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Demand apology for online slur

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Monks at China's Shaolin Temple are vociferously demanding an apology from an anonymous Japanese internet user who suggested that a single ninja had once whupped the asses of the kung fu masters at the martial art's spiritual home.

Specifically, "Five Minutes Every Day" last week posted a comment in an online forum claiming that "a Japanese ninja came to Shaolin, asked for a fight and many monks failed to beat him". He added: "The facts that the monks could not defeat a Japanese ninja showed that they were named as kung fu masters in vain."

Well, this didn't go down too well at all. According to Reuters, the Shaolin monks rapidly engaged a lawyer, who issued a notice declaring: "The so-called defeat is purely fabricated, and we demand the internet user to apologise to the whole nation for the wrongs he or she did."

The monks further told the Beijing News: "It is not only extremely irresponsible behaviour with respect to the Shaolin temple and its monks, but also to the whole martial art and Chinese nation."

We'd like to suggest that before this gets out of hand the kung fu monks could settle the matter out of court by simply challenging Japan's top ninja to 15 rounds in a pay-per-view WWF-style "Battle of the Titans". The last Oriental standing could then go on to challenge aikido death machine Steven Seagal for the coveted "Hardest Man Alive" crown. ®

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Latest Comments

So does the Temple have dial-up, or broadband?

"Grasshopper ... what is that sound?"

"I am checking my stock performance on Yahoo, Master."

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Anonymous Coward

Sounds like a crock...

This story stinks. I cannot believe that any martial artist would rise to the bait of an anonymous poster. The idea that they'd resort to having a lawyer speak for them about it is beyond credence.

The martial artists at a place like Shaolin Temple are trained in both the physical and the mental/emotional/spiritual aspects of handling conflict. I don't know whether the Buddhist precepts are taught now (the Chinese government is unsympathetic towards many spiritual pursuits), but certainly the mental training accompanies the physical. These people are just not going to get all riled up over an insult from some unknown person.

This sort of claim must arise almost daily. There is already an intense rivalry between many different fighting systems; compounding this is the antagonism between Chinese and Japanese culture in general. Insults abound and must be published constantly. One single claim, about a supposed historic event, isn't going to ruffle anyone's feathers at Shaolin Temple.

This is the sort of thing that would only seem noteworthy to someone who doesn't understand much about martial arts. It's kind of like getting riled up because of someone (anonymously) claiming that "my grandpa kicked your grandpa's butt".

It's foolish to say that any fighting style is "better". It's the fighters who are "better". Remember that the traditional fighting styles weren't academic studies or theoretical notions. They weren't sports or high-impact aerobics. Your life depending on learning what works. Things that didn't work tended to get people killed, kind of like natural selection.

Different fighting styles suit different types of people better. Someone who is naturally well-suited for Shaolin might be a poor fighter if he were to learn ninjitsu (and vice versa). So a near-sighted guy would do better with dim mak; a tall, wiry person might be better at Northern Shaolin. Someone who was hard and muscular might excel at karate. And so on.

I don't know whether the story about the ninja has any basis in fact. I seriously doubt the validity of the story about Shaolin Temple hiring a lawyer to voice objections about the story. It's just not that important, really.

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We need to teach the shaolin

"DON'T FEED THE TROLLS" honestly

can you imagine how delighted five minutes

must be I bet he doesn't care anything about

a lawsuit either.

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