Help Wanted: Jobs at Shaolin Temple

[GeneChing]

There's probably a more appropriate thread to post this on but as it's the Tuesday after Labor Day, and I don't feel like searching the forum too much.


China's kungfu shrine eyes new-media expansion (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-09/02/c_133615394.htm)
English.news.cn 2014-09-02 20:48:35

ZHENGZHOU, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- China's high-profile Shaolin Temple is recruiting a media director and an editor as part of its drive to spread kung fu and Buddhist culture using a social media.

The monastery located in China's central Henan Province told Xinhua on Tuesday that the positions are open to applicants from across the world, with preference on English-speaking new media workers. They will aid in the temple's campaign to build a new-media and social network platform, which will incorporate its microblog and a new account on the instant messaging service WeChat.

"The need arises from an internationalizing Shaolin," said Yanchong , a monk who works at Shaolin Intangible Assets Management Center.

The temple needs new platforms to better interact with its domestic and foreign fans, who come from all walks of life, including many non-Buddhist students and entrepreneurs, he said.

The 1,500-year-old Shaolin temple is arguably China's most famous and controversial Buddhist temple due to its active commercial and cultural activities like kung fu shows. It is also among the first religious institutions in China to go digital. It built its first website in 1996, and has huge followings on Chinese social networks such as Weibo and WeChat.

[GeneChing]

Here's a unique take on the Shaolin experience. I never thought to interview non-monastic workers. Clerk Zhang has an interesting perspective on it all.


Working for monks (http://www.ecns.cn/2014/09-26/136274.shtml)
2014-09-26 09:25 Global Times Web Editor: Qian Ruisha

http://www.ecns.cn/2014/09-26/U579P886T1D136274F12DT20140926092803.jpeg
One of the reasons laypersons are attracted to work in monasteries and temples is the sense of tranquility. Photo: Li Hao/GT

What attracts laymen to seek jobs in China's temples and monasteries?

China's Shaolin Temple, a Buddhist monastery made famous by numerous kung fu films, is currently looking for a new communications manager.

Since posting a recruitment notice at the beginning of September, the temple, nestled in the forests of Shaoshi Mountain in Henan Province, has received more than 300 applications.

Competition is fierce. A quarter of the applicants have overseas educations, according to Yang Tong, the editor-in-chief of Sina Weibo-based local Henan news portal Yuji. Among them are a visiting professor from Harvard University, a senior reporter who has worked at the Xinhua News Agency, and a 24-year-old television director surnamed Hu.

"I have a personal affinity towards the Shaolin culture, and I'm attracted to the idea of working somewhere that is so tranquil and serene," Hu told Metropolitan. "I have no problems with a vegetarian diet, and I can adapt to new environments very quickly."

Although not all monasteries who hire laypersons to meet the everyday tasks of running a religious institution require its employees to abide by the same ascetic living principles as its monks, to work in a temple or a monastery usually entails significant changes to one's life.

The days are rigorously structured, and a sense of discipline and religious decorum is expected at all times. There are few holidays, and in some of the monasteries, no weekends. The pay is mostly modest.

So what is that attracts such highly-qualified laypersons to work in a monastery?

The search for enlightenment

For more than three years, until last October, 29-year-old Zhu Bingfan worked as a monastic clerk at the Shaolin Temple.

Each day, he would wake at 6 am, to the boisterous strains of the theme song of Jet Li's popular kung fu movie made in 1982, Shaolin Temple. He would then throw open the windows of his sparse dormitory room, and gaze upon the same dusty courtyards and lush viridian forests as the ones portrayed in countless scenes in the film.

After getting in some early morning reading while drinking a cup of tea, Zhu's busy day would begin.

"Some days I would have to copy out Buddhist scrolls or re-organize books in the library, and on other days, I would have to help tend to visitors or members of the media," said Zhu.

Zhu had met an employee who worked for the temple while doing research for his Master's dissertation on the representation of Shaolin in the West, at the renowned Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong Province. Upon graduation, he began working at the Shaolin Temple himself, turning down a job offer from communications corporation China Telecom.

"The Shaolin Temple is a place flourishing with people with different life experiences," said Zhu, explaining why he committed himself to working at the monastery. "I wanted to meet as many different people as I could, and gain as much knowledge as I could, while I was still young."

