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Titolo: A critical look at the Chinese martial arts

Theater of combat: A critical look at the Chinese martial arts
by Charles Holcombe
Historian
Vol. 52 No. 3 May.1990
Pp.411-431
Copyright by Michigan State University Press
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Everywhere in China the martial arts either present themselves in the guise
of simple exercises or are shrouded in arcane religious mysteries. Western
enthusiasts often feel impelled to strip away these religious trappings and
construct a version of the martial arts that is neither simple gymnastics
nor religion, but emphasizes true hand-to-hand combat skills. The question
remains, is this an authentic understanding of the martial arts?
A distinctly Chinese pugilistic style does exist, of course: kung-fu was
originally a Chinese word. But the original Chinese definition simply means
"ability," with no particular martial arts implications. When the word
first appeared in tenuous association with the martial arts, in the context
of late-imperial sectarian religion, it still denoted forms of
concentration involving the circulation of ch'i, or breath, rather than
combat skills. [1] The idea of kung-fu has a more convoluted pedigree than
one might otherwise have expected.
Even in China itself the history of the martial arts is obscure. The
literate Chinese elite traditionally took a jaundiced view of physical
combat and were inclined to ignore the martial arts. It may be true that
some scholars have exaggerated the well-known "fundamental Chinese
prejudice against the military." As one twelfth-century Chinese author put
it, in antiquity "literature and the military were not separated"; but the
same writer then concluded by asking, "How could later generations ever see
their like again?" [2] The warrior visage of the earliest Chinese upper
class had been made over in the Confucian scholar's image well before the
birth of Christ, and from then on literary pursuits prevailed over physical
ones. [3]
An early seventeenth-century author wrote that "arms are not something that
the sage can dispense with," but then he concluded that "the benefit of
bows and arrows is to overawe the world." [4] The Chinese elite did not
neglect the undeniable strategic importance of the military; it simply
scorned the heroic value of individual physical prowess. During the third
century, for example, one lofty gentleman, who was active in the
politico-military issues of the day refused to speak with the renowned
warrior Cleans Fei, saying,"Why should I talk to [mere] soldiers?" [5]
This same Chang Fei who had been scorned as a mere soldier in the third
century became one of the "gods" of the nineteenth-century Boxer movement,
after a popular novel apotheosiscri him. The peasant origins of this
movement are significant, however, because in the dominant Confucian
formulation those who worked with their minds governed those who labored
with their bodies, and the upper classes in imperial China did not regard
physical prowess highly. [6]
Not only is the written record in China biased towards civil over military
virtues, it also speaks with the voice of a government deeply suspicious of
the secret societies often affiliated with the martial arts. In the past,
whole dynasties had fallen as a result of such movements. Martial artists
were, almost by definition, members of the illiterate lower classes and
unable to leave written records of their own activities. And, in the eyes
of the elite record keepers, martial artists were not merely social
inferiors--because of their frequent association with the underworld and
seditious activities, they were often regarded as criminals.?
Under the circumstances, the attitude of the government was quite
predictable. In the third century a member of the imperial family explained
why officials had summoned all men of occult skill to the capital:
     The reason we have brought them all together in the Wei Kingdom is
     honestly because we fear the followers of such men would form
     underworld connections to take advantage of the multitude, and
     practice supernatural evils to delude the people.s
During the last dynasty the government prohibited boxing associations, and
the attitude of Ch'ing officialdom is captured in the following
late-seventeenth-century advice to county magistrates:
     In recent days in the regions of Wu and Yueh [ancient names for south
     China] there is a class of vagrant youths who gather together with the
     bad children of the educated classes, burn incense and take blood
     oaths. They publicly invite teachers and study boxing and fencing,
     tattoo patterns on both arms, and wear short armor down to their
     waists. Like a pack of foxes and dogs they come and go from tea stores
     and wine shops, wander like bees and dance like butterflies [a sexual
     euphemism], and go wild with women in brothels. When they hear of
     someone with an injustice, indicating that they will seek revenge [for
     him] they lustily plunder [the accused] . . . . If you arrest the gang
     leader who commits these atrocities, you must, together with public
     opinion, reject him. Either kill him under the bamboo cane, or report
     him to your superiors for an execution according to the law. Do not
     forgive him one tenth of the law; then customs will return to honesty
     and good men will have peace.
The attitude of the government was hostile, and because martial artists
were often members of the illiterate lower classes, they were seldom able
to put their case in writing. Even if literate and inclined to brave
government sanctions, martial artists were silenced by a strict code of
secrecy like the one that bound the early twentieth-century Red Spears
Society. [10]
There were practical reasons for silence about membership in a suspect
organization, but this tradition of secrecy may also be a legacy of the
religious Taoist heritage of the martial arts. Over the ages many peasant
rebellions have been religious in inspiration-the nineteenth-century White
Lotus, T'ai-p'ing and Boxer movements provide good examples. From early
times the texts and formulas of the Taoist immortality cult had been
shrouded in the strictest secrecy, and this cult was to have a profound
influence on the later martial arts. [11]
This religious heritage, in fact, tums out to be crucial to the development
of a conscious martial arts tradition. Before trying to analyze this
religious heritage, however, one should survey the history of the technical
side of combat skills in China, for the modern martial arts grew out of a
distinctive approach to physical combat that has been characteristic of
China since antiquity.
                                     *
Present-day schools of the martial arts enjoy a venerable ancestry.
Illustrations on bronze vessels from as early as 1000 B.C. show figures
engaging in what apparently are martial exercises. During the formative age
of Chinese civilization, archery and chariot riding were part of the
regular education of the upper class, although as early as the time of
Confucius (c.551-c.479 B.c.) archery had begun to degenerate into a mere
gentleman's pastime. The Confucian thinker Mencius (c.372-289 B.C.) speaks
casually of the transmission of archery skills from master to student in a
way that foreshadows modern martial arts instruction. [12]
In the first century A.D, a catalog of existing books lists a Methods of
Archery of P'eng-men and, even more interesting, a six-section book on
boxing (shou.po). [13] Unfortunately these books are lost to us now, but
they bespeak a distinguished pedigree for today's martial arts.
An incident recorded in the Hou-Han shu suggests these early Chinese
fighting techniques. In the tumultuous era attending the end of the Hah
dynasty, Lu Pu (d. 198) served as a bodyguard for the warlord Tung Cho.
     Once he slightly displeased Cho, and Cho picked up a hand-spear and
     threw it at him. Pu's fists were nimble and he evaded it [by striking
     it down], after which he altered his expression and apologized, and
     Cho's i/re dissipated.
Lu Pu bore a grudge, however, and later conspired against Tung Cho,
stabbing him to death. [14] This story, presented as sober history, shows
that one characteristic move of the Chinese martial arts--striking down a
projectile in mid-flight--was in practice by the early fifth century when
the Hou. Han shu was written, and so commonplace as to need no comment.
