I watched a Shao-lin show some years back and the alleged monks looked plenty flashy but possessed no real martial skill at all. They'd had some wushu training - their chigong was just a bunch of stunts (poorly done at that). But a very colorful show with lots of smoke and mirrors which impressed the audience.
I think we need to work out some math here, though...
The Cultural Revolution kicked off in 1965 and lasted until the mid to late 70's. During that time, all schools were shut down and institutions (and people) who represented the "old China" were destroyed - in the case of many of the people, they were often "re-educated."
After Mao regained control of the country, martial arts were held up as a national treasure and, once the government saw how much $$ there was in tourism - particularly with regards to sites such as the razed Shao-lin Temple, they decided to refurbish it and repopulate it (all of the original, surviving monks had either been sent out for re-education or killed).
So. Wushu-trained "monks" were installed and the temple was renovated. And tourism flourished as never before.
Sadly, what is practiced there nothing close to the original form(s) of Shao-lin boxing.
Do the math. If a "monk" - which is an odd thing to be in a communist state (?) - is, say, 40 years old today, he'd have been born in 1966...during the Cultural Revolution. He wouldn't have even attended school until the age of about ten (1976).
He allegedly goes to the Temple (how does he get there since no one owns cars and there's no bus service)...but who teaches him? The original monks are all gone. All. Gone. He can learn wushu from a state-trained/certified "coach" or he can learn from someone who teaches in a local park or something...but not from real Shao-lin monks.
If he's good enough, he can be admitted to the Temple and he might even become part of some demo team. But what he's been taught isn't the real thing by a long shot.
Contemporary Shao-lin has become a tourist trap and little else. Taekwondo is popular in the area around the Temple because, as one monk put it, "Everyone knows that kung-fu doesn't work." Quite a statement, coming from a "Shao-lin monk."
Another one (who has since become famous as a teacher in the U.S.) took up western boxing because he believed that it would teach him how to fight much faster than studying the material taught at Shao-lin. And considering what's now being taught there, he was right...
I'm afraid that this post might raise the ire of some folks, but let's get real. The recent history of China (Cultural Revolution), the math, the fact that China is, after all, a communist state with a pressing need for U.S. dollars (and there's a HUGE martial arts market over here)...take all of it into consideration.
