Wushu Needs Name Rectification

[PangQuan]

I personally enjoyed this arcticle and agree with it. It is time that Modern Wushu withdraw itself from its current name of Wushu, I am tired of having to use the term kung fu instead of wushu. And when I do use the term Wushu, I always have to go into an in depth traditional translation of the difference between wushu and kung fu. Modern Wushu in a sense gives the term Wushu a different image then what the word actually means. What do you guys think?

[lxtruong]

I think it is too similar to mushu pork and then I get hungry everytime someone starts talking to me about wushu.

[Fu-Pow]

I personally enjoyed this arcticle and agree with it. It is time that Modern Wushu withdraw itself from its current name of Wushu, I am tired of having to use the term kung fu instead of wushu. And when I do use the term Wushu, I always have to go into an in depth traditional translation of the difference between wushu and kung fu. Modern Wushu in a sense gives the term Wushu a different image then what the word actually means. What do you guys think?

I kind of missed the point of the article. Was he saying that Sport Wushu should not use the term Wushu? I thought he was saying that we should call all Kung Fu, Wushu. That would just be confusing because you wouldn't know if it was sport Wu Shu or traditional Wu Shu.

I think we should just stay the same. Traditional Wushu=Kung Fu. Sport Wushu=Wushu. The names are already too entrenched to change.

[red5angel]

it needs some sort of rectumication.....

[Starchaser107]

I kind of agree that the names are too entrenched to change as well.
But if it were to change i think using the words "Traditional" and "Sport" respectively for kung fu and wushu would help.

with karate they don't seem to have a problem. It's either some form of traditional karate or some sport karate.

I will say though, that as entrenched as the words kung fu and wushu are within the chinese martial arts community, there are lots of people in the english speaking world, who don't even know the difference between the asian martial arts on a whole, so maybe it's not as engrained as we think?
I've had numerous encounters with people who aren't farmiliar with the term wushu at all, and had to explain to them what the diference between it and kung fu is.
however alot of these people have a very limited understanding of what kung fu is in the first place. Names are important. I find that people confuse the names of schools for the name of the system taught in the school. kung fu is a complex animal and tricky names already complicate matters.
I'm kind of uncertain about wether or not changing the name at this stage in the game will only confuse matters more.

glad it's not my responsibility

[GeneChing]

Here's a link to the article being discussed, just in case you couldn't figure it out.

The name game in CMA is really nutty, especially when you start bringing in the alternate spellings of Kung Fu, Gung Fu, Gong Fu, etc. The problem with what Master An is discussing is that Kung Fu (or Wushu) truly belongs to the world now. It's not just a Chinese thing. In China, you can have something like 'name rectification'. Hell, they rectified the entire language with the simplified characters. But in America, as well as the rest of the world, it's a more democratic process. The people will call it Kung Fu, because that's how it's known in pop culture. With Crouching Tiger, Flying Daggers, etc., you're starting to hear about Wushu in pop culture, but no one's going to change the name at this point.

We'll have more from Master An coming next update. Stay tuned! And forward the article to your friends. Tell them to join the forum here. Help us grow!

[PangQuan]

I guess I understand the whole, calling it kung fu due to the popular way it has been spread throughout film. I just seem to like the more traditional meanings of kung fu meaning energy/time, or skill, and wushu meaning the art of resisting the spear, stopping ones spear, stopping ones own spear, or martial arts. I apply the term kung fu to more then just my martial arts. But at the same time find myslef falling in with the flow of the modern terminology. Its just hard to represent your school when you tell them you study wushu and they say "those guys dont fight do they?" and you say, "ok heres how it is...." I suppose that Ill have to go with the flow, at least in outside circles.

[GeneChing]

It's tricky because no matter what you do - whether you chose wushu or kung fu - you get caught in semantics if you know a little Chinese. It's part of the the old 'east is east, west is west" culture clash - very tough to translate without a long boring lecture. And in the end, pop culture doesn't care. Pop culture is just getting past calling it all 'karate'. The main point is that you can't change the common vernacular to be more 'correct'. What are you going to do? Cite people for using the wrong term? It has to happen organically and at this point, we're only big enough to be labelled by one term. For average Americans, wushu needs to be defined.

[PangQuan]

When you put it like that, it makes a lot of sense. Hopefully we can all do our part to educate those who we come in contact with regarding this subject matter.

[Kristoffer]

I dunno about the rest of Europe but around here the term Wushu is used as frequantly as 'Kung Fu', among Martial artists atleast. Of cors, the average non MA won't know the difference between CMA, TKD or Karate, so the Wushu/Kung Fu issue is not important.

[GeneChing]

I speak from an American perspective so the European take is intriguiing. I've always felt that Europe was a bit more accepting of wushu than America. I don't know why, nor do I know why I feel that. Obviously if it's made more progress in the language, that's some validation of my feeling. What do you think? Would you say that's different for diffrent European countries? It must be, yes?

[Shaolinlueb]

in america we were forced to grow up in a puritanical society and forced to have sex with one person for out whole lives. while in europe its the sex capital of the world...

**** eurotrip still has me laughing.

[PangQuan]

I speak from an American perspective so the European take is intriguiing. I've always felt that Europe was a bit more accepting of wushu than America. I don't know why, nor do I know why I feel that. Obviously if it's made more progress in the language, that's some validation of my feeling. What do you think? Would you say that's different for diffrent European countries? It must be, yes?

Do you think there could be a connection between this and the geographical locations? Europe as a whole has throughout time been more "mixed up" in terms of dealings with other countries. As well as the relation between Britan and Hong Kong. Just a thought.

[NeuroGrrrl]

So Gene, if name rectification is in order, will we all be posting to the Wu Shu Magazine forum soon?

[GeneChing]

NRG: That's doubtful. If you look in our archives, you'll find that we used to be called Wushu Kungfu Qigong (along with a bunch of variations on this title ). We dropped the wushu and changed qigong to tai chi to meet the needs of our newsstand. Americans just couldn't handle a title with three Chinese words.

PQ: I've never actually been to Europe, so it's hard for me to say. I imagine having more different countries so close to each other promotes more diversity. Also America tends to be kind of schizo when it comes to anything older than 200 years. We really don't have old stuff, so the notion of new stuff can be confounding.

SLL: I would never have said the America is puratanical. But then again, I've not seen Eurotrip.