In the fourth century the alchemist Ko Hung wrote in his autobiography that
he had received instruction in archery and the use of sword, shield, lance
and seven-foot staff, "all of which have abstruse instructions and
significant tricks for use against adversaries." Ko, however, dismissed
these skills as no more vital than "the unicorn's horn or the phoenix's
spur." [15]
A performance suggestive of the contemporary martial arts was made by a
late-fifth-century cavalry officer, whose "fists were nimble and who was
good at brandishing sword and buckler. Once [Huang] Hui had more than ten
men splash him with water, but they were unable to touch him [with the
 water because he was swinging his sword so quickly]." [16] Like many
contemporary kung-fu tales, this story stretches the bounds of credibility
somewhat, and has interesting theatrical overtones.
The martial arts have at times been a part of regular military training in
China. Ch'i Chi-kuang, for example, instructed his sixteenth-century troops
in the use of boxing techniques that strikingly resemble modern T'ai-chi
ch'uan. [17] Mere boxing expertise, however, proved inadequate to defeat
the Japanese pirates who were terrorizing the coast, and Ch'i concluded by
relegating boxing to the role of preparatory physical training: "The art of
boxing seemingly is not included among the great war-making skills, but
lively hands and feet and a practiced body are a gateway for beginners to
enter the art. Therefore I have retained it." [18]
If the martial arts were not useful in actual warfare, and became less so
with the elaboration of ever-more-effective firearms, they still came in
handy in private disputes. Ch'ing dynasty law stipulated that anyone guilty
of manslaughter in a brawl, "whether the blow was struck with the hand or
the foot, with a metal weapon or any other kind of instrument," was subject
to the death penalty. [19] The reference to feet, in particular, suggests
that martial arts styles may have seen regular use in ordinary fisticuffs.
The evidence is not altogether satisfactory, but is enough to conclude that
those combat skills thought of today as the martial arts were practiced
widely in China since well before the time of Christ. Boxing skills also
exist in the West, however, and it took the influence of religion to raise
them to the level of an art or a cult in China.
                                     *
Students of the Chinese martial arts like to repeat the legend of
Bodhidharma. [20] The story goes that in the early sixth century the Indian
monk Bodhidharma founded the outer school--one of the two major divisions
in the Chinese martial arts--at the Shao-lin monastery in Honan. The other
major division, T'ai-chi ch'uan, is said to have spun off from this later.
[21] If true, this would make Shao-lin the oldest such school in China, and
Bodhidharma the father of the Chinese martial arts. The martial arts,
however, existed long before this time, and it is now clear that this
legend is spurious.
Some recent scholars have expressed doubt that Bodhidharma ever lived at
all, and the infrequency with which legitimate early historical sources
mention him is worthy of note. [22] What is really disputed, however, is
not his existence, but his reputation as the first patriarch of Ch'an
Buddhism (Japanese Zen). Scholars point out that the central Ch'an idea of
meditation had been present since the time of Parthian missionary An Shih
kao, at Lo-yang after 148 and "the first undoubtedly historical personality
in Chinese Buddhism." [23] There is also no evidence connecting Bodhidharma
with any of the eccentricities that later came to characterize the Ch'an
sect in particular. [24] So it is unlikely that Bodhidharma really was the
first Ch'an patriarch, and "no scholar today takes the tradition very
seriously." [25]
One should regard the legend of Bodhidharma as "a literary piece belonging
to the genre of hagiography," and posthumously embroidered upon "in order
to give more legitimacy to the new school" by later followers." [26] This
was a common practice in China, where the stature of a past master measured
the prestige of a school. If the legend connecting Bodhidharma with the
creation of Ch'an is not born out by the historical record, the one
connecting him with Shao-lin boxing is even less substantial. [27]
The legend of Bodhidharma's association with the martial arts is no older
than the last imperial dynasty (1644-1912). A book called the I-chin ching,
bearing the date 628 and purporting to contain the words of Bodhidharma
himself, does make the connection, but scholars cannot verify its existence
any earlier than about 1800. It appears to have been a late Ch'ing forgery
ascribed to Bodhidharma to enhance its value. [28] Bodhidharma's
then-secure reputation as the first patriarch of Ch'an would have made him
a natural magnet for such frauds.
Apart from the Bodhidharma legend there are some other stories associating
Shao-lin temple with the martial arts. One account has the "monk-soldiers"
of Shao-lin playing a part in the stabilization of the early T'ang dynasty
in 621. [29] A contemporary stele inscription says these monks "led a crowd
to oppose the false army," and it appears more likely that they raised a
private army than that they used any special boxing skills. [30] Vast
estates and labor forces were available to many monasteries during this
period and it is not at all improbable that Shao-lin temple could have
mobilized a large conventional fighting force. [31]
By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the monks of Shao-lin were
reportedly studying boxing, and were renowned for their use of cudgels
(kun). In 1561, because of this fame, a Ming general sought out the temple
to observe the use of cudgels there, but he was disappointed that the arts
he sought had been lost, and he ended up by instructing the monks himself.
[32]
If it is necessary to debunk the Bodhidharma myth since it is historically
false, we must also be wary of our modern materialist impulse to tear aside
the veil of myth to uncover the real martial arts beneath. [33] The truth
is that for most Chinese practitioners of the arts the myths were real
enough, and spiritual goals, in any case, are more central to the
historical martial arts than actual combat skills. [34] Rather than viewing
myths and legends as effluvia from the "real martial arts," it is more
accurate to see the martial arts as a relatively minor by-product of
Buddho-Taoist popular religion and the medieval immortality cult. [35]
Joseph Needham writes, "Chinese boxing . . . probably originated as a
department of Taoist physical exercises." [36] In this case, at least,
Needham is correct. Techniques of breath control and other exercises
designed to facilitate the absorption of ch'i are the bridge that links the
Taoist cults of antiquity with twentieth-century martial arts associations.
[37]
The earliest antecedents of the kung-fu tradition were probably the
fang-shih, "medicine men," who had appeared on the northeast coast of China
by the third century B.C. Fang-shih were involved with shamartistic spirit
possession and faith healing, and began the long-standing Chinese
fascination with the pursuit of immortality. A somewhat hostile account
from the first century B.C. says they "made a practice of the Way of
Immortality, dissolved their bodies in transformations, and adhered to the
affairs of spirits. . . . From this [time] weird sycophantic cultists arose
in numbers too great to count." [38] The purpose of the original breathing
exercises was to prolong life and attain immortality. As the skeptic Wang
Ch'ung (27-c. 100) wrote in the first century:
     Taoists sometimes use guiding their ch'i and nourishing their spirits
     to pass out of this world and not die. They suppose that if you do not
     shake, bend, and stretch the arteries in your body they will block up
     and not circulate, and if they do not circulate the accumulation will
     cause illness and death. This too is false. [39]
The origin of these exercises is lost in the mists of time, but has been
claimed to go back as far as the sixth century B.C. [40] The Chuang Tzu, a
classical text, records in a somewhat condescending manner:
     Huffing and puffing, exhaling the old and inhaling the new, the bear
     climb and the bird call, is for long life and only that. This is what
     gentlemen of Taoist exercises, men who nourish their bodies, and those
     who study the long life of P'eng Tsu like.
