Economic State of Shaolin Temple today

[sha0lin1]

I thought that it was in better shape this time than when I was there two years ago. All the construction that was going on behind Talin was completed and it looked really nice. I did not see much graffitti, but there was some, chinese scratched into the paint, nothing another paint job couldn't fix.

[GeneChing]

Wait.....what?

China's kung fu town aims to build international martial arts conglomerate
English.news.cn 2011-08-03 18:12:28

ZHENGZHOU, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- China's kung fu town of Dengfeng, where the famed Shaolin Temple is located, aims to merge its kungfu schools into a martial arts conglomerate able to provide top-rated shows and training for the overseas market, a local official said Wednesday.

The authorities will propose mergers of small and poorly-run kung fu schools while raising the registration requirements for opening new schools, said Wang Songwei, head of the martial arts administration of Dengfeng in central Henan Province.

Wang said the number of kung fu schools in Dengfeng will be halved to fewer than 20, but the number of students will be doubled to 100,000 by 2015.

China's kung fu schools usually enroll young kids and adolescents from the countryside, providing them education with a focus on martial arts training. Top students take the sport as a profession by competing in martial arts contests and participating in shows staged at various events, including the Beijing Olympics and the Shanghai World Expo.

Graduates of the kung fu schools can get recommendations to enter the military and police. They can also easily join the country's booming private security guard companies.

The development of kung fu schools has helped Dengfeng reap profits from shows and tourism.

But these schools have started to complain of a drop in the enrollment due to the dwindling population of rural kids and the easier access to standard education. Many schools are forced to offer high school courses to prepare the students for college.

Wang said the kung fu schools will increasingly focus on intellectual subjects and not only physical education. "We don't want our students to be masculine but simple-minded martial arts masters," he said.

The official did not elaborate on plans of the martial arts conglomerate but said such a trend of development would enable kung fu shows to expand on the overseas market. No figures of investment were disclosed.

Kung fu gained its popularity in the world through the successful screening of mainland and Hong Kong kung fu movies beginning in the 1970s. The global enthusiasm put the 1,500-year-old Shaolin Temple, cradle of Shaolin kung fu, on the world map.

The temple itself has developed profitable business operations such as kung fu shows, film production and online sales under the business-minded abbot Shi Yongxin, who has been crowned China's "CEO monk."

[bawang]

my cousins works as a bank teller in china and one of those factory school bodyguards died trying to use kung fu on a robber with a knife.

those dengfeng schools prey on kung fu dreams of children, and turn them into a nightmare. they dont promote traditional culture nor are they relevant in modern china at all.

[GeneChing]

Shaolin shareholders: China tourism IPOs face difficult journey
By Soo Ai Peng
SHANGHAI | Wed Aug 31, 2011 3:19am EDT

(Reuters) - A failed listing attempt by the operator of an ancient Chinese water town has reignited a kind of Buddhist versus capitalist debate over the merits of marrying cherished cultural and natural heritage icons with profit-minded capital markets.

The operator of Wuzhen, dubbed the "Venice of China" and located in Zhejiang province, earlier this month scrapped its plan to list shares in Hong Kong due to a lack of government support. The failure may deal a blow to similar plans by other tourism site companies, including the famed Shaolin Buddhist Temple of kung-fu fame.

Many other Chinese tourism attractions, including the Shaolin Temple, have been reported to be planning to list, but the failure by China CYTS Tours Holdings (600138.SS) to spin off Wuzhen Tourism Development Co serves as a reminder of the tough fight these firms face.

"It's been made clear since 2008 that listings of important tourism sites, unless they are backed by solid investment plans to develop the sites, are not encouraged," said Chen Chong, an analyst at Founder Securities in Beijing.

Assets linked to Shaolin Temple are housed under HKCTS (Dengfeng) Songshan Shaolin Cultural Tourism Ltd, a joint venture between Dengfeng city and the HKCTS Group, China's largest travel group.

The local government of Dengfeng city, where the Buddhist institution is located, owns 49 percent of the joint venture and the HKCTS Group owns the remainder.

Reports about Shaolin Temple planning a listing sparked a public outcry two years ago when they surfaced. Many Chinese are concerned that the Shaolin Temple, which has become a high-profile commercial entity in recent years, is becoming overly money-minded.

HOT INDUSTRY

With tourism a hot investment theme in China, it's little wonder tourism companies are eager to sell shares.

The asset management arm of Edmond De Rothschild Group, owned by the Rothschild family, said on Tuesday it bought more than 5 percent of China CYTS Tours and plans to increase that stake over the next 12 months. Its Wuzhen subsidiary counts China-focused private equity firm IDG among its investors.

"The tourism industry is a sunrise industry. It's a pillar sector under the government's five-year development plan," said Chen.

China's tourism industry is expected to grow rapidly over the next few years as per capita income climbs and as the government promotes domestic consumption to support economic growth.

The tourism sector is forecast to grow at an annual rate of about 10 percent over the next five years. Total revenue from the tourism sector will reach 1.9 trillion yuan in 2015, up from 1.15 trillion yuan in 2010, official Chinese media have reported.

The listing of companies linked to world famous Chinese sites is not new in the country's three-decade-old capital markets.

Shanghai-listed Huangshan Tourism Development Co (600054.SS), for example, sells admission to Huangshan, or the Yellow Mountain, a UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage site in the southern Chinese province of Anhui.

