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 →
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 →
Introduction Regionalism has been all the rage in certain academic circles for at least a decade, though no field demonstrates the potential and challenges of this approach more fully than martial arts studies. The central concept of this paradigm... Continue Reading →
On Looking Back and Looking Forwards The start of a new year is a time for list making. Posts with titles like "The Top Five Trends that Defined 2020!" seem to be the mainstay of seasonal publishing. In all... Continue Reading →
Introduction: Masculinity as a Core Value in the Traditional Southern Martial Arts. One of the few facts that everyone seems to “know” about Wing Chun is that the art was created by a female. Whether this is actually true... Continue Reading →
Kung Fu Tea 
Recent Comments