The basic text of the Chuang Tzu dates from the third century B.C., but
scholars suspect this passage to be a Hah dynasty interpolation. A
third-century commentator explained the cryptic remark about bears and
birds, pregnant with meaning for the later martial arts, as "drawing in
ch'i like a bear climbing a tree--like a bird's cry." [41]
In the pre-Christian era, seekers after immortality used a variety of
approaches, including incantations and sacrifices to the spirits as well as
drugs and breathing exercises, to prolong their lives, but from the Hah
dynasty on, men cast off their dependence on the spirit world and relied
more and more on their own efforts, resulting in an expansion of knowledge
about medicinal drugs and therapeutic exercises. [42] Practitioners termed
these techniques "nourishing ch'i" (yang ch'i), and the non-medicinal
methods included both breath control and sexual and gymnastic exercises.
[43]
A typical immortality cult story attributed to the third century tells of a
man who fell into a chasm on Mount Sung, the site of the later Shao-lin
temple and the central and highest of the five traditional sacred mountains
of China. Inside, two men playing the game of go offered him a white liquid
which increased the strength of his ch'i ten times. [44]
The medieval cult placed special emphasis on the ingestion of medicines to
attain longevity, but over the last thousand years attention shifted away
from drugs and towards "internal alchemy" or "breath yogas." [45] This
change explains the relative absence of references to chemical formulae in
the late-imperial sectarian cults that spawned the martial arts. It may be
that a broadening base of peasant believers simply could not afford the
expensive ingredients, such as gold, necessary for the old literati
elixirs. [46]
More directly ancestral to the modern martial arts, the renowned
second-century physician Hua T'o is said to have claimed: "I have an art
called the game of five animals. The first is called the tiger, the second
the stag, the third the bear, the fourth the ape, and the fifth the bird."
[47] History has not preserved the details of this art, but it is descended
from Chuang Tzu's "bear climb and bird call," and foreshadows the moves of
the later martial arts that were also often patterned sympathetically after
animals.
This Chinese Taoist tradition of life-prolonging exercises dovetailed with
the Indian yoga introduced into China along withthe early centuries of the
Christian era. Initial Chinese interest in Buddhism concentrated upon
Indian approaches to these same problems, and some of the first texts
translated into Chinese from Sanskrit were devoted to meditation, breath
control and the secrets for attaining immortality in the next world. [48]
The passage from Buddho-Taoist longevity exercises to the true martial arts
is obscure, but is part of the popularization of the old literati
immortality cult. This cult was replaced, in a sense, by sectarian religion
which involved both a democratization of elite religious beliefs and the
revival or continuation of earlier practices, such as the shamanism of the
ancient fang-shih with its emphasis on spirit possession. The graceful
slow-motion movements of T'ai-chi ch'uan, for example, illustrate the
heritage of Taoist therapeutic exercises embedded in the modern martial
arts. The basic idea of a "Great Ultimate" (t'ai-chi) itself derives from
the pre-Taoist Book of Changes, and the philosophical foundations of
T'ai-chi ch'uan are closely linked to Taoism. [49]
This transition to the modern martial arts was accomplished together with
the growth of secret apocalyptic religious movements such as the White
Lotus Society (Pai-lien she). According to legend, the monk Hui-yuan
founded this society in the year 402. The mature religion, however, does
not appear to have emerged until the mid-sixteenth century as a blend of
popular Buddhism and Taoism--and possibly even Manicheanism--characterized
by belief in an unusual deity known as the "Eternal Mother." This outlaw
religion segmented constantly, and by the 1760s some sects had begun to
practice the martial arts as part of their spectrum of meditative
techniques. [50]
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the repertoire of techniques
taught to White Lotus converts included incantations, breath control,
therapeutic massage and fighting exercises. White Lotus followers referred
to these meditative techniques as kung-fu (skill), but mystical healing
remained its principal appeal. [51] Even among the later Boxers--an
offshoot from these White Lotus groups--the function of kung-fu was still
the religious attainment of supernatural powers. [52]
The role of heterodox religions such as the White Lotus Society in
propagating the martial arts is clear. When the Boxer rebellion broke out
at the end of the nineteenth century, therefore, Buddhist monks and Taoist
priests figured prominently in the movement. [53] The recollections of "Old
Lady Ning" testify to the religious orientation of the Boxer exercises:
     The Boxer madness came to P'englai. . . The people practiced the arts.
     They went through the exercises and fell in rigid spells. One would
     say, "I am Kuan Ping." And another, "I am Sun Ho." [54]
In contemporary Western-influenced China, the immortality cult and the
religious side of the martial arts have gone into eclipse, leaving as a
residue various practices that can be classified as either medicinal or
combat skills. [55] In a sense, then, modern China has returned to the
conditions that prevailed in classical times when the skills of gentlemen
warriors and Taoist longevity practices may have been two distinct
entities. During the two thousand years that have intervened since the
classical age, however, contact with religion has altered both the medical
and military visions of the martial arts, and the modern attempt to
separate them once again is an artificial reflection of the Western point
of view.
The effect of religion on the martial arts is evident in the actual
behavior of historical martial arts associations, such as the Boxers. The
record shows that the religious promise of an ability to transcend the
ordinary laws of physics--to work miracles--has been a consistent and
critical attraction of the martial arts to its Chinese audience. In the
medieval immortality cult the suspension of disbelief had been routine.
Remarkable illusions were, cynics suggest, performed to impress people, win
converts or simply earn a living. [56] In a classic and well-intentioned
example, the Buddhist monk Buddhacinga (Fo-t'u-ch'eng, fl. 310348)
converted the barbarian ruler of North China in the early fourth century by
making a lotus magically sprout out of a bowl filled with water. The
association between popular religion and feats of magic became so strong
that in the late seventeenth century it was natural for a Chinese author to
suppose a rope-climbing performance by a street magician had some
connection with White Lotus sectarianism. [57]
The strange powers supposedly unleashed by Buddho-Taoist religious
practices and demonstrated with magic tricks may have led to the delusion
of invulnerability that is characteristic of the modern martial arts. In
antiquity the Lao Tzu had claimed that an accomplished Taoist "does not
meet with rhinoceros or tiger when travelling on land nor is he touched by
weapons when charging into an army." [58] By the end of the Han dynasty
Taoists had come to believe that they could ward off injury just by
carrying a rare sword. In more modern terms, this translated into the
belief in being impervious to bullets, a trademark of the martial arts.
[59]
In 1900 the senior American diplomat in Peking reported to the secretary of
state about the Boxers:
     A number of teachers go through the country, gather together the idle
     young men at the various villages and organize them into companies and
     pretend if they will, under their direction, go through certain
     gymnastic movements and repeat certain incantations, that they will
     become impervious to all weapons and nothing can harm them. [60]
In a somewhat later example, early twentieth-century Red Spear instructors
went so far as to test their students by firing rifles at them. [61]
In practice, magical invulnerability has been at the core of the Chinese
martial arts. Although "the actual way in which the Boxers fought" is one
of the worst-documented aspects of their movement, historians such as
Jerome Ch'en speculate that in combat the Boxers may have simply "fought as
ordinary soldiers," and historians are aware of other movements which did
not scorn the use of modern weaponry when available. [62]
Boxing skills were not nearly as critical to such historical martial arts
societies as was their belief in their own invulnerability. It is difficult
to accept the idea that the kung-fu practices of Boxers really protected
them from gunfire; but in fiction anything is possible, and it was here, in
the popular imagination, that the martial arts most fully sprang to life.
