“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 →
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 →
***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 →
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 →
***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 →
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 →
***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 →
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 →
Introduction I was scrolling through Facebook the other day and came across a “Top Five” list…of other “Top Five” lists. It was a wonderfully meta idea and it made me realize how long it had been since we had... Continue Reading →
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