Doing Taijiquan on a bike 1972, China Cultural Revolution

[mixjourneyman]

Graham: it would have been quite late in the cultural revolution to be honest, since my teacher was born pretty much right in the middle of it.
The point is that Chinese martial arts were alive and well in China during the 1970's.
We can say that in the cultural revolution when the four old things were repressed that it is likely that a lot of martial artists were stigmatized and some were even imprisoned (such as Wu Kungcho for instance), but ten years is not long enough to destroy traditional culture and by the mid 1970s Gong fu was alive and well in China. It should also be noted that Mao Zidong was a huge fan of Taijiquan. He thought it should be the national exercise so taiji was very important even during the cultural revolution.

[GrahamB]

Like Wu Bin said - from 1966 people just trained underground anyway, so it's clear it carried on, but in secret.

Hmmm... born right in the middle of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), so he would have been born in say 1971? Same as me!

Damn, he must have been smacking those SC masters down in the parks at age 5 to remember it! I've no idea what I was doing then, probably playing with Lego and waiting for somebody to make Star Wars

[mixjourneyman]

Like Wu Bin said - from 1966 people just trained underground anyway, so it's clear it carried on, but in secret.

Hmmm... born right in the middle of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), so he would have been born in say 1971? Same as me!

Damn, he must have been smacking those SC masters down in the parks at age 5 to remember it! I've no idea what I was doing then, probably playing with Lego and waiting for somebody to make Star Wars

since I am not my teacher I won't disclose his exact birthdate, but it is a few years before 71 fyi.

[xingyijuan]

Ok, then he must have learned what he learned by summoning the spirits of Yueh Fei, Zhang SanFeng and Dong HaiChuan. Or, no, maybe he secretly traveled to Taiwan to train the th3 r3a4l. Damn, now I'm confused! lol

[mixjourneyman]

he learned from Hong Yixiang

Mr.Yang asked me to post this:

just waked up, I had a nap. I always feel better when I have nap on Monday, this is what I usually do.
I saw the documentary yesterday, it is a very valuable one, I really enjoyed watching it, I even want to register an account on that forum in order to express appreciation to Bob(his RSF name).

The argument about TCMA situation during the period of Cultural Revolution has been always argumentable in the west, but it is not the same situation in China, since many people have experienced it during that period of time. Another problem is that people trend to judge something not from their personal experience, this is why we can see so many parrots in local pets stores, and usually they are very expensive even though they only can imitate some sounds... But no matter how beautiful or impressive these sound are, they are still just some "sound", or sometimes, they are just some noise.

I was born in 1968. and I only can remember that the martial art practice was extremely popular when I was a kid. The time could trace back to the later period of the Cultural Revolution. And in Tianjin, people just practiced martial art anyway, no matter the government liked it or not, it was just like that back to that period of time. Many other masters who are alive now, include myself witnessed it personally. I think it can be considered as the first hand material.

Mr.Fish has been to China to meet many famous masters when he had chances before, he knows this story too. Sorry I should not mention him here since some people do not like his practice, he is a old man now.:)

For sure we all know that traditional martial art practice had been suffered a lot during that special time but in some cities, like Tianjin, practicing martial art had been very popular no matter what was happening, if I remember it well. it only becomes less popular in recent years, since people are busy in making money in order to buy car and house, studying English in order to make more money and spending time on Internet.

I like that video clip because it is very rare now, it makes me recall the time when I was a kid...

Thanks

YH

[kenneth fish]

You forgot fat. Fat old man.

The secret to eternal youth is frequent sex with young virgins. Unfortunately they are in very short supply in Maryland, which is why I am aging rapidly.

Anyway, as long as my name has been invoked (shuo dao cao cao cao cao jiu dao) - the first time I was in Mainland ("Red") China was in 1980. I visited Tianjin on that trip - it was still rebuilding after the Tangshan earthquake of a few years before. There was a lot of martial arts activity - and a lot of it was very good. Dan Miller visited about a dozen years later, and the situation was still good - the internet and other distractions had not yet taken their toll (btw, a good read on the subject of how TV and the like corrode culture is "Amusing Ourselves to Death", currently available in Borders).

I met some very high level teachers there - also in Nanjing - and they were very straight forward and open (this was a relatively open political time as well, so they did not feel they had to be terribly cautious talking to a foreigner - and anyway, foreigners were a novelty then). All of them had stories about how bad the Cultural Revolution was and how, for a time, they had to be discrete in their practice. Most had suffered to one degree or another.