                                     *
Some martial arts enthusiasts themselves admit that "the relationship
between the martial arts and entertainment has a long history in China."
[63] Martial entertainments are known from the beginning of the written
record. One of China's oldest books, the Book of Songs, documents an early
division of theatrical performances into civil and military; the Rites of
Chou describes a "dance with bows and arrows"; and texts and stone reliefs
from the Hah dynasty attest to martial acrobatic performances. [64] These
intertwined traditions of theater and the martial arts came together in
their most peculiar form in the "butting game" (chiao-ti hsi) of the Ch'in
and Han dynasties.
The eighteenth century T'u-shu chi-ch'eng, an encyclopedia in 10,000
sections (chuan) that is one of the largest and most complete ever compiled
anywhere, lists this butting game as its first entry under the subject of
boxing. In the original form of this game, people donned cow's horns and
butted one another, in commemoration of a mythological event from the time
of the Yellow Emperor. [65] Eventually, however, it became a generic name
referring to games of combat such as wrestling, acrobatics and other
assorted forms of entertainment. This transformation was in progress in 209
B.C., when the second emperor of Ch'in "made merry with games of butting
and comedic actors." In this, one of their earliest manifestations, the
martial arts appear to have taken the form of faintly ridiculous
entertainment. [66]
When true drama evolved in China during the Sung (960-1279) and Yuan
(1279-1368) dynasties, military entertainments composed a popular part of
the new theatrical tradition. Stage-fighting was a principal attraction in
the famous Peking Opera of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and
fantastic acrobatic feats were a regular and expected part of performances.
67]
Robert Fortune, an Englishman, witnessed one such performance in rural
China sometime between 1853 and 1856, and left the following account:
     An actor rushed upon the stage amid the clashing of timbrels, beating
     of gongs, and squeaking of other instruments. He was brandishing a
     short sword in each hand, now and then wheeling round apparently to
     protect himself in the rear, and all the time performing the most
     extraordinary actions with his feet, which seemed as if they had to do
     as much of the fighting as the hands. People who have seen much of the
     manoeuvering of Chinese troops will not call this unnatural acting.
     [68]
As Fortune noted, such stage fighting was an accurate, if exaggerated,
portrayal of actual Chinese fighting techniques. It would be a mistake,
however, to dismiss this theatrical tradition as a mere imitation of the
real martial arts. Image and reality have reflected each other for
millennia, and real martial artists have often found the most practical use
for their skills in earning a living as entertainers.
In late imperial times Boxers toured the countryside, fighting in
competitions at market fairs as a way of life. An eighteenth-century
satirical novel, The Scholars, provides an excellent description of a
typical knight-errant (ywhsia) hero who is "seen at his best in a sword
dance," and who turns out to be something of a fraud. Today, in Beijing,
martial arts experts can still be found performing breathing exercises and
splitting bricks with their heads in sideshows at amusement parks. [69] If
the actual moves of the martial arts are enmeshed in the theatrical
tradition, the image of the martial arts hero comes from another source
altogether. This is the knight-errant, champion of the down-trodden, who
roams the land righting injustice with his practiced sword arm. [70]
This heroic figure has an actual historical foundation in the classical
philosophical school of Mo Tzu (fifth century B.C.), who opposed offensive
warfare and trained his band of followers to go to the aid of states that
were being attacked. For centuries after the time of Mo Tzu such men must
have existed, since the historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien (c. 145-90 B.C.) included
biographies of knights-errant in his monumental work. [71]
Before the T'ang dynasty (617-907) the Chinese literary tradition made no
clear distinction between the modern categories of fiction and non-fiction,
although elements of what we would call fiction were present. Some of
China's earliest attempts at fiction are simply fantastic stories presented
in the guise of fact, and the traditional Chinese novel never really shed
its historical coloration. The famous Water Margin (Shui-hu chuan), for
example, which so profoundly influenced the young Mao Tse-tung, has been
described by an eminent Chinese scholar as "a conscious fabrication of
pseudo history." [72]
In accounts of Chinese combat, therefore, exaggeration "in the direction of
fantasy" should alert one to the presence of a fictional narrative mode.
[73] An excellent early example is the following episode from a
first-century text, the Wa-Yueh ch'un-ch'iu. In this story, the king of
Yueh is instructed in the arts of swords and halberds by a virgin of the
"Southern Groves" (Chekiang). She tells him of an encounter with an old man
who turned into a white ape when defeated in combat, and, with a heavy dose
of Taoist concepts, says: "The Way of hand combat is to realize your spirit
within, yet appear calm externally. Look at her and she seems to be a
pleasing lady, but snatch at her and she is like a fearsome tiger." The
instruction impressed the king, and he subsequently had his troops learn
her arts. [74]
Tales of fabulous swordsmen became popular in China around the ninth
century. A thousand years later, at the end of the nineteenth century,
stories of knights-errant became the chief format for Chinese adventure
fiction, and they remain popular today in television and movies. [75]
According to one explanation, the popularity of this genre of fiction in
modern times may "reflect the wishful thinking of a weakened nation in the
face of foreign powers with superior military strength." [76]
In the last imperial dynasty many of these novels emphasized not just
knights-errant but the martial arts in particular, and the tales often
became filled with technical descriptions of fights, dwelling on the
marvelous skills of the martial arts heroes. [77] At about the same time,
warrior monks from Shao-lin temple became stock characters in novels of
this genre, and anti-Manchu secret societies capitalized on this reputation
by claiming Shao-lin affiliations. The swordsman heroes of these popular
entertainments were not only skilled in boxing, fencing and the use of
other weapons, but were also invested with fantastic acrobatic abilities
that stretch the bounds of credibility. [78]
Fiction and reality bounced back and forth off each other like reflections
in a hall of mirrors. The author of a seventeenth. century sequel to the
renowned Water Margin, for example, based some of his characters on the
real-life exploits of folk-hero bandits during the Ming-Ch'ing transition,
who in turn had patterned themselves in part after the heroes of the
original Water Margin--itself loosely based on history. Fictional
characters mirrored actual human beings, and real people then looked to
them for role models. [79]
Water Margin became the archetype of peasant rebellions from the late Ming
dynasty on. The effect of such entertainments was considerable on the lower
classes, who received from them what might be called a "fictional
education." [80] For these illiterate and semi-literate Chinese the visions
of the past presented by oral storytelling and the theater were their
principal source of history. Unable to gain access to the critical
historical tradition of the literate high culture--written in a special
literary language known as wen-yen--popular Chinese culture recast history
in terms of images drawn from more familiar legends and dramas. [81]
Popular movements of the sort that might employ the martial arts exploited
these legends to appeal to their lower-class audiences. White Lotus
sectarianism, for example, submerged its sermons in the language and
atmosphere of folk plays and storytelling. The Boxers cast themselves on
theatrical models and "spoke and acted like opera actors." [82] Bandit
leaders identified themselves with characters drawn from popular fiction,
and even assumed their names. One sectarian leader explained their
motivation in 1823 when he said: "In propagating our faith we often meet
with the ignorance of common people and so we assumed the identities of
characters from the novel Fengshen-yanyi." [83]
This was the environment in which the legend of the martial arts was born,
amid an atmosphere heavy with ignorance, religion and the occasional
deliberate manipulation of both. The martial arts reflect the escapist
fantasies--and lack of critical faculties--of the illiterate common man,
but for many ordinary Chinese these legends also provided a paradigm that
gave meaning to their lives and invested them with purpose, courage and
nobility.
