By Greg Brundage
May 2024 - Off and on during the past 14 years I visited the North Shaolin Monastery on Pan Mountain (Panshan), in Ji County (Jixian, formerly Jizhou), Tianjin many times and got to observe, participate in, and record rebuilding that venerable monastery destroyed in May 1942 during World War II along with most of the other 71 monasteries on that historically rich and surreally beautiful mountain.
The last article I published about “Rebuilding the North Shaolin” was December 2020, “Part 17: Beijing Shaolin Wushu School Meets North Shaolin Monastery on Panshan and Looking Forward to the New Year!”
On the ground there, reconstruction progress was good at that time.
However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 was a tragic year for most people around the world and economic recovery is still ongoing in many or most places. The New Cold War obviously doesn’t help. Due to COVID-19, I had to leave China for more than a year, returning in September 2023. But for most of that time, I kept working on the Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour. Why? Oh, I’ve been traveling internationally and doing martial arts since the early 70s when I was a young teen. In recent decades, I find recording these adventures and sharing them with others is a way to honor my teachers for their efforts. And to be completely honest, yeah, it’s fun.
From November 2023 to January 2024, I stayed with the monks at North Shaolin Monastery for varying lengths of time, usually for three to four days. But not a whole lot was going on in regards to Kung Fu training. Nevertheless, I found some of the religious activities interesting – a mix of Shaolin tradition and Tianjin Buddhist Association influences.
Fortunately, Shaolin Kung Fu monk Shi Yan Kong had and continues to have lively classes for children in nearby Jixian, other towns and Tianjin city, with the occasional holiday Kung Fu show at North Shaolin and other locations for all to enjoy.
On New Year’s Eve at North Shaolin Temple, there was a fun family demonstration followed by a small party in the head monk’s office, with the head monk at that time being Shi Yan Kong, as Shi Yan Wan was away traveling.
In a previous conversation with Shi Yan Wan, I found out funding to continue reconstruction stopped during COVID-19 three years ago. That was a disappointment.
Here, a little side story is in order.
On my way to North Shaolin on the first of my visits in early December last year, in the small white public minivan to Jixian (the nearest city to the small town of Panshan), I chatted with the other riders. They asked where I was going. I said “North Shaolin Temple” thinking of course “everyone around here should know where that is.”
To my amazement, they didn’t know that North Shaolin Monastery is on Panshan, Jixian, Tianjin.
They thought North Shaolin was on Songshan, the headquarter Shaolin Monastery where Bodhidharma (called Damo in Chinese- 達磨) meditated for 10 years and laid the foundation of Shaolin Kung Fu.
I mention that in this article because during my chats with Shi Yan Wan at North Shaolin Temple in early December last year, he acknowledged, practically nobody in China knows North Shaolin is on Panshan in Jixian County. It’s officially part of Tianjin city, though it’s really 105 km. to the north of Tianjin.
From Shi Yan Wan I also found out about 85% of the heavy construction for the entire monastery complex is finished, and if they had the funding (which they didn’t and still don’t) what they would have done in the spring (of 2024) is the interior work on the very large Monks’ dormitory, called the liáofang (寮房) in Chinese and #4 on the map below.
At present the monks’ dormitory has only one glass window (large and quite nice really, looking over the valley and town below), only three or four doors for the 100+ rooms - no flooring, or plasterboard walls, no drop ceilings, no plumbing fixtures, no electrical circuitry or outlets, lighting, etc.
I asked him how much all that would cost. He said: “About four million yuan.” That’s US$552,176, or a little more than half a million US dollars, a sizable sum especially given most people even in China don’t even know the North Shaolin Temple is on Panshan, Jixian, Tianjin.
I thought the obvious answer is a movie or at least a documentary film about North Shaolin Temple’s noble role in Chinese history going back to the Yuan Dynasty under the direction of Shaolin Abbot Fuyu; its growth, development, critical geostrategic location, final destruction in 1942, and reconstruction process begun in earnest in 2010 – in Chinese and English, of course! No problem!
