By COLIN LUCK
When Tibet was invaded by China after WW11 and it became obvious that the Dali Lama could no longer stay in Tibet, 47 Shaolin Masters where dispatched to make sure he had a safe journey out of Tibet. So if anything Shaolin Buddhism would lean toward the Tibetan Buddhism I suppose.
As for the Bruce Lee inspired Easterner meet Westerner which took Bruce out of the scene and replaced him with David Caradine, like all good stories it is part way true. But I could say that at the time that no non Chinese or non pure blood Chinese would ever have been allowed into a Shaolin Temple to study. Now that the Northern Temple has been destroyed and the Southern Temple is run by the State more as a tourist attraction things, may be quite different.
As the Chinese Government now controls that Temple and the Abbot is nothing more than a figurehead like Micky Mouse is in Disney Land, things are far different. There are even Shaolin Monks who tour the world in shows to their learnings which I believe have been severely curtailed by the Communist Administration.
When the first assault was launched against the Southern Temple by the cream of the Red Army, not a single solder who entered remained alive to exit, and the surrounding villagers then took their field guns and surrounded the outside of the temple in a defensive ring.
It seems that not all the Chinese followed Chairman Mao at the time although with subsequent attacks they eventually came to an uneasy truce. But everything after the first attack was more of a stalling action in an attempt to cut off supplies to the Temple -- more like a siege rather than the futile frontal assault that had originally been ordered.
