From producing a reality television martial arts contest, Kung Fu Idol, to licensing the Shaolin brand to a Taiwanese online gaming company, the revered Shaolin Monastery is testimony to a popular Chinese notion that money can be made out of everything, and cultural heritage is no exception.
Under the leadership of Abbot Shi Yongxin, the 1,500-year-old birthplace of kung fu and Zen Buddhism has engaged in businesses ranging from martial arts shows to film production to medicinal products and food. It will also venture into health care and property development, and will open branch monasteries around the world.
The first bang will be a A$700 million (HK$4.78 billion) deal in Australia. The monastery will buy 1,200-hectares of land in Shoalhaven, New South Wales, to set up its biggest branch monastery in the Asia-Pacific, the abbot said at the monastery, which lies midway up Mount Song in Henan province.
There will be a temple, meditation rooms, training centres for kung fu, Chinese language and etiquette, a traditional medicine clinic and a hotel. To fund the land and development fees, the monastery will introduce projects in phases and form joint ventures with local property developers to build villas for sale. The Australian government is in the process of approving the land sale, and the project should be finalised this year. Shaolin will own it permanently.
The abbot said another branch monastery of a similar scale was being planned for opening in Vancouver, Canada, this year, but declined to elaborate. At home, the monastery will invest 160 million yuan in building a sister monastery, the 'North Shaolin Monastery' in Tianjin, on land granted by the municipal government. It also plans to build a 50 million yuan hospital to take advantage of about 400 viable secret prescriptions inherited from ancient monks.
With the Shaolin Monastery at the frontline of commercialisation, other cultural heritages are following suit despite public scrutiny and criticism of over-commercialisation.