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Page 8 News Street Roots • March 9-15, 2018 Street Roots • March 9-15, 2018 BY TONY INGLIS you give them a chance.” Konchok called it an opportunity. “Girls maybe wouldn’t have believed before n the West, perceptions of kung fu are that they could do that,” she said. “That’s how reflected by our pop culture. Generations kung fu came in. You always hear about of kids who grew up watching Bruce Lee movies have gone on to create art that uses Shaolin monks, right? But what about kung fu nuns? That’s a huge thing!” kung fu as a touchstone - from rapper They both had a fizzing energy - finishing Kendrick Lamar, who styled the tour and each other’s sentences and always united in videos supporting his 2017 album “Damn” what they believe. Multiple times during our around the ancient martial art, to a series of conversation, they spoke in spontaneous box-office-smashing movies about a gifted unison. Sometimes it was hard to keep up, but animated panda. their passion for their service pulled me In the East, specifically in China, kung fu is through. a national symbol viewed with reverence and “After learning kung fu, we became more seriousness. As The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos confident. We were physically and mentally wrote, a film like “Kung Fu Panda” “could only strong, and it even helps us with our be made by a foreigner because Chinese meditation in our spiritual lives,” Konchok filmmakers would never fry to play with such said. “Just because we practice and teach kung solemn subjects” as kung fu or pandas. The fu doesn’t mean we don’t follow our spiritual idea of flipping kung fu conventions on their path too. We do each and every thing side by head at all, never mind creating something side. that portrays it as zany and cartoonish, is “We have been outlandish and learning to play disrespectful. drums and to “Actually,” said perform the dragon Jigme Konchok dance - all the Lhamo, “kung fu is things that girls not for fighting or were prohibited causing pain; it is from doing in the for self-defense. It early days of our was the same for order. So it’s not Shaolin monks. just kung fu. We They would stay in have been doing all retreats alone in the things that the mountains, society says girls where there were and women can’t robbers and do, and that’s in Girls are taught by nuns o f the Drukpa lineage how thieves, so it was term s of our to use k u n g f u techniques to defend themselves. just to protect Buddhist nunnery themselves. The life also.” Bodhidharma The Buddhist taught kung fu to monks for self-defense, . not lineage the two young women belong to wasn’t fighting or violation.” always as forward-thinking and unconventional This is how Konchok shoots down the as it now seems. In 2008, the Gyalwang common misconceptions about kung fu. She is Drukpa, the leader of the Drukpa line, began a nun from the Himalayan Drukpa lineage of reforms that brought the order’s nuns to the Tibetan Buddhism. Here, the traditionally forefront and started their new tradition of patriarchal makeup of Buddhist orders of dispersing thoughts that prioritize the fight for monks and nuns has been subverted, and it is women’s equality and empowerment these young women who have taken the lead. “People think that nuns should stay inside a A part of the mission they have taken upon nunnery, serving monks, washing their themselves includes going into communities - clothes, acting like a waiter or something,” so far, in the towns surrounding their Konchok said. “They say we have to be monastery in Nepal, as well as parts of the peaceful, always meditating, (they begin to talk northern Indian region of Ladakh - to teach as one) in retreat, praying, chanting, sitting, women and girls how to defend themselves doing nothing. We have a higher level of using the mythologized techniques of kung fu. thinking here. Being branded as ass-kicking kung fu nuns “In our lineage, our monks have always is an eye-catching and unusual headline. But supported us and shown us resp ect We are when I spoke to Konchok and her fellow equal.” Drukpa nun Jigme Wangchuk Lhamo - at It was this alternative attitude that inspired Trust Conference, the Thomson Reuters Wangchuk to dedicate her life to the order. Foundation’s annual human rights and anti “When I was small, my thoughts were reaHy trafficking seminar in London - it was the big,” she said. “I hated when people said girls dedicated and inspiring humanitarian work can’t do anything. I loved helping and serving they do in the region that they eruditely and others, and from very early on, I knew I excitedly want to discuss and impress upon. wanted to do this for my whole life. I had “We traveled a long distance to bring a heard about what the Gyalwang Drukpa was message to young girls,” said Wangchuk, who doing from my uncle, who was a monk within along with Konchok took part in an onstage the order, and he said, ‘I have the perfect panel at the conference. “They can be as place for you; you can find your dream there.’ strong and as powerful as a man, if you give “I found this place, and I knew it was where them what they want and what they need, if CONTRIBUTING WRITER I These Buddhist martial artists do more than kicks and somersaults KUNG FU NUNS They empower women and girls around the world P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y O F K U N G FU N U N S News I wanted to be. It meant the opportunity to do anything I wanted - to learn kung fu, to help and give support to other girls, and to help us discover and take heed of our own power.” In the historically gendered hierarchy of the religious establishment, achieving what the Drukpa nuns have is especially radical. They are now even entrusted with the secrets to the most esoteric form of meditation, something that was only previously available to male members of the order. This is even more apparent as we live through #MeToo and Time’s Up, movements in the Western world where women are beginning to be listened to when speaking out about experiences of systemic harassment, male privilege and sexual abuse that seem to have infected all walks of life. By speaking out and teaching kung fu, Wangchuk, Konchok and their community of fellow nuns are encouraging women and girls in marginalized sections of their region to start making . change in their own way. “This world says ‘ladies first,’ but this phrase is useless if it isn’t applied in real Page 9 and doing it ourselves. We told these people: ‘Look, we are girls, and we can do it, so why can’t yours? We are from the same place, the same culture; why are you pushing your girls back? You should have faith in your daughters and encourage them. Why don’t you give them a chance?’ This especially shocked us because we are nuns, but we are also sisters and daughters too.” Now that they and their fellow nuns are achieving international recognition for their work, they hope that they can inspire a similar change in the wider world. But, of course, being confined to their humble surroundings, they are taking their movement one step at a time. “If we leave an impact on one person and that person impacts on another, eventually we will begin to see people change their way of thinking, until it spreads throughout whole communities, Konchok said. “Here (at Trust Conference), we have met all these people who support us and what we do. That makes it seem like a bigger change is coming. We may only effect that change in a small part of the life. There is world, but it is nothing first in still a change.” this world for At Trust ladies,” Conference, Wangchuk said. Wangchuk and N uns deliver aid as pa rt o f their hum anitarian work. “It’s often said Konchok wowed that our kung fu the crowd with workshops their high kicks empower women. And you say this about and somersaults on stage. But more street papers too - they empower homeless impressively, the young women roused the people. But actually, what we are doing is not audience with wisdom beyond their years and giving people power but allowing them to an idealism that perhaps the older, more discover their own power. We all have our own experienced attendees had since replaced power. We just need the support and the love with cynicism. to find i t ” They talked about the importance of not Behind the kung fu classes that made them only supporting women from an early age, but famous, the Drukpa nuns do less publicized, also better educating boys so that they grow but far more extraordinary, work in the up to respect women. They summarized a communities surrounding their monastery vision of equality about which they spoke so home. This includes an eco pad yatra (walking enthusiastically to me earlier that day. pilgrimage) to remote villages, collecting . “Most boys are told that they have all the plastics and other non-biodegradable waste to power in the house, and girls are told to sit educate communities about protecting the silently,” Konchok said. “But the problem is environment. In the wake of the 2015 that’s what has been passed down to them by earthquake in Nepal, they rode bicycles in parents. I want parents to teach their high altitude through the Himalayas to help daughters to be strong, to defend themselves. with the relief effort, clearing rubble and It’s not compulsory that you need to know helping deliver aid to people in places that kung fu or to fight. It’s more the mentality even the world’s largest organizations couldn’t they have to change.” reach. At the same time, they advocated Wangchuk agreed: “We’re not saying that against the spike in slavery, human trafficking men can’t change. We can - we have to - and sexual assault that sprung up in the change their thinking. But it’s up to parents, aftermath. too. Don’t warn your daughter not to go out; Not only did this make a real, visible warn your sons to behave well and treat difference, but it also showed their detractors women with respect what 700 Buddhist women could achieve “Until we are all equal, as long as we push together. one part of society down, no m atter whether “After the earthquake, we heard that girls that be women or some other demographic, were being sold because their families we will never achieve peace.” believed that they weren’t capable of doing Courtesy o f INSP.ngo anything to help rebuild,” Konchok said. “But we have been doing so much work,
