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
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/why-the-kungfu-monks-are-losing-their-religion-2353184.html

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.

Baccarat, the Chinese way: Rituals you won't see in Vegas

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/03/14/macau.baccarat.vegas/

Baccarat, the Chinese way: Rituals you won't see in Vegas
Pauline Chiou, CNN
March 15, 2010
Baccarat craze in China
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Baccarat is game of choice for the majority of gamblers in Macau
Superstition still plays a part in the way that many Chinese gamblers play the game
Baccarat brought in 86 percent of Macau's $11.8 billion gaming revenue in 2008

Macau, China (CNN) -- Baccarat is not just for James Bond anymore. It is the game of choice for Chinese gamblers from mainland China and Hong Kong. Both groups make up the majority of gamblers in Macau. And they bring some unique, superstitious rituals with them that you won't see in Las Vegas.

If you watch many Chinese gamblers play baccarat in Macau, there is a good chance you will see the players squeeze the cards tightly between their fingers, slowly peek at the cards by lifting the vertical end just enough to see the suit and number, then turn the card horizontally to peek at the number again.

Each time, they crease the cards rendering the cards unusable for another round (Macau casinos seem to tolerate this). The slow dance of peeking and creasing is to increase the suspense as the player hopes for a good pair of numbers that close in on the magic number: 9.

Some Chinese players even blow on the cards, hoping to "blow away" bad numbers. At one table with a sizeable group, a woman exclaimed "hoi, hoi," ("turn it over, turn it over") as she watched a player perform his ritual.

"Sometimes, you almost believe that they can actually change the outcome of a card by the way they squeeze the card. So there's a lot of superstition," said Scott Milburn, vice president of table games at City of Dreams.

Ray Rody, a gaming professor at Macau Millennium College who studies gambling's cultural history, agreed that the typical Chinese gambler is superstitious. That nature is on full display at the baccarat table. In baccarat, one player is dealt a pair of cards and the other gamblers at the table can choose to bet with or against that player.

"The Chinese like to bet with a player when they win and against a player when they are losing because they believe in the luck of other players as well as their own," said Rody.

"They look for trends of three or more straight wins for the banker or player and then bet for a 4th or 5th straight win. The gamblers who believe in this type of luck walk around the casino searching for tables showing a trend."

In fact, City of Dreams has installed computer monitors at the baccarat tables to help gamblers track trends. The monitors show a chart of who won the last 20 or 30 rounds at that table. If a trend starts appearing, that table will most likely draw a big crowd.

Baccarat brings in the lion's share of Macau's casino revenues. According to the latest government statistics available from 2008, baccarat brought in 86 percent of Macau's total gaming revenues, ringing up $11.8 billion.

The other reason players like baccarat is because it's considered the table game with the best odds against the house.

Rody said a gambler who places a "banker bet" in baccarat has the best odds with a statistical disadvantage of 1.06 percent. A "player bet" has a little less favorable odds with a 1.24 percent disadvantage against the house.

"(Baccarat) is the best option for the player for their money to last the longest because most other table games run about a 3 percent disadvantage for the player ... or a 3 percent advantage for the house," Rody said.

Scott Milburn said baccarat is by far the casino's crown jewel.

"We have 70 percent of our floor space of mass market dedicated to baccarat tables," he said, noting he has seen individual VIP baccarat players win or lose between $7 million to $10 million in a day.

Tiananmen Anniversary Muted in Mainland China

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/04/AR2009060403101.html

Tiananmen Anniversary Muted in Mainland China
By Ariana Eunjung Cha and K.C. Ng
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 5, 2009

BEIJING, June 4 -- Mainland China remained quiet Thursday on the 20th anniversary of the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown, while tens of thousands of people staged a protest in Hong Kong.

Beijing, the capital, was on virtual lockdown. Key foreign news Web sites were blocked, dissidents were placed under house arrest, and police blanketed the vast square where a still-undetermined number of pro-democracy activists were killed in a violent clash with the military June 4, 1989. Journalists were kept away from the scene.

Several foreign governments called on Beijing this week to revisit its policy of ignoring the crackdown. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement Wednesday that China "should examine openly the darker events of its past and provide a public accounting of those killed, detained or missing, both to learn and to heal."

On Tuesday, Congress urged China to agree to a U.N.-backed inquiry into the crackdown, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she had directly petitioned President Hu Jintao to free the estimated 30 people still being held for participating in the protests.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel commented in a speech Thursday that "June 4, 1989 . . . marked a terrible sacrifice in Tiananmen Square."

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, who has pushed for closer ties with the mainland, said: "This painful chapter in history must be faced. Pretending it never happened is not an option."

Over the years, Beijing has taken a two-pronged approach to the massacre. Domestically, the incident is ignored in history books, and discussion about it is banned to the point that many young people know nothing of what happened. In arguments directed to the international community, Beijing has said the crackdown was necessary to ensure social stability, which it says was a precondition for the market-driven changes that have since transformed China into the world's third-largest economy.

On Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang limited his remarks to a sentence: "On the political incident that took place in the 1980s, the party and the government have already reached a conclusion."

In the weeks before the anniversary, authorities erased most traces of the massacre from the capital. Twitter and other Internet services that people could have used to coordinate gatherings were blocked, as were news Web sites such as CNN and the BBC. Foreign newspapers and magazines that had been covering commemorative protests in Hong Kong were delivered with pages ripped out. Writers, activists and even mothers of victims were put under surveillance or house arrest.

On Thursday, the only place on Chinese soil where a large-scale protest took place was Hong Kong, the former British colony that has maintained its own legal system since it reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.

Police estimated that 62,800 people, dressed either in white or funereal black, showed up for a vigil in downtown Victoria Park. Organizers put the figure closer to 150,000. Either way, the turnout was the largest since the annual event was first held in Hong Kong in 1990.

Xiong Yan, one of the 21 student leaders placed on Beijing's "most wanted" list in 1989 and now a U.S. resident, attended the vigil, but Wuer Kaixi, No. 2 on the list, was back in Taiwan after being denied entry.

The Tiananmen Mothers -- a Chinese democracy group led by Ding Zilin, whose teenage son was killed at the square -- thanked the Hong Kong people for their support. In a statement, the group accused the Chinese government of using "the economy to lure and buy people."

Lester Lai, 22, a recent university graduate, said he had come to the vigil because "economic progress is never an excuse for a government to kill its people."

Deng Ying, a 30-year-old tourist from the mainland, said that in China, the authorities take advantage of the fact that they can ban "anything they are unhappy about."

In this instance, she said, Hong Kong was acting as "China's conscience."

Special correspondent Ng reported from Hong Kong.

Beast of the Month - August 2008

Robalini's Note: Still a little behind, but catching up...

Beast of the Month - August 2008
Hu Jintao, Chinese President

"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"

"One World, One Dream"
Slogan of the 2008 Summer Olympics

On August 8, the Summer Olympics will be held in Beijing. It will begin at 8PM, which will make it the eighth hour of the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of the century. (In case you didn't know, eight is considered the luckiest number in China, and the Chinese people are particularly superstitious about it.) When it is, it will be viewed in the korporate media as the final coronation of China as one of the few world superpowers. Like it actually needs one.

It's hard to believe it's been nine years since someone from China has won BOTM, and eleven since Jiang Zemin took home the trophy. Why that's particularly hard to believe is because in the past nine years, China has not gotten weaker, but rather frighteningly stronger.

Want the proof? Just walk down the aisle of your local Best Buy, Target or (of course) WalMart. Try to avoid buying products which aren't made in the People's Republic. Good luck. Freelance writer Sara Bongiorni did that a full year in 2005 with her family. Needless to say, it often turned shopping for even everyday products into an epic journey. Her four-year-old son, despondent over the cool toys and gadgets he was unable to obtain, had this to say about the end of the boycott: "When we can buy China things again, let's never stop." Ms. Bongiorni summed up her dilemma thusly:

"The funny thing about China's ascent is that we, as a nation, could shut the whole thing down in a week. Jump-start a 'Just Say No to Chinese Products Week,' and the empire will collapse amid the chaos of overloaded cargo ships in Long Beach harbor. I doubt we could pull it off. Americans may be famously patriotic, but look closely, and you'll see who makes the flag magnets on their car bumpers. These days China delivers every major holiday, Fourth of July included."

Of course, if China was merely destroying Team USA's manufacturing sector while poisoning kids with lead-filled toys, it would be bad enough. Currently, China is the number two holder of US Treasury securities, ahead of the UK and only trailing Japan. It is number two with a bullet. What this means is that increasingly China will have a major say in the decisions of our political establishment. It's hard to ignore that in the late 80s and early 90s, for all the hysteria that was directed at the evil Japanese empire, they were nowhere near the economic threat to America that China is now, and a fellow democracy to boot as compared to a communist dictatorship. So where are the panic-stricken pop novels like Michael Crichton's Rising Sun over China?

Okay, maybe that's a little over-the-top: China, after all, is no longer a communist dictatorship, it's a capitalist dictatorship. China has a $7 trillion a year GDP when measured in purchasing power parity, second only to the USA. Since 1978, when free market reforms were implemented, it has grown at an annual rate of over 8 percent. This growth has been aided over the last decade by the reacquisition of both Hong Kong in 1997 and Macau and 1999. Hong Kong long has been the world's shining example of free market economics (Milton Friedman gushed about it in his 1980 book Free to Choose) while Macau has surpassed Las Vegas as the world's largest gambling center, and now only Dubai exceeds it as an example of 21st century capitalism on steroids. Meanwhile, China's biggest oil producer PetroChina became the first trillion dollar company in value last November, and Shanghai has become the world's largest cargo port. With all this money flowing to China, talks of reunification with Taiwan can no longer be dismissed as merely a dream.

