Being a very powerful private higher educational institution aiming at educating practical, versatile and outward-oriented talents, Songshan Shaolin Wushu College ( hereafter for abbreviation SSWVI ) can rightly claim that it is the first of its kind in China as an advanced physical cultural establishment specialized in both developing research into the study on traditional Chinese martial arts and training multifaceted professional martial artists, and devoted exclusively to the cause of international cultural interflow. SSWVI is located in the west outskirts of Dengfeng City, Henan Province. The city has been long renowned in China as a “cradle of traditional Chinese martial arts”, apart from having enviable plentitude of nature-endowed tourist attractions. The Training Center for International Trainees founded in 1998 is now an important arm of SSWVI. Various kung-fu training programs have been applied successfully to more than 7,800 trainees hailing from 31 countries such as America, the UK, Japan, France, Germany and Italy.
The year 2004 saw SSWVI's establishment which was officially sanctioned by Henan Provincial Administration and has been registered with China's Ministry of Education. More than 5,000 students are now studying in SSWVI, which has a teaching staff of nearly 200 people, including more than 40 coaches. According to the current educational resources and the social needs, SSWVI offers a total of nearly 30 majors at three educational levels, including three-year, four-year and five-year college, to cultivate such qualities as Chinese language as well as Chinese culture, foreign language as well as foreign culture, martial arts as well as martial arts culture.
In 2007, “The Office of Chinese Language Council International” ( in Chinese, Hanban ) designated SSWVI as one of its fully qualified establishments for carrying out the task of teaching Chinese as a foreign language to peoples living in other countries and conferred on SSWVI the official appellation of “ Hanban 's Shaolin Kung-fu-Training Base for Implementing the Task of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language ”. Hanban has formally defined, as the current scope of SSWVI's official duties, the following five points:
• SSWVI must within a designated period of time have itself converted into a Hanban's appropriate and regular summer-camp site where young people from all over the world will go to stay every summer for the purpose of learning traditional Chinese martial arts and Chinese culture.
• SSWVI must within a designated period of time have itself molded into a Hanban-controlled training base whence will be drawn a regular supply of qualified teachers who are to perform the task of teaching Chinese as a foreign language at various Confucius Institutes across the world.
• SSWVI must within a designated period of time have itself developed into a Hanban-controlled base for training the personnel otherwise recruited by Hanban from other parts of China for filling such teaching posts outside China as are aimed at offering to the people of other countries both a Chinese-language course and a traditional Chinese martial-art course.
• SSWVI must within a designated period of time have itself modified into a Hanban-controlled base specialized in training such volunteer personnel as are to be sent abroad to fulfill teaching duty under Hanban's project of teaching Chinese as a foreign language.
• SSWVI must within a designated period of time have itself evolved into an institution fit for compiling varied series of kung-fu textbooks suitable for practical use in kung-fu instruction.
The successive years 2007-2010 saw the inspiring completion of the mission, which was entrusted by Hanban to SSWVI to carry out, of hosting the “Chinese Bridge Summer Camp for International Students.” More than one hundred teachers and students of SSWVI were detailed by Hanban to go respectively to America, Russia, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Thailand, Nepal, Kenya, and so forth, to do one-three years' stint of service there in the capacity either of teaching-Chinese-as-a-foreign-language teacher or of spreading-Chinese-culture volunteer. The Shaolin Kung-fu-Training Base is invited to give itinerant Kung-fu-and-Art –based shows around the world all year around. The grand theatrical performances “ Wulin Hanyun ” (the transliteration of the four Chinese characters “ 武林汉韵 ”, which connotes “pugilism and Sinicism.”), which were held respectively in America, Russia, Spain, Italy and Thailand during 2010 are highly praised by the sponsors and the audience.
Taking Kung-fu as its peculiarity, Chinese traditional culture as its spirit, cultivating one's mind as its mission, SSWVI is now deeply interested in developing an appropriate form of cooperation with any educational or cultural institution outside China in the four aspects specified below:
• creating a jointly-run establishment for (or course in) kung-fu training and Chinese-language teaching,
• arranging to acquire from SSWVI a hosting service for opening a “kung-fu-and-the-Chinese-language summer camp” for young people from any other country than China,
• arranging for “the SSWVI Kung-fu-and-Art Ensemble” to offer kung-fu-based theatrical performances outside China, and
• establishing a Confucius classroom or a Confucius institute at any place agreed upon by all the parties concerned.
