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Thread: Shi Decheng

  1. #151
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    Asia travel

    I was planning a trip back to Shaolin this year before Coronavirus broke out. 2020 marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of my master's school. Shi Decheng actually closed his brick-and-mortar schools (he had two in Dengfeng) around a decade ago, but he has a group of students that are still loyal and are housed in Chen Tongshan's school. Decheng is planning a celebration and invited all his disciples and students back. I've been looking forwafrd to returning because it's been over a decade and a half since I've walked the rugged soils of Shaolin, but we'll see how this all works out. I was in PRC for SARS and that was horrible. However, if this gets contained by then, it might be an opportune time to travel because tourism will be down.

    'It Will Be Catastrophic.' Asia's Tourism-Dependent Economies Are Being Hit Hard by the Coronavirus


    An airport staff member wearing a protective face mask stands at an information desk at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok on Feb. 9, 2020. MLADEN ANTONOV/Afp/AFP via Getty Images
    BY CHARLIE CAMPBELL / KRABI, THAILAND
    4:09 AM EST

    Klong Khong beach on the southern Thai island of Koh Lanta is a long sweep of coarse silver sand fringed by Indian almond trees and palms. A knot of beach shacks offer tourist staples—massages, fruit shakes, grilled seafood—in signs written in English and, in similar prominence, Mandarin Chinese.

    Yet few Chinese faces grace Koh Lanta these days as fallout spreads from the coronavirus outbreak that has so far infected more than 60,000 people and claimed at least 1,360 lives. Although the Thai government has not joined many of its neighbors by imposing a complete ban on Chinese visitors, the suspension of tour groups from the People’s Republic, combined with a drop in visitors more generally in response to the crisis, is hitting Koh Lanta hard.

    “Last month, there were many, many Chinese staying here,” says Khun Mohammed, whose family runs the Lanta Lapaya Resort in Klong Khong. “Now it’s just one room.”

    While the spread of the coronavirus has rattled manufacturers and upset supply chains the world over, the tourism-dependent economies of Southeast Asia are particularly vulnerable. China’s rapidly swelling middle class sparked a boom in tourist visits abroad, which soared from 20 million in 2003 to 150 million in 2018.

    Besides Thailand’s, it is the tourism industries of Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan that are most exposed to the Chinese travel market. “If this lasts for three to six months, it will be catastrophic for the tourism industry,” says Stuart McDonald, founder of the TravelFish independent travel guide to Southeast Asia.

    Today, Chinese visitors account for 30% of Thailand’s total tourist footfall, spending $18 billion in 2019. Direct tourism spending accounts for an estimated 12% of Thai GDP with Chinese visitors playing “an increasingly important role in underpinning the Thai tourism economy,” according to London-based business information provider IHS Markit.

    The fallout is being felt across the self-styled “Land of Smiles.” In Thailand’s stupa-strewn northern capital of Chiang Mai, the 20-room SugarCane boutique guesthouse has suffered cancellations of almost 150 room nights of with almost no new bookings in last two weeks. “The speed with which demand dried up is quite shocking,” says general manager Stuart Cavaliero.

    The drop in Chinese tourist numbers from January to April alone could cost the Thai economy $3.05 billion, according to The Tourism Authority of Thailand, not counting the revenue loss of other nationalities choosing to stay away. Arrivals booked by the Association of Thai Travel Agents dropped 99% from China and 71% overall for the first ten days of February compared with the same period last year, reports Reuters.

    Other nations face a similarly grim reality. The damage to Vietnam’s tourism sector due to the coronavirus will range between $5.9 billion and $7.7 billion, according to Vietnam National Administration of Tourism estimates. Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali has seen 20,000 hotel bookings canceled, even though Indonesia does not have a confirmed case of coronavirus to date.

    Thailand has 33 cases and the public is growing uneasy at the government’s reluctance to close the border to Chinese, who are subject to stringent travel bans by Japan, Australia, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.

    In many places, fears about the virus’s spread have infused and emboldened long-held anti-Chinese prejudices. In Australia, a Malaysian student of Chinese heritage was evicted from her home due to her landlord’s fears about the virus. In Singapore, a petition calling for a ban on Chinese tourists, which collected over 100,000 signatures, claimed the virus was a result of “self-inflicted unhealthy food consumption.”