In China the martial arts are far more than just techniques of hand-to-hand
combat, although actual fighting skills are indeed traceable far back into
antiquity. In China the martial arts are an aspect of religion, with all of
the attendant mystery and miracles. At the same time, the public face of
the martial arts has often been that of the entertainer, and the self-image
of the martial artist has been thoroughly imbued with motifs drawn from
fiction and the theater. The martial arts of today must be understood as a
confluence of China's unique approach to physical combat, Buddho-Taoist
religion, and theater.
1 See Susan Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams
Uprising of 1813 (New Haven, 1976), 29 and 296, note 87, and "The
Transmission of White Lotus Sectarianism in Late Imperial China," Popular
Culture in Late Imperial China, ed. David Johnson, Andrew J. Nathan and
Evelyn S. Rawski (Berkeley, 1985), 275; and Daniel L. Overmyer, Folk
Buddhist Religion: Dissenting Sects in Late Traditional China (Cambridge,
1976), 119-20.
2 Hung Mai, Jung-chai sui-pi (Taipei, 1981), 798. Matsuda Takatomo
discusses the difficulties involved in reconstructing the history of the
Chinese martial arts in Chung-kuo wwshu shih-lueh (Taipei, 1986), 1-3. For
the prejudice against the military, see David George Johnson, "The Medieval
Chinese Oligarchy: A Study of the Great Families in Their Social,
Political, and Institutional Setting" (Ph.D. diss., University of
California, 1971), [93]. A revisionist reassertion of the importance of the
military in Chinese society is in Johanne Menzel Meskil], A Chinese Pioneer
Family: The Lins of Wu-Feng, Taiwan, 1729-I895 (Princeton, 1979), 262-63.
3 See yu Ying-shih, Chung-kuo chih-shih chieh-ts 'eng shih Inn (ku-tai p
'ien) (Taipei, 1980), 8-9; Chou Shao-hsien, Han-tai che. hsaeh (Taipei,
1983), 5.
4 Sung Ying-hsing, T'ien-kung k'ai-wu (Hong Kong, 1983), 378.
5 Ch'en Shou, San-kuo chih (Taipei, 1979), 253.
6 See Jerome Ch'en, "The Nature and Characteristics of the Boxer
Movement--A Morphological Study," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London 23, pt. 2 (1960): 287-308, esp.
298-99; Vicar Purcell, The Boxer Uprising: A Background Study (Hamden,
1974), 228; Ch'u T'ung-tsu, "Chinese Class Structure and its Ideology," in
Chinese Thought and Institutions, ed. John K. Fairbank (Chicago, 1957),
235-36.
7 J. Ch'eu, "Nature and Characteristics," 287; John W. Dardess, "The
Transformations of Messianic Revolt and the Founding of the Ming Dynasty,"
Journal of Asian Studies 29 (May 1970): 540-42.
8 Ch'en Shou, San-kuo chih, 209.
9 Huang Liu-hung, Fu.hui ch'uan-shu (Tokyo, 1973), 128. See also Huang
Liu-hung, A Complete Book Concerning Happiness and Benevolence: Fu-hui
ch'uan-shu, A Manual for Local Magistrates in Seventeenth. Century China,
trans. Djang Chu (Tucson, 1984), 265. For the attitude of the Ch'ing
government towards the martial arts, see Jin Chongji, "The Relationship
Between the Boxers and the White Lotus Sect," Chinese Studies in History 20
(Spring-Summer 1987): 87-97, esp. 96; Lu Yao, "The Origins of the Boxers,"
Chinese Studies in History 20 (Spring-Summer 1987): 42-86, esp. 56.
According to Purcell, at the time of the first official mention of the
Boxers in 1727 they were accused of"stirring up the 'stupid people,' "and
strictly prohibited; see his Boxer Uprising, 160-61.
10 J. Ch'en, "Nature and Characteristics," 287. The Red Spear code of
silence is described in Elizabeth J. Perry, Rebels and Revolutionaries in
North China, 1845-I945 (Stanford, 1980), 193. Robert Van Gulik avers that
the secrecy of transmission o f the boxing art accounts for the scarcity of
texts, in his Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (Dee Goong An): An Authentic
Eighteenth-Century Chinese Detective Novel (New York, 1976), 104-105 and
note.
11 For Taoist secrecy, see James R. Ware, Alchemy, Medicine and Religion in
the China ofAv 320: The Nei P'ien of Ko Hung (New York, 1966), 51, 70 and
175; Michel Strickmann, "The Mao Shah Revelations: Taoism and the
Aristocracy," T'oung Pao 63 (1977): 26: Nathan Sivin, Chinese Alchemy:
Preliminary Studies (Cambridge, 1968), 12; Chang Po-tuan, Understanding
Reality: A Taoist Alchemical Classic, trans. Thomas Cleary (Honolulu,
1987), 86, 117-18.
12 The bronze illustrations are described in IAn Hou-sheng and Lo P'ei-yu,
Ch 'i-kung san-pai wen (Canton, 1983), 2, 14. See also The Analects of
Confucius, trans. Arthur Waley (New York, 1938), 95, 98; Mencius, The Four
Books, trans. James Legge (Taipei, 1979), 749-52.
13 For the P'eng-men she.fa, see Wang Hsin-wu, T'ai-chi ch 'aan-fa chir~g.i
(Hong Kong, 1962), 1. For the book on boxing, see Matsuda Takatomo,
Chung-ching-i wu-shu shih-lueh, 4-5.
14 Fan Yeh, Hou. Han shu (Beijing, 1965), 2445.
15 Ware, Alchemy, Medicine and Religion 19. See also Ko Hung, Pao-p'u tzu
(Taipei, 1984), wai p'ien, 50.7a '
16 Wang Chin-jo et al., eds., Ts'e-fu yuan-kuei, 20 vols. (Taipei, 1981),
10,034.
17 Stanley E. Henning, "The Chinese Martial Arts in Historical
Perspective," Military Affairs 45 (1981): 175. Ch'i's techniques are also
discussed in Ray Huang, 1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty
in Decline (New Haven, 1981), 168. See also Herbert A. Giles, Adversaria
Sinica (Shanghai, 1914), 133.
