2nd World Traditional Wushu Festival, whos going??

[Lokhopkuen]

They got the vendors away from the temple but in the Forest of Pagoda (a grave yard) they got tons of rude independent sales people shoving beads and post cards down ya throat.

Cleaned the place up though. Disneyland clean!

Any idea where that is exactly? I know the temple pretty well and I can't pinpoint it from that shot at all. Of course, I haven't been back since the last World Traditional Wushu Festival (which is partially what that article is covering) and I hardly recognized the place then either.

KL: You're behind the times. The abbot purged Shaolin of most of the tourist vendors a few years back. It started in 2000 - see Karmic Wheel Turns at Shaolin Temple: A Controversy Erupts at Songshan by Martha Burr and me in our 2000 December issue. We've covered the changes in every Shaolin Special since. The last time I was back, there was only a small section of tourist vendors by Talin, and the typical stands within any Chinese temple. They were scheduled to open a big gift shop at the new front gate complex, but it wasn't ready in 2004.

[GeneChing]

Did you know that Disneyland steam cleans all the streets every night? Shaolin is a long way from that.

As for those independant vendors, I challenge you to find a temple in China that doesn't have tourist vendors. In fact, when the initial purge of vendors happened, where did all the Shaolin vendors go? They moved to Baimasi (white horse temple). Everywhere that I've travelled in Asia - China, India, Bali, Thailand, Singapore - there are always tourist vendors at temples. Why should Shaolin be different?

Personally, I miss the old village and it's crazy vendors. I got a huge collection of Shaolin kitsch. Someday, I'll write an article about it, but it's way on the backburner...

[David Jamieson]

Pics and product info ~G, that's what we need.

Now that's an article I would like to read!

[GeneChing]

I've talked to a few people returning from the 2nd World Traditional Wushu Festival now and got a little more on this site. It seems that there was a new auditorium constructed for an opening ceremony. It's near to Dengfeng, carved into some cliff, just off the expressway. The cliffs form the auditorium walls or something like that. Our former editor Martha Burr just returned from it and she was very impressed by the opening. Tan Dun worked on it, and she said it was very tasteful and artsy. She's a discerning critic and been to plenty of Shaolin festivals, so if it impressed her, that's saying something. I'm hoping to see some pics and some video soon.

DJ: My future Shaolin kitche article would cover a lot of stuff that you can't get anymore - weird Shaolin collectables, ranging from really nice stuff to really cheesy stuff. It's on my 'to do' list, but it didn't make this upcoming Shaolin special. Maybe a future one. Got to show off the collection, doncha know?

[GeneChing]

Here's the official website. It's a little late, but better late than never.

[David Jamieson]

~g

you ever gonna do an article on what the pre-requisites are to becoming a member of the modern shaolin order?

I think something along those lines would set straight a lot of misconceptions about what shaolin is.

Just an outline of must haves and must dos in order to be a member.

It's pretty exclusive, that we know. But we also wanna know how exclusive, and I'm sure there are planty of kip dynamites out there who are just dying to be a shaolin monk and need the info.

[GeneChing]

DJ, they let me in. I've been a disciple for over a decade now. And my skillz suck. How freakin' exclusive could it be? Think about that.

P.S. I decided to merge Xiao's thread on the renewed temple pic with the old 2nd World Traditional Festival just to keep the topic unified.