    For Ruby Thiagarajan—editor-in-chief of Mynah Magazine and author of a feature exploring how the coronavirus has emboldened xenophobia in Singapore— the outbreak has “conveniently also given Singaporeans who harbor anti-Chinese sentiments justification for how they feel.”

    In Thailand, the decision to allow Chinese tourists to visit has also been “divisive locally,” says Cavaliero. Yet he hopes the decision not to implement a ban “may end up providing a reciprocated goodwill dividend in the future.”

    Still, despite the absence of a wholesale ban, widespread fear and misinformation persists across Thailand’s hospitality industry. Images of a sign reading “No Chinese” put up by a restaurant in Chiang Mai went viral on social media, prompting the local officials to order its removal. In the royal beach resort of Hua Hin, one Chinese mother and child were almost forced to sleep on the street after no hotel would take them, according to local media.

    When Charles Turner, proprietor of the Food4Thought restaurant in Chiang Mai, organized a training session among staff in response to the coronavirus, he had to quell requests to ban Chinese customers.

    “Many of my staff​ were disturbingly under-informed about how viruses spread, the mixed verdicts about the efficacy of masks, and so on,” he tells TIME. “If I were to guess, the story of business owners denying entry to Chinese customers​ is more prevalent that most realize.”

    For TravelFish founder McDonald, it’s important tourists from elsewhere do not exacerbate the looming economic shock by staying away when there’s objectively no great need. Instead, they can take advantage of thinner crowds and cheaper prices to boot.

    “China is a separate situation,” he says, “but for Southeast Asia, I don’t really see any pressing reason to change travel plans.”

    WRITE TO CHARLIE CAMPBELL AT CHARLIE.CAMPBELL@TIME.COM.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  2. #152
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    The 8 Section Brocade: Baduanjin by Shi Decheng

    Gene Ching
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  3. #153
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    Our newest web article

    Gene Ching
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  4. #154
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    Our newest web article

    Free 8 Section Brocade Poster! READ Shaolin Ways Episode 6: Baduanjin by Gene Ching



    threads
    Baduanjin-(8-section-brocade)
    Spring-2020
    Shi-Decheng
    Gene Ching
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  5. #155
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    De cheng UT Demo

    Gene Ching
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  6. #156
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    Shaolin Decheng Wuguan

    My Shifu Shi Decheng sent me some photos of his newly erected school. I posted them on my IG.

    My Shaolin master, Shi Decheng, just sent me photos of his new school. Unfortunately he has no plans to come to the USA this year due to the pandemic. He invited me to return to Shaolin but he always does that and I don’t think I can with PRC restrictions on Americans. I had hoped to go last year for the 20th anniversary of his original school but the world had other plans.
    I think this is in Luohe city, which is about a 2 hour drive from Dengfeng.
    Gene Ching
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  7. #157
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    saw it on IG and was waiting for it here

    AMITUOFO !!
    "色即是空 , 空即是色 " ~ Buddha via Avalokitesvara
    Shaolin Meditator

  8. #158
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    Arcbival article

    Video behind the link. '96 was the year I discipled under Decheng.

    Monks from the Shaolin Temple in China where the martial art of Kung Fu originated visit Dublin.

    For the monks of Shaolin Buddhist Temple, Kung Fu is part of their daily activities.

    This is as much part of their activities as prayer and contemplation.

    The Shaolin Temple was established over 1,500 years ago in the Henan Province of China.

    The monks developed the martial art of Kung Fu and more than a hundred sets of movements have been handed down to today’s Buddhist followers.

    Dr Jian Wang of the Shaolin Temple explains how the monks created Kung Fu as a form of daily meditation.

    The temple, the birthplace of Chan Buddhism, once had five thousand monks but numbers today are greatly reduced. However, they still follow the strict rules of celibacy and practise the art of Kung Fu.

    Not all Kung Fu is bare-handed and a nine section steel whip is among the weapons used.

    The Shaolin monks could have given Bruce Lee lessons and probably did.

    An RTÉ News report broadcast on 11 June 1996. The reporter is Colm Connolly.
    Gene Ching
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  9. #159
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    Cool! Thanks for sharing these mickey!




    Looks like the watermarked sales are embeddable. I've seen the second one before but not the first one.

    For-Gene-Ching
    Shi-Decheng
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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