Erica Orden reported in the Wall Street Journal that “a Los Angeles-based entertainment group plans to co-develop a $3.1 billion theme park and resort in China‘s Hubei province with a local investment firm, two people familiar with the project said. Ikonic Entertainment Group will plan and design a martial-arts-themed park, as well as a $50 million live show, one of the people said… Ikonic is a new entity co-founded by Tony Christopher, head of Landmark Entertainment Group LLC, an entertainment production company. Landmark has a history of creating amusement-park attractions, including “Terminator 2: 3D” for Universal Studios Florida and “Jurassic Park—The Ride” for Universal Studios Hollywood.”

To place this in more relative terms, a Hollywood amusement park company; which has built some of the most successful amusement park rides in the U.S. is planning on building a major theme park at the foothills of Mt. Wudang, the birthplace of Taiji Quan (Tai Chi Chuan).

On the surface, this may sound like an exciting opportunity, probably a dream come true for most kids growing up in the 1960’s-1980’s, which arguably was the golden age for Kung Fu & Martial Arts movies. Some historical and background information is required, however, to fully understand the ramifications of this plan.

What is Tai Chi?

Taiji Quan (aka Tai Chi Chuan), is a highly sophisticated Internal exercise developed by Taoists for the specific purpose of cultivating the body, mind and spirit. Many people describe Tai Chi as an internal martial art; however, this view focuses only on the minor benefit of practicing Tai Chi while neglecting the major purpose and original intention.

Tai Chi as practiced today is based on the cultivation exercise created by Zhang San Feng (Chang San-feng). Zhang San Feng was a famous Taoist Priest/Minister who developed the Tai Chi system on Mt. Wudang, and eventually built the Wudang Temple as a Taoist School/University. Most accounts state that Zhang San Feng was already an accomplished Taoist when he traveled to the famous Shaolin Temple and after a few years mastered all of the Shaolin techniques and then founded the Wudang Temple to further practice and teach Taoist cultivation.

Based on two Classical Taoist texts, the I-Ching and the Tao Teh Ching, Tai Chi is rooted in Taoist philosophy and science. This is why, if you were to literally translate Taiji Quan into English, you would get a rough translation of “The Supreme Ultimate…” Tai Chi was designed to be the Supreme Ultimate cultivation, which is unfortunately, rendered down by many of its practitioners to just a martial art or merely an exercise. It is this lower form of Tai Chi that the theme park will most likely feature, as the highest and truest form of Tai Chi would never be used for the purposes of entertainment.

Mt. Wudang is considered to be one of the holiest sites among Taoists and is a very special place for a Taoist to practice the cultivation of their body-mind-spirit. It was with this consideration in mind, that Zhang San Feng chose Mt. Wudang as the location to build the Temple. Several of the Taoist buildings on Mt. Wudang are from the 7th century C.E. and were made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1994.

Ancient Temple built on a mountain considered to be Holy

There are several questions raised in this article that you are asked to reflect on. If Tai Chi was designed and is practiced as a Spiritual exercise, should this exercise be rendered down to a performance/entertainment level similar to dancing or acrobatics? Is Mt. Wudang the appropriate location for ANY theme park, given that it is regarded as a Holy Site and the Wudang Temple is a spiritual training center?

Would we applaud or approve of a theme park at another major religious holy site? How would we react to a Catholic theme park at the Vatican, a Jewish theme park at the Western Wall/Wailing Wall, or a Muslim theme park located around the Kaaba, in Mecca?

What is to become of humanity if we turn everything into a commodity, or if we begin to view everything through the lens of progress and advancement, all the while losing site of our wisdom and history?

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