Our new Shaolin Special is coming at ya this week. Subscriptions are already sent and the newsstand date is this Thursday. We skipped a Shaolin Special for 2008, but we did two in 2007 at the beginning and the end of the year.
SimonM was kind enough to start a review thread on our TCMedia forum, but I’m starting one here too, which I’ll merge together in a few months… or not. 
Our table of contents is now live
Shaolin Special 2009 (#10 but who’s counting ;))
We’ll have the cover story live in about a month. We appreciate your support on the newsstands.
amitoufo
considering the certain assumptions and theories floating around the grapevines… what would become of all your shaolin special issues if you indeed discovered that in fact all your so called shaolin monks were nothing more than chinese actors saving face and pumping up chinese tourism? a curious question… nothing more. i mean afterall, you do have to believe that there are no absolutes in the probabilities of outcome…
[QUOTE=GeneChing;898552]Our new Shaolin Special is coming at ya this week. Subscriptions are already sent and the newsstand date is this Thursday. We skipped a Shaolin Special for 2008, but we did two in 2007 at the beginning and the end of the year.
SimonM was kind enough to start a review thread on our TCMedia forum, but I’m starting one here too, which I’ll merge together in a few months… or not. ;)[/QUOTE]
Can’t wait to get it. I am sure it will be packed with good articles. As always you and your staff’s hard work is truly appreciated in the eyes of some.
Well that’s just it. They are all “assumptions and theories floating around the grapevines”. There are far too many flawed theories and sour vineyards. You cannot compare the skills of these guys to actors. You can play the “what if” game all day but in the end there will be always those that cannot accept the fact modern shaolin is here to stay and spreading. So for all you skeptics, why can’t Shaolin Temple complete its turn in the wheel of life and once again re-establish itself??
[QUOTE=Songshan;898664]So for all you skeptics, why can’t Shaolin Temple complete its turn in the wheel of life and once again re-establish itself??[/QUOTE]well you first have to have shaolin to turn the wheel of life… the little forest is real, it just has been replanted elsewhere.
what would become of all your shaolin special issues if
You know, they’d probably sell better, uki. Seriously, magazines about actors - celeb rags - they’re the ones that are still doing great business on the newsstands. And as for the tourist part, even travel mags do better on the newsstands than martial arts mags.
If they’re all actors, they’re method actors. They face challengers all the time. You can go up to the temple today or any of the 68 private schools and issue a challenge - it’ll be answered. Sure, there are definitely showman there - all the demo teams and Shaolin shows are modern wushu players - but the demo teams only represent a small percentage of the population of students at Shaolin (in this issue, we report that at 58,000 full-time students) and those monks in shows are mostly performance monks, if they are monks at all. Many of the shows don’t have real monks, only actors like you say. A few of the shows don’t even have performers from Shaolin. We’ve addressed all this here before.
But on a deeper level, if I were to take uki’s question seriously, it reflects something even more interesting. If all the monks at Shaolin were just actors, it would be the most phenomenal improve play ever. And it would be about martial arts. Where else in the world does something like that exist? Washington DC maybe? That, on it’s own, is fascinating and newsworthy. Think about it.
We all have our roles to play. Here on the forum, I play an administrator. Uki, you play a troll. Hey, it’s showtime. Try not to forget your lines this time, ok uki? 
[QUOTE=GeneChing;898747]We all have our roles to play. Here on the forum, I play an administrator. Uki, you play a troll. Hey, it’s showtime. Try not to forget your lines this time, ok uki?[/QUOTE]i would like you to know that you command my respect… digging up the screenplay… again 
[QUOTE=GeneChing;898747]
We all have our roles to play.[/QUOTE]
im still trying to remember what mine was. i think i lost it somewhere some time ago. i cant seem to recall.
Luki
uki, that’s almost a sig worthy quote. Thanks. Too bad I don’t do sig quotes now.
Lucas, you’re the second villain that rushes to attack the hero, between the first villain and the third. Your line is “Arrgh! Owww…” and you bleed a lot.
[QUOTE=Lucas;898861]im still trying to remember what mine was. i think i lost it somewhere some time ago. i cant seem to recall.[/QUOTE]it’s your que for the improv now…
[QUOTE=GeneChing;898862]uki, that’s almost a sig worthy quote. Thanks. Too bad I don’t do sig quotes now. [/quote]thats okay… my words have already made their signature mark on your soul… in the little forest, we call this… pollination.
lmao, how do you suppose they act the Ch’an part.
i suppose all the old pictures and photographic record are just…photoshop? Movie magic?
p.s. you don’t need to go to China to issue a challenge.
challengers are simply insecure individuals.
[QUOTE=richard sloan;898911]lmao, how do you suppose they act the Ch’an part.[/quote]practice does make perfect.
i suppose all the old pictures and photographic record are just…photoshop? Movie magic?
yep.
[QUOTE=uki;898914]practice does make perfect.[/quote]
but how did they know what to practice, if it didn’t exist, according to your ignorant statement.
yep.
LOL!!! Photoshop was created when? Next you will tell me we should wear aluminum hats to stop the mind rays.
He probably will…
This is Uki after all.
BTW: Said this over on the review thread but this was a great issue. One of the best in a long while. And I stand by my opinion that Kung Fu Magazine is, on average, the best martial arts magazine on the newsstands so that’s saying something. 
Thanks again for the props, SimonM
Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely ‘actors’ in monk robes around Shaolin. But not all of them are actors. In fact, it’s only a very few. Unfortunately, these are the few that everyone sees. They are the performer monks. There’s even a term for this class of monk - biaoyanseng. Most people are only exposed to biaoyanseng because all they know of Shaolin is what they see on TV or at live shows. Even if they go to Shaolin and take a few lessons, unless they have a connection (guanxi), they’ll probably get a biaoyanseng. Few schools are willing to invest their top teachers for nibbler tourists that are only taking a few lessons. I’m getting the feeling that this is shifting a little, but not a lot.
There are all sorts of challenges - those of mouth and those of deed. Who is more insecure?
Everything in China is about who you know.
When I went to Longquan I was able to quickly get access to good swords (rather than the tourist crap most vendors sell) by walking and talking and glad-handing.
Likewise somebody seeking a Shaolin connection would be well advised to walk, to talk and to ask locals for their opinions.
And get a plurality of opinions.
And use that for further research.
China is a great place to be if you can communicate. Therein lies the catch.
[QUOTE=GeneChing;898862]uki, that’s almost a sig worthy quote. Thanks. Too bad I don’t do sig quotes now.
Lucas, you’re the second villain that rushes to attack the hero, between the first villain and the third. Your line is “Arrgh! Owww…” and you bleed a lot. :p[/QUOTE]
cool, im good at bleeding. im probably a better villain than a hero any ways. but i think i could roll a darn fine vigilante.
“ARRRGHHH!!!..OWWWWW!!!”“”
Time to retire to my sewer stronghold. i have tea with the rat king down there.