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I thought it was from Journey to the West or Tales from the water margin? Maybe even Romance from the 3 kingdoms?Quote:
Originally Posted by bawang
old xia novels. But hey, it makes sense because those and others were eventually expressed as opera as well.
Hey, just curious, but have you ever sat through a entire chinese opera?
the flat shovel is called latrine shovel. its used to shovel feces.Quote:
Originally Posted by MightyB
the crescent is called emei spear. its good for slide up another spear shaft and cut your fingers.
Absolutely. On masonry crews, the masons have trowels, laborers have a flat shovel. There are many stories of these tools being used as weapons on the job...ppl have been knocked out with shovels and I know a guy who was involved in an ear cutting incident with a trowel....also know someone who almost beat a guy to death with a level and I've had framing hammers pulled on me....I imagine this sort of thing happened in the old days as well....Quote:
Originally Posted by Syn7
On a tower I was doing about 7 years ago there was this giant tin basher who picked a fight with this little thuggish rodbuster. Man I saw it coming from a mile away. Don't start stuff with a thug carrying a framing hammer. It did not end well. But we did get an early lunch from slab on a hot day. So that was cool.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette
As long as everything worked out....:cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Syn7
Well, it did for me anyways. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette
Not so much for the guy who went to the hospital and the guy who went to jail. :rolleyes:
Yes this makes me very happy. Thank you Sha Seng. We need more forum members like you here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sha Seng
I'm inclined to agree. And I hate it when I agree with bawang.Quote:
Originally Posted by bawang
I've sat through many whole operas. But then, I enjoy opera. Part of the point of my cover story was that if you look at the original source material, specifically Journey to the West and Water Margin, the weapons described don't quite fit what we have now. I would venture to say that both opera and religious ritual weapons had a tremendous impact upon many of the long weapons commonly used in Chinese martial arts today. For opera, the weapons evolved to be cartoonish and caricature, so they might be easily read from stage. For religious ritual, they were imbued with all sorts of symbolic adornments. That being said, there is some evidence that once these weapon designs were established, they were indeed used for self-defense. And this might have happened centuries ago, so while their origins might be fantastic, at some point, they may have become practical.Quote:
Originally Posted by David Jamieson
Of course, this is all conjecture, as the evidence for this is rather circumstantial. There is this trend to view things as 'real' or 'fake' but anyone who has studied sinology to some depth realizes quickly that there are often complications, that Chinese culture doesn't simplify so neatly.
As for the outrageously heavy weapons, that does have a lot of precedent in classic novels and myth. Guan Gong's Kwandao was super heavy, as was Sagacious Lu's spade. Today, we can easily attribute this to mythic exaggeration. However, the practice of working absurdly heavy weapons has a longstanding tradition within Chinese acrobatics. Detractors might say 'that's impractical' but keep in mind that opera connection, along with the idea that 'kung fu' doesn't literally mean 'martial arts'; It means time-honed skill. The idea of working long weapons for practical self-defense is obsolete today. If you make the 'lighter weapons are more practical' argument, you might as well be working with graphite. I love watching someone work a super heavy long weapon. That's some serious skill.