page_title: Shi Yan Ming
section_title: In the United States
hierarchical_section_title: Shi Yan Ming / Martial arts career / In the United States
caption_attribution_description: English: 34th generation Shaolin warrior monk Shi Yan Ming, at the USA Shaolin Temple in Manhattan, November 4, 2010. Many thanks to Shifu Yan Ming and his staff. Photographed by Luigi Novi. This photo may be used, modified and published for any purpose, only if an easily visible credit to the photographer is placed near the photo in each instance in which it is used. Please maintain the original file name in all uses. (See licensing information below.) Publication of this photo without this proper attribution constitutes copyright infringement. For more information on my photos, you can contact me here.
context_page_description: Shi Yan Ming is a 34th generation Shaolin warrior monk, teacher and actor, best known as the founder of the USA Shaolin Temple. Trained at the Shaolin Temple in Henan, People's Republic of China since the age of five, Shi Yan Ming defected to the United States in 1992, before opening the USA Shaolin Temple in Manhattan, where he has taught hundreds of students, including numerous celebrities. He has made various media appearances in television, film and print, including National Geographic, PBS, History, Time magazine, and the 1999 American samurai action film, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.
context_section_description: After the tour's last show concluded in San Francisco, Shi secretly left his hotel in the middle of the night and escaped in order to defect from China to the United States. Speaking no English, Shi directed a cab driver with hand signals to an unknown destination, but the frustrated driver dropped him off in the middle of nowhere and called the police. Shi showed the police his passport and some newspaper clippings featuring him, so the police requested the driver take him to a Chinese restaurant in order to find someone who could communicate with him. However, since the staff at the restaurant spoke only Cantonese, and not Shi's Mandarin, the monk wrote down his communications, since both dialects employ the same characters. The restaurant staff helped Shi phone a friend in New York City, who had someone pick up Shi, who hid in a basement for a week, eating only bread and cereal, while the news media were reporting his escape. After a week, he traveled to New York.
  Shi's defection was motivated in part because he disagreed with the monastery's strictures, saying, "In the temple, monks have 250 rules. Two hundred fifty! Just think of that! You cannot drink. You cannot eat spices. You cannot drink bottled water. You cannot look at a woman. That's just crazy. It's the 21st century, you know?"
  Choosing New York to be his new base of operations in order to spread the message of Buddhism and Shaolin kung fu because he saw it as the "capital of the world", Shi opened the first USA Shaolin Temple at 96 Bowery Street in Chinatown in December 1994. Because there was no heat, electricity or hot water, Shi would tape flashlights to the walls for light, teaching up to 18 hours a day in order to attract students. At night he would wear several pairs of socks on his feet to stay warm, and accumulated hundreds of pairs of unwashed socks due to his initial inability to wash clothes without water. He would also perform in Chinese restaurants to raise money for children and the elderly, gave free lessons, and spoke of philosophy in Open Centre on Spring Street. In 1996 he moved the USA Shaolin Temple to a third floor loft at 678 Broadway in the East Village. In late 2006, after its lease expired, the temple was relocated to its current location in a second floor, high-ceilinged loft at 446 Broadway, in Chinatown, where he teaches authentic Shaolin martial arts and Chan Buddhism in two-hour classes from 5am to 9pm, every day, to nearly 500 students, who have included notables such as Wesley Snipes, Rosie Perez, Bokeem Woodbine, RZA, Jim Jarmusch, Björk and Tricky.
  In June 1995, Shi traveled to Toronto, Ontario, Canada to perform with a delegation of his brother Shaolin monks, headed by Great Master Shi Yongxin, who were sent on tour to Canada. In 1999 he returned to China with his students to help build relations between China and the United States. In late 2001 he returned to the Henan Province with 40 of his students for a martial arts festival.
  The USA Shaolin Temple has six international satellite branches in Austria, South Africa, Trinidad, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. In 2010 Shi and the USA Shaolin Temple purchased over 80 acres (320,000 m²) of land in Middletown, Delaware County, New York, where he intends to build a new Shaolin Temple.
caption: Shi Yan Ming in front of the Buddhist shrine at USA Shaolin Temple, housed in a second story Lower Manhattan loft
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