Fabrice Mba's passion for Chinese culture and martial arts budded in the southern Cameroon town of Sangmelima, where he grew up watching kung fu movies.

His elder brother was a projectionist and as a youngster, Mba often helped him sweep the theater.

For the first time, he saw Shaolin monks on the screen. "I discovered kung fu and Chinese culture. It spoke a lot to me."

He and his friends would imitate characters from the movies, but there was no kung fu club to train them.

When he was 8, he left home with his elder sister to settle in the capital, Yaounde.

Life was difficult, his father was absent and his mother could not take care of all her children.

"I grew up on the street," he says.