>shaolin>monks>shixinghong

Shaolin Monks

Shi Xing Hong

(Shi Xing Hong): A Shaolin Monk Warrior of the 32^nd generation.
Nick Name: Xie Tian
Secular Name: (Wang DeQing)

Shi Xing Hong was a star of the Shaolin martial monk team. He left China several years ago to settle in Budapest, Hungary, where he teaches kungfu to police and other students. He is planning to come to Las Vegas where Shaolin disciple Rich Russell is opening a Shaolin kungfu school in the near future.

...Wang DeQing was born March 27^th, 1974 in a small mountain city of Tiantai, in Zhejing province. He had the usual childhood, starting regular school in his city of about 10,000 people at the age of 5. For five years he studied the regular childhood school subjects. He was an aggressive boy, who tended to get into fights with other kids on what seemed to be a regular basis. His father, a devout Buddhist, was none too happy about his poor social interactions with other children, and decided, when DeQing turned ten years of age, to bring him to the Shaolin Temple. The father felt that some time at the Temple would straighten him out.

Upon bringing him to the Temple, the father found a Shaolin master who would take care of and train the boy. The Shaolin master liked the boy, as he was strong and gregarious. He decided to take the boy in to the Temple for training. The father left, and didn’t see DeQing again for quite a while. Nine years is quite a while….

DeQing’s master was Shi De Gong. At that time, around 1984, all of the monks lived and trained in the Temple. The wushu guan had not yet been built. The Temple took young children at that time. It was not uncommon for parents, both poor and “wealthy”, to bring and leave their “problem” children at the Temple for some gong fu and Buddhist training, in an effort to “set them straight”. DeQing lived, along with about twenty other children, in one of the smaller pavilion buildings inside the Temple. There were other groups of children who lived in other small pavilion buildings; each group having its own monk master to train them and supervise their behavior, and it was a rare opportunity when one group mingled with another. The groups were organized according to skill level. There were probably well over one hundred other students inside the massive Shaolin Temple, but DeQing rarely came into contact with them. His teenage years were spent solely with his master and the other students in his pavilion. These students became his “gong fu brothers and sisters”.

DeQing’s life in the Temple during those years was fairly regimented. His master controlled basically everything. He was not allowed to leave the Temple during those years. A typical day in the life of a student at the Shaolin Temple, back then, was as follows:

• 0500-0700: Awaken, train in gong fu with fellow brothers and sisters, and master, sometimes in one of the larger pavilion buildings inside the Temple, sometimes up in the mountain. All twenty or so students would run and train together. When doing solo practice, they would sit in a big circle either out in the fields away from prying eyes, or behind closed doors in one of the larger pavilion buildings.
  
  
• 0700-0730: Breakfast. Usually consisting of a “bread” type bun, sometimes filled with some shredded pork, and a rice soup. Breakfast lasted a half hour, during which the meal had to be eaten and the dishes cleaned. There was an opportunity to wash, but it was with cold water.
  
  
• 0730–0900: During this time period, they were given the opportunity to rest. But mainly, they had to spend this time cleaning the Temple. Back in those days, there were not janitorial help nor laborers that did construction work. The monks did all of the cleaning and repairs to the Temple. This is one reason that major construction work, such as pavilion construction, did not proceed. At this time, before the Chinese Central Government allocated money to rebuild the Temple, there were still some burnt out pavilions (mainly by the entrance). DeQing, his fellow students, and the monks performed the regular maintenance duties required to keep the rest of the Temple in order. On top of the regular cleaning chores, some of the monks were required to leave the Temple to tend the fields, as at that time, they also grew their own food. As the students were not allowed to leave the Temple, they primarily were responsible for Temple cleaning duties.
  
  
• 0900-1100: They again trained in gong fu at this time. Basic maneuvers and forms were all done. Remember, this was at a time before competitions were popular, so most of the gong fu training, if not all, was in traditional forms, and not in competition forms. Regardless, his training consisted of a lot of acrobatic jumps and kicks, like they train now, all of the stuff that ignorant westerners look at and think is just pretty ineffective ballet style fighting.
  
  
• 1100-1200: An hour rest period was allowed prior to lunch. One must remember, that these students were not only responsible for the general cleaning and maintenance of the Temple, they also had to maintain their own sleeping quarters in a fairly pristine condition. No doubt some of that was done during this time.
  
• 1200-1230: Lunch period, usually consisting of rice or noodles, and vegetables. As for meat, pork seems to be the most common ingredient.
  
  
• 1230-1500: Another rest period. The students basically had this time to themselves.
  
  
• 1500-1700: More gong fu training.
  
  
• 1700-1800: Another rest period.
  
  
• 1800-1900: Dinner. Again, more of the same food.
  
  
• 1900-2100: This time period was basically the only time period that the students got some sort of “formal classroom training”. The time was spent studying Shaolin history, Buddhism, and Chinese. DeQing’s Buddhist teacher was Shi Su Xi. (Shi Su Xi was also a gong fu master, but at this time, he was around 62 years old, and primarily taught Buddhism instead).
  
  
• 2100-2130: At this time, the students were to wash (again, no hot water, though in the winter, some water might be heated for washing), and by 2130, they were to be in bed.
  
  
• 2200: The master turned off the lights, and all were to be sleeping.
  

At age 18, he was offered the opportunity to become a monk. One cannot become a monk until one is 18 years of age. So, he, along with around thirty of his gong fu brothers took the vows in what was at that time a fairly large ceremony. The vows were taken at the Thousand Buddha hall (one of the oldest existing pavilions; the pavilion that has the footprints imbedded in the stone floor). The vows are made to the Shaolin Temple, to Buddha, and to one’s master. He had decided that he was going to spend his life learning Buddhism, and training and teaching gong fu...