is impossible for private Kung Fu schools to get JW forms and X1 visas on their own, no matter how they assure this. They might try to use others school forms. Be careful with that to avoid be cheated.

One last tip: you can get Chinese visa from any Chinese Embassy, but things would be easier to manage in your own country.

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Weather
Our school is located in the South-west region of Shandong province. It belongs to Northern China. It has four obvious seasons: Spring (March, April May), Summer (June, July, August), Autumn (September, October November), and Winter (December, January, February).

The weather and temperature is pretty pleasant in Spring and Autumn. The hottest two weeks is usually the last two weeks of July, and the coldest two weeks time is around mid January. There are fans in each room to cool you down in summer and heating radiators to keep the room warm in winter. We have snow in winter time, but not as much as the coastal cities in Shandong. So it is less freezing than those cities.
The heating time in our area is November 15th till March 15. You can also chose a room with air-conditioner for some extra cost to have the room pleasant all the time.

As we are in the national park area of the tourism UNESCO Heritage city without any heavy industry, so the air-quality is comparatively better then other areas.

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Insurance:
Due to the differences of insurance policies between countries. It is better to buy yourself at least a travel insurance before you come. It is important to have, as it can cover any UN-expected illness and injuries.

Health & Vaccination:
It is not required from our school to hand in your health condition. But if you have any specially cases, please note it in your application form.

Many students asked about Vaccinations as well. Here is the one suggested by the National Health Ministry for students before you start boarding school:
BCG vaccine, polio vaccine, DPT triple vaccine, measles vaccine, hepatitis B vaccine

Pack up:
You can pack up as a normal trip but make sure you have suitable training clothes that allow you to do stretches. One pair of running shoes, daily cleaning and caring products; nutrition supplements, books, any electronics with VPN to use Facebook, YouTube or Skype. Here is a video by one of our students to show you in details what to bring.

*What is VPN?

A VPN or Virtual Private Network is an encrypted service connection that allows you to access every website and online service privately. Because here in China google services as well as Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, and other western social media outlets are blocked, we recommend students to purchase a secure VPN to be able to communicate with their families back home using online resources that you won’t be able to access here in China. There are many companies that provide VPN, some that are free but not secure. You can research these companies on your own. We recommend ExpressVPN, click here to get all their details.    

Travel & Flights:
Here is the location of our school.


To make your way to our school there are two sections:

1. International flight:
Qufu has good connections to the most important high speed train either from Beijing or Shanghai. So you can choose to fly to either one (Beijing Capital Airport PEK) or Shanghai (Shanghai Pudong Airport PVG) from your county. Beijing is the mostly choosen one, but sometimes Shanghai airport has a good price. Guangzhou can be a good choice for students from Australia and India and other counties to the South of China especially because there is a direct flight from Guangzhou (Guangzhou Baiyun Airport CAN) to our airport in Jining (JNG), and we offer free pickup service from there.

2. From your first airport to our school, there are two choices:

A: High Speed train Qufu East Train Station
This is the most convenient way to come to our school. There are more than 10 trains daily from either Beijing (Beijing South train station) or Shanghai (Shanghai Hongqiao train station). The journey takes 2-3 hours and costs from 40-58 US dollars. As there are so many trains, you can just come to the train station and buy the ticket on spot. It is also possible to book the train ticket in advance by Ctrip or travelchinaguide.

If you want more information, to make your way from the airport and the train station, please watch this video on How to go to our school from the airport.

Here are the train tables:
If flying to Beijing, you could also take the train from Beijing South railway station to Qufu East.  There are several trains as listed below.

From Beijing

If you fly to Shanghai Pudong International airport, you can take subway to Shanghai Hongqiao train station to take the following trains.
From Shanghai


B: Domestic Flights to Jining Qufu Airport (JNG):
There is also flights from Beijing or Shanghai to our nearby airport Jining Qufu Airport for you to choose.


Pick Up
We offer free pick up from Qufu East train station and Jining Airport no matter if you come on training days or in the weekend. The only job you need to do is to inform us of your arrival time in advance. Our school translator will wait for you at the exit with the school sign and take you back to the school.

Here is the sign you should look for



A secondary airport is Jinan Yaoqiang Airport (TNA), which is 180km away. As it is too far away from us, We can pick you up for some extra cost.

If have any doubts or questions, you can check our FAQs or email Joy at school@shaolinskungfu.com .

Telephone, mail and internet

The school has free WIFI covered all the accommodations, and connected computers in the office that students can use to check their emails, Skye or Whats App calls. There is also an office phone that can be used to receive calls. From the nearest post office, letters to and from America and European countries by airmail may take around a week or two to arrive. Parcels may take a little longer.

Money and banking
ATM's at the Bank of China can be used to withdraw money using your personal debit or credit card; please speak to your bank prior to coming to China. Cash can also be sent from a foreign country through Western Union. Traveler's cheques can be cashed at a bank such as the Bank of China and but may take a little while to process.

Health
In China, local clinics and hospitals are well-equipped and have many western, Chinese and combination medicines. In a medical bag, it is convenient to have things like sunscreen, insect repellant, band aids, some cream or ointment for cuts and bruises, something for an upset stomach or nausea, any prescription or allergy medicine and multi-vitamins if taken.
Visitors are not recommended to drink unboiled tap water in China. For training, students either fill up their bottle with pre-boiled water from the school's hot water machine freely or buy boxes of bottled water as they are quite inexpensive.
In traditional Chinese medicine, the practice of Qigong and Tai Chi are considered beneficial and restorative to health.