18 Ch'i Chi-kuang, extracted in Ku-chin t'u-shu chi-ch'eng, 800 vols.
(n.p., 1934), chuan 810, 487:62a. See also Giles, Adversaria Sinica, 137.
For the inadequacy of boxing against the Japanese pirates, see Huang, 1587,
A Year of No Significance, 165.
19 Huang Liu-hung, Complete Book Concerning Happiness, 328, 334.
20 For a good example, see Howard Reid and Michael Croucher, The Fighting
Arts: Great Masters of the Martial Arts (New York, 1983), 20 and 26-27.
21 See, for example, Wang Hsin-wu, T'ai-chi ch'uan-fa ching-i, 2.
22 For doubts as to Bodhidharma's existence, see Matsuda Takatomo,
Chung-kuo wu-shu shih-lueh, 47. The only reference to Bodhidharma that I
have been able to find in a legitimate early text is the brief one in the
Lo-yang ch'ieh-lan chi of c. 547. His name is also mentioned in an
inscription at Shao-lin temple dated 728, transcribed in Tonami Mamoru, "Su
gaku shorinji hi ko," Chugoku kizokusei shakai no kenkyu, ed. Kawakatsu
Yoshio and Tonami Mamoru (Kyoto, 1987), 744.
23 Erik Zurcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and Adaptation
of Buddhism in Early Medieval China (Leiden, 1959), 32-33; Tsukamoto
Zenryu, "The Early Stages in the Introduction of Buddhism Into China (Up to
the Fifth Century A.D.)," Cahiers d'histoire mondiale 5 (1960): 557.
24 See Pa-chou, "Ch'an-tsung yu P'u-t'i-ta-mo," Ch'an-tsung shih-shih
k'ao-pien, ed. Chang Man-t'ao (Taipei, 1977), 121.
25 Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, ed. Derk Bodde (New
York, 1948), 255-56.
26 Bernard Faure, "Bodhidharma as Textual and Religious Paradigm," History
of Religions 25 (1986): 191, 197. See also Heinrich Dumoulin, A History of
Zen Buddhism, trans. Paul Peachoy (New York, 1963), 67-69; Pa-chou,
"Ch'an-tsung yu P'u-t'i-ta-mo," 115.
27 The martial arts legend of Bodhidharma is thoroughly debunked in
Henning, "Chinese Martial Arts," 176.
28 Matsuda Takatomo, Chung-kuo wu-shu shih-lueh, 46-47 The I-chin ching is
not, for example, listed in the index to an exhaustive imperial
bibliography completed in 1782, Wang Yun-wu, comp., Hsu-hsiu ssu-k'u
ch'uan-shu t'i-yao, 13 vols. (Taipei, 1972), 13:118, although this may
simply reflect the book's heterodox status.
29 Ku Yen-wa, Jih-crih-lu chi-shih (Shanghai, 1985), 2167-68. An imperial
message of commendation for the temple's cooperation was inscribed on a
stele at Shao-lin temple, and is described in Tonami Mamoru, "Su gaku
shorinji hi ko," 720. Evidently, in the fourth month of 621 the monks
overthrew the city of Huan-chou, southeast of Lo-yang, and returned it to
the state. See pages 735-38.
30 Tonami Mamoru, "Su gaku shorinji hi ko," 743.
31 For the land and labor available to many monasteries during this period,
see T'ao Hsi-sheng and Wu Hsien-ch'ing, Nan-pei-ch'ao thing-cri shih (1937;
reprint, Taipei, 1979), 144, 164-65. At the beginning of the T'ang,
Shao-lin monastery itself claimed a grant of some 1500 acres from the
defunct Sui state. See Tonami Mamoru, "Su gaku shorinji hi ko," 724.
32 Matsuda Takatomo, Chung-kuo wu-shu shih-lueh, 52-55; Henning, "Chinese
Martial Arts," 175.
33 A good example of this mistaken approach, which seems to come naturally
to Americans, is Henning's otherwise outstanding essay, "Chinese Martial
Arts," esp. 173.
34 In a parallel fashion, recent scholarship has demonstrated that Taoist
meditation was more religious in purpose than physiological. See Sivin,
"Science and Medicine in Imperial China--The State of the Field," Journal
of Asian Studies 47 (February 1988): 41-90, esp. 57.
35 Cleary, in his edition of Chang Po-tuan's Understanding Reality, 10,
19.45, 53-54, 63, 154-55, notes that mental and physical exercises were
dismissed as mere secondary techniques--sidelines rather than central
concerns--by many Taoists. For a summary of the growth of the immortality
cult, see Sivin, Chinese Alchemy, 25-26; Herrlee G. Creel, What is Taoism?
And Other Studies in Chinese Cultural History (Chicago, 1970), 7ff.; and
Holmes Welch, The Parting of the Way: Lao Tzu and the Taoist Movement
(Boston, 1957), 88-163.
36 Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, 6 vols. (Cambridge,
1954-1986), 2: 145-46.
37 Taoist exercises were the beginning of the Chinese martial arts,
according to Wang Hsin-wu, T'ai-chi ch'uan-fa ching-i, 1. Donald Harper,
"The Sexual Arts of Ancient China as Described in a Manuscript of the
Second Century B.C.," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 47 (December
1987): 539-93, esp. 563-64, observes that all of these ancient methods of
physical cultivation revolved around the absorption of ch'i. In the early
twentieth century breath control was still an important part of the martial
arts training of the Red Spears Society, according to Perry, Rebels and
Revolutionaries, 195.
38 Ssu-ma Ch'ien, Shih-chi (Beijing, 1959), 1368-69. For the fang-shih, see
also Ku Ming-chien (Ku Chieh-kang), Ch'in-Han te fang-shih yu ju-sheng
(1933; reprint, Taipei, 1985), 11; Colin A. Ronan, The Shorter Science and
Civilization in China: An Abridgement of Joseph Needham's Original Text, 3
vols. (Cambridge, 1978), 1: 107; Doctors, Diviners, and Magicians of
Ancient China: Biographies of Fang-shih, trans. and comp. Kenneth J.
DeWoskin (New York, 1983), 1ff., 33.
39 Wang Ch'ung, Lun Heng (Taipei, 1981), 7.10b.
40 Needham, Science and Civilization 5:142. See also Lin Hou-sheng and Lo
P'ei-yu, Ch'i-kung san-pai wen, 4.
41 Ch'ien Mu, ed., Chuang tzu tsuan-chien, rev. ed. (Hong Kong, 1960), 122.
See also Chou Shao-hsien, Han-tai che-hsueh, 89; Li Feng-mao, "Hsi k'ang
yang-sheng ssu-hsiang chih yen-chiu," Ching-i wen-li hsueh-yuan hsueh-pao 2
(1979): 374-66, esp. 54.
42 For the increasing reliance on personal effort, see Mugitani Kunio,
"Shoki dokyo ni okeru kyusai shiso," Toyo bunka 57 (1977): 27-28, 35. The
growth in medical knowledge is discussed in Li Feng-mao, "Hsi K'ang
yang-sheng ssu-hsiang chih yen-chiu," 42. A manuscript interred in 168
B.C., however, already contained a chart of color illustrations of tao-yin
physical exercises. See Harper, "Sexual Arts," 555-56; and Lin Hou-sheng
and Lo P'ei-yu, Ch'i-kung san-pai wen, 5.
