Dominique Saatenang, the “first African monk Shaolin”
Fascinated since the age of 10 by the martial arts, this young Cameroonian goes to China in 1999 where he meets the spiritual leader of the Shaolin monastery (temple founded in the 8th century on Mount Song, Henan province).
He stayed there for four years and became “Shi Yan Ma” (his new name as a Chinese Buddhist monk), learning Mandarin, traditional medicine and kung-fu.
He became the “only foreign international referee of kung-fu and, since 2011, the ambassador of the temple abroad”.
It has opened several kung-fu schools in Mali, Gabon, Senegal, Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire. More than three thousand students attend these courses.