The sale of admission tickets to the famed Emei Mountain in southwest China is also an important source of income for Shenzhen-listed Emei Shan Tourism Co (000888.SZ).

While some argue against the listing of cultural and natural assets, others say such funding could help pay for conservation and protection projects.

(Editing by Kazunori Takada and Matt Driskill)

Martial art schools face declining business
Updated: 2011-08-31 17:17
By Wang Qingyun (chinadaily.com.cn)

Martial art schools are losing luster in Anhui province and Dengfeng city of Central China's Henan province, China Comment reported.

According to the management center of martial art and boxing, in the late 1990s there were more than 200 martial art schools in Anhui. In recent years, however, the number has shrunk to less than 60.

In Dengfeng, the city where the Shaolin Temple is located, the number of martial art schools has decreased from more than 100 in the early 2000s to 48.

Tang Shanzhong, head of the social activity department of the management center of martial art and boxing, said martial art schools usually do not enroll enough students because parents tend to send their children to academic schools where they learn more knowledge.

What's more, national policies to relieve the financial burden of studying allow more rural children to study in average schools, Tang said.

Gloomy employment prospects are another cause for the decline, according to China Comment. While many graduates became security guards or martial art trainers, some ended up as members of mafia-style organizations.

I feel this is actually a far more complicated issue than these short news pieces reveal - interesting nonetheless.

[Matthew]

I haven't been there in several years, but all the reports I get imply that it's in better shape than ever. But still, after several million tourists, I can imagine decline.

The surplus of wealth at the Shaolin Temple has been a common theme of recent "jokes" if you will by some Chinese. As far as monetary income goes- it may not always be what farmers report it at (Or for that case, Gong Fu Schools as well..) Also there are a lot of very poor areas where the general feeling is more contented than others. From my travels in Tibet, I met countless smiling souls. Most of which were monetarily worth less to the Chinese government than the dirt they prayed on!

Enjoy the Site here for a somewhat fun perspective on Shaolin's monetary successes:

You can google translate this if you can't read chinese : See the difference between Shaolin Temple and another Buddhist temple in China- the Great Compassion Temple.

This link may work for a direct translation from google services

Great Compassion Temple- walking and begging (as they don't accept money)


Shaolin Temple - Winning awards from the Government and businesses


Obviously there are reasons that Shaolin temple has been of great interest to the recent Chinese government and I'm not posting these in question the practice of those at the temple itself. I'm posting it to have a comical look from an outsiders perspective.

[GeneChing]

Interesting interview on an interesting platform.

September 9, 2011 5:17 pm
Lunch with the FT: Shi Yongxin
By Jamil Anderlini

The abbot of Shaolin Temple, labelled as the ‘CEO monk’ by the Chinese media, talks about balancing business and Buddhism

With my iPod headphones plugged in, the abbot of Shaolin keeps his expression perfectly neutral as his eardrums are assailed by the thumping beats of the Wu-Tang Clan.

“I don’t get it,” says Shi Yongxin in his heavily accented Mandarin, after politely listening to the pioneering 1990s rappers from the New York borough of Staten Island who, in homage to kung fu movies of the 1970s, described themselves as coming “straight from the slums of Shaolin”.

We’re sitting in the restaurant of the Shaolin Temple, a Unesco world heritage site nestled in a wooded valley in the shadow of Mount Song in China’s central Henan province. This small monastery is the 1,500-year-old cradle of Zen Buddhism and the spiritual home of kung fu, where for centuries the temple’s monks have practised martial arts so they can uphold justice in society and cultivate their own search for enlightenment. Outside in the warm sunshine, tourists wander the temple grounds and watch incredible displays of strength and acrobatic kung fu, performed at regular intervals by the world-famous fighting monks.

It’s hard to imagine a place less compatible with the violent tirades of one of hip-hop’s greatest ensembles. But I’m trying to explain to his eminence that, even though he is unaware of the Wu-Tang Clan, many people who came of age in the west in the 1990s first heard about his temple from songs such as “Shaolin Worldwide”, and lyrics such as:

The Jedi, only use the Force if ya force me

Shaolin What? Don’t get it f**ked up and cross me

Rappers gettin’ stuck for actin’ stuck up and flossy

“People tell a lot of tall tales about the Shaolin Temple,” the abbot says with the composed demeanour of the deeply religious. “They are not familiar with and don’t represent the real history of Shaolin, the Shaolin culture or the inherited essence of Shaolin.”

If this sounds accurate in the case of RZA, Ghostface Killah, Ol’ Dirty ******* and the rest of the Wu-Tang Clan, it is also a criticism that many in China have levelled against the abbot himself. The 46-year-old is a highly controversial figure. Since he became, in 1999, only the 30th monk in the temple’s long history to be ordained a full abbot, he has faced relentless attacks for accepting expensive gifts and for commercialising the ancient temple. For those who denounce him through the Chinese internet, the abbot’s initiatives are a sad reflection of society’s crude materialism in a country where, in the past few decades, the crumbling of communist ideology and the rush for wealth have left a spiritual and moral vacuum.