43 Needham, Science and Civilization 2: 143. A good description of Taoist
exercises can be found in Henri Maspero, Le taoisme et lee religions
chinoises (Paris, 1971), 380, 578-86. Harper, "Sexual Arts," passim,
provides details of early sexual techniques.
44 Ying Shao, Feng-eu t'ung-i (Taipei, 1976), 10.1b; Li Fang et al., eds.,
T'ai. p'ing yu-lain, 7 vols. (Taipei, 1980), 314.
45 Sivin, Chinese Alchemy, 30-31, 55n; Sivin, "Science and Medicine," 55;
and Welch, Parting of the Way, 130-32.
46 In the fourth century the alchemist Ko Hung himself could not afford
these ingredients. See Ware, Alchemy, Medicine and Religion, 70.
47 Wei Chu-t'ing, ed., I-shih chi-shih (Taipei, 1981), lei 15, p. 5. See
also DeWoskin, Doctors, Divines and Magicians, 149.
48 Chang Chung-yuan, "An Introduction to Taoist Yoga," The Review of
Religion 20 (1956): 133-35, 145; Needham, Science and Civilization 5:283.
See also Paul Demieville, "La penetration du bouddhisme dans la tradition
philosophique chinoise," Cahiers d'histoire mondiale 3 (1956-1957): 22.
49 Overmyer, Folk Buddhist Religion, 163-64. For spirit possession in
modern China, see Edwin D. Harvey, "Shamanism in China," in Studies in the
Science of Society, ed. George Peter Murdock (New Haven, 1937), 256-58. For
t'ai-chi, see "Fang t'ai-chi ta-shih Wang P'ei-sheng," Jen-min jih-pao
(overseas ed.), 3 August 1987, 2. Chang Po-tush, Understanding Reality,
14-15, lists T'ai-chi ch'uan as a Taoist practice. The technique is
discussed at length in Linda Chih-ling Koo, "Nourishment of Life: The
Culture of Health in Traditional Chinese Society" (Ph.D. diss., University
of California, 1976), 110-16. However, Sivin, "Science and Medicine," 68,
observes that early Taoist exercises resemble yoga more closely than they
do T'ai-chi ch'uan. For the source of the idea of t'ai-chi in the Book of
Changes, see Zurcher, Buddhist Conquest, 88.
50 The formation of the White Lotus Society in 402 A.D. is discussed in
Zurcher, Buddhist Conquest, 219. An excellent description of this religion
can be found in Naquin, "Transmission of White Lotus Sectarianism," 255ff.
See also Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion, 8; David K. Jordan and Overmyer,
The Flying Phoenix: Aspects of Chinese Sectarianism in Taiwan (Princeton,
1986), 16; Lloyd E. Eastman, Family, Fields, and Ancestors: Constancy and
Change in China's Social and Economic His tory, 1550-1949 (New York, 1988),
217-21. The Manichen n component of White Lotus sectarianism is discussed
in T'ang Ch'ang-ju, Wei chin nan-pei-ch'ao shih-lun shih-i (Beijing, 1983),
206; Dardess, "Transformations of Messianic Revolt," 540.
51 Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion, 24-25, 27, 80-31; Naquin, "Transmission
of White Lotus Sectarianism," 275; Eastman, Family, Fields, and Ancestors,
220.
52 For the White Lotus origins of the Boxers, see Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, "Late
Ch'ing Foreign Relations, 1866-1905," in Late Ch'ing, 1800-1911, Part Two,
ed. Lui Kwang-ching and Fairbank, vol. 11 of Cambridge History of China,
ed. Fairbank and Denis Twitchett (Cambridge, 1980), 117-18; Purcell, Boxer
Uprising, 161-62
53 Lu Yao, "Origins of the Boxers," 66-67.
54 Ida Pruitt, A Daughter of Hah: The Autobiography of a Chinese Working,
Woman (1945; reprint, Stanford, 1967), 151.
55 The erosion of belief in immortality, and residual concern for health,
is described in Koo, "Nourishment of Life," 71-72. A strong affirmation of
the medical purpose of the martial arts can be found in Lin Hou-sheng and
Lo P'ei-yu, Ch'i-kung san-pai wen, 1.
56 Van Gulik, "The Mango 'Trick' in China: An Essay on Taoist Magic,"
Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 3rd ser., 3 (1954): 118;
Ware, Alchemy. Medicine and Religion, 54; Kominami Ichiro, Chugoku no
 shinwa to monogatari--ko shosetsu shi no tenkai (Tokyo, 1984), 168-69.
57 Fang et al., eds., T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi (Beijing, 1981), 573. Jonathan
D. Spence, The Death of Woman Wang (New York, 1978), 26-30.
58 Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching, trans. D.C. Lau (Harmondsworth, 1963), 111
Compare Chang Po-tuan, Understanding Reality, 146, and see also Arthur
Waley, The Way and Its Power: A Study of the Tao Te Ching and Its Place in
Chinese Thought (Guildford, 1934), 118.
59 Li Feng-mao, "Liu-ch'ao ching chien ch'uan-shuo yu tao-chiao fa-shu
ssu-hsiang," in Chung. kuo ku-tien hsiao-shuo yen-chin chuan-chi 2 (Taipei,
1980), 1-28, esp. 24; Purcell, Boxer Uprising, 236-39, ascribes the Boxer
belief in invulnerability to Taoist religion. An eighteenth-century example
is presented in Naquin, "Transmission of White Lotus Sectarianism," 278; a
nineteenth-century example is discussed in Perry, Rebels and
Revolutionaries, 110; and the delusions of the Boxers are described in Jin
Chongji, "Relationship Between the Boxers," 87-88, and Hsu, "Late Ch'ing
Foreign Relations," 117-18.
60 See document no. 15 in Jules Davids, ed., Boxer Uprising, vol. 5 of
American Diplomatic and Public Papers: The United States and China, Series
III--The Sino-Japanese War to the Russo-Japanese War, 1894-1905, ed. Davids
(Wilmington, Del., 1981), 40.
61 This practice is described in Perry, Rebels and Revolutionaries, 186-97.
62 J. Ch'en, "Nature and Characteristics," 290. The Peking Gazette
described Boxers fighting side by side with regular Imperial troops, being
issued firearms, and apparently even using artillery. See extracts in
document no. 58, Davids, Boxer Uprising, 118-21. The weaponry of the Red
Spears ranged from spears to Mausers, according to Perry, Rebels and
Revolutionaries, 199.
63 Reid and Croucher, Fighting Arts, 62, 73-75.
64 The division into civil and military entertainments is described in
DeWoskin, "On Narrative Revolutions," Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles,
Reviews 5 (1983): 29-45, esp. 39-41. The dance can be found in Yu Shih-nan,
Pei-t'ang shu-ch'ao (Taipei, 1974), 476. For the Han acrobatics, see W.
