It's a Shaolin monastery (or at least, MKSM and MK9 want us to think it and Liu's Temple of the Order of Light are the same place, I'm not so sure that was the intention when it was created in Deadly Alliance...), so it'd have to be in China.

All right, I’ve always assumed China. Though where in China specifically? Along the Himalayas? More towards the coastlines? Or more in central China? I guess I’m curious because of how different the background of the Wu Shi stage seems to look in certain pictures.

Liu Kang's MK1 bio says he's from the Henan province. (Technically, it says "Honan", with an O, but most of the internet seems to prefer spelling it with an E. Same place either way. Chinese-to-English translation can be imperfect like that.)

That's where the Shaolin Temple is located in real life. Specifically, on Mount Shaoshi. That's where the word "Shaolin" comes from, "Shao" from the mountain's name and "lin" is Chinese for "forest".

So the hills and trees you see in the Wu Shi Academy background and especially in that level of MKSM, is probably pretty accurate.

Ah, okay, thank-you very much.

The "Lin" in Lin Kuei also means forest; "kuei" means "ghost" or "demon". Just in case anyone didn't already know ;)