Festival bringing wushu to the world
Print Edition
WHEN top Dominican martial artist Shannah Robin arrived to train at the Shaolin Temple, the cradle of Chinese kungfu, it was on an expenses-paid trip courtesy of the Chinese government.
His course was part of a lavish government effort to promote the range of fighting disciplines known as wushu, the Chinese word for martial arts — or kungfu in the West — and boost the country’s cultural influence.
“The whole aim is to take Shaolin martial arts, or China’s wushu, out around the world,” Robin said on the sidelines of an international wushu festival held in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou.
“Of course it has been my dream since I was about 8 years old to go to the Shaolin Temple.”
The festival opened with a huge display at the 1,500-year-old Buddhist institution atop Song mountain, where monks once created elaborate fighting systems and worked as mercenaries.
Hundreds of students in red t-shirts lined up to perform elaborate routines in unison, while fighters in gold body paint sparred before spectators.
Over four days of competition, entrants from five continents aged from 6 to 60 performed intricate acrobatic routines — sometimes involving weapons such as staffs and swords.
“What’s great about wushu is there are so many ways to do one thing,” said Deems Yee, a competitor from Panama.
Shaanxi Province sports official Dong Li was cited as saying a new Wushu Cultural Industry Investment Fund has been set up to run tournaments and promote wushu at home and abroad.
Dong saw it “as a channel for China to increase its soft power.”
At the festival, many foreign enthusiasts said they encountered the sport through martial arts films featuring wushu experts such as Jet Li.
“First I looked at movies. Of course it was Bruce Lee movies,” said Masoud Jafari, one of some 70 Iranian competitors, who scooped several gold medals between them at the festival.
He trained at Shaolin in the early 1990s and has watched his country emerge as a powerhouse of the sport.
“Now we are second in the world after China,” said Jafari, whose life story is currently being made into the first Iranian-Chinese co-produced film.
But some Chinese practitioners complained that modern wushu, which — unlike traditional kungfu — was designed for sporting competition, has lost its value as a method of self-defense.
“A lot of elements of traditional martial arts are missing from these displays,” said wushu practitioner, Lei Zhongshan.
“The real aim of wushu is fighting,” said the 60-year-old, who specializes in a style known as “Chan Family Fist.”
One discipline invented in the 1980s, known as sanda, retains some elements of combat but the rest are more akin to acrobatic shows.
“Some actions, which are not so fashionable or attractive, have been removed,” said Gong Maofu, a wushu expert at Chengdu Sports University.
“But ... there are still some people who want to keep up the old traditions which they were taught by their masters,” Gong said.
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