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Kung Fu Tea

Martial Arts History, Wing Chun and Chinese Martial Studies.

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Pop Culture Kung Fu

50 Years After Bruce Lee: Asian Martial Arts On-Screen and Off

Call for Papers for our 8th Annual Conference! 50 Years After Bruce Lee: Asian Martial Arts On-Screen and Off 19-21 July 2023, University of Sheffield (UK)   On the 50th anniversary of Bruce Lee’s untimely death, our 2023 conference will... Continue Reading →

Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Lightsaber: Fetishism and Material Culture in Martial Arts Studies

“The lightsaber has become an important touchstone, both within the films and within our culture…They serve as a source of identification and identity.  They are the ultimate commodity: a nonexistent object whose replicas sell for hundreds of dollars.  This is... Continue Reading →

Sugong: Nick Hurst Explores South East Asia’s Shaolin Kung Fu Tradition.

Nick Hust.  Sugong: The Life of a Shaolin Grandmaster. Sports Books. 2012. pp. 291. Introduction: Summer Reading for Chinese Martial Artists It is that time of year again.  It is the season when literally everyone I know packs a bag,... Continue Reading →

How Yoda Helped to Invent Kung Fu: Star Wars and the Martial Arts in the Western Imagination.

***I was surprised to run across this post in the blog's archives for 2012 as I generally think of Star Wars and lightsabers as a research interest that developed years later.  But apparently these were ideas that had been circulating... Continue Reading →

Through a Lens Darkly (6): China Rediscovers the Shaolin Temple, Igniting a Kung Fu Craze

Accepting the“traditional” Chinese martial arts as a product of the modern world. If I were to conduct a pole and ask the average student of the Chinese martial arts when the “Golden Age” of Kung Fu was, what sort of... Continue Reading →

Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Martial Arts: Another Approach to Globalization and Chinese Martial Studies

***Greetings. Globalization has been a persistent theme here at Kung Fu Tea. It is a topic that occupied much of my thinking as a professor of political economy, and it continues to be a shaping force within the study and... Continue Reading →

Traditional Chinese Medicine and Qigong in the Wing Chun Community

  Martial Arts and Globalization in late 19th and early 20th century China. In my previous post I proposed a framework for using globalization and the liberalization of China’s economy in the 1980s and 1990s to understand the progressive “medicalization”... Continue Reading →

“Wing Chun: A Documentary” directed by Jon Braeley

  ***Greeting readers, and thank you for your continued patience.  Today we are going to revisit a review of a Wing Chun documentary that I wrote back in the Fall of 2012. This turned out to be one of two... Continue Reading →

Chinese Martial Arts in the News: September 21, 2020: Mulan Struggles, Return of the Guandao, and the Future of Kung Fu Tea

  Introduction It has been over a months 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... Continue Reading →

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