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Kung Fu Tea

Martial Arts History, Wing Chun and Chinese Martial Studies.

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Martial Studies

The Boxing Master, the Pirate’s Wife and the Soldier: Three Scenes from Southern China’s Piracy Crisis, 1807-1810

    Introduction: Foreign Language Sources on Southern Chinese Piracy   It is a dictum in the social sciences that data is never self-interpreting. Likewise historians have found that it is often impossible to judge the nature or significance of... Continue Reading →

Lives of Chinese Martial Artists (13): Zhao San-duo—19th Century Plum Flower Master and Reluctant Rebel

    Introduction   In the summer of 1902 a martial artist and rebel leader named Zhao San-duo (alt. Zhao Luo-zhu) was arrested in the course of a tax uprising in Guangzong County. Betrayed by a local wu juren (a... Continue Reading →

Liminality, Embodied Identity and the Paradox of the Invisible Female Martial Artists

  Men fighting men to determine worth (i.e., masculinity) excludes women as completely as the female experience of childbirth excludes men….The female boxer violates this stereotype and cannot be taken seriously—she is parody, she is cartoon, she is monstrous. Had... Continue Reading →

From Battle Magic to Self-Actualization: Understanding the Traditional Chinese Martial Arts

    Introduction Most historical debates (both popular and academic) about the Chinese martial arts pit two opposing visions against one another. Sociologically informed theories tend to see the Chinese martial arts as a manifestation of fundamentally secular historical, economic... Continue Reading →

Global Capitalism, the Traditional Martial Arts and China’s New Regionalism

      Introduction: Hong Kong, Regionalism and the Martial Arts   It is hard to think of any state with such robust and diverse group of regional identities as China’s. Much of my research is focused on the development... Continue Reading →

“Fighting Styles” or “Martial Brands”? An economic approach to understanding “lost lineages” in the Chinese Martial Arts.

  ***Today's post continues our discussion of economic markets and modernity in the Chinese martial arts.  This essay, first posted in May of 2013, was one of my first attempts at hashing out these questions as they related to advertising... Continue Reading →

Will Universities Save the Traditional Asian Martial Arts?

    Douglas Wile. “Asian Martial Arts in the Asian Studies Curriculum.” JOMEC Journal 5 (2014): 60 pages.   Can universities preserve the traditional Asian martial arts? At the outset one must start by admitting that this is an audacious... Continue Reading →

Zheng Manqing and the “Sick Man of Asia”: Strengthening Chinese Bodies and the Nation through the Martial Arts

    Introduction: Zheng Manqing Accepts a Challenge While doing some preliminary historical research on Zheng Manqing, the well-known painter, physician and Taijiquan master, I came across a fascinating account of a challenge match that he was involved with during... Continue Reading →

From the Archives: Taming the Little Dragon – Symbolic Politics and the Translation of Bruce Lee.

  ***Welcome to this weeks exploration of the archives.  My writing/editing project has been progressing well and I am getting closer to announcement time. This last week I found myself revisiting a discussion of Bruce Lee's role in the globalization... Continue Reading →

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