So, in January this year of 2024 I wrote my first attempt at a screenplay for a one-hour documentary. But by late February, I found out making such a documentary costs money, which they don’t have. I was a little surprised Songshan Shaolin doesn’t have its own media department, but instead outsources that kind of thing when necessary.
So, I made a couple of short videos relating in brief North Shaolin Temple histories in Chinese and English, and posted them on YouTube, TikTok, and more recently the Chinese TikTok, called Douyin.
Not long after finishing those, something quite remarkable happened. A friend of my old friend Miao Hui named Juli came from Germany and decided to spend five days at North Shaolin Temple to learn Shaolin Kung Fu. That was something unexpected and exciting as not too many foreign ladies go there for training. That however has changed thanks to Miao Hui and more recently Juli, who are helping to market visits to China in general and North Shaolin specifically to Germany at least.
Most people assume Shaolin Kung Fu training is the within the exclusive domain of men, however that is not true at all.
According to KungFuMagazine.com publisher Gene Ching, Yongtai Nunnery is a sister monastery to Shaolin Temple. “Yongtai Nunnery was built on the grounds of Zhuanyun’s hut, the first Buddhist nun in China (circa 467 CE). It was sanctified by Tamo’s only female disciple, Minglian. Yongtai was named after an early Abbess, the daughter of Emperor Xuanwu. Under her matronage, it was a refuge for over 1000 women and that was in the early 500s CE. The last Abbess was Shi Yanjun.”
Yongtai monastery can be found on the western slope of Mount Taishi, 11 kilometers northwest of Dengfeng City, Zhengzhou, in Henan Province.
According to Chinatrip.com: “Yongtai Monastery (永泰寺)… served as a place of spiritual cultivation for three princesses: Princess Zhuanyuan, daughter of Emperor Wen of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Princess Minglian, daughter of Emperor Wu of the Southern Liang Dynasty and a pioneering figure in Zen Buddhism for nuns, and Princess Yongtai, sister of Emperor Xiaoming of the Northern Wei Dynasty.”
The Motto of the Shaolin Tagou Educational Undertaking Group:
"Be a devout learner and an undaunted practitioner and stay away from factional or sectarian bigotry in matters related to Kung Fu, because all Kung-Fu sects are quintessentially and professionally identical...”
The early learning of sexism is a pernicious form of bigotry that many believe give rise to other forms of bigotry later in life.
Nevertheless, having separate male and female Shaolin monasteries makes sense. Two foundational beliefs of Buddhism include “Life is suffering” and “Desire is the cause of suffering.” Thus, eliminating one major source of desire facilitates this path to greater awakening.
Due to traditional etiquette, Juli did not sleep or eat at the monastery. There are guest houses nearby, but of course one needs to speak Chinese to get around there, and prices vary considerably.
In spite of different facilities for male and female monks, Shaolin Monastery’s openness to women martial artists at such an early point in history, (1400 years ago) is exemplary by today’s standards.
Exemplary? According to US Military Times.com, “In the eight years since the Pentagon opened previously closed special operations jobs to women, just four have entered the training pipeline to become a Navy SEAL. Only 17 women have attempted Marine Raider training in that same timeline. None of those applicants went on to secure a position on a SEAL or Raider team.”
However, that article goes on to explain the US Air Force has permitted a “handful” of females into “special tactics, combat rescue and pararescue, tactical air control party and special reconnaissance career fields since 2016.” That article did not specific which of those occupations those females entered.
In Eurasia however:
“Against the mounted army of the Amazons
on both sides of many-streamed Maeotis
He coursed through the Sea, hostile swelling of water,
having mustered a host of friends
From all over the lands of Hellas (modern day Greece)
to capture the gold-embroidered robe,
The tunic of the martial maiden:
a deadly hunt for a war-belt.”
-- Euripides, Heracles (415 BCE)
Professor Christopher Beckwith in his book Empires of the Silk Road – A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present asserts “…it is likely that the Greek legends about the race of Amazons are based on real-life Sarmatian women warriors.” (Princeton University Press, seventh printing, first paperback printing 2011, page 70.)