Eberhard, "Thoughts About Chinese Folk Theatre Performances," Oriens
Extremus, no. 1 (1981): 5-7.
65 Ku-chin t'u-shu chi-ch'eng, vol. 487, chuan, 810, 6lb. The encyclopedia
is described in Ssu-yu Teng and Knight Biggerstaff, eds., An Annotated
Bibliography of Selected Chinese Reference Works, 3rd ed. (Cambridge,
1950), 95. See also Giles, Adversaria Sinica, 133; Li Fang, et al.,
T'ai-p'ing ya-lan, 3483.
66 Ku-chin t'u-shu chi'ch'eng, vol. 487, chuan 810, 61b. See also William
Dolby, A History of Chinese Drama (New York, 1976), 3; and Matsuda
Takatomo, Chung-kuo wu-shu shih-lueh, 265, table.
67 James I. Crump, "The Elements of Yuan Opera," Journal of Asian Studies
17 (May 1958): 417-34, esp. 421, 433; James J. Y. Liu, The Chinese
Knight-Errant (Chicago, 1967), 191.
68 Robert Fortune, A Residence Among the Chinese: Inland, On the Coast, and
at Sea (1857; reprint, Taipei, 1971), 258.
69 Wu Ching-tzu, The Scholars, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang
(Beijing, 1973), 139-40 and 142-45. See also Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion,
32; Purcell, Boxer Uprising, 162; and Fred C. Shapiro, "Letter From
Beijing," The New Yorker, 28 December 1987, 96.
70 Liu, Chinese Knight.Errant, xii; Robert Ruhlmann, "Traditional Heroes in
Chinese Popular Fiction," in Confucianism and Chinese Civilization, ed.
Arthur F. Wright (Stanford, 1959), 152.
71 See Milton M. Chiu, The Tao of Chinese Religion (Lanham, Md., 1984),
330-32; and Liu, Chinese Knight-Errant, I3-17.
72 C. T. Hsia, The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction (New
York, 1968), 75, For Shui-hu chuan's influence on the young Mao, see Edgar
Snow, Red Star Over China, rev. ed. (New York, 1968), 133.
73 Hsia, "The Military Romance: A Genre of Chinese Fiction," in Studies in
Chinese Literary Genres, ed. Cyril Birch (Berkeley, 1974), 345 and note 10.
74 Chao Yeh, ed., Wu-Yueh ch'un-ch'iu(Taipei, 1980), 9.6a-6b. For an
analysis of this text, see David Johnson, "The Wu Tzu-hsu Pien.wen and Its
Sources: Part I," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 40 (June 1980):
83-156, esp. 151.
75 Liu, Chinese Knight-Errant, 81; Hsia, Classic Chinese Novel, 331 notes
48 and 49; Hsia, "Military Romance," 384.
76 Liu, Chinese Knight-Errant, 135. See also J. Ch'en, "Nature and
Characteristics," 291.
77 Liu, Chinese Knight-Errant, 117, 134-35; Ruhlmann, "Traditional Heroes,"
148. For an example in an eighteenth-century detective novel, see Van
Gulik, Celebrated Cases, 104-105.
78 Matsuda Takatomo, Chung-kuo wu-shu shih-lueh, 60, 63. The secret
brotherhood of the Triads, for example, claimed to have been founded by
Shao-lin monks of Fukien in 1674, according to Eastman, Family, Fields, and
Ancestors, 222. See also Ruhlmann, "Traditional Heroes," 147. An extreme
example of fantastic powers in the martial arts can be found in Wu
Ch'eng-en's sixteenth-century novel, Hsi-yu chi, translated by Arthur Waley
as Monkey (New York, 1943), passim, but esp. 29-30.
79 Ellen Widmer, The Margins of Utopia: Shut-ha hou-chuan and the
Literature of Ming Loyalism (Cambridge, 1987), 60-61.
80 Wang Li-Ch'i, "Shui-hu yu nung-min ke-ming," Shui-hu yen-chiu lun-wen
chi (Beijing, 1957), 64ff, esp. 71.
81 This idea is developed in Ruhlmann, "Traditional Heroes," 123-25, and
presented forcefully in J. Ch'en, "Nature and Characteristics," 291-92 and
note 4, and in Purcell, Boxer Uprising, 223.
82 J. Ch'en, "Nature and Characteristics," 291-92, note 4, and 299. See
also Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion, 19.
83 Lu Yao, "Origins of the Boxers," 64. See also Perry, Rebels and
Revolutionaries, 64.

Theater of combat: A critical look at the Chinese martial arts
grande signor huang. tra l'altro da una delle fonti che frequento
spesso, però non avevo mai letto questo articolo qua. che l'abbiano
uppato da poco? ci sarebbero punti da sottolineare ed altri da
discutere ma sarebbe lunga. consiglio la lettura a tutti i boxer del
newsgroup! (visto che di alcuni argomenti trattati si era già parlato)
ciao,
s 

 discutere ma sarebbe lunga. 
comincia con il primo.
su cosa non sei d'accordo?
Jack (Hung Gar)
-- 
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
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Jack (Hung Gar)

 commentare, questo intendo. purtroppo al momento non ho tempo.
capito
io ne ho letto solo un pezzo...ma e' lungo e io con l'inglese leggo
talmente piano che sembro fare TJQ :-))))
e adesso tempo ne ho poco anch'io...
intanto me lo salvo....
ciao!


 newsgroup! (visto che di alcuni argomenti trattati si era già parlato)
sono d'accordo sulla fiducia ;-)
saru, ti avevo passato quell'articolo sul monastero Shaolin di M Shahar ?
l'ho scannerizzato e sono parecchi mega, dammi un indirizzo se vuoi
ciao
YM

YM

s
se rimbalza dovrei averne uno molto più capiente ma che non uso mai e
lo devo settare

 tu potresti dividerlo in più tornate? prova qui:
stasera da casa
ciao
YM

 l'ho scannerizzato e sono parecchi mega, dammi un indirizzo se vuoi
ti dirņ ... mi interesserebbe anche a me, ma se mandi roba di parecchi mega
mi sa che mi tonfano i server ....
gią lo scritto che hai postato .. l'ho visto lungo ho detto lo stampo lo
leggerņ ... cazzo 20 pagine !!!!!
sono due giorni che me lo porto dietro leggendolo a spizzichi, oggi stavo
per consegnarlo in Comune ...
boh, se ti va prova ... o a quello che compare qui o al mio nick su 
tin.it
...
'bona
Af


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 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:bgtm0d$rffjv$1...@ID-153188.news.uni-berlin.de...
grazie per il tentativo ....:-(
per curiosità, "quanta" roba è ?
'bona
Af
P.S. zz va bene su 
tin.it
, ma su libero ho solo zqt, non zz

per curiosità, "quanta" roba è ?
tre mega e qualcosina mi pare.
ciao,
s 


 P.S. zz va bene su 
tin.it
, ma su libero ho solo zqt, non zz
so
YM

 wrote in message
l'ho fatto a pezzi
prendi la posta di libero ora e dammi conferma per il resto
YM