Introduction: The Symbolic Language of Weapons Victor Turner, the cultural anthropologist, famously argued that all symbols are "multivocal," meaning a single symbol can take on a multiplicity of meanings. Humans have a way of looking at complexes of symbols, perhaps... Continue Reading →
The reader will probably notice that whatever may be their form, there is a nameless something which designates the country in which they were produced. No matter whether the weapon has belonged to a rich or a poor man,... Continue Reading →
The Kukri in Three Symbolic Registers As regular readers will know, I have a keen interest in both the history of bladed weapons and vintage postcards. The kukri, a type of fighting knife from... Continue Reading →
Introduction Welcome to another edition of Chinese Martial Arts in the news. This is a semi-regular feature in which we review a roundup of media stories dealing with the martial arts over the last three to four weeks. We try... Continue Reading →
Introduction: The Symbolic Language of Weapons Victor Turner, the cultural anthropologist, famously argued that all symbols are "multivocal," meaning a single symbol can take on a multiplicity of meanings. Humans have a way of looking at complexes of symbols, perhaps... Continue Reading →
Introduction: The Traditional Military Kukri. New projects are always a learning experience, and one of the things that I have found most surprising here at Kung Fu Tea has been the persistent popularity of the one post which I wrote... Continue Reading →
Are the Asian Martial Arts Inevitable? I suspect that students of Chinese martial studies are overlooking one of the most perplexing, interesting and possibly illuminating questions that our field can ask. We spend so much time recording, studying and theorizing... Continue Reading →
Collecting the Military Kukri As I have mentioned in other posts, not all of my martial studies interests fall within the domain of Chinese culture. The Himalayan kingdom of Nepal is also fascinating. It’s political, religious and military history... Continue Reading →
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