The Shaolin Temple Was Basically Extinct Until Jet Li Saved It
When tourists started asking to see the legendary Shaolin monks in the 1980s, China had a problem: there were only four left.
Picture this: You're a Chinese tourism official in 1982, and hordes of curious visitors are showing up wanting to see the legendary Shaolin Temple and its martial arts masters. There's just one tiny problem… the temple was mostly ruins, and the ancient monastic tradition had been nearly wiped out.
So what do you do? You rebuild everything, hire some actors, and put on a show. Welcome to the modern Shaolin paradox.
The Great Shaolin Wipeout
The original Shaolin Temple was burned to the ground in 1928 by Shi Yousan, a renegade nationalist warlord. The monks were either killed or deported. The ground lay more or less abandoned, and under Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, it suffered additional damage.
Then in 1928, a warlord set fire to 90 percent of the buildings and destroyed many manuscripts in the library. Again during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, Communist students attacked the temple and flogged and paraded the five remaining monks that they found there. The Buddhist materials they found were destroyed.
By the late 1970s, the legendary birthplace of kung fu was down to four elderly monks struggling to maintain what little remained of a 1,500-year-old tradition.
Enter the Movie Star
Then something extraordinary happened. In 1982, a young wushu champion named Li Lianjie starred in a film called "The Shaolin Temple" as his acting debut. You probably know him as Jet Li.
This might have finally been the end of Shaolin, if not for the 1982 film "Shaolin Shi" or "Shaolin Temple," featuring the debut of Jet Li (Li Lianjie). The movie was based very loosely on the story of the monks' aid to Li Shimin and became a huge smash hit in China.
It sold an estimated 500 million tickets at the Chinese box office, and is estimated to be China's highest-grossing film ever when adjusted for inflation. The film's success established Jet Li as the first Mainland Chinese star of Hong Kong, and later Hollywood. It was also largely responsible for turning the Shaolin Monastery into a major tourist destination, both within China and internationally.
The film was shot at the actual Shaolin Temple location, revealing to post-Cultural Revolution China that the place still existed. Suddenly, everyone wanted to visit.
The Government Steps In
The Chinese government quickly realised they were sitting on a tourism goldmine. There was just one problem: there wasn't much left to see, and certainly not enough "authentic" monks to put on demonstrations for busloads of tourists.
In 1980, the Chinese government hired a number of former masters to write new sacred Shaolin texts to replace those lost in 1928 (which is one reason there is so little reliability in modern texts on Shaolin history), and also to break ground on over 40 satellite schools.
What happened next was a masterclass in cultural reconstruction. Most of the buildings visitors see today were rebuilt in the 1980s and 1990s. The "ancient" martial arts demonstrations? Many feature newly invented superhuman feats that were never part of traditional Shaolin practice.
New abilities, some of them apparently superhuman, began to appear in the rewritten sacred texts. Suddenly the Shaolin martial artists were resisting spears thrust into their necks. They were standing on one finger. They were breaking bricks and sticks and stones with their heads.
Without exception, all of these amazing feats are stage show tricks, performed all around the world in many different cultures.
The Modern Shaolin Complex
Today's Shaolin Temple is part genuine historical site, part theme park, part martial arts academy. Dozens of massive private martial arts schools rose up near the real Shaolin Temple, run by former monks or secular masters. The community around Shaolin Temple had been practicing Shaolin Kung Fu for generations. The largest private institution, Shaolin Tagou Martial Arts School, has had up to 36,000 live-in fulltime students.
The temple now licenses its name to everything from instant noodles to car tires, generating massive revenue. Many of the "monks" visitors encounter are actually performers hired for tourism shows.
But here's where it gets complicated: there ARE legitimate monks at the modern Shaolin Temple. The tradition didn't completely die, it was interrupted and then carefully reconstructed. Some current monks have genuine lineages, while others are essentially martial arts performers in robes.
The Authentication Problem
So it is quite true that there have been at times performances given in various parts of the world that were done by "alleged Shaolin monks." However, to question all Shaolin monks based on a few shysters is ridiculous.
The situation is made more confusing by the fact that there are now thousands of schools worldwide using the Shaolin name with no connection to the original temple. The real Shaolin Temple has been fighting trademark battles internationally because in many countries, entrepreneurs trademarked the name first.
What's Real, What's Not?
So what can modern visitors actually see that's authentic? The Pagoda Forest, the ancient cemetery with stone monuments marking graves of important monks, survived the various destructions and remains genuine. Some stone carvings and parts of the training ground are original. The basic martial arts foundations taught at the temple do connect to historical Shaolin practices, even if the superman tricks are new additions.
As for the monks themselves, it's a mixed bag. In 1969, the five-year-old Duan's Buddhist parents, still worried about his health, took him to the 1,500-year-old Shaolin Temple, the only remains of which after repeated destruction by warring dynasties and the current government were the foundation and some walls. (The temple as it is known today was reconstructed around the turn of the 21st century.)
The monk Shi Yan Ming, who later founded the USA Shaolin Temple, was one of the last to train in the pre-reconstruction era, studying under the few remaining authentic masters. Others joined after the tourist boom began.
The Jet Li Effect
What's remarkable is that a single movie essentially resurrected an entire cultural tradition from near-extinction. The film created enough interest to fund the temple's reconstruction and revival of monk training. Without it, the Shaolin tradition might have died with those four remaining elderly monks.
Sure, much of what tourists see today is reconstructed or invented for their benefit. But that reconstruction process also preserved and revived practices that would otherwise have been lost forever. The modern Shaolin Temple is simultaneously fake and real, a theme park built on genuine foundations.
It's like restoring a burned-down historic house: the new structure follows the original blueprints and serves the same purpose, but it's not the same building your great-grandmother lived in.
TL;DR
The Shaolin Temple was nearly destroyed by warlords in 1928 and finished off during China's Cultural Revolution, leaving only four elderly monks by the 1980s. Jet Li's 1982 film created massive tourism demand, so the Chinese government rebuilt the temple, hired performers, and created stage shows. Today's Shaolin mixes genuine restored traditions with tourist-friendly performances and superhuman demonstrations that are basically circus acts.
Further Reading
Skeptoid episode on Shaolin mythology: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4516
Historical documentation of temple destruction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaolin_Monastery
Academic analysis of heritage reconstruction: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/2/411
Challenge Your Inner Tourist
If discovering that your favourite "ancient" temple is largely a 1980s reconstruction bothers you, just remember: at least they didn't put a Starbucks in the meditation hall. And subscribe to The Useless Genius for more stories about how the modern world accidentally saved things by completely rebuilding them.
