"Soon after the master returned, two wrestlers jumped him in a public teahouse, attacking simultaneously, one with two fists against the master's head, the other with a sweeping kick. Calmly the master defeated the head attack, raised his foot to avoid the sweep and the two wrestlers were driven 10 feet backward, knocking them to the floor. The master quietly asked, `Why this mischief?'"
This sounds like a typical scene from a kungfu movie, or perhaps a typical event from a martial arts novel. It is in fact a real incident from the life of Sun Lu-tang (
PHOTO COURTESY OF SUN LU-TANG'S ESTATE
The exhibition will feature martial arts training manuals from the late Ching dynasty to the late 1950s. The exhibit's sponsor is a Taipei publishing house that specializes in martial arts training manuals. They have a program of reissuing old training manuals that have gone out of print, as well as importing Chinese martial arts training literature from abroad.
Martial arts as a theme in Chinese literature has a very old history, the Outlaws of the Marsh (
Martial arts training manuals fall into three major historical divisions. The earliest training manuals were hand-copied either from other hand copies or from notes made of a martial arts teacher's lectures. These early training manuals tended to be quite basic but were sometimes illustrated with line drawings. These early training texts were largely useless unless one had already trained in that school, as the text tended to be made up of shorthand notes, mnemonic rhymes and esoteric philosophy.
These hand-copied texts were intended exclusively for students of a particular school. These are the real life "secret kungfu manuals" that figure so often in martial arts fiction and movies.
The arrival of photography in China marked the start of the second period of martial arts training texts. These texts were commercially published, featured more in-depth text and, of course, photos. They were meant for public consumption and thus were written in a more understandable form. Starting with Sun's books in 1915 and running through the 1920s and 1930s, these were the "golden years" of martial arts training books. The modern period of training manuals begins about 1950 after the end of WWII and the Chinese Civil war.
Normally one does not associate literary works with martial arts skill. There was a stereotype among Confucian scholars, as well as the general public, that one was either quick with one's fist or quick with one's mind, but never both. This stereotype was true in reality about 95 percent of the time. The vast majority of Chinese martial artists up until modern times were illiterate. Their chief occupation, especially in the late Ching and Republican period, was serving as bodyguards or private security. But there were exceptions; men who were skilled martial artists and had the ability to write about martial arts, both its theory and its practice. Several of these early works were quite eloquent and featured in-depth discussions of the connection between martial arts, Confucian ethics and Taoist metaphysics.
Sun is perhaps the best known example of this mix of martial and literary skill. In his lifetime he commercially published five works on different forms of martial arts that he was skilled in. As a martial artist his skill was often put to the test in both formal challenges and less formal street confrontations.
Another well known martial artist author was Li Chun-yi (
A slightly more peaceful martial artist author was Chiang Rung-jiao (
Works from all three of these martial arts authors will be on display at Lion Book's exhibition of Chinese martial arts training texts. The show is on today from 10am to 5pm at B1, 51 Chungching S. Rd, Sec. 2. For further information, call 2331-1840 or 2370-6154.
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