Shaolin Temple franchises out kung-fu monks

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/3525878/Shaolin-Temple-franchises-out-kung-fu-monks.html


Ten Shaolin monks have been dispatched to Kunming Photo: EPA

China's Shaolin Monastery, famed for its monks’ expertise at kung-fu, is to take over four other Buddhist temples in the country in a 'franchise' scheme.

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
Last Updated: 4:03PM GMT 26 Nov 2008

Shi Yongxin, the abbot of Shaolin, said he had signed a 20-year contract to manage the Tuwang, Fading, Miaozhan and Guangyin temples in Kunming.

Ten monks have already been dispatched from Shaolin, in Zhengzhou near Beijing, to the temples, which are near China's borders with Burma, Laos and Vietnam.

"The move will help to increase the influence of Shaolin," said a spokesman for the temple, which is famed for the kung-fu skills of its warrior monks and the "integration of Zen and martial arts".

The monks will introduce features of Shaolin to the Kunming temples, which have seen low attendances in recent years. They will also work to maintain and upgrade the temples. In return, Shaolin will keep all revenues from donations, tourism and the sale of religious items.


The franchise is only the first step in an ambitious expansion plan which Abbot Shi outlined to Sohu.com, a Chinese news website. He said the "advanced management skills" of the 1,500-year-old Shaolin Monastery will be rolled out to more temples over the coming years in order to promote Zen Buddhism.

Abbot Shi's hard-nosed management of the temple has led to the nickname "the CEO monk" and has led to frequent accusations that the Shaolin temple is run more as a business than a spiritual concern.

In 1994, Shaolin was the first temple to register its name as a trademark.

Since then, it has established centres in Germany and Italy and sends it monks on world tours. In April, the monastery came under fire for spending three million yuan (£300,000) on two luxury lavatories for the monastery, complete with LCD television screens and team of smartly dressed cleaners.

At the same time, a company with close ties to the temple opened an online shop.

Sun Yuchun, a neighbour of the monastery who now lives in Beijing, alleged in the China Daily state newspaper: "The monks at the Shaolin Temple no longer practice real kung-fu, they just do it to make money."

However, a spokesman at the Buddhist Association of China said there is a long tradition of senior monks going to smaller temples to help them spread Buddhist teachings.