Buddhism is the dominant religion in China, with as many as 300m believers across the country. Like other forms of Buddhism, Zen emphasises letting go of worldly cares and working towards enlightenment through meditation and practice of the Buddha’s teachings, which include a ban on harming any sentient beings. As its home, and the centrepiece of many kung fu novels and films, the Shaolin Temple has become an integral part of Chinese popular culture. In fact, it is probably one of the most famous global brands to have come out of China in any industry, thanks in no small part to the abbot, whom Chinese media have dubbed the “CEO monk”.

The temple’s business ventures include investments in its famous globetrotting kung fu performance troupes, renting out the Shaolin name for films, cartoons and stage productions, and an early stage investment in a possible line of traditional Chinese medicines. It has also sent monks to set up more than 40 Shaolin kung fu and meditation centres in countries across North America, Europe and elsewhere, but the abbot says these and most of Shaolin’s other “cultural activities” barely break even. Instead, he says, the vast majority of the temple’s “few dozen million renminbi” in annual income comes from tickets sold to the roughly 2m tourists that visit the site every year. The temple keeps 30 per cent of the ticket revenues and hands 70 per cent over to the local government.

The temple has registered its trademark across the world in an attempt to stop people from using its name to promote concepts that do not fit with its Buddhist precepts. But the main battleground is in China, where intellectual property protections are weak and companies making everything from soft drinks and chopsticks to electrical machinery and buses have appropriated the Shaolin brand. Even liquor producers and makers of pork sausages have taken the name, despite the fact that strict Zen Buddhism prohibits the consumption of meat and alcohol.

The overwhelming number of infringements and the weak protection offered by China’s justice system mean it is simply not worth going after every offender, but the abbot is optimistic that things will change for the better eventually. “Now if we are to engage in a lawsuit to protect our rights, we will have to spend a lot of money and time and the result will not necessarily be satisfactory,” he says. “Once Chinese citizens are like western citizens, in an environment where the awareness of law is firm, people will naturally abandon using the name of Shaolin Temple.” I’m struck by how similar his vocabulary is to that of a typical Chinese chief executive.

Nevertheless, he explains, the creation in 1998 of the Henan Shaolin Temple Industrial Development Company, saw the temple become the first Chinese religious group to register a trademark for its name, “We’re using legal and commercial means to protect our intellectual property, protect our brand and protect our own inheritance,” he says.

The temple has been destroyed and rebuilt many times since it was established in the fifth century and, following the communist victory in 1949 all of its surrounding farmland was confiscated and redistributed among the masses, leaving the monks with no way to feed themselves. In the disastrous cultural revolution of 1966-1976, the monks who remained at the temple were beaten, persecuted and forced to disperse, but when the terror ended some returned and set about reviving their traditions, including the practice of kung fu.

Since his arrival at the temple in 1981, aged 16, the abbot has dedicated his life to its restoration and revival. I get the feeling he has had to make many compromises in order to protect and promote his monastery and its heritage. But, as he points out, the Vatican is a multinational corporation with its own bank, and Shaolin’s annual income doesn’t even put it in the top 100 on the list of richest temples in China.

“We don’t have much savings in the bank but there is a lot of grain stored in the barn, enough for two years, so if there is a disaster in society the Shaolin Temple could hold out for two years or so,” he adds. It is an astonishing insight into the historical legacy that has forced him to hone his business skills.

The menu for our lunch has been arranged by the temple’s veteran chef, and as our waiters arrive with the first dish – a delicate selection of vegetarian morsels called “three treasures to welcome guests”, made from baked bran, pickled radish and dried tofu – the abbot’s phone rings and he reaches into his flowing crimson gown to retrieve a buzzing Samsung mobile. He politely dismisses the person on the other end of the line and I notice his immaculately manicured fingernails and also that his earlobes are unusually large, a physical trait that in China is said to indicate competence and bring good fortune and riches.

As the bowls keep coming, the abbot is careful to point out that he normally eats very plain food. In fact, that morning I had been allowed to attend dawn prayers and join him and his monks for a hearty meal of rice porridge, vegetables and steamed buns, served by trainee monks who couldn’t have been more than 10 years old. At that meal, the abbot sat with the others on wooden benches in silence as they scoffed down their food in less than 15 minutes.

Having spotted his phone, I decide now is the time to ask him about his penchant for gadgets and expensive gifts, including a Volkswagen SUV and an iPad he is often seen using in public. “The Volkswagen is worth less than Rmb 1m [£98,000] and it was given to me by the local government because we have brought them a lot of profits,” he tells me with only the slightest hint of exasperation breaking through his Zen composure. “We attract a lot of visitors and students so the government awarded me a car to encourage me to do a better job.”

