as perceived by the general population, would eventually diminish the
martial artists’influence. It is also unclear whether some of the martial
artists’actions may shade more into criminal than righteous behavior.
At least in the case of Da Fo village, martial arts empowers ordinary
people in their struggle with a predatory government. The reservoir of
martial arts in China, both in the cities and the countryside, is deep and
broad, allowing people who feel they need martial arts training to acquire
it. A similar process took place when the Shaolin Temple itself was revived.
It was not that the temple was able to bring back former martial artists who
had previously taught there (if any ever had in the twentieth century) or to
find a former Buddhist monk who had practiced martial arts in his youth
before taking up religious practice. Instead, martial artists were found to
teach at the government-sponsored training center, and other martial
arts teachers set up schools nearby, to revive thetraditionof martial arts
instruction associated with Shaolin. Da Fo village had a martial arts
tradition from before the communist takeover, and the men who learned
martial arts to defend themselves and their family were interested in
regaining those skills for functional and practical reasons. They were not
focused on reclaiming the specific skills and traditions that had been
previously practiced in their country.
Shaolin itself changed dramatically soon after a new head abbot took
office in 1999. Most obviously, Yongxin was thefirst head abbot of
Shaolin since the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. He was well connected
to the central government and used these connections to have almost all the
private martial arts schools, restaurants, and merchandising stalls for
tourists removed. The private martial arts schools relocated to the nearby
town of Dengfeng, where they thrive on their proximity and connection to
Shaolin.
The Shaolin Temple itself now focuses on Buddhism, with a regular
traffic in tourists. When Matthew Polly returned to Shaolin in 2003 , his old
friends among the martial artists had become martial arts instructors.
Shaolin itself fed off of itsfictional image and continued to reinforce that
image with performances for the tourists. Polly remarked that“Shaolin
was always unique in having two types of monks: the cultural or Buddhist
monks (wen seng) and the martial monks (wu seng). It seems they now had
a third type: the performance monks (biaoyan seng).”But his 2003 obser-
vations went further:“It was as I had suspected. This new breed had very
little connection to the temple. They were extraordinarily skilled martial
artists who had basically tried out and won parts in the long running hit
musicalShaolin’s Martial Monks.”^17
1978 to the Present 233