Have anyone noticed there isn't alot of Chinese texts....

[Chinwoo-