Two Decades of Chinese Martial Studies
On Looking Back and Looking Forwards The start of a new year is a time for list making. Posts with titles like "The Top Five Trends that Defined 2020!" seem to be the mainstay of seasonal publishing....
View ArticleReconstructing the Tang Dao: Regionalism and Cultural Exchange
Introduction Regionalism has been all the rage in certain academic circles for at least a decade, though no field demonstrates the potential and challenges of this approach more fully than martial...
View ArticleChinese Martial Arts in the News: Jan 11, 2020: Taky Kimura, Shaolin and...
Introduction It has been too long since our last news update. For new readers, this is a semi-regular feature here at Kung Fu Tea in which we review media stories that mention the traditional...
View ArticleInventing MMA: Martial Arts Between Culture, Media and Sport
"Inventing MMA: Martial Arts Between Culture, Media and Sport" By Dr. Kyle Barrowman Introduction: Traditional Thinking In the Preface to his recent monograph The Invention of Martial Arts, Paul...
View ArticleCollecting Chinese Swords and other Weapons in late 19th Century Xiamen (Amoy)
Introduction: Xiamen and the Chinese Martial Arts Marketplace I am interested in the martial arts history of Fujian province. Many areas of China can rightly claim an illustrious past when it comes...
View ArticleYim Wing Chun and Gender: the Stories of Ip Man and Yuen Woo Ping in a...
Why Talk About Gender in the Chinese Martial Arts? In my years of teaching I have noticed that any discussion of “gender” will usually elicit great interest from a certain percentage of my students,...
View ArticleAn Updated and Revised Social History of the Hudiedao (Butterfly Swords)
In January of 2013 I posted an essay titled "A Social and Visual History of the Hudiedao (Butterfly Sword) in the Southern Chinese Martial Arts." As a student of Wing Chun I have always been...
View ArticleRitual, Tradition and Memory in Singapore’s Chinese Martial Arts Community
Introduction: Chinese Martial Studies, Embodied Knowledge and Identity. In 2011 SUNY (State University of New York) Press released a collected volume (edited by D. S. Farrer and John Whalen-Bridge)...
View ArticleLau Bun-A Kung Fu Pioneer in America
Choy Li Fut’s place in southern Chinese martial culture. Let me ask you a question. What was the largest and most socially important martial art in Guangdong during the late 19th and early 20th...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (7): Selling Swords and Printed Martial Arts Training...
***Recently I was having a discussion about the state of Kung Fu in China with a friend. (You can see his detailed post on the topic here). He was lamenting the general decline of interest in the...
View ArticleThe Boxer Rebellion and the First Martial Arts Films
Confronting the Boxers It is probably an irony that I have written so little on the Boxer Uprising during my casual and academic discussion of the martial arts. It was a chance encounter with the...
View ArticleQilin Dancing During the Lunar New Year and Southern Chinese Martial Culture.
Introduction: What is a Qilin and why do they dance? Let me start off by wishing everyone a happy New Year! The Lunar New Year is the longest and most important festival in the traditional Chinese...
View ArticleWhat Can the Opera Rebellion Teach us about the Social Toleration of Violence...
The Logic of Violence and its Relationship with the State My academic background and doctorate is in political science where I specialize in a sub-field called “international political economy.” That...
View ArticleBruce Lee, Globalization and the Case of Wing Chun: Why do Some Chinese...
Introduction: Wing Chun and the Haters You do not have to be involved with the Chinese martial arts for very long to discover that Wing Chun has the potential to be a highly polarizing topic of...
View ArticleOld or New? The Miaodao and Invention in Chinese Martial Arts
Searching for the Miaodao What exactly do historians mean when they assert that the Chinese martial arts being practiced throughout the world today are, for the most part, a relatively recent...
View ArticleDavid Palmer on writing better martial arts history and understanding the...
Catching Qigong Fever. I have read my fair share of books on religion in late imperial and modern China. Unfortunately I had been neglecting a classic. In 2007 David Palmer released a volume titled...
View ArticleTools of the Trade: The Use of Firearms and Traditional Weapons among the...
Introduction: The Evolving Relationship between Firearms and the Martial Arts. In a number of previous posts we have examined the complex, often hidden, relationship between the development of the...
View ArticleThe Value of a Comparative Case: Jean-Marc de Grave discusses “The Training...
Introduction: A drift on the sea of knowledge. Let me ask you a question. Do you ever feel like you have too much to read, study or research? Are you familiar with that creeping feeling that you will...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (9): Swords, Knives and other Traditional Weapons...
Introduction: Practical Martial Arts in the Age of the Gun As I have mentioned elsewhere, when thinking about the traditional Chinese martial arts we have a tendency to assume that these systems were...
View ArticleLives of Chinese Martial Artists (6): Ng Chung So – Looking Beyond the “Three...
Note: this article originally appeared as a guest post at "Wing Chun Geeks." Ng Chung So: Looking Beyond the “Three Heroes of Wing Chun” The origins of Wing Chun are shrouded in mystery. We seem to...
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