Development Of The Songshan Shaolin Martial Arts Cultural Industries-an Analysis Of Reasons

Songshan Shaolin Temple is famous for its Zen, martial arts and medicine. Thedevelopment of Shaolin Temple itself is accompanied by derived economic industrial chains,among which the Songshan Shaolin martial arts cultural industry (“the industry”) is one of themost successful examples. Over the years, the industry has made tremendous contributionsnot only to the development of Shaolin Temple, but also to the promotion of local economy.Songshan Shaolin Temple Gradually walked out of Dengfeng and began to face the world,while the industries derived also became objects of multiple research fields. This paper aimsto investigate factors that caused the industry to develop and focuses on why the SongshanShaolin martial arts cultural industry is the champion among all the derived industries. Thepaper studies the“particularity”of the industry from multiple angels using literature review,expert interviews and field survey and generates a conclusion as follows:First, the Songshan Shaolin martial arts cultural industries has gradually formed thefollowing a development path with multiple facets in the process: the monasteries in real estate,Shaolin martial arts, Zen, and medical theories as the product form; the monks, Muyu, Cassockand Sutra as the reflection of the unique value of the products; spiritual conversion (mainlyZen), visual feast (Shaolin martial arts) and ancestral prescriptions (mainly Shaolin medicine)as consumption terminals of the products; promotion in the local community and openingsubsidiary temples and branches overseas as product marketing routine; Shaolin martial artsperformance, Zen meditation, preaching Buddhism overseas and film and television works asshowed form of the products; involvement of massive capital, promotion via modern media andpursuing profits by international standards as mode of commercial operations; building themarquee names of "Shaolin", "Shaolin Temple", "Shaolin Martial Arts" as the beginning.Second, the success of Songshan Shaolin martial arts cultural industry has some special features: necessary conditions for the industrialization of martial arts culture, the timely boostof the government and proper operations by Shaolin Temple itself.Third, the Songshan Shaolin martial arts cultural industry is able tomaximize favorable factors and minimize unfavorable ones by continuously adjustingdevelopment strategies. It achieves integration of Buddhist culture and modern enterprisedevelopment mode, and is flexible for adjustments in different stages of development. Allthese enable it to turn pressure into motivation and charge itself along the way.