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David Jamieson
08-18-2003, 09:40 AM
Hey guys? Why the name change on the magazine again?

just curious.

cheers

GeneChing
08-19-2003, 09:40 AM
Because no one could pronounce qigong. Not even our distributors, which became quite a problem.

David Jamieson
08-19-2003, 01:08 PM
Hilarious.

I would blame George Lucas and his Jedi trainer of Obi Wan. Methinks he couldn't pronounce it either :-)

cheers

p.s (do you think they'll have troubles with Tai Chi / Taiji ?

GeneChing
08-20-2003, 09:23 AM
Actually, it's a good case for martial myopia. Very few people, even martial artists, could tackle the Q in qigong successfully. I think that's part of the appeal of our "got qi?" shirts (http://store.yahoo.com/martialartsmart/tshirgotqi99.html), it's obscure and puts those of us who know apart from the rest. But that doesn't help the newsstand. Originally our title was Wushu Kungfu (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=171) but this had two problems: one was the stigma of wushu for those who knew what it was, the other was the fact that most people didn't know what it was on the newsstand and still don't. There was another problem that it made a lot of people beleive we were part of the USAWKF, but actually we preceded the formation of the USAWKF. In fact, we even covered that story (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=45) two years after our founding. Waht's more, since Kungfu was written more prominently and Wushu was written sideways, no one knew if we were Wushu Kungfu or Kungfu Wushu. Still no one knows...

Qigong was another magazine, actually it was called Wushu Qigong. We absorbed Wushu Qigong into Wushu Kungfu Fall 1994 (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=273). This presented another problem, the Q. Additionally, Qigong was written small too, so now were we Kungfu Wushu Qigong, Wushu Kungfu Qigong, Qigong Wushu Kungfu or what? We still don't know. Also, astute readers pointed out that the Kung in Kungfu was the same character as the gong in Qigong, so it would have been more properly spelled Kungfu Chikung or Gongfu Qigong. In short, it was a mess, and our newsstand readers couldn't make heads or tails out of the wushu or the qigong.

We dropped the Wushu in March 2000 (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=111). That was the year that we went monthly, and it was a struggle on the newsstands so we had to streamline. It was mostly my push to drop Wushu. But even now, people still use it. At a recent tournament, I was introduced right after Dave Cater (who by strange happenstance I was chatting with at that very moment) as the editor of Wushu Qigong, by a master who comes over here all the time and should know better.

Nevertheless, our title was more digestable - Kungfu Qigong. However, the aforementioned Qigong problem was really rearing it's head. Nine out of ten callers at www.MartialArtsMart.com would mispronounce the title when ordering subscriptions. Our distributors used to always spell it Qingong or Quigong. Never figured out why.

Anyway, that's been driving me nuts for a few years now, so I've been pushing to drop Qigong. Finally the others consented and we've taken up Tai Chi since most people can pronounce that. Tai Chi has made it into the American vernacular, as much as Kung Fu. We also split Kungfu into Kung Fu. It started with our Sep Oct 2003 issue (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=377) on stands now, and it should stay that way, at least for my watch.

Thanks for noticing. I'm sure everyone else will still call us "Wushu Kweejong" but we appreciate those who really know.;)

norther practitioner
08-20-2003, 09:46 AM
kwijung is the most interesting attempt that I've heard. The funny thing is that many people will get confused over the change, but many more will be happy that they know what the heck the word is... tae chae

GeneChing
08-20-2003, 11:23 AM
So far, Tai Chi seems acceptable to our readership. Everyone gets that. Really, it's the most popular Chinese martial arts word after Kung Fu, which is why we chose it. No one has questioned it, which is good because for our magazine to stay viable, we have to speak to the newsstands, and they seem to be able to handle tai chi at this point.

Who knows? Maybe we'll sell to more hippies. I'm down with that. :p

beiquan
08-23-2003, 11:51 PM
In order to continue to maintain your position at the forefront of TCMA-related magazines, I think that you guys should implement the use of Hanyu Pinyin across the board... I mean come on, it's Library of Congress standard, and the Taiwanese are even starting to use it. I look forward to a day when I will never again see the words "Tai Chi" in print...

BTW, I like the inclusion of Chinese characters in your articles, I haven't read the mag in a few months and I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up this month's issue...