Ji Jinshan, a famous teacher in Shanghai, had been thrown in jail and starved as representing the "four olds". The guards didn't dare touch him though, as he was known to have killed people with his kung fu. Others were not so lucky - I heard of teachers whose hands and legs were crippled by their jailers (a particularly nasty technique was to place the victims hands between two planks and pound on the planks with a sledge hammer). I know of one who had an eardrum punctured with a chopstick during a "criticism session". And so on. Still, as Mix points out, a lot went on despite the Cultural Revolution. (I was very surpirsed that there was not a lot of bloodshed during the early 1980's, of people taking revenge on their tormentors or on the neighborhood Communist party spies).

It should also be pointed out that up until the very late Culrev, most of what was publicly demonstrated and trained (even in the public variety shows and entertainment for the troops) was traditional martial arts.

[mixjourneyman]

thank you Dr.Fish for the insight.
The cultural revolution was a bad time, Mao Zidong, Jiang Qing etc were very misguided (or maybe evil) people, but they couldn't destroy all traditional culture in ten years. People still find ways to gain agency even when they are oppressed.

[Bob]

You forgot fat. Fat old man.

The secret to eternal youth is frequent sex with young virgins. Unfortunately they are in very short supply in Maryland, which is why I am aging rapidly.

The trouble Ken is they are not reusable--once you use them you gotta spend a lot energy tracking down new ones---its just better to stick with one and pay your rite of passage to wisdom. LOL

I was as guilty as anyone believing that all traditional martial arts had migrated to Taiwan and nothing was left on the mainland--in some ways there was good reason to believe this as China desired to cut itself from its feudal past. However, as I learned in 1998, and from subsequent trips, the traditional arts are far from being dead. China is not one monolithic centralized Gov't--decentralized, regional Gov'ts have a great deal of influence and power.

[GrahamB]

Thank you YH and Mr Fish for your first hand accounts - always a pleasure to read good info here.

[Adam S]

Yes thanks very much for the first hand accounts

When I spoke to Li Jun Feng about it-he was the other head coach of the Beijing Wu Shu team not mentioned in the Wu Bin article....

He said well they could train but they were very very bad times....didn't ask for more of a clarification

[bailewen]

Graham: it would have been quite late in the cultural revolution to be honest, since my teacher was born pretty much right in the middle of it.

My own teacher was born in 1942 so he remembers the time just fine. He has never talked about it directly. What he has talked about was how growing up the south gate of down town Xi'an was a huge gathering place for martial artists from all over the city. He would go there every day and practice and push hands with different people. He has also talked about training in the factory that he worked in during that time. He says that during his lunch break he and friends used to train kung fu in the yard. Lots of nice heavy objects to play with.

Another odd little twist is that much of the wonderful Chen style Taiji in Xi'an is an indirect result of various times of social upheaval in China. Many people were relocated from Henan to Xi'an. Many others fled here as it was not such a hot spot compared to many other cities.

[Andy_S]

Different places were effected differently. In Chen Village, for eg, it was pretty bad: Chen Zhaopei despaired of teaching Taiji again, and Zhu Tiencai told of how he would practice his form using very small movements in the village toilets. (Anyone familiar with rural Asian bogs can imagine the decidation this took.)

But MA is a pretty private thing: There is no reason why one cannot practice behind a wall (again, in Chen Village, virtually every house is walled off) or behind closed doors. The idea that government fiat can wipe out something as personal as MA is ridiculous.

In fact, Beiing appears to have taken the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" route and promoted the hell out of modern wushu. Many would say that development has done far more damage to TCMA than the alleged ban during the Cultural Revolution.

[SPJ]

During cultural revolution

at the same time, there was cultural renaissance in Taiwan.

We were offered free tickets to watch peking opera and free visit to national palace museum--

CMA was promoted in high school and college in Taiwan.

President CKS gave address to uphold/preserve Chinese culture in all levels of society in Taiwan (free China).

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[SPJ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaQGsOj5 ... re=related

an abstracted documentary about civil war.

for people that are interested.

[SPJ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaVwJCkKne8

how do Chinese see themself nowadays--

from poverty of the first 30 years of communist rule to last 30 years (1978-2008) progressing to prosperity

this is a folk music show to remember the last 30 years.

1. old folk song is still popular. agricultural culture is still the same and survived.

2. the same song. people started to remember what was like before. in the 1990s, people started to like things from the old time including pre- revolution--

3. to develop the great wild west.

from Deng's decision to reform in 1978, to China joining WTO in 1999, to hosting Olympic games with the bird nest in 2008--

the next thing is to develop the poor west including building railroads all way to lhasa, tibet.

CMA and other Chinese culture survived and are thriving (coming back) again.

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