194 Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation
martial community. Here is the Dengfeng County magistrate He Wei (fl.
1830) warning the Shaolin monks not to collude with outsiders:
After the monks... read our order and are informed of its contents,
they should all purify their hearts and cleanse their minds. Each one
should burn incense, cultivate the way, and chant the sutras, as well as
plow and weed the land. As to the various types of lay people, the monks
are forbidden to collude with them in secret. Nor are the monks allowed
to interfere in outside matters, harboring criminals, and instigating
trouble. If they dare purposely disobey, and [their crimes] happen to be
exposed, we are sure to consider them more serious and punish them
accordingly.
As to the lay people, they should not be permitted into the monas-
tery.... Tenant farmers should reside elsewhere. They should not be
allowed to live near the monks.^38Far from being limited to official circles, the perception that Shaolin
monks were related to the outlaw community was widespread in late Qing so-
ciety. The iconoclast Liu Tieyun (1857–1909), himself a martial arts aficio-
nado, declared in 1904 that the art of Shaolin fighting no longer existed at
its birthplace. The author of The Travels of Lao Can attributed its monastic de-
cline to the monks’ association with bandits and criminals. “Hand combat is
now a lost art at the Shaolin Temple” he wrote. “[The Shaolin styles] were
originally developed for the use of the monks, who practiced the art in order
to develop toughness and endurance.... Who could have known that after-
wards the Shaolin Temple art would become famous? Outsiders came in in-
creasing numbers to learn it, and one would often hear that among those
who went out masters of the art, there were bandits and seducers of men’s
wives and daughters.”^39
The dynasty’s suspicion of the monks’ sedition did not prevent some offi-
cials from being intrigued by their art. In previous chapters we met two Qing
administrators who traveled to Shaolin to behold its renowned fighting tech-
niques: the low-ranking Wang Zuyuan (ca. 1820–after 1882), who had prac-
ticed the Shaolin martial arts, and the high-ranking Lin Qing (1791–1846),
who included an account of them in his illustrated Record of a Goose Life’s
Tra c e s in th e S n o w. However, the relations between the regime and the monas-
tery were so strained that in order to be given a demonstration, they had to
convince the monks of their sincerity. Unlike their Ming predecessors, who
readily displayed the art to imperial patrons, Qing Shaolin monks were fear-
ful that their performances would be used as evidence against them. Lin
Qing labored to put them at ease. “I proceeded to ask the monks about their
hand combat method, but they refused to utter a word about it. I made it
clear that I have heard about the Shaolin Fist long ago, and I know it has
been relied upon solely for guarding monastic regulations and protecting