For those not familiar with ancient history, according to Encyclopedia Britannica:
“Sarmatian, member of a people originally of Iranian stock who migrated from Central Asia to the Ural Mountains between the 6th and 4th century BC and eventually settled in most of southern European Russia and the eastern Balkans.”
See also The Fierce Warriors of the Steppes: Who Were the Sarmatians?
China in particular has an extraordinary history of women warriors, with the oldest I know of being Lady Fu Hao, (妇好) perhaps more appropriately called Lady Fu Zi, and sometimes called the “Forgotten Warrior Queen of China,” who in addition to being the Number One wife of King Wu Ding, and High Priestess, was also the general in charge of several very successful military campaigns for the Shang dynasty (1600 to 1046 B.C.), a dynasty that made significant contributions to civilization with advances in math, astronomy, artwork, and military technology, and ushered in the Bronze age. That does make for a rather stunning CV.
Some fairly recent research suggests there may have been more than one Lady Fu Hao.
This being China, few things are really simple at first glance. For example, the inscriptions “妇好” (Fu Hao) found in the Fu Hao tomb, could be read as (妇子) Fu Zi, with “Hao (好) recognized as the feminization of the Shang Surname Zi (子) according to Virginia Kane (University of Michigan). “Since this name would have been inherited by all daughters of the Zi clan, there would have been at any one time a sizable number of royal women of various ages appropriately titled ‘Fu Zi.’ Her burial mound inscriptions could have described several different ladies of the royal clan, including daughters or aunts of the king, as well as consorts of the king.” Session III: Tomb Number Five at Anyang and Fu Zi.
If this is the case, there might have been a family of warrior women that played such a dramatic military role in Chinese history from the early to the late Shang Dynasty, that is, a six-hundred-year period.
Judging by artifacts found in her, or their burial mound – the only complete burial mound found from the Shang dynasty - regardless as to whether it was one woman or a family, her or their preferred weapon appears to have been a battle ax, though several highly ornate but no-less functional daggers were also found in that burial mound.
Human “sacrifices” were also found in her burial mound, though almost certainly not the kind of “sacrifices” people ordinary think of, but rather part of an even much more ancient Central Eurasian Silk Road “comitatus” system. For information on what that was, read Empires of the Silk Road by Christopher Beckwith cited above.
Another extraordinary female martial master in China was Empress Wu Zetian (624-705 CE). Her stunning biography has to be read to be believed but leaves no doubt she was a supreme master of martial arts. She was often described as bloodthirsty, and yet, she was unquestionably an otherwise highly creative and brilliant leader of the empire.
In conclusion, women martial artist masters (with the traditional meaning of “engaging in war arts”) in Eurasia in general and China in particular, have nothing less than amazing histories dating back more than 3,000 years.
And thus, a warm welcome from North Shaolin Monastery to Juli from Germany!
Enter Stage Left:
The wise old playwright Shakespeare wrote “Brevity is the soul of wit,” which means: “keep it short.”
Contacts
For information about training at North Shaolin contact:
Miao Hui
2418596787@qq.com
(+86) 166 0002 6112
执行董事兼旅游专家：Executive Director and travel specialist:
马先生 Mr. Ma
(+86) 158 0165 2301 (Chinese language preferred.)
About author:
For more on Greg Brundage (石龙), see the following:
For updates visit his website: Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour - https://srkffriendshiptour.org.
Other social media include: SILK ROAD MARTIAL ART FRIENDSHIP TOUR
YouTube Collection:
@silkroadmartialartsfriends7329 - https://www.youtube.com/@silkroadmartialartsfriends7329
Creator: Greg Brundage (“Coach Stone” / 石龙教练)
TikTok Collection:
@Silk Road Martial Art Nomad - tiktok.com/@user5051237932857 Creator: Greg Brundage (“Coach Stone” / 石龙教练)
Twitter: @SilkRoadStudy - https://twitter.com/SilkRoadStudy
WeChat: naturalman2014 - naturalman2021
Email: gregbrundage@live.com - director@silkroadresearchcenter.org