In the eyes of religious authorities and his peers, 40-year-old monk Chuanzhen was a problem monk because he protested during the 'June 4 incident', studied history, Chinese and philosophy at Nanjing University and loves to make friends with foreigners. That was until three years ago when the young monk with a commercial touch successfully promoted the name of Qixia Temple in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, with a film. The movie Qixia Temple 1937, described as the Chinese version of Schindler's List, tells the story of the Qixia monastery's abbot who saved the lives of 24,000 refugees during the Nanking Massacre. But few people knew about the story before Monk Chuanzhen settled down at Qixia Temple after graduating from Buddhism school in 1990 because the tale was never written down and only passed down through senior monks. Inspired by the power of electronic media, he decided to shoot a film to tell more people about the story and Qixia Temple. Within half a year, he raised about four million yuan to finance production by asking for devotees' donations and government funding. Although the box office was lacklustre and amounted to less than 100,000 yuan, the name of Qixia Temple had spread widely, Monk Chuanzhen said. As a result, more tourists are attracted to the monastery, located at Qixia Mountain, 25km east of Nanjing city. The monk estimated a 20 per cent increase in the number of tourists visiting the temple annually after the launch of the film. Each tourist pays 15 yuan to visit the monastery and half of the ticket admission revenue goes to the monastery, according to Wu Xiaoyong, an official at Nanjing Administration of Religious Affairs. Monasteries on the mainland are under the jurisdiction of the religious affairs administration but financially self-reliant. 'Commercialisation is a good way to promote cultural heritage including Buddhism because it can easily raise funds and provide more incentives for people to do so,' Monk Chuanzhen said. The patriotic monk no longer works at Qixia Temple and has become an executive director for another monastery, Xuanzang Temple, which has more than 20 monks. Monk Chuanzhen said his next move would be a Buddhist and patriotic television drama production. This time, he will seek investors as partners and share profits. 'It was exhausting raising financing for the film last time, so now I will seek the help of investors and hope to give them a good return,' he said.
