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Shaolin Special 2009 (#10 but who's counting ;))
We'll have the cover story live in about a month. We appreciate your support on the newsstands.
amitoufo
what would become of all your shaolin special issues if
You know, they'd probably sell better, uki. Seriously, magazines about actors - celeb rags - they're the ones that are still doing great business on the newsstands. And as for the tourist part, even travel mags do better on the newsstands than martial arts mags.
If they're all actors, they're method actors. They face challengers all the time. You can go up to the temple today or any of the 68 private schools and issue a challenge - it'll be answered. Sure, there are definitely showman there - all the demo teams and Shaolin shows are modern wushu players - but the demo teams only represent a small percentage of the population of students at Shaolin (in this issue, we report that at 58,000 full-time students) and those monks in shows are mostly performance monks, if they are monks at all. Many of the shows don't have real monks, only actors like you say. A few of the shows don't even have performers from Shaolin. We've addressed all this here before.
But on a deeper level, if I were to take uki's question seriously, it reflects something even more interesting. If all the monks at Shaolin were just actors, it would be the most phenomenal improve play ever. And it would be about martial arts. Where else in the world does something like that exist? Washington DC maybe? ;) That, on it's own, is fascinating and newsworthy. Think about it.
We all have our roles to play. Here on the forum, I play an administrator. Uki, you play a troll. Hey, it's showtime. Try not to forget your lines this time, ok uki? :p
Thanks again for the props, SimonM
Don't get me wrong. There are definitely 'actors' in monk robes around Shaolin. But not all of them are actors. In fact, it's only a very few. Unfortunately, these are the few that everyone sees. They are the performer monks. There's even a term for this class of monk - biaoyanseng. Most people are only exposed to biaoyanseng because all they know of Shaolin is what they see on TV or at live shows. Even if they go to Shaolin and take a few lessons, unless they have a connection (guanxi), they'll probably get a biaoyanseng. Few schools are willing to invest their top teachers for nibbler tourists that are only taking a few lessons. I'm getting the feeling that this is shifting a little, but not a lot.
There are all sorts of challenges - those of mouth and those of deed. Who is more insecure?
It's all about the guanxi
Believe it or not, I first learned the fine art of guanxi from Matt Polly. It's actually a venerated tradition in Chinese culture. I think that's a major part of the problem with westerners studying martial arts, not just at Shaolin, but across the board. They don't understand the culture of guanxi. They interpret it as bribes. To understand it, you need to understand the nature of China. you need to understand why the national symbol is a dragon - a combination of nine different mascot totems. China is an amalgamation of warring tribes. That's quite different than America's system of United States. It's more like feudal war. You can still feel that in the clan systems in martial arts. Guanxi can be interpreted as a way for feuding clans to communicate peacefully. It's all about trade.
Cultural Relativism / Moral Relativism / An Example
This is an example of a practice that should not be protected under the aegis of reasonable cultural relativism.