https://www.scmp.com/rss/500232/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Remember the Shaolin trainees we visited last summer? We met up with them again — this time to follow them as they return home for their vacation. We also spoke to their parents to find out why they felt sending their kids to the monastery was the best. https://www.scmp.com/identity/child-kungfu-masters-part-2-parents-tell-us-why-they-sent-kids-away-shaolin-temple/article/3222693?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/identity/child-kungfu-masters-part-2-parents-tell-us-why-they-sent-kids-away-shaolin-temple/article/3222693?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Jun 2023 04:26:01 +0000 Cute kids? Well, they can kick you a**. These young kids are masters of Shaolin Kungfu, one of the oldest forms of Chinese martial arts. At around four years old, many are sent to the temple to start their training. We visited the place in central China’s Henan province to see what a day is like for them. https://www.scmp.com/culture/child-kungfu-masters-inside-mysterious-shaolin-temple-where-training-starts/article/3200716?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/child-kungfu-masters-inside-mysterious-shaolin-temple-where-training-starts/article/3200716?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 23 Nov 2022 09:24:17 +0000 As someone who practises kung fu for four hours every day, former New Yorker and international lawyer turned filmmaker Laurence Brahm is well-known in Beijing’s wushu community. He has studied under masters from various schools of Chinese martial arts, including 81-year-old Liu Hongchi, who is an expert in many wushu styles including Zhangjia Kungfu and Cha Quan. Practising kung fu is a form of meditation in motion for him, Brahm says. And it has helped the global activist, political economist... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3162464/us-martial-artist-china-sees-kung-fu-preventive-medicine?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3162464/us-martial-artist-china-sees-kung-fu-preventive-medicine?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Jan 2022 05:15:20 +0000 You may know Jet Li from such films as 2000’s Romeo Must Die, but the film that launched his career in Asia was Shaolin Temple. What’s not widely known is that the 1982 movie also essentially created Shaolin kung fu as we know it. The actual Shaolin Temple is now a Unesco World Heritage Site, and the heart of tourism in central China’s Henan province. Scores of martial arts schools lie on a mountain. Ticket sales bring in tens of millions of dollars a year.  But when a film crew from Hong Kong’s... https://www.scmp.com/arts/how-jet-li-turned-chinas-shaolin-temple-cash-cow/article/3016359?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/arts/how-jet-li-turned-chinas-shaolin-temple-cash-cow/article/3016359?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 28 Jun 2019 02:20:32 +0000 When the Notre Dame Cathedral was burning in Paris last month, some Chinese wasted no time in venting their Schadenfreude online. According to their logic, the fiery destruction of a cultural symbol beloved by the French was vindication for the burning and looting of Beijing’s Summer Palace by French and British troops in 1860. In fairness, these jingoistic rants were roundly criticized by many, including China’s heritage and other government bodies, as mean-spirited, misguided and... https://www.scmp.com/society/how-chinas-shaolin-temple-survived-every-attempt-destroy-it/article/3009634?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/society/how-chinas-shaolin-temple-survived-every-attempt-destroy-it/article/3009634?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 10 May 2019 09:20:10 +0000 In 2018, China banned what it deemed to be controversial hip hop content from television. In this interview with 36th Chamber, one of Beijing’s original b-boy dance crews, the group talked about how the ban affected China’s culture, the Black-American struggle that gave rise to the early hip hop pioneers in New York, and the intersection of Shaolin martial arts and hip hop from the 1970s to modern day. Just like the Wu-Tang Clan album of 1993, 36th Chamber was inspired by the art of discipline... https://www.scmp.com/identity/shaolin-and-hip-hop-age-rap-ban-china/article/2153558?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/identity/shaolin-and-hip-hop-age-rap-ban-china/article/2153558?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 03 Jul 2018 06:45:45 +0000