A monk's spade also called a Shaolin Spade, is a Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 pole weapon

Pole weapon

A pole weapon or polearm is a close combat weapon in which the main fighting part of the weapon is placed on the end of a long shaft, typically of wood, thereby extending the user's effective range. Spears, glaives, poleaxes, halberds, and bardiches are all varieties of polearms...

 consisting of a long pole with a flat spade-like blade on one end and a smaller crescent shaped blade on the other. In old China, Buddhist monks often carried spade

Spade

A spade is a tool designed primarily for the purpose of digging or removing earth. Early spades were made of riven wood. After the art of metalworking was discovered, spades were made with sharper tips of metal. Before the advent of metal spades manual labor was less efficient at moving earth,...

s (shovels) with them when travelling. This served two purposes: if they came upon a corpse on the road, they could properly bury it with Buddhist rites, and the large implement could serve as a weapon for defence against bandits. Over time, they were stylised into the monk's spade weapon.

Popular culture

It is most famous for being the weapon of Sha Wujing

Sha Wujing

Shā Wùjìng is one of the three disciples of Xuánzàng in the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, although versions of his character predate the Ming novel. In the novels, his background is the least developed of the pilgrims and he contributes the least to their efforts...

, the "Sand Monk" from the 16th-century classic Chinese novel Journey to the West

Journey to the West

Journey to the West is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. It was written by Wu Cheng'en in the 16th century. In English-speaking countries, the tale is also often known simply as Monkey. This was one title used for a popular, abridged translation by Arthur Waley...

, as well as that of Lu Zhishen

Lu Zhishen

Lu Zhishen, nicknamed "Flowery Monk", or Sagacious Lu , is a fictional character in the Water Margin, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. He is the lead character in the first major story cycle of the novel, in which he comes to epitomize loyalty, strength, justice but...

 in Water Margin

Water Margin

Water Margin , also known as Outlaws of the Marsh, All Men Are Brothers, Men of the Marshes, or The Marshes of Mount Liang, is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.Attributed to Shi Nai'an and written in vernacular Chinese, the story, set in the Song Dynasty,...

, but the weapon is also historically associated with the Shaolin monks and features in the martial arts wushu, gongfu, and Shaolin kung fu

Shaolin kung fu

Shaolin Kung Fu refers to a collection of Chinese martial arts that claim affiliation with the Shaolin Monastery.Of the multitude styles of kung fu and wushu, only some are actually related to Shaolin...

. It has been widely used in kung fu cinema

Martial arts film

Martial arts film is a film genre. A sub-genre of the action film, martial arts films contain numerous fights between characters, usually as the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often as a method of storytelling and character expression and development. Martial arts are frequently...

 (notably by Lau Kar-Fai

Gordon Liu

Gordon Liu is a Chinese martial arts film actor. He became famous for playing the lead in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and its sequels...

 in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin , also known as The Master Killer and Shaolin Master Killer, is a 1978 Shaw Brothers kung fu film directed by Liu Chia-liang and starring Gordon Liu....

), and is used by the Shaolin priest in the online game Dragon Fist II and by Abbot Song in Jade Empire

Jade Empire

Jade Empire is an action role-playing game developed by Canadian developer BioWare and first published in 2005 by Microsoft Game Studios as a worldwide release for the Xbox. The later, two-disc Limited Edition contained extra content...

.

The character Sha Gojyo in the Japanese manga and anime series Saiyuki wields a modified form of this weapon with great skill and dexterity.

The monk's spade (under the name "Shaolin spade") was listed in Max Brooks

Max Brooks

Maximillian Michael "Max" Brooks is an American author and screenwriter, with a particular interest in zombies. Brooks is also a television and voice-over actor.- Early life and education :...

' Zombie Survival Guide as a highly effective hand-to-hand anti-zombie

Zombie

Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...

 weapon, as it can decapitate a rotting corpse with ease and its length allows users to engage opponents both from a distance and with both sides of the spade. A character in Brooks' follow-up novel World War Z

World War Z

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is a 2006 post-apocalyptic horror novel by Max Brooks. It is a follow-up to his 2003 book The Zombie Survival Guide. Rather than a grand overview or narrative, World War Z is a collection of individual accounts in the form of first-person anecdote...

makes use of this weapon to great effect despite the character's age and blindness.

In the movie Big Trouble in Little China

Big Trouble in Little China

Big Trouble in Little China is a 1986 American martial arts comedy film directed by John Carpenter. It stars Kurt Russell as truck driver Jack Burton, who helps his friend Wang Chi rescue Wang's green-eyed fiancee from bandits in San Francisco's Chinatown...

, many guests at Lo Pan's wedding are seen carrying the weapon.

In the duel between Shulien (Michelle Yeoh

Michelle Yeoh

Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng is a Hong Kong-based Malaysian Chinese actress, well known for performing her own stunts in the action films that brought her to fame in the early 1990s....

) and Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi

Zhang Ziyi

Zhang Ziyi is a Chinese film actress. Zhang is coined by the media as one of the Four Young Dan actresses in the Film Industry in China, along with Zhao Wei, Xu Jinglei, and Zhou Xun...

) in the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a 2000 wuxia film. An American-Chinese-Hong Kong-Taiwanese co-production, the film was directed by Ang Lee and featured an international cast of ethnic Chinese actors, including Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, and Chang Chen...

, Shulien picks up a Monk's Spade, intending to use it, but gives up due to its unwieldy weight, and chooses instead a number of other weapons to use in turn. (The other weapons are the single-edged sword or Dao

Dao (sword)

Daois a category of single-edge Chinese swords primarily used for slashing and chopping , often called a broadsword in English translation because some varieties have wide blades. In China, the dao is known as one of the four major weapons, along with the gun , qiang , and the jian , and referred...

; the spear or Qiang

Qiang (spear)

Qiang is the Chinese term for spear. Due to its relative ease of manufacture, the spear in many variations was ubiquitous on the pre-modern Chinese battlefield...

; the hook swords or Shuang Gou

Hook sword

The Hook Sword, Fu Tao or Shuang Gou also known as Hu Tou Gou is an exotic Chinese weapon traditionally associated with Northern styles of Chinese martial arts, but now often practiced by Southern styles as well.-Background:...

; the staff or Gùn

Gun (staff)

The Chinese word gun refers to a long Chinese staff weapon used in Chinese martial arts. It is known as one of the four major weapons, along with the qiang , dao , and the jian , called in this group "The Grandfather of all Weapons".-Variants:There are various kinds of gun, and they include the...

; and the double-edged straight sword or Jian

Jian

The jian is a double-edged straight sword used during the last 2,500 years in China. The first Chinese sources that mention the jian date to the 7th century BCE during the Spring and Autumn Period; one of the earliest specimens being the Sword of Goujian.Historical one-handed versions have blades...

.)

In the video game, Jade Empire Limited Edition, a monk's spade is usable under the name "Tien's Vengeance."