[GeneChing]

He says the iPad and other gadgets are all gifts from devotees but that he tries to use such things until they are broken and unusable before replacing them. “I’m not doing what I do for other people but for society, for the masses; it’s not for me personally or for the local government but if there is a need in society or among the ordinary folk, then I should do what I can.”
Samadhi restaurant

Shaolin Temple,Henan Province, China

‘Three treasures to welcome guests’: with bran, pickled radish and shredded dried tofu

‘Vegetarian shark fin soup’: with pumpkin and bean flour noodles

‘Rose salad roll’: spring rolls with melon, radish and vegetarian ham

‘Floating fragrance in a Buddhist pot’: with cabbage and tofu

‘Blossoming smile of enlightenment’: with fried eggplants, tofu, vegetables

’Buddha jumps over the wall with Zen in his heart’: oily soup with ginseng, mushrooms, wolfberry

Set menu price: approx £80 per person

(After negotiations that lasted almost an hour, I was allowed to pay the bill, as per the rules of the Lunch with the FT. This was a breach of Chinese etiquette but the transgression was eventually forgiven)

We tuck into a dish of cabbage and shredded dried tofu with the delightful name of “floating fragrance in a Buddhist pot” but I notice that the abbot is hardly touching his food. The mention of his dealings with the local government is an illustration of the difficult relationship in China between organised religion and the officially atheist ruling Communist party. The Chinese government only recognises five official religions – Daoism, Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism – and requires that these be organised into institutions supervised by “patriotic associations”, in turn supervised by the State Administration for Religious Affairs and the Communist party’s United Front department.

Other world religions, such as Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism or Baha’i, are not recognised by Beijing, and nor are countless underground Catholic and Protestant “house churches”. The government tends to tolerate much of this “unofficial” religious activity as long as it is a private matter, but any hint of political organisation will bring a crackdown.

The Shaolin abbot doesn’t need to worry about this. He has been a member of the National People’s Congress, the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, since 1998 and vice-chairman of the official Buddhist Association of China since 2002. Ordinarily, the abbot and other senior monks at the temple will decide who can be ordained as a monk and the temple will then register them with the provincial religious affairs bureau. But the position of abbot must be directly authorised by the religious affairs authorities, almost all of whom are atheist Communist party members.

I ask his eminence why he thinks he was chosen and his answer is simple: “Because I am obedient. I’m willing to donate myself and serve the people.” To “serve the people” is a traditional communist slogan that regularly trips off the tongue of party bureaucrats. He explains that this subservience of religion to the state has always existed in China and in many other countries as well. “Throughout history it is the same: religion must respect the emperor, respect the government. If a religion doesn’t respect the government, it will have difficulty surviving,” he says. “We have to rely on the government to publicise and promote us. The government has a lot of power and it’s difficult to promote ourselves without it.”

There he goes again, speaking like an executive from a global marketing firm.

As the waiters place a fried eggplant and tofu dish called “blossoming smile of enlightenment” in front of us, I ask him how he responds to the critics who say he is too fond of mixing the sacred and the profane.

“Our aim is to promote Buddhist culture, to baptise human souls and purify people’s minds,” the abbot says. “What we have done so far [in terms of commercialisation] is actually quite conservative because we don’t want to get too mixed up in the affairs of society or over-exploit Shaolin Temple.” He describes how a proposal in 2009 by the local government to list the temple on a domestic or international stock exchange was abandoned after he and the other monks voiced strong objections.

On the abbot’s instructions, the flow of dishes has slowed and most of his plates have been cleared without him tasting more than a spoonful or two. Throughout our lunch it feels as if he is trying to convince me that he is not the materialistic villain he is often portrayed as in China. More than once he mentions the fact that he and each of his monks live a plain existence, normally surviving on just Rmb 7 (70p) per day.

His explanation of the pressures he faces in a modern Chinese society is, however, persuasive. “We hope we can improve the bad atmosphere of modern society through the influence of the Shaolin Temple; over the years we have seen society pollute the earth and overexploit resources and people’s desires continuously grow,” he says. “We wish everyone could lead a simple life like us monks and not chase after famous brands and luxury lifestyles in the way the awful nouveau riche in our country do.”

One of the last dishes is laid in front of us and the abbot breaks into a beatific smile in appreciation at the irony of its name. It is a vegetarian version of “Buddha jumps over the wall”, an oily soup that usually includes meat and seafood and is supposed to taste so good that it can tempt even devout monks to jump the monastery wall and renounce their monastic vows.

“See, that shows you how open and sympathetic Chinese Buddhism is,” he says. “In other cultures or religions, if somebody used this kind of name for such a sacrilegious dish there would be a huge fight.”

Coming from a religion where monks who have sworn not to harm sentient beings wield swords and practise cracking skulls with their fists, this too is persuasive. For the abbot, temporal dealings – including business – appear merely a necessary diversion on the path towards enlightenment.

Jamil Anderlini is the FT’s Beijing bureau chief

To see a video of the Shaolin Temple and the abbot, go to www.ft.com/shaolin

Timeline: A brief history of the Shaolin Temple

AD495 Shaolin Temple (literally “temple in the forests of Shaoshi mountain”) is built by Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei dynasty as a place for the Indian monk Batuo to live, translate Buddhist scriptures and preach to his followers.

AD618-907 A band of 13 Shaolin monks is reputed to have saved the life of the future Tang dynasty Emperor Li Shimin. When Li took power, he showered favours, land and wealth on the temple and it experienced a golden age.

1368-1644 During the Ming dynasty, the temple houses more than 3,000 monks. It declines under the Manchurian Qing dynasty (1644-1911).

1928 Chinese warlord Shi Yousan attacks the temple and a fire rages for 40 days, destroying nearly all relics and records. Despite having been looted, burned and destroyed many times over the centuries, the temple has only been abandoned – briefly – in the seventh and tenth centuries.

1950s-1970s The temple’s lands are seized during the communist land redistributions and most monks driven away. During the cultural revolution that follows, the handful of monks who remain are beaten and persecuted or forced to renounce their vows.

