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Martial Arts and the Body Politic: A Review in Memory of Denis Gainty
A press photo issued by the Japan Press Illustrated Service. The caption on the back reads “Instruction of Halbert and Sword.—The halbert has been instructed from old as a peculiar Japanese military...
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1920: Jingwu Brings Kung Fu to Guangzhou’s Public Schools
Chinese wushu students in Dengfeng. Source: The National It goes by many names. Organization, bureaucracy…”hard work”… It’s the sort of social effort that defines modern industrialized life. Weber...
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Research Notes: Weird Lions and Chinese Jiu-Jitsu in 1934
Globe and Mail. 1934. “[Centennial Picnics, Chinese, Lion Dance.]” Photograph. From City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1266, item 335517. Hat Tip to Colin McGuire for sending me these images. I should...
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16 Facts You (Probably) Didn’t Know About the Chinese Martial Arts, Part I
SHAOLIN MONASTERY, ZHENGZHOU, HENAN, CHINA – 2013/02/25: Shaolin Monastery or Shaolin Temple, a Cha?n Buddhist temple on Mount Song, near Dengfeng, Zhengzhou, Henan province, China Shaolin monks train...
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16 Facts You (Probably) Didn’t Know About the Chinese Martial Arts, Part II
Breaking Ceramic Figurines by Martin Klimas. Welcome to the second half of our discussion of 16 facts about the Chinese martial arts that you probably don’t know. If you are just joining us for the...
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Through a Lens Darkly (54): Preserving a Fading China
Daoist priests perform a “traditional dance” on Hua Mountain in the 1935. Source: Photo by Hedda Morrison, Harvard digital archives. Introduction You may not know her name, but if you have any...
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General Zhang Zhijiang: Mixing Christianity and Kung Fu
Testing the edge. A Chinese soldier with dadao. General Zhang pointed to the initial success of troops armed with “Big Swords” as proof of the importance of martial arts training throughout his various...
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The Purpose of “Place” in Wing Chun and the Chinese Martial Arts
A vision of Ip Man working with his dummy in Foshan from the 2008 Wilson Ip bio-pic. A Sense of Purpose I was taking notes when I heard one of the most interesting comments to come up in the...
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Remembering Macau Wing Chun
“Echoes of Memories” It is the elusiveness of memory that captivates us. People tend to think of their memories as a personal hard drive, always running in the background, silently backing up...
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Chinese Martial Arts in the News: August 27, 2018: The Back to School Edition!
Introduction Welcome to “Chinese Martial Arts in the News.” The nights are getting chilly and the new semester is just getting under way. That means it is time for our “Back to School” news...
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Politics and Identity in Chinese Martial Arts – An Essential Overview
Chinese post card showing a young girl studying a sword routine as her teacher looks on. Lu Zhouxiang. 2018. Politics and Identity in Chinese Martial Arts. New York and London: Routledge. 232 pages....
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Labor Unions, the Growth of Kung Fu and the Survival of Wing Chun
Ip Man and an early group of students in the 1950s. ***Its Labor Day in the United States and I am currently off on a fieldwork trip. As such this seems like a great time to revisit a post from...
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Spreading the Gospel of Kung Fu: Print Media and the Popularization of Wing...
Working class patrons of a stall selling sequentially illustrated martial arts novels. This 1948 AP photo illustrates the importance of heroic martial arts tales in southern China, even for...
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Spreading the Gospel of Kung Fu: Print Media and the Popularization of Wing...
Cover of “Black Belt Magazine.” September, 1972. Source: Google Books. Introduction In the first part of this series (which you can read here) we discussed the earliest works on the Chinese martial...
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Spreading the Gospel of Kung Fu: Print Media and the Popularization of Wing...
Two works offering to take Wing Chun students through the “Bamboo Curtain.” Source: Sagano Bamboo Forest. Wikimedia. Introduction: Wing Chun Enters its Esoteric Phase This is the third and final...
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Through a Lens Darkly (55): Taijiquan and the Soft Power Paradox
As previously noted, I have been taking a couple weeks off from the blog to focus on another writing project that needs my attention. Nevertheless, I ran across an image that I wanted to share. As...
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Rethinking Wing Chun’s Opera Rebels
Cantonese Opera Performers in San Francisco, circa 1900. Chinese Opera and Popular entertainment has been linked to the martial arts since at least the Song dynasty. Even in the Han dynasty military...
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Chinese Martial Arts in the News: September 24th, 2018: Shaolin, Bull Fights,...
Introduction Welcome to “Chinese Martial Arts in the News.” I recently finished the heavy lifting on my draft chapter, so I am now returning to a normal posting schedule. Thanks for your...
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Political Extremism, Violence and Martial Arts
A Preamble Everyone knew that the situation was deteriorating, and recent events had sensitized government officials to the growing threat of extremist groups within the area’s largest martial arts...
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Martial Classics: The Poetry of Motion – Qi Jiguang in Verse
General Qi Jiguang. Source: Wikimedia. ***I hope that the following guest post will be the first entry in a new occasional series here at Kung Fu Tea. While I am neither a linguist or historian of...
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