Shaolin or CIA?
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Bodhidharma was a semi-legendary Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century CE. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Chan Buddhism to China and is regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. He is also popularly regarded as the founder of Shaolin kung fu, an idea popularized in the 20th century, but based on the 17th-century Yijin Jing and the Daoist association of daoyin gymnastics with Bodhidharma.
Bodhidharma means 'dharma of awakening (bodhi)" in Sanskrit and was often shortened to simply Dharma in Chinese. Daruma is the shortened form in Japanese and from where the name of daruma dolls derives, themselves modelled after the monk.
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Last night I watched Honesty Box interviews on LADbible YouTube. In these interviews a CIA operative, an FBI agent and a Shaolin master answered questions.
The most obvious thing to note was that the CIA and FBI dudes appeared extroverted and keen to speak, saying that the best qualities of an employee was the ability to sell something to a prospective asset. They were both a bit gobshite like. The Shaolin man was pensive, balanced and reserved in his answers.
As a recruitment exercise he was a better advert for me. Each to their own.
In general the answers on this channel are often interesting and both the Americans seemed intelligent and erudite. They were a bit “showy”. The Americans spoke of blending in and not drawing attention. OBVS they were not currently employed. It is perhaps a trait to “present” and sell which may be prevalent in their culture. It was meant to entertain. There are a ginormous number of FBI and CIA related films and TV programmes. Based on these interviews it is possible that I have brushed shoulders with Chinese sleeper agents at UK universities or semiconductor conferences. I doubt they were Shaolin.
I found myself more in tune with the responses of the Shaolin guy than the more hyper Americans. The picture they portrayed was that they could turn my ‘phone, my smart TV or this computer into a listening device. There is not a lot to listen to chez nous. The FBI guy advised against a “smart” home opting for dumb and “old school”.
As a teenager I was more than a little fascinated with the TV series “Kung Fu” in which the itinerant Caine had numerous adventures and encountered bad guys and corruption. The itinerance resonated.
The fascination extended to the “Monkey” TV series.
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“Eventually, Monkey is released by the monk Tripitaka (三蔵法師, Sanzōhōshi), who has been tasked by the Boddhisatva Guanyin (観世音菩薩, Kanzeon Bosatsu) to undertake a pilgrimage from China to India to fetch holy scriptures (implied to be the region of Gandhāra in the song over the closing credits).”
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My father was not overly keen offering the high critical accolade of “shit”.
It was only much later that I understood what the Tripitaka is.
It is noteworthy in retrospect that this fascination stirred something in me.
I don’t know why CIA, FBI, MI6, FSB and Mossad are such good box office, but they certainly are. The spy-intelligence genre makes up a fair proportion of offerings. In a Western media CIA easily wins over Shaolin on a dollar by dollar, pay per view, basis
Secrets and secrecy are a salacious interest of some. They like the idea of having special and occult power over others. The playing field is not level.
In the spook genre pretext is created and a cover story prepared to be sold to the mark. Approach without pretext or prior intent is rare. The target is identified and then they set about being nice to them, using reciprocity as a way in. They then try to obtain leverage by compromising the target. And bingo they have a compliant agent. Pretext seems to be important in that genre. There has to be a justifiable explanation as to why contact is made behind which there may be multiple plots and shenanigans. Complexity seems to be a vital ingredient in the spook genre. Baldrick and his turnip would be impressed with the cunning plans.
Who knows what it is really like. I suspect that much of it is repetitive, onerous and far from glamorous. For media consumption it must get distilled down for modern attention spans. A relative of mine worked in the signals field during the Malaya insurgence.
What the Shaolin guy said was that it is easier to train the body than train the mind. Whilst it is easy to portray kung fu fighting (everybody was as fast as lightning). It must be next to impossible to portray training the mind.
The outer aspects of both spook world and Shaolin can be dramatised, the inner workings less so. A quiet person not zombie-‘phone-fixated might stand out like a sore thumb these days. The FBI agent suggested that ‘phone zombification was a major security problem because people fail to observe anymore.
Kwai Chang Caine would be easy to spot for the security services because he behaved differently, he might stand out, he might however be difficult for surveillance electronically. He does not say a lot.
The cover all argument is that if you have got nothing to hide then surveillance is no threat to you, it helps to keep you safe.
In terms of legal jurisdiction what I do must be consistent with French and EU law. Which means that if I ever get another patent idea France has first refusal. They have been pretty nice to us in terms of medical assistance, very generous.
I wonder if the surveillance is really as widespread and all-encompassing as is suggested in the movies. I wonder to what extent AI might facilitate this. AI is good for the repetitive and boring. This blog content could be going into a large language model…
It is nice here there is a lot less CCTV…
The message from the CIA and FBI guys was that you never know who or what might be watching…
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