1981 Shi Yongxin, born Liu Yingcheng, arrives at the Shaolin Temple to train as a monk.

1987 Begins running the temple after the previous abbot’s death. In 1998, he is selected as a representative to the National People’s Congress, China’s rubberstamp parliament.

1999 Ordained as the temple’s abbot.

There's a video too.

Putting the cash into Kung Fu
4:10 AM Jamil Anderlini, the FT's Beijing bureau chief, visits the Shaolin temple in central Hunan and meets the chief abbot, also known as the CEO monk. (3m 44sec)
Credits:
Produced and filmed by Ben Marino

[GeneChing]

Shaolin Temple abbot clueless about Wu Tang Clan
Shaolin abbot on hip-hop pioneers: "I don't get it."
Patrick WinnSeptember 12, 2011 00:30

Perhaps the biggest promoters of China's Shaolin Temple in the U.S. -- hip-hop luminaries Wu Tang Clan -- are baffling to the temple's current abbot.

"I don't get it," said abbot Shi Yongxin, asked to sample Wu Tang through the headphones of the Financial Times' Beijing bureau chief. The journalist elicited the abbot's reaction for a profile on the temple and its rampant pop culture appeal.

If you don't get it either, here's a primer.

Wu Tang is a hip-hop group that came out of New York's Staten Island in the early 1990s. Without Wu Tang, millions of Americans would have never heard the word "Shaolin." As the Financial Times notes, Shaolin "has become part of modern global culture like almost nothing else from modern Chinese society."

The temple first snuck into popular culture via old Kung Fu flicks as its monks have trained in martial arts for centuries.

From these grainy, 1970s films, the myth of Shaolin snuck into American hip-hop via the Wu Tang Clan. Their lyrics are marked by impenetrable slang, drug-dealing street tales and ideology from an all-black Islamic sect called the Five Percent Nation. All of this is filtered through their obsession with Kung Fu flicks and littered with references to Shaolin.

It's hardly surprising that Shi Yongxin, a 46-year-old abbot who has lived at a temple since his teens, doesn't "get it."

But the Wu-Tang Clan, having released multiple platinum-selling albums, are largely responsible for American awareness of Shaolin. Or at least a mythologized, distorted version of Shaolin filtered through Hong Kong cinema.

Perhaps the abbot has more in common with his hip-hop progeny than it appears.

Since Shi Yongxin started commercializing the temple through performance troupes, and licensing its name out to cartoons and movies, he has faced repeated accusations that cash rules everything around him.

Of course, as we all know, RZA visited Shaolin with Shi Yanming in '99. We all know this because it's in my book.

[GeneChing]

...although this is in the wake of Shaolin the movie, I think...

Why the kung-fu monks are losing their religion
The Buddhists of Shaolin gave the world its most deadly martial art. But now their gift has become a curse, writes Clifford Coonan
Monday, 12 September 2011

Young men spring through the air, performing elegant punches and kicks; others bound across the dirt, swords flashing through the misty air. An ancient tree has dozens of small dents, made by "finger punches" of warrior monks over the centuries.

This is the Shaolin temple complex, in the mountains of central China, where kung fu was born 1,500 years ago. Now a place of pilgrimage for martial arts enthusiasts and Zen Buddhists, thousands of young people come to study kung fu, or wushu as it is known in China, in schools around the temple.

The commercial success of the temple is obvious, even if some of the sights are jarring – the telephone kiosks with Buddhas on top, for example. It has some monks shaking their heads and fearing that its spiritual peace is threatened. One monk said he was leaving after decades at the temple to be a hermit in the mountains of eastern China.

"There are internal conflicts here, and it's complicated. When I came here it was very shabby, and it has improved a lot. But I don't think this is a place for religion anymore," he says.

Many others are inspired by the Shaolin tradition. Kung fu is the epitome of martial arts, and practitioners say other fighting arts including karate originated from kung fu. There are more than a million learners of kung fu around the world and many centres of Shaolin culture globally.

For the 60,000 young would-be kung fu stars kicking and punching away at the schools around the temple, Shaolin kung fu offers a way out of poverty. Wu Zhiqiang, 17, comes from near the Henan capital of Zhengzhou. He has been in Shaolin for four years and is one of 4,000 students at his school. "I've been practising since 5am," he says, still brandishing a spear at lunchtime. "We practise outside in the morning, then study in the classroom. My aim is to go to physical education college in Zhengzhou. But some of my friends want to be coaches. And of course some of us want to be in the movies."

Kung fu owes its existence to an Indian monk, Bodhi Dharma, who began to preach Zen Buddhism in the temple and started its martial arts tradition. The Shaolin style was expanded over the years from 72 basic fighting movements to 170 moves, divided into five styles named after the animal that the movements were supposed to resemble: Tiger, Leopard, Snake, Dragon and Crane.

But has its popularity made it too commercial and and too disconnected from its roots? Qian Daliang, general manager of the Henan Shaolin Temple Development Company, said not. "Our aim is to protect Shaolin, and maintain the real Shaolin," he says. "We have a good name but people here and overseas use the name to make money and in some cases ruin the name of Shaolin. We have to protect ourselves, and our intellectual property." The temples' 228 brick pagodas survived the Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards marauded across China destroying religious sites. Their status as burial sites saved the 1,200-year-old Pagoda Forest, which has featured in many kung fu epics, and is part of what attracts the thousands of tourists to Shaolin. But they were not untainted by the Red Guard fervour. The monks in Shaolin were forced to drink alcohol and eat meat by the Red Guards. They remember this still, and they have a saying: "Alcohol and meat only pass through your digestive system, but Buddha is within."

