Tao Te Ching, Chapter Thirty-three: Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment. Mastering others requires force; Mastering the self needs strength. He who knows he has enough is rich. Perseverance is a sign of willpower. He who stays... Continue Reading →
Alex Gillis. A Killing Art: The Untold History of Tae Kwon Do. Ontario: ECW Press. 2011 (First published in 2008). 246 pages. $16.95 USD. As I mentioned here I am assembling a reading list for an undergraduate course on the... Continue Reading →
Cultural Appropriation of Global Kung Fu Culture? Lately I have been thinking quite a bit about the question of cultural appropriation in the martial arts. Setting aside the historical questions for a second, at this point in history, who actually... Continue Reading →
Introduction This is the second part of our biographical sketch of Cheung Lai Chuen. The purpose of the "Lives of the Chinese Martial Artists" series is to better understand the diversity of life pathways and variety of personal experiences... Continue Reading →
This post introduces the second chapter of our ongoing series exploring the lives and careers of martial artists in late 19th and early 20th century China. Very often we artificially restrict our vision of what the traditional martial arts were... Continue Reading →
I would like to use two sets of images to explore the somewhat complex subject of the Chinese military's relationship with the traditional martial arts. Modern Chinese history has witnessed a vast number of military and para-military forces and not... Continue Reading →
You can now follow Kung Fu Tea on Facebook! I had resisted creating a Facebook page as I felt that a traditional blog was a better fit for my format. As regular readers know most of my posts are short... Continue Reading →
Categorizing the Martial Arts of Southern China As I have discussed here, there are a number of different ways that one can conceptualize the traditional martial arts of Guangdong province and the Pearl River delta. One of the more... Continue Reading →
By my count we are in the third era of "Chinese Martial Studies." The first was spearheaded by Tang Hao and ran from the early 20th century to WWII. The scholars interested in the martial arts were mostly from China... Continue Reading →
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