Nice little sports feature but—it leaves one with an utterly inaccurate impression of why Chinese wushu is not going to have any part in the Beijing Olympics. By coincidence I was talking last week with a martial arts researcher who just got back from a China trip and in the course of our talk we turned our attention to the issue of “why not”.
And we agreed, the main reason wushu is not going to be in the Olympics is because of the petty, selfish, mean spirited bickering and backstabbing that is such a core part (a core “value”) of Chinese culture. It is nice to know that Chinese are the same on both sides of the straits. And then (and this really mirrors Taiwan too) they turn around and kind of get weepy eyed yammering about “hard work and broken dreams” and either directly or indirectly blame the evil white western outside world for their misfortunes.
What a laugh. Oh well, not my business anyway, but I thought I should correct the Chicom nonsense.
Yours in martial arts character building,
Dark Side of the Moon Saber Master Brian
Yeah, and to think I actually attended some cross-cultural training courses in Australia before moving my business to Taiwan. I was told the Chinese is a polychronic culture; a culture where cooperation and the well-being of the group is of importance. Ha! Polychronic me arse!
Brian -
Hasn’t ‘everyone’ agreed by now that “WuShu” as it currently is featured is not much more than choreography?
Did the PRC Sports Authority standardize it all and head down this trail with it?
I thought this came to be the general consensus back in the '80’s?
Its pretty and all, but so are most professional dance ensembles.
I thought Wu Shu was just a communist construct from the cold war era, where real martial arts instructors were jailed or
killed in the cultural revolution? The State replaced it with a non-lethal dance routine in silk pajamas.
The Shao Lin temple was empty for years until someone figured out foreigners would pay to have their photo taken standing next to it and even more if there were some monks there too.
Tai-Chi schools were closed until someone figured out foreigners would pay to study it.