After just three days, Zhu was assigned to work as a clerk for the abbot of the monastery, Shi Yongxin. But despite the prestige of the post, Zhu's parents were not pleased.

"Most parents want their children to find a job that will make them wealthy, or one where they will be able to climb up the bureaucratic ranks, and my parents are no exception."

While working at the Shaolin Temple, Zhu was required to follow a strict vegetarian diet, but was not subject to the other rules that monks living at the temple had to abide by.

Nevertheless, he found his early days at the temple difficult.

"At first, I found it difficult to communicate with the monks," said Zhu.

"When you just arrive at the temple, you don't understand that there is an etiquette and a decorum that is expected of you. You don't know that you're not supposed to address the monks by name or make too much noise. Sometimes, you find that you've offended the monks without knowing why."

http://www.ecns.cn/2014/09-26/U579P886T1D136275F12DT20140926092650.jpeg
Zhu Bingfan (left) worked as a monastic clerk at the Shaolin Temple for more than three years. Photo: Courtesy of Zhu Bingfan

Gradually however, Zhu adjusted to the rhythm of life, and came to cherish it. He soon learnt how to communicate with the monks, and would seek them out regularly in the hopes of learning from their perspectives about the world, and receiving enlightenment. In the evenings, he would read books or play table tennis.

The meager wages never bothered him.

"It's true that the pay isn't much, just enough to support your day to day expenses," said Zhu.

"There's no immediate profit. But it had a great influence on the rest of my life, and I will likely continue to do so."

When he started working at the Shaolin Temple, Zhu agreed with many of the precepts of Buddhism, but did not practice it in his daily life. Now, he is taking a year-off from paid employment to reflect on his time at the temple, and decide what to do next.

Zhu said he is now thinking of starting his own business to promote traditional Chinese culture.

Although he no longer works at the temple, he has made the rituals and habits of Buddhism part of his everyday life.

"I believe in Buddhism because it is extensive and profound," said Zhu. "It's a source of great knowledge and wisdom."

Things of greater value than money

Many of the highly-qualified laypersons who seek employment at monasteries and temples are not motivated by money.

"There are two kinds of highly-educated people who choose to work in temples or monasteries," said Wei Dedong, the vice dean of the School of Philosophy at Renmin University of China.

"The first type are those who are followers of the religion, and see their work as a form of charity," said Wei. "[The second type] think of it as being no different from working in a normal company, except that they have to follow a vegetarian diet, and are bound to stricter rules of conduct."

Yang suggested that most applicants fell into the first category.

"The majority of people who apply consider themselves to be followers of Buddhism, and see it as a way to nourish themselves spiritually," he said.

A senior monk at a Taoist temple in Beijing who wished to remain anonymous, agreed that remuneration was rarely a consideration for laypersons who chose to work in monasteries.

"The wages they are paid come from donations to the monastery," said the monk. "We are using this money to better serve the needs of the monastery and its believers."

Perhaps one of the reasons that many laypersons do not mind the modest wages of working at a monastery is because they see it as only a temporary stage in their lives. But there are also those like 39-year-old Qi Junzhao, for whom it has become a life-long vocation.

Qi currently works as the deputy administrative director at a Buddhist academy in Putuo Mountain in Zhejiang Province, a sacred site for Buddhists, and has worked in monasteries and temples both small and large over the past 12 years.

For Qi, the reward of working in a monastery or temple is something far greater than material wealth.

"Working at a normal job in society, one's labor is compensated by money," said Qi.

"But working at a temple, one is compensated by things that are of a greater value."

Qi graduated from a university in Qingdao, Shandong Province in 1997 with a degree in Fine Arts. After working as an oil painter for five years, he was given the opportunity to work as an art editor at the Putuoshan Buddhist Association in Zhejiang.

Qi, who had been a lay Buddhist for some years already, decided to take the job.

He found that the simple lifestyle of working in a monastery suited him, and has worked in sites of religious sanctuary ever since.

Each morning, he starts his day with Buddhist chants, and in the evenings, he enjoys going for jogs around the mountain.

Nevertheless, Qi warned that such a life was not for everyone. He suggested that laypersons who thought they might be interested in working in a monastery or temple give it a trial first, as a volunteer for a short period.

"Only when you've really experienced what life is like living in a temple, can you know whether this is how you want to live," said Qi.