1920: Jingwu Brings Kung Fu to Guangzhou’s Public Schools
It goes by many names. Organization, bureaucracy…”hard work”… It’s the sort of social effort that defines modern industrialized life. Weber famously termed it the “iron cage” of rationality. We so...
View ArticleResearch Notes: Weird Lions and Chinese Jiu-Jitsu in 1934
I should be packing for a weekend visiting family. But before leaving I wanted to share something from my recent reading. Growing up in Western NY I had many opportunities to visit Toronto. Its...
View Article16 Facts You (Probably) Didn’t Know About the Chinese Martial Arts, Part I
We all love clickbait. Sure, we say we hate those gimmicky titles that populate our YouTube play lists. And none of us would willfully admit to clicking on “108 Facts about Rick and Morty” or, “20...
View Article16 Facts You (Probably) Didn’t Know About the Chinese Martial Arts, Part II
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 first time this list is a playful attempt to...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (54): Preserving a Fading China
Introduction You may not know her name, but if you have any interest in modern Chinese history, it is almost certain that you have seen her photographs. Hedda Morrison (1908-1991), while not...
View ArticleGeneral Zhang Zhijiang: Mixing Christianity and Kung Fu
A Different Take on an Old Debate If you study the traditional Chinese martial arts and have spent any time on the internet, you will have heard some variant of these debates before. Do I need...
View ArticleThe Purpose of “Place” in Wing Chun and the Chinese Martial Arts
A Sense of Purpose I was taking notes when I heard one of the most interesting comments to come up in the session. “I am not just another person, I have a purpose.” I wasn’t part of this......
View ArticleRemembering 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...
View ArticleChinese 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 update....
View ArticlePolitics and Identity in Chinese Martial Arts – An Essential Overview
Lu Zhouxiang. 2018. Politics and Identity in Chinese Martial Arts. New York and London: Routledge. 232 pages. $140/$45 USD (Hardcover/Digital). Perhaps the clearest testament to the growing...
View ArticleLabor Unions, the Growth of Kung Fu and the Survival of Wing Chun
***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 earlier this year on the importance of guilds and...
View ArticleSpreading the Gospel of Kung Fu: Print Media and the Popularization of Wing...
***I need to set aside some time to work on another writing project over the next few weeks. As such we will be dipping into Kung Fu Tea's extensive archives, and revisiting one of my favorite...
View ArticleSpreading the Gospel of Kung Fu: Print Media and the Popularization of Wing...
Introduction In the first part of this series (which you can read here) we discussed the earliest works on the Chinese martial arts to appear in English, and looked at two sources on Wing Chun. The...
View ArticleSpreading the Gospel of Kung Fu: Print Media and the Popularization of Wing...
Introduction: Wing Chun Enters its Esoteric Phase This is the third and final installment of our short series on the earliest printed publications to discuss Wing Chun in English. These books and...
View ArticleThrough 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...
View ArticleRethinking Wing Chun’s Opera Rebels
***After a quick return to the blog earlier this week, I have directed my attention back to my other ongoing project. The good news is that this manuscript chapter just a couple of days from...
View ArticleChinese 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...
View ArticlePolitical 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...
View ArticleMartial Classics: The Poetry of Motion – Qi Jiguang in Verse
***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 ancient China, I have found myself...
View ArticleA (Taijiquan) Mystery in Yellow
Unanswered Questions Everyone likes a good mystery. They engage, they motivate and (whether we want to admit it or not) they make the hours vanish. That certainly explains at least part of the...
View Article