neijia_boxer wrote:do you have the Chinese characters and pin-yin for? "Real becomes fake, fake becomes real"
that is so true!
taiwandeutscher wrote:Thanks, Bob, for pointing out Unschuld's stance more clearly, which turned more negative over the yrs, that's true.
Still, he guided me as a 2nd prof through my PhD in Yijing studies, also a little bit in connection to Chinese medicine, and we worked for several yrs. under his guidance on his huge Neijing project. I have found him as on of the most knowledgeable persons in the field, and in defense of his personal inclinations, I witnessed how often he had to cope with esoteric ethno medics, who didn't have a clue.
I myself would agree with his view that CTM was a kind of a proto science and not a science in the modern sense of that word.
That doesn't stop me from Tangible Feelings of Qi during my MA practice, but I found that sitting in oblivion (in a period of injury) did make me feel even more!
kenneth fish wrote:In the 20th century the term came to refer to life on the margins, the side of life verging on and well into the criminal. Even today you will hear people over 40 referring to someone of less than stellar ethics as "jianghu", or they will say that in the past he "travelled in dubiuos company" "走江湖" (zou jianghu)。 In Shanghai and Tianjin in particular, to ”zou jiang hu“ generally implied that one had shady dealings, or was a part of the criminal underworld。
yeniseri wrote:This link is one of the better sites I have come across regarding the teaching. "modernization" and subsequent "invention" of some of what is practiced today!
Do not take this as absolute as there are some great practitioners out there who seek to bridge the gap of ancient and what is called modern knowledge.
Enjoy!
http://www.classicalchinesemedicine.org ... risis-tcm/
Around the same time, the outlawed “communist bandit” Mao Zedong promulgated thoughts that were very similar to those of his nationalist adversaries. In 1942, he instructed his guerilla government to uproot all shamanic beliefs and superstitions in the Yan’an area and establish model public health villages.6 Around the same time, he wrote that “old doctors, circus entertainers, snake oil salesmen, and street hawkers are all of the same sort.”7 This brief line would have a truly devastating impact twenty-five years later when Mao’s works became the one and only source for the country’s definition of political truth.
As if to set a good example for the new course that he had outlined, Mao publicly ingested the traditional remedy Yin Qiao San (Lonicera and Forsythia Powder) when he fell ill during the historic announcement of the Great Leap Forward at the Chengdu Conference in 1957. He restrained his onetime prejudice against “snake oil salesmen” and allowed Li Shizhi and Peng Lüxiang, both first generation elders of Chengdu College of TCM, to be present at his bedside for an entire night.
D_Glenn wrote:Nowadays you have many Internal Martial Artists who, originally set out to become great Internal martial artists, but the skills never came due to either lack of good teacher or not understanding how to interpret the classics, etc., any number of possibilities but without the actual skills, despite them putting in the hours and years of work, they have some skills but they go to the parks and use 'Jianghu' tactics when doing push hands, like, placing their self in a position where there's nothing behind them but open grass, but there's a park bench about 10 feet behind the other person, who then has to worry about that bench and possibly falling over it if they get pushed out, and/or dubious foot placement in push hands, claiming the other person doesn't know the rules.
yeniseri wrote: I do not know the exact cutoff point but Internal Martial Arts is a recent syndrome keeping in mind that prior to 1900, martial arts were part of the jianghu, the bottom of the social order when compared to the scholars, government officials, etc so in that sense, they wer considered lower than dirt, street sellers, etc hence the definition of their craft.
yeniseri wrote:We have a strong difference of opinion on the matter but that is OK. I am probably way off so I concede to you on the matter that my associations tended to be "scholars" and a few military individuals, who based on the pre 1911 (end of Qing) where CMA were considered 'low class' based on the social structure. The new literacy was what changed the outlook that CMA was a national treasure and as such, habits, insights and public education for most, changed the CMA perception to what we have today. "Low class" does not mean ignored since good CMA people provided part and parcel of the escort profession.
In South China, CMA people were "entertainers' amongst them and were often the ones who transmitted authentic Chinese operatic skill, with all its idiosyncratic propaganda that served the burgeoining film industry and its Water Margin novels plots.
Wuyizidi wrote:Martial artists are strictly creatures of jiang hu. In terms of making a living, martial artist work falls into 4 levels: the lowest is called xing, literally smell of blood - either yours or others. This is where someone paid you to risk your own life for his. You have a travel a lot (constantly venturing into the unknown), fight a lot, and not expect to live too long if violence became part of everyday life. The next level is not much higher: you're in one place, protecting someone's home. You don't have the danger of travel and fighting in unknown turf, but now you're risking your life for someone's property. The third level is much better, where you teach, but you don't have your own place. Then finally the highest level is where you teach, and have your own place. This is where you need highest level of skill, because now all challengers know where to find you. Even then you're still living in the world of jian hu: the unwritten rule being if the challenger won, your place is his now, and you have to leave the area. This is true regardless how high level you are: just look at the teachers of kings and princes Yang Luchan and Dong Haichuan displaced on their ways up.
Since Wuxia novels talk about martial artists, they inevitably talk about their adventures in this world. Remember even the 'normal' society of feudal era are highly unjust ("You're either the hammer or the nail" - Thomas Jefferson). Martial artists who use their skills to right wrongs when law fails the weak are heroes. Of all the denizens of jiang hu, they at least have one source of power in the form physical violence. Others in that world (ex. street performers) could only be passive victims when oppressed, so don't get such glamor treatments, their lives are not as (potentially) exciting/glamorous. Also because in the traditional society, jiang hu in the end is a very sad, violent, unjust place, because this is not a place ruled by the civilized norm of society.
Majority of people in feudal society do not live in jiang hu, so we can say it's sort of a fringe. People speak of 'lun luo jian hu', of fallen into jian ju (the way we say someone fell into a drug habit and start hanging with low life crowd). The best modern day example is Breaking Bad, where the main character went from being an average law-abiding teacher to meth maker and drug kingpin - he existed the normal society and descended into the world of jiang hu.
So Jiang Hu can also refer to a state of mind:
For example when idealistic scholars get into government, only to find out politics in a feudal society is so unjust, cruel, and capricious, they would sigh and say "Those people who are 'below' me, the farmers and the average citizens, they perform the same labor every day, they don't make much money, get much fame, but their lives are stable, they are bound by clear cut laws, they can know contentment. My position may be high, but any bad thing can happen at any body at any time, 'to be companion of the king is to be companion to a wild tiger', I live in the world of jiang hu."
Occasionally it could have positive meaning, for example if the official above sees through everything and decided to retreat into a life of rural leisure. He is said to 'retreat into jiang hu'. But here jiang hu means remote nature, far away from avarices and evils of man.
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