Reform and the opening up in China has seen a revival in the temple's fortunes, thanks to the interest in martial arts movies during the 1970s. A building at the very back of the complex was used in The Shaolin Temple, in 1982, which featured Jet Li.

The latest, Shaolin, which features Hong Kong heartthrob Andy Lau and action hero Jackie Chan, is released on DVD today in Britain.

"Like many of my peers starting out in the film industry in the early 1980s, I was influenced and inspired by the original Shaolin Temple," says its director, Benny Chan. "I mean, wow, there was Jet Li executing the most perfect of 360-degree roundhouse kicks in mid-air. It was both stunning and riveting. Don't forget The Shaolin Temple was made before China opened up – it was such a rarity."

The abbot of the monastery, Shi Yongxin, a farmer's son from nearby Anhui, has been credited as the architect of Shaolin's revival since taking over in 1999. He is known for his business-minded approach to transforming the temple and promoting Buddhism throughout the world over the past two decades.

Since 1986, he has led Shaolin monk delegations across China and abroad to perform Shaolin martial arts shows, registering the trademark of the names "Shaolin" and "Shaolin Temple" in 1994.

He has also sparked controversy, demanding an official apology from an online commentator who dared to say its monks had once been beaten in unarmed combat by Japanese ninja warriors. He has also been criticised for accepting the gift of a luxury sports car from the authorities, and many monks did not like the decision to host its own martial arts reality TV show. But Mr Qian insists the temple needs its commercial activities to ensure its survival. "The Shaolin monastery has had its ups and downs. At one point there were over 2,000 monks here, but after the Cultural Revolution, there were only 15 monks left. But the spirit of Shaolin never stops, and that's what we are aiming to continuously deliver," said Mr Qian.

[GeneChing]

SA Time: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 6:57:49 PM
Kung fu fighting
September 20 2011 at 09:44pm
By Clifford Coonan

Young men spring through the air, performing elegant punches and kicks; others bound across the dirt, swords flashing through the misty air. An ancient tree has dozens of small dents, made by “finger punches” of warrior monks over the centuries.

This is the Shaolin temple complex, in the mountains of central China, where kung fu was born 1 500 years ago. Now a place of pilgrimage for martial arts enthusiasts and Zen Buddhists, thousands of young people come to study kung fu, or wushu as it is known in China, in schools around the temple.

The commercial success of the temple is obvious, even if some of the sights are jarring – the telephone kiosks with Buddhas on top, for example.

It has some monks shaking their heads and fearing that its spiritual peace is threatened. One monk said he was leaving after decades at the temple to be a hermit in the mountains of eastern China.

“When I came here it was very shabby, and it has improved a lot. But I don’t think this is a place for religion anymore,” he says.

Many others are inspired by the Shaolin tradition. Kung fu is the epitome of martial arts, and practitioners say other fighting arts, including karate, originated from kung fu. There are more than a million learners of kung fu around the world and many centres of Shaolin culture globally.

For the 60 000 young would-be kung fu stars kicking and punching away at the schools around the temple, Shaolin kung fu offers a way out of poverty.

Wu Zhiqiang, 17, comes from near the Henan capital of Zhengzhou. He has been in Shaolin for four years and is one of 4 000 students at his school.

“I’ve been practising since 5am,” he says. “We practise outside in the morning, then study in the classroom. My aim is to go to physical education college in Zhengzhou. But some of my friends want to be coaches. And of course some want to be in the movies.”

Kung fu owes its existence to an Indian monk, Bodhi Dharma, who began to preach Zen Buddhism in the temple and started its martial arts tradition. The Shaolin style was expanded over the years from 72 basic fighting movements to 170 moves, divided into five styles named after the animals the movements were supposed to resemble: tiger, leopard, snake, dragon and crane.

But has its popularity made it too disconnected from its roots?

Qian Daliang, general manager of the Henan Shaolin Temple Development Company, said no. “Our aim is to maintain the real Shaolin. We have a good name, but people here and overseas use the name to make money and in some cases ruin the name of Shaolin. We have to protect intellectual property.”

The temples’ 228 brick pagodas survived the Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards marauded across China, destroying religious sites. Their status as burial sites saved the 1 200-year-old Pagoda Forest, which has featured in many kung fu epics, and is part of what attracts the thousands of tourists to Shaolin.

But they were not untainted by the Red Guard fervour. Red Guards forced the monks in Shaolin to drink alcohol and eat meat. They remember this, and have a saying: “Alcohol and meat only pass through your digestive system, but Buddha is within.”

Reform and the opening up in China has seen a revival in the temple’s fortunes, thanks to the interest in martial arts movies.

A building at the back of the complex was used in The Shaolin Temple, in 1982, which featured Jet Li. The latest, Shaolin, which features Hong Kong heart-throb Andy Lau and Jackie Chan, is being released on DVD in Britain.

