Update: Writing about all these famous Italians is such an educational experience for me and I’m pretty stoked to share my findings with you all. Please post requests if you have any. I was going to enlist José’s assistance on the famous opera composers but we ran out of time after the game. Plus his awesome beer made me tired. I did receive a cool thank you last week from Dr. Terenzi too. Now, on to writing about more Italians who prove there’s more to us than the usual stereotypes.
Shi Yan Fan is the first Westerner to become an ordained Shaolin monk. I think ordained is a Western term that is the closest to our understanding in this Buddhist faction’s operation. Much like how Christian terminology is used to explain Islam which is pretty inaccurate.
Either way, this gentleman is the real Caine of Kung Fu, one of the best Western TV shows because it turned the waning genre on its side so his story intrigued me. There’s a good piece from the LA Weekly here.
I’ll give a quick summary via all the other pieces I researched, should you not feel like reading the link.
He was born Franco Testini in Brindisi, Italy. Franco’s father had been a boxer and hoped the boy would follow. Legend has it, he found an illustrated book on Kung Fu moves. The techniques intrigued him and he incorporated them into his own fighting style. Due to his family being poor, Franco often got into fights with other children to earn money. When he got older, a cousin introduced him to a Korean monk training US soldiers at a nearby military base. He continued to be an apt pupil. As he grew into a young adult, he earned numerous martial arts titles.
Eventually Franco grew angry over what he saw was the futility of fighting for money and/or worthless prestige. He left it all behind to join a monastery in South Korea. After a short hiatus to see his dying father, he moved to LA after the 1994 earthquake to practice Shaolin medicine and Buddhism.
A decade passed resulting in Franco building a small following of students, fans, etc. By then he chose to pay his respects to Shi Yongxin at the temple in China. The abbot was so impressed by Franco’s dedication that the old master renamed Franco Shi Yan Fan, Chinese for “Powerful Sky,” and granted permission to open a Shaolin temple in LA. Three years later, the Chinese government invited Shi Yan Fan back to participate in a ritual various regimes kept banned for three centuries, the Jieba. Again, it appears to be the equivalent of Christian ordaining to this Buddhist faction and Franco/Shi Yan Fan became the first Westerner to ever complete the ritual. Shi Yongxin chose Shi Yan Fan to demonstrate how Buddhism isn’t a matter of race, it’s conviction.
Today Shi Yan Fan continues to oversee the Shaolin Temple in LA. Its location on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks was intentional. Ventura is Italian for adventure which is how he sees his life.