Chinese Weapons and the Western Gaze
A Collection of Chinese Arms, Published in 1905, posted by Peter Dekker. Spring Cleaning I sat down this morning to work on a project looking at sword aficionados in China, their customers in the West,...
View ArticleA Life in Stone: Images of Weapons During the Han Dynasty
Silent Riddles Our discussion of the origins of modern martial arts is always haunted by twin specters. The first is the claim of great, almost unimageable, antiquity. The second is arguments from...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (8): Butterfly Swords, Dadaos and the Local Militias of...
Introduction: The Butterfly Swords and Southern Martial Arts Defend the Nation I recently ran across two photographs that I think students of the southern Chinese martial arts may find very...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (11): Japanese Martial Artists in China.
Introduction: Addressing a Difficult Subject No topic is more difficult to approach than the varied roles that traditional Asian fighting systems have played in defining and strengthening nationalism...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (9): Swords, Knives and other Traditional Weapons...
Introduction: Practical Martial Arts in the Age of the Gun As I have mentioned elsewhere, when thinking about the traditional Chinese martial arts we have a tendency to assume that these systems were...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (7): Selling Swords and Printed Martial Arts Training...
***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...
View ArticleA Social and Visual History of the Dadao: The Chinese “Military Big-Saber”
***Is there any topic more beloved by modern students of Chinese martial arts history than the dadao? I can't think of one. Enjoy!*** Rediscovering the Dadao: A Forgotten Legacy of the Chinese...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (6): China Rediscovers the Shaolin Temple, Igniting a...
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...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (3): Chinese Martial Artists in a Local Marketplace
***Many traditional Chinese martial artists today actively distance their practice from its more "theatrical" aspects which may have been displayed in theaters propers or marketplace demonstrations....
View ArticleAttack of the Wooden Dummies!
***This was one of the more popular posts I wrote during the first year of KFT (2012). I still love talking about, and training with, wooden dummies. What better training companion can you have in the...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (1): Images of China’s Martial Culture
***Greetings! As I noted in my last post I am taking a (hopefully) short hiatus from multiple-essays-a-week blogging as I adjust to the demanding schedule of a new job. But rather than let things get...
View ArticleEarliest Published Photograph and References to Wing Chun
The Problem with Being “First” I am distrustful of attempts to locate the “first” instance of anything popular or famous. Generally speaking, these quests misunderstand the way that the social world...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (66): The Dramatic Aspect of Chinese Martial Arts
Introduction We must thank Joseph Svinth for this post. He came across the following photo essay during his research and was kind enough to share it with me. It was clear that this needed to be...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (65): Filipino Knives, Imperialism and the Asian...
Vintage Postcard. Source: Author's Collection It sometimes seems as though I am only Wing Chun aficionado who doesn’t have a sideline in the Filipino martial arts. On a cultural level we can thank...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (47): The Sword Shops of Beijing’s Bow and Arrow Street
***I am currently preparing for a demonstration and tournament which I will be hosting on Friday. As such, we are turning to the archives for today's post. This essay offers readers a unique look at...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (62): Chan Bing’s Choy Li Fut Students, 1967
Unfolding a Story When the opportunity presents itself I try to collect vintage photographs, postcards, illustrations and other ephemera touching on the martial arts. As someone who writes and...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (61): The Shifting Social and Economic Value of...
One of the most notable trends over the last decade has been the rapid appreciation of prices for antique Chinese weapons. There is more variability in markets for antique objects than one might...
View ArticleResearch Notes: A Japanese Martial Arts Demonstration
It will come as no surprise to regular readers that I am a fan of late 19th and early 20th century martial arts ephemera. Postcards, being visual, cheap and easily mailed around the globe, were one...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (14): Archery Practice in Late Imperial China
***Kung Fu Tea is having a birthday! The blog has now been up and running for seven years. Its hard to believe how much it, and the Martial Arts Studies community, has grown in that time. As such...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (60): The Weapons Rack
A Recent Find Chinese martial arts themed (or simply adjacent) postcards from the pre-WWII era are not very common. These things certainly existed and circulated, but they are now difficult for most...
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