“Like many of my peers starting out in the film industry in the early 1980s, I was inspired by the original Shaolin Temple,” says its director, Benny Chan.

“I mean, wow, there was Jet Li executing the most perfect of 360-degree roundhouse kicks in mid-air. It was stunning. Don’t forget The Shaolin Temple was made before China opened up – it was such a rarity.”

The abbot of the monastery, Shi Yongxin, a farmer’s son, has been credited as the architect of Shaolin’s revival since taking over in 1999. He is known for his business-minded approach to transforming the temple and promoting Buddhism.

Since 1986, he has led Shaolin monk delegations across China and abroad to perform martial arts shows, registering the trademarks “Shaolin” and “Shaolin Temple” in 1994.

He has also sparked controversy, demanding an official apology from an online commentator who dared to say its monks had once been beaten in unarmed combat by Japanese ninja warriors. And he has been criticised for accepting the gift of a luxury sports car from the authorities, while many monks did not like the decision to host a martial arts reality TV show.

But Qian insists the temple needs its commercial activities to ensure its survival.

“At one point there were more than 2 000 monks here. After the Cultural Revolution, there were only 15 left. But the spirit of Shaolin never stops, and that’s what we aim to deliver.” – The Independent

60,000 now? That seems high.

[GeneChing]

2.896 billion yuan = 456,458,345.09 USD

Zhongyuan Expressway Plans 2.9B Yuan Investment
Wednesday 2011-11-16 11:15
Publisher: CapitalVue

November 16 -- Expressway operator Henan Zhongyuan Expressway (600020) plans to invest 2.896 billion yuan to construct a highway connecting Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport and Shaolin Temple in Henan province, reports yicai.com, citing a company filing.

The expressway covers a total length of 39.25 kilometers. Construction will start at the end of 2011, and is expected to take 36 months.

The investment is pending the approval of the related government departments.

Upon completion, the expressway will be operated by Zhongyuan Expressway.

The toll collection period will not be longer than 30 years. Henan Zhongyuan Expressway estimates the internal rate of return of this investment to hit 9.11 percent.

[GeneChing]

National Quality Ranking Committee of Tourist Attractions - didn't know that China even had such a thing.

Shaolin Temple risks losing rating
Updated: 2012-01-30 17:45
(chinadaily.com.cn)

The Shaolin Temple scenic spot is facing the risk of losing its top-class rating after an undercover inquiry organized by China’s National Tourism Administration, the Oriental Outlook - a weekly magazine - reported on Monday.

The scenic site, best known for the Shaolin Temple, which has been recognized as the origin of Chan Buddhism and the cradle of Chinese kungfu, was found to have poor management and failed to meet the criteria of national 5A class tourist attractions, China’s top rating for scenic spots, in terms of service, quality and environment.

The National Quality Ranking Committee of Tourist Attractions issued a notice on Dec 4, 2011 requiring the scenic spot to launch and complete an overhaul of its operations before the end of March 2012.

It will lose its 5A rating if it still cannot meet the criteria after the overhaul, according to the notice.

The Shaolin Temple scenic spot was rated by the National Tourism Administration as a national 5A class tourist attraction in May 2007. It is the first time it faces the risk of losing its 5A class.

The local tourism administration has been ordered to address the problems urgently and properly.

[enoajnin]

I wonder what the problems with the facility were that might make it lose it's rating.

[GeneChing]

More fallout from this announcement

Shaolin's Embarrassment of Riches
2012-01-31 14:59

Summary：Shaolin Temple, the cradle of Kung Fu, now attracts 1.5 million visitors a year, but its popularity has created tension between its Buddhist abbot and local party officials.

By Liu Jinsong (刘金松)
Nation, page 9
Issue No. 549, Dec 19, 2011
Translated by Zhu Na
Original Article: [Chinese]


Russia's former President Vladimir Putin watches a matrial arts display at Shaolin alongside the temple's leader Abbot Shi in 2006.

Shaolin Temple and the local government in Henan have been working together for years to build a profitable brand around the fifth-century monastery whose monks were among the earliest masters of Kung Fu.

Their efforts have helped make the temple famous worldwide, drawing 1.5 million tourists to Shaolin each year, as well supporting the surrounding area. However, the government and the monks are now at loggerheads about what to do with the profits.

With each visitor paying 100 yuan, ticket sales raise 150 million yuan a year, but the temple gets just 30 percent of this, with the remainder divided between the local government and its corporate partner.

As well as admissions fees from tourists visiting the temple, the community of Dengfeng also benefits from the students who study at the nearby martial arts schools and spend around 500 million yuan a year. There are another 200 businesses in the area generating some 100 million yuan from the sale of martial arts equipment, teaching aids and souvenirs.

When it comes to ticket sales, it’s not the temple that is in control.

“How many tickets were sold in the end? And how many people get free tickets? They [the site managers] have the final say. How much we are given depends on them,” the temple's leader, Abbot Shi Yongxin, has said.

When officials from the temple ask the site managers about the publicly announced visitor statistics, they’re told that those figures are overestimates, published for propaganda purposes.

Outside the temple, each attraction belongs to a different interest group. For example, Songshan (嵩山) Shaolin Temple Martial Arts Training Centre, where tourists watch the Shaolin Kong Fu show, belongs to the Henan Province Tourism Bureau, as does a nearby Buddhist style hotel.

