shaolin

Shaolin’s Shi Yongxin, Angel or Devil?

Abbot Shi Yongxin, who runs China’s famed Shaolin Temple, has been digging the pay dirt for the prestigious monastery for years. However, his operating ideology that made Shaolin thrive financially is sometimes condemned...

Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Hoohah

Film star Jet Li’s planned promotion of Tai Chi around the world, backed by Chinese Internet entrepreneur Jack Ma, is no mere business venture. Rather, it is an heroic attempt to boost China’s currently feeble...

Town Asks Kung Fu Monks for Tourism Blessings

The New York Times writes about the town of Guandu, in Yunnan, where the commissioner of ethnic and religious affairs became discouraged when renovated Buddhist temples failed to generate tourist income: Mr. Dou found a savior...

China’s Shaolin Temple Kicks Off Expansion Plan

From Reuters: China’s birth place of kung fu, the Shaolin Temple, has taken over the management of four Buddhist temples in southwest China in a move criticized by some Internet users for mixing capitalism with religion....

Kung Fu Warriors Fight For Martial Art’s Future

From The Times: Among the green peaks of the Song Shan mountain range is a town named Dengfeng, which has the highest concentration of hardmen in the world. You can hear them all morning, training in the dozens of schools that...

China’s Famed Shaolin Temple Kick Starts Online Store

From Reuters: China’s Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of kung fu and the star of many martial arts films, has set up an online store to flog its wares. Named “Shaolin The Stage of Joy”, a Web page has been set...

Shaolin Plans 300m Yuan for New Temple – Lydia Chen

From Shanghai Daily: Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of Chinese martial arts, plans to spend 300 million yuan (US$41.10 million) on a new temple which will become home to the nation’s biggest Buddhist college. The new temple, on the site of the Donglin Temple in Xingyang County, Zhengzhou, Henan Province, will cover 107 hectares and is […]

Bloggers Criticize Shaolin Temple for Refusing Entry to Beijing Olympics

From DWNEWS.COM and Sohu Blog, summarized and translated by CDT: An Chinese old saying reads, “Shaolin Kongfu defeats the world.” This sentence perhaps needs to be changed. As host of the Olympic Games, Beijing will successfully add “Martial Arts” into its “Ad Hoc” program, hoping to demonstrate Chinese Wushu’s (martial arts’) spirit in a profound […]

Shaolin Temple goes commercial – Guo Qiang

From China Daily: Shi Yongxin, the abbot of Shaolin Temple, widely considered the birthplace of Chinese Kung Fu, spends most of his day greeting corporate executives, government officials and friends from all over the world and dealing with dinner invitations and business instead of shepherding all disciples. When Henan officials presented Shi with a spectacular […]

Martial arts in modern China: Everybody is kung fu fighting – Clifford Coonan

From the Independent: The success of popular martial arts films means everybody is kung fu fighting in China these days, but youngsters will soon be adopting a fighting stance in the classroom rather than outside in the playground. Kung fu has now been made compulsory in secondary schools in central China. The first kung fu […]

Shaolin’s kung fu monks make a killing – Pallavi Aiyar

From Asian Times Online (link): From high up in the misty Song Mountains of central China’s Henan province, the Shaolin monastery and its kung fu monks have held a peculiar fascination across the centuries. Shrouded in a swirl of myth and mystery, the temple’s fame has long crossed Chinese borders thanks to Hollywood and Jet […]

Monks enjoy mobiles and the Net – Xiaoxiang Morning Post

From Xiaoxiang Morning Post via China Daily (link): In an interview with the Xiaoxiang Morning Post, Shi Yanlu, chief coach of the Shaolin Temple‘s martial arts team, revealed the modern life enjoyed by monks. Shi said most of the monks aged over 18 years have mobile phones and surf the Internet every day. They also […]

Kung Fu Monks Go Modern – Ching-Ching Ni

From the Los Angeles Times: Shi Yongxin wears a bright yellow robe and heavy prayer beads and lives in an ancient shrine high up in the mountains of central China. Yet he spends a lot of his time traveling in a chauffeur-driven jeep, jet-setting around the world and hobnobbing with Hollywood types. No wonder some […]

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