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Kung Fu Tea

Martial Arts History, Wing Chun and Chinese Martial Studies.

Month

October 2012

Alex Gillis Takes on a “Killing Art.”

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 →

Chinese Martial Arts in the News: October 8, 2012: Video Games, Movies and the Question of Cultural Appropriation.

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 →

Lives of Chinese Martial Artists (2): Cheung Lai Chuen (pt. II)

  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 →

Lives of Chinese Martial Artists (2): Cheung Lai Chuen (Part I).

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 →

Through a Lens Darkly (4): Chinese Martial Arts and the Military.

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 →

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