Opposite the temple are the Buddhist Living Quarters (十方禅院), home to 500 Arhats. Tourists wanting to pass through must pay 10 yuan, which goes to the project’s investors, the commerce bureau of Dengfeng County and Zhengshou City Salt Company.

Nearby, the Kung Fu schools charge 10,000 yuan to 16,000 yuan a year for full-time students, and $30 for foreigners who want to spend a day improving their footwork and upper-body techniques.

Shaolin Temple is a registered trademark, but the abbot has resisted calls to protect the name from being used by others.

“Running martial arts training schools is also a way of promoting Shaolin culture, we cannot stop their business,” says Shi.

In fact, with the temple’s reputation already damaged by its commercialization, the abbot might simply be afraid that enforcing the rights to the Shaolin name would open the temple up to accusations of acting like a monopoly.

After the Shaolin site was renovated in 2000, unhappy villagers besieged the temple and local government departments received reports that Abbot Shi had been using prostitutes. The abbot complained of a campaign to blacken his name, and officials visited the temple to investigate.

In the early stage of Shaolin’s development as a tourist site, the temple and the local government cooperated together closely. However, commercial success has driven a wedge between the two sides, with Abbot Shi seeking to use the temple’s wealth to promote its Buddhist values while the government tries to expand the commercialization. For one side, the temple is just a driver for the local tourist industry, for the other it’s a Buddhist shrine.

These conflicting priorities have produced some curious scenes, such as the occasion when competing beauty queens toured the temple in bikinis, while the monks, on Abbot Shi’s orders, were banned from observing. To make up for the reclusive monks, the organizers of the contest invited in some martial arts students with shaven heads and got them to greet the bikinied models by the temple gate.

There are also peculiarities in the relative status of the abbot and his partners in the local government.

Early in the site’s development, Shi would have to wait a day in the local government office before being granted an audience with an official, but when Vladimir Putin visited in 2006, top province officials were in the second row while Shi and Putin, who was then Russian president, were sitting side by side.

The clearest divergence between Shi and the cadres came when the abbot wanted to stop charging visitors to enter the temple. The local government had been looking forward to a windfall from listing its Shaolin tourist operations on the stock market, and the mainstay of that business was the income from ticket sales. The abbot blocked the IPO, but the government insisted that the temple keep charging visitors 100 yuan to see inside the temple.

Shaolin told to clean up its image
Updated: 2012-01-31 10:43
By An Baijie and Xiang Mingchao (China Daily)

ZHENGZHOU - China's most famous Buddhist temple, the Shaolin Temple, could become better known for messiness and poor service.

An investigation of the five-star tourist spot found piles of garbage, disorderly service and traffic paralyzed by roadside venders and dealers, according to a report by tourism authorities.

Zheng Shumin, director of the publicity department of the Shaolin Temple, confirmed to China Daily on Monday that the temple is cooperating with the local government to rectify the problems.

Shaolin Temple Abbot Shi Yongxin poses with the certificate of a luxury cassock, which was given to him as a gift by a silk company, in Songshan, Henan province, June 7, 2009. [Photo/CFP]

The temple, in Zhengzhou, Henan province, must fix the problems before March or lose its five-star level, Zheng said.

During a visit in October, the National Tourism Association discovered problems with equipment, order and services which do not meet the requirements of a five-star level tourism zone, according to a report in Oriental Outlook, a magazine run by the Xinhua News Agency.

The investigation team found vehicles parked in a disorderly fashion, unlicensed taxis, salespersons chasing tourists with souvenirs, and many people dressed like monks doing fortune-telling business or promoting products.

Inside, the temple was too crowded due to a lack of tourist flow control, and the places selling food were disorganized, said the report.

The report also said the tourist area was too small and badly managed, and the medical center is short of supplies.

Management of the temple has been carried out by China Travel Service (Hong Kong) since late 2009. Oriental Outlook quoted two staff members of CTS as saying the company has not invested sufficient money to promote management of the temple.

More than 300 trees in the temple have died of drought since the company refused to invest in irrigation, a staff member of CTS told Oriental Outlook.

Shi Yongxin, abbot of the Shaolin Temple, admitted that there were some problems including dirt, mess and forcing tourists to buy products in places around the temple. He said management should be improved, according to the Oriental Outlook report.

Qian Guoping, general manager of the Dengfeng branch of the CTS, refused to comment to China Daily on Monday.

The temple's publicity chief Zheng said the temple is the victim of the company's poor management.

"For the temple and the monks here, what we do care about is the protection of the religious culture, not the commercial profits," Zheng said. "It is the CTS that should be responsible for the poor management of the temple."

[ShaolinDiva]

To much of the Shaolin Temple's defense of business management- they simply lack business management skills. I will have to say if they truly were raised since they were kids within the temple, they do lack many things. Especially Business management 101 class for sure. It is a monastary, first and foremost. and its in China.

They were always told what to do , how to do, what time to rise, when to eat, what time to meditate, how long to meditate , when to recite buddhist scriptures, etc. From what I have experienced , the monks are all very good people just trying but they simply don't really know "business". Notice that within all the authentic Shaolin temples out there, the biggest and most recurring theme is the buddhism . Secondly will be kung fu and thirdly will be the Qigong health.

But then they are all men! ha! I'm just sayin'........