By Jehangir S. Pocha, Globe Correspondent | September 28, 2005
SHAOLIN, China -- Revered in myth, extolled in film, and almost destroyed by revolution, China's Shaolin Temple, where kung fu was created, has been reborn to fascinate a new generation.
'Coming here was a dream," said Chen Fang, a 13-year-old with a breaking voice, one of 10,000 students training in kung fu within Shaolin's restored buildings 50 miles southwest of Zhengzhou, the capital of central Henan Province. ''I used to be fascinated by kung fu and fortunately my parents agreed to send me here -- to become an 'iron soldier.' "
It wasn't always so. If the newly glossy red walls of this ancient complex could talk, they might tell of a painful history.
The Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1911) outlawed martial arts, jailed Shaolin's warrior monks, and burned down the temple. The rebuilt temple was torched again by a local warlord in the civil strife that gripped China in the 1920s, and in the early 1940s the invading Japanese attacked the complex.
Life was a little better after the Communist Party came to power in 1949. Kung fu was banned as a feudal pastime, and Mao Zedong's Red Guards dragged Shaolin's few remaining monks through the city's streets, where they received public floggings.
But now China is experiencing a resurgence of interest in its ancient arts, and the nationalism fanned by the Communist Party has made martial arts especially popular.
Martial arts dramas crowd China's television channels, and as students have flooded back to Shaolin, other schools have opened around the mystical Buddhist monastery. Today, local officials say, students from more than 35 countries study kung fu in or near Shaolin.
Tourists pay $3 to file silently into the temple's courtyards, after visiting its pagodas and its Bell Tower, and they watch the students practice. They whistle and hoot when a sparring match gets a bit intense, and injuries are common and part of the toughening temple regime.
In Shaolin's courtyards on a recent morning, surrounded by the modern and restored buildings of the 300-acre complex, thousands of boys and girls in red and black uniforms practiced lightning-fast kicks, twirls, chops, and gave exuberant displays of swordsmanship.
''No one can fight like a Chinese master, especially one from Shaolin," said Sun Qi Can, a 14-year-old from Anhui Province. ''The world champion is from Shaolin, and my wish is that kung fu can become an Olympic sport and that I can win a gold medal to bring honor to China."
As the students' screams carried across the Shao-shi mountains and the dense forest (or lin) from which the temple gets its name, Wen Hua Liu, the school's vice manager, said things at Shaolin are now just as Bodhidharma, the Indian Buddhist monk who has been credited with developing kung fu, might have wanted it.
Tradition holds that when Bodhidharma arrived here in 517, 21 years after the temple had been established by an Indian monk named Bada, he felt the monks were getting indolent from sitting in meditation. So Bodhidharma devised a series of ''meditations in motion" that imitated the natural motions of animals and birds. This evolved into kung fu, and Bodhidharma's teachings spawned the Zen school of Buddhism.
Today, every kung fu we know has its roots in the Yijinjing, Shaolin's kung fu manual, Wen said.
''The temple is now part of the soul of our country," he added.
Shaolin legends -- such as how only 13 Shaolin monks defeated the army of the unpopular Sui dynasty ruler, Wang Shigong, and helped Li Shimin establish China's Tang Dynasty -- jump quickly to the lips of warriors-in-training.
''A kung fu master will definitely win if he has to fight a karate master," said Huang Yanan, 17, one of the 1,100 girls studying at Shaolin.
''Kung fu is kung fu because it makes us strong inside. Here even the women are as tough as the men, so I feel really empowered."
Yet for many of the students, the Buddhist meditative state and the restraint that was essential to kung fu and other martial arts have been noticeably absent. In its place was an expressed desire to use kung fu as a means to ''make it."
''I don't really believe in Buddhism," said Yu Chao, a 17-year-old from Shandong. ''My parents work really hard to afford my annual tuition," about $600 -- half of the average annual rural income.
The fascination with martial arts stars, such as the late Bruce Lee, motivates many of the students. The 1982 film ''Shaolin Temple," starring Jet Li, was designed to lead the public relations campaign behind Shaolin's restoration. It became China's first global hit, and it helped turn kung fu into a global craze.
But Wen said the reality for most students is more gritty than glitzy. He said that only a few become stars and that most graduates end up as trainers, join the army, or become ing security guards.
And the school has its critics. Li Hui, 36, a teacher at a high school in Zhengzhou, said that despite all the grandeur, Shaolin and other kung-fu schools have devolved into vocational institutions for troubled, unskilled youth.
Chen, the student, said ''kung fu is my only way to be something." He works especially hard at his regime, which entails waking at 5 a.m. and practicing for two hours before four hours of classwork. Another student, Sun Qi Can, 14, says the bonds they share at the school are deeper than anything else he's known. ''We all share the same love," he said. ''Shaolin is the temple of our life."
© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.