Very useful: Chinese-English Wushu Dictionary

[brianlkennedy]

I got an early birthday gift from my wife today. It is the new (it came out in 2007) edition of the Chinese-English and English-Chinese Wushu Dictionary (漢英英漢武術辭典) put out by the China People's Sports Publishing House (人民體育出版社).

I think it is a great little hardback dictionary. It runs 400 pages. It uses a lot of line drawings and includes sections on:
General martial arts terms
Schools of Chinese boxing
Weapons
Basic techniques
Exercises
Teaching and training type words/phrases
Rules and officiating methods
Organizations (this section is tied to the PRC organizations, not worldwide)
Classic books
Important people in the history of Chinese martial arts
Sayings and proverbs of Chinese martial arts

The book is available here in Taiwan through the 7-11 bookstore.
http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/china/chinafile.php?item=CN10101904

As to its availability elsewhere, that I do not know.

Take care,
Brian

[GeneChing]

I have a copy of China People's Sports Publishing House's previous work, English-Chinese Chinese-English Wushu Glossary compiled and translated by Xie Shoude and Li Wenyiny (sp- should be Wenying :rolleyes:) ISBN 7-5009-0350-2. It's a small paperback published in 1988, 305 pages. I found that work almost useless because it only gives the English, the Chinese characters and some arcane pronunciation guide that employs some letters I don't recognize. Perhaps it's Cyrillic. Brian, is this an update of that or a completely new work? From the TOC you posted, I'm guessing the latter.

A more useful guide for me was A Chinese-English and English-Chinese Glossary of Wushu and Qigong Terminology, Hai Feng Publishing Co. 1989 ISBN 962-238-155-3. That's a small clothbound work, 829 pages. It has pinyin, Chinese characters and English, but if you go from English to Chinese, there's no pinyin, so you have to be able to read the characters to make it work.

Neither glossary has any diagrams or definitions, just terms and the equivalents. I'm eager to see this new work.

[brianlkennedy]

Hi Gene,
Yeah, the introduction mentions that this is the "completely new and improved" version of the 1988 one you talked about. I kind of liked this one because of the diagrams and definitions. I am told the book is available in the U.S. through one of the Chinese book importers. Let me look into that.

take care,
Brian
p.s. today was Tomb Sweeping Day here in Taiwan, so I guess the correct thing to say is something along the lines of: may your ancestors bestow blessings and good fortune upon your family and its future generations. (actually my Hakka wife's family had Tomb Sweeping Day about three weeks ago, the Hakka calendar of the traditional holidays ends up being "ahead" of the regular Han one.)

[brianlkennedy]

Here is the link to the place that has it in Hong Kong (english website); "purple culture" (?)

http://www.purpleculture.net/rsearch.asp?code=&n=Wushu+Dictionary

take care,
Brian

[GeneChing]

Next time I'm near one of my fav Chinese bookstores, I'll take a look. Actually, I'll be near Eastwind Books (http://www.asiabookcenter.com/) tomorrow for Berkeley CMAT (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36106&page=3). Maybe I can sneak away and find it. If not, next time some one from our office goes to Taiwan, I'll have them me up a copy. It's top of my 'to get' book list now. ;)

[GeneChing]

I just called. Eastwind doesn't have it. I'll keep looking. :rolleyes: