Word: yan
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...That's where his combination of enlightening and lightening up comes in handy. Yan Ming's balancing act between sage and giddy child, strict shifu and Drunken Master, endears him to everyone from the garbagemen in Astor Place to the frosty gatekeepers at Soho's snootiest watering holes. "I'm in it for my health," says Derrick Waller, a musclebound N.Y.P.D. detective, "and because shifu is mad cool." Rosie Perez and Wesley Snipes take regular lessons. Musicians Bjork and Tricky drop in when they're in town. And the RZA, the mastermind behind rap collective Wu Tang Clan, checks...
...Yan Ming hopes to build a Shaolin temple in rural upstate New York, where the mountains remind him of his old home. But the project needs cash and right now he's too short on "green qi." So, predictably perhaps, he's turning his attention to a movie career. Director Jim Jarmusch, who gave him a small role in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, believes the qualities that make Yan Ming such a funky monk will also serve him well as an actor. "I love his contradictions," says Jarmusch, "he's so playful...
...when Yan Ming brought his disciples to China earlier this fall, it was not only to touch base with his roots but to thumb his nose a little. He led rigorous daily practice sessions in training halls in Dengfeng, as well as in less conventional locales like Great Wall watchtowers and hotel lobbies. He talked about Chan as he shepherded his students through the Buddhist caves at Luoyang. But at night, discipline gave way to aggressively, almost-defiantly boisterous carousing...
...Ming dynasty, but abbot Yong Xin, anxious about Shaolin's newly pristine image, finds his prodigal brother's behavior poisonous. "The man openly eats meat and drinks," he gasps. Even in the U.S., kung fu aficionados?many of whom themselves know Shaolin only from the movies?believe Yan Ming is too much the joker. Martial arts websites abound with references to the "fake monk." But Yan Ming isn't fazed. "To be a monk you have to know how to be yourself," he says, "and you have to respect yourself. If calling me a fake makes them happy...
...according to Meir Shahar, a lecturer in East Asian studies at Tel Aviv University and the foremost historian of Shaolin, Yan Ming's idiosyncracies are well in keeping with the temple's past. "Shaolin monks have always adapted themselves to the legend that surrounds them," he says. "Many of the practices for which Shaolin is now famous were developed as a direct response to the way the monks had been portrayed in fiction and drama." If life at the Shaolin Temple has long imitated art, Yan Ming may be writing its newest chapter. Jet Li's next movie, rumor...