But China is definitely still an ugly dictatorship. The crackdown on Tiananmen Square may have happened nineteen years ago, but an environment toxic to freedom still is alive and well. When Hu Jintao (The Konformist Beast of the Month) was selected to take over China's presidency in 2002 from Jiang Zemin, there was widespread hope that he would become the nation's Gorbachev, that political freedom would be unleashed by what was suspected to be a closet liberal. This was aided by his close relationship with Premier Wen Jiabao, who is about as close to a populist figure that can be found in the Chinese establishment. Nearly six years later, this has been proven to be a bogus fantasy, a fantasy exposed most blatantly by the continuing suppression of the people of Tibet. Indeed, the recent crackdown on Tibetan followers of the exiled Dalai Lama has become so intense, there has been a heavy push for nations to boycott the Olympic opening ceremonies as protest. Other noted examples of China's continued repression are the persecution of the Falun Gong religious movement, the backing of a ruthless military junta in Burma and its ties to the bloodshed in Darfur via continued support of Sudan.

Some refer to the 2008 Games as the "Genocide Olympics" thanks to these crimes against humanity, and has led to further calls for a boycott, most notably from actress and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow, actor and Tibetan activist Richard Gere, director Steven Spielberg and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu. The most in-your-face example of China's continued autocratic style is the nation's crackdown on the Internet, which is already a major hurdle for journalist attempting to cover the Olympic Games. This is despite being lied to repeatedly by China that Internet censorship would be lifted on journalists during the games. (Hard to believe a dictatorship would use deception to land an esteemed multi-billion dollar reward.) According to an International Olympic Committee commissioner: "Had the I.O.C., and those vested with the decision to award the host city contract, known seven years ago that there would be severe restrictions on people being able to enter China simply to watch the Olympics, or that live broadcasting from Tiananmen Square would essentially be banned, or that reporters would be corralled at the whim of local security, then I seriously doubt whether Beijing would have been awarded the Olympics.” The climate of persecution that pervades the Summer Games has been so vast, criticisms of Beijing's toxic smog due to intense air pollution have been almost an afterthought. It appears that for all the talk of open markets leading to freedom, it's going to take longer to achieve Chinese democracy than it has taken Axl Rose to finish his GNR album of the same name.

Over the last eight years, two camps of the GOP have been divided over whether to continue treating China as a trading partner or turning them into an adversary for a Cold War sequel. (These two camps can be referred to as the "Shopping Mall Fascists" and the "War & Oil Fascists" for those keeping score at home.) This division is illustrated in the pro-China positions of both Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch and Christian televangelist Pat Robertson, both having normally anti-Communist views apparently trumped by their desire to profit in the untapped Chinese market. (Robertson's mammon is particularly telling, as he actually has defended China's forced abortion policy to control population, a step beyond the mere "pro-choice" position of American abortion activists he regularly bashes.) The general results of this debate has led the Bush Team to continue the plunge into transferring dollars into China's coffers while getting any dig into them whenever they can, no matter how petty. One noted example: the April Fools 2001 crash between a US spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet that led to the death of PLA pilot Wang Wei. Immediately, the Bush Administration insisted the incident happened in international airspace (a dubious claim) and demanded the release of the entire crew. (It's hard to imagine that if a Chinese spy plane near US borders caused the death of an American navy pilot, Team USA would immediately release the crew and their plane without investigation.) Ten days later, when the Bush Administration gave a belated and unconvincing apology after an increasingly shrill hysteria swept through the press, China released the crew, but by then the diplomatic damage had been unnecessarily done. Cut to 2006, when a visit by Jintao to the US was littered with snubs that showed a calculated pattern. Among the greatest hits: referring to China as “the Republic of China" (the actual title for Taiwan) during the official White House greeting. Perhaps even worse was granting a Falun Gong anti-China activist press credentials to a joint Bush-Jintao press conference. The press conference was interrupted for three minutes by an angry denunciation of Jintao and China by the activist, something which would've been halted immediately if it was an attack on Bush's failed War in Iraq. Normally, the granting of a press pass is so controlled, only right-wing closet gay prostitutes who sleep at the White House overnight can evade the tight scrutiny, which indicates the Falun Gong supporter's activities were sanctioned by the Bush Administration all along.

Of course, not all battles between China and the US are so minor. Both countries have used bogus excuses to use military weaponry in space, moves that indicate a "Star Wars" may eventually explode between the two nations for control of the Earth's skies. And as PetroChina's rise clearly shows, there is a huge battle already being covertly waged between the two countries over the vast Caspian Sea oil reserves. This covert war may go deeper than most suspect: while 9/11 conspiracy theories mainly focus on the US military, Israel, Saudi Arabia or the UK as the alternative culprit, Gordon Thomas makes the case in the book Seeds of Fire that the terrorist attack was actually a Chinese operation to punish the US and strengthen ties between China and Islamic nations. In particular, the book details the close financial relationship between China and the Taliban before 9/11. (Coincidentally, the Taliban was run from power almost immediately after China was voted into the WTO in November 2001.) That being the case, perhaps the tensions between the US and China will become increasingly overt as China continues to gain power without firing a single weapon.

In any case, we salute Hu Jintao as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Hu!!!

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