Gold Horse Dragon
08-24-2003, 07:15 AM
I still prfer good ol Cantonese :cool:

GHD

GeneChing
08-25-2003, 09:37 AM
We will probably never use pinyin in our title. Americans know Kung Fu, not gongfu. It's hard enough not being called karate. Carradine didn't star in the gongfu TV series. While pinyin might be the UN way, it's not the popular way. Taiji suffers from much the same problem. it's that horrid 'q' in taijiquan, same problem as qigong. I've heard that pinyin was designed by russians for the cyrillic alphabet, which is why it doesn't work so well with ours.

But thanks for noticing the Chinese characters. We've been working very hard at that - it's not easy at all. And we will probably never use simplified characters, just so you know...

As for Cantonese, Tai chi chuan (aka taijiquan) should be Tai gik kune. Check out our glossary (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/info/glossary.php#T) :cool:

Gold Horse Dragon
08-25-2003, 07:42 PM
Totally agree with you Gene on the use of Kung Fu and Tai Chi...but how about using Cantonese for article on southern systems eg. for the hand formations, name of a move etc.?

GHD

GeneChing
08-26-2003, 09:13 AM
I'm willing to bet that most people on this forum don't know Tai Gik from Taebo, but they also don't know Yongchun from Wing Chun (of Ving Tsun, or however you want to spell it.) This is always a bit of a subjective call - obviously we can't call Hung Gar Hongjia and expect people to follow it anymore than we can expect people to follow qigong. It gets really tricky when the writers don't have a standard - I'm helping to copy edit an article that spells it's own art two different ways interchangebly (out of sloppiness) and both are non-standard spellings. I'm changing that one to pinyin entirely, but it's a madarin name entirely.

As for the dominently cantonese arts, we keep the cantonese. We still ask for the characters, but it is amazing how many martial artists aren't literate enough to provide the characters for their own style and the southern styles are the worst for two reasons: 1. No one uses any established form of romanization for cantonese, and even if they did, that would make it all unrecognizable. And 2. the southerns styles have been in the west longer since more early Chinese immigrants originated from Canton & HK, so many of the writers are 2nd, 3rd generation westerners, who while they might have a very authentic claim to their art and lineage, can't write Chinese or even ask how to get to the bathroom in Cantonese, so to get characters from them is very difficult. But we do what we can.

Starting this year, we always ask for characters when appropriate. We still run occasional articles without characters, since for most of the articles, that is really icing (and it's a lot of work for us to place the characters correctly) but we've really been trying to make the magazine more referential, without getting too snooty scholarly.

More information is better. We try not to clutter the magazine with too much Chinese since for many, it's just scribbly lines, but we really try to provide as much as possible, and the chinese characters are very high yield information for those who can read them. Also, it helps for those of us who are earnestly trying to learn.

norther practitioner
08-26-2003, 09:35 AM
So, the chinese characters are definitely over my head right now, but I do like the fact that I can use your mag. as a reference. When I do learn to read Chinese, I see that as being a good way to sort of counter reference.....

:)

I'm hoping I see some familiar faces in the next issue...:D

MasterKiller
08-26-2003, 12:00 PM
I'm hoping I see some familiar faces in the next issue... Word.

GeneChing
08-26-2003, 04:54 PM
You know, I still haven't seen that Taiji Legacy pic. :( Did y'all keep your clothes on?

norther practitioner
08-27-2003, 07:24 AM
Originally posted by GeneChing
You know, I still haven't seen that Taiji Legacy pic. :( Did y'all keep your clothes on?

:confused: Um....yeah

Well, I'm sure Gigi will be more than happy to show the pic. to you after you finish all your work :D

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08-27-2003, 08:55 AM
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GeneChing
09-02-2003, 09:15 AM
np: We never finish our work around here. Come on, we're trying to bring this cultural treasure over the Pacific - it's going to take generations... but as for that pic, the TJL article will go in the next issue and we've already begun chipping on it, so I'll see it as soon as we get around to it. Soon.

nk: Thanks for the suggestion. We're sticking with Kung Fu Tai Chi, at least for a few issues ;)

claudef
09-25-2003, 12:10 PM
Dear Gene,

Will Kungfu Magazine continue to offer qigong articles in spite of the fact that the name changed on the cover?

Thanks,

Claude

GeneChing
09-26-2003, 10:11 AM
After all, we have Feng Shui stuff in our issue and we don't call it Kung Fu Feng Shui. We'll always have some qigong elements in every issue.