We have been traveling to the Shaolin Temple for forty years. Our visits were always worth the long arduous journey from the USA. We experienced astonishing martial arts and the beauty of the temple and surrounding Kung Fu schools. We became friends with Shaolin Warriors like Shi De Yang, Shi De Ru and Shi De Cheng, who were our guides at Shaolin.
But our enthusiasm has diminished to the point where we advise anyone not to go there if they wish to see any genuine Kung Fu – or anything real at all. In the last decade, Shaolin Temple has become a tourist money making machine. The Abbot of Shaolin Temple sold the rights to an outside tourist operator who set about creating Disney-style Kung Fu destination. It is a warning to other centers of martial arts of the dark side of being popular – Wudang Mountain has already gone that route (we will post a video about this). The blame for this mess is the Abbot Shi Yongxin, who has commercialized Shaolin for material gain and is accused of corruption and immorality (soliciting prostitutes no less). Shaolin Temple is dead. Long Live Shaolin.
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45 Comments
I understand people need money and social interaction with a community is amazing, but this just strikes me as disrespectful.
Once upon a time, Shaolin Temple was a Spiritual place.
Now…
It's become a circus of clowns !!
Monks use to Renounce the world, Concentrated on Spiritual things..
They seem to have Chosen to whore themselves for tourist
looky-loos !!
🤔
Who allowed this ,?
How much money can honor be payed for. 😢
Well just punch them 😂
It has been this way for decades. Shaolin has been lost.
Asian tourists are the absolute worst people
The commercialized Buddhist BS makes the culture horrible. What we were doing 20 years ago is not paid for enlightenment. They buy prayer beads and over priced crystals. Burn some sage and act better then everyone. Destroy everything they touch. The people are parasites. Seeing this churns my stomach. The youtube Buddhist and the Instagram enlightenment BS needs to stop. Fkn makes me sick to see this happening.
It’s not the Kung Fu destroys the Shaolin, but the monks themselves. Money is so attractive!
😢
Temples have made money from tourism for literally millennia.
It's a total disrespect to the shaolin itself. Fake people being monk's, and you drag the kid into it too.
Modern day china folks. Money money money. Practice Kung fu at your own local dojo or learn at home, spar with friends. Meditate. One day the communists will fall, and shaolin-si will still be there waiting to return to its former glory.
Shaolin Temple, ie. Abbot Shi Yongxin sold the Tourism rights to a Shanghai corporation which thinks the Shaolin Valley can be a Disneyland… they set about installing barriers and ticket booths just over 10 years ago and it got worse from there with American style fast food and tourist shops. This is against the principles of Buddhism however and there are critics in China.
We last visited Shaolin Temple 6 months before Covid lockdown and Shaolin was awful and all the real Shaolin monks we know are now at schools well outside the Shaolin valley. As Empty Mind Films, we have been to Shaolin dozens of times over 30 years and even invited by them to special festivals to document them on film. Now they wish to charge us for filming visits and have final rights to our video footage – we refused and will not visit again. Very sad situation.
Disrespectful
Yup unfortunately
That’s not how it should be . Disgraceful and sad . 🤦♂️
All for money
I don't know. I don't live there, I would need to know the reality of the place and the people who live there. Any opinion of mine is a fantasy. 🙏🏻
Most aren’t even real shaolins anymore…just a money grab from the foreigners that actually wanna learn the culture
sad
It will loose its value if this is the reality…..it looks like a circus setup…..😢😢😢
So disrespectful
What do you expect when Commies take over your place? 😅
Disgusting behavior from the photographers.
Sad 😔
Is this what I read online that Shaolin Temple has been over-commercialized and become a business?
🧎♂️👣🕊🫒
Surely not, destroyed??
Disrespectful
If we look at the world, we see art for sale ❤
Most aren't even monks just ordinary folk.The thread monk's are in solitude either in meditation practice or maybe even martial art practice out of the eye of the public
If they're going to have this where tourists are able to vist then a separate area a good ways away from the temple for tourists to vist should be built so that it doesn't interfere with the Temple or Monks in any way ( Many people from around the world "If accepted" ) go there to learn an art & gain peace . If thats truly the case that tourists are destroying the meaning , art & sanctuary of the monks & Temple. Then it needs to be moved or simply stopped
Basta turismo
Tourism destroys everything it touches. Books are the way to learn in peace and respect of all cultures.
The decline began with Shi Yongxin. Shi de Yang would be the right abbot. Not corrupt, direct disciple of the honorable Shi Suxi
The temple was a lifestyle, not a carnival!☹️
Yep, looks pretty wanky
I'm sure if they didn't love the money they'd close it off to tourists
when Michael Jai White said this the Martial Arts World was so mad…
The abbot it self has destroyed the temple
You cannot blame the tourist if you let them pass close it and preserve it for cultural purposes
There are always two parts of the same situation. We all need money, monks too. His art is ancient, respected and beautiful. As it has always been, it will resist any adverse situation. Respect for Shaolin art.
Шаолинь давно стал показухой для туристов,ничему серьёзному там не научиться.
It's a decision that had to be made for strengthening the generation of mistakes in hopes to reach and teach the future and aggravated generations by there own unseen. I hoped but there lost cultivated by systematic illusion of self righteousness I please the ancestors I am a black sheep a treasure in rarity I use mine for work they make it a android and catacalismically ruin bug tap and mentally suppress it's meaningful ness and purpose the damage it with combustible weapons 10.000 it's size and in origin of ownership the broke it. I am not a chamber window and when I graduated from associates and made on of my own I loved and never stopped my chi is broken and so has been my heart I don't ask for much but to be home and my inheritance nothing for me there's no future here and I'm not leaving her..he changed the seats torn the clock off the hood dented and the broken antenna the drones and the cry's I have never done this to anyone. More importantly I am a waitress I cannot get to work to get anywhere. But again I guess I'm not pure enough or black enough and maybe I am ugly but I know where I come from and that's all I ever known! EVER.