The commercialization of Shaolin’s martial arts reputation and the
tourist value it included has moved to a new level with the franchising of
Shaolin martial arts. In November 2008 , Abbot Yongxin made a deal with
the authorities in Guandu, on the outskirts of Kunming in Yunnan
Province, to take over several newly renovated temples for thirty years,
keeping the income from the donation boxes and gift shops. The monks
also offered martial arts classes.^18 While some people were deeply dis-
turbed by this turn of events, locals were happy for the tourism business it
attracted. Yongxin was capitalizing on Shaolin’s fame to spread its influ-
ence within China, in the same way that Shaolin monks had been sent to
other countries to establish schools.
Shaolin is the most famous“name brand”in the martial arts because of
the Hong Kong movie industry, but Taijiquan is more ubiquitous in
practice around the world. Taiji’s greater practice is due to its earlier
export and, at least in the West, its considerably lower threshold of
physicalfitness. Other martial arts styles famous in China, like Xingyi,
are mostly unknown in the West. The plethora of martial arts practiced in
the countryside outside of the organizing framework of twentieth-century
Chinese governments remain to be discovered. Of course, it is a distinctly
late imperial and twentieth-century notion of martial arts being grouped
into“styles”that now configures our approach to these physical practices.
Chinese martial arts is also undergoing a shift into sports, with two
categories of this competitive version: forms andfighting. The Chinese
government has been actively promoting Wushu as an international sport.
It had hoped to get Wushu into the 2008 Olympics but was rejected. The
Chinese government was particularly bothered by this exclusion because
both Judo, a Japanese martial art, and Tae Kwon Do, a Korean martial art,
are Olympic sports. The Olympic committee was concerned about the
proliferation of marginal sports, which were crowding an already packed
schedule of events. At least at the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese govern-
ment was allowed to stage a Wushu competition external to the official
Olympic events.
Sports Wushu grew out of government efforts in 1958 to regularize and
organize the martial arts. As had happened under the Guomindang gov-
ernment, the communist government had committees of martial artists
unify their own arts into recognized styles, with set forms and practices.
This allowed for credentialing teachers and establishing curricula for
school physical education programs. Actors like Jet Li established their
reputations as martial artists in the Wushu forms competitions. The cate-
gories for Wushu forms reified the officially established styles,fixing the
234 Post-Imperial China