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 Boxers some years ago as... Continue Reading →
***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 arts and... Continue Reading →
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 century? What was the first... Continue Reading →
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) titled Martial Arts as Embodied Knowledge: Asian Traditions in a... Continue Reading →
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 fascinated by these weapons, and... Continue Reading →
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, while you can literally watch the... Continue Reading →
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 to producing famous boxers, military officers or... Continue Reading →
"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 Bowman identifies an important link between current trends in martial... Continue Reading →
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 fighting arts. In addition to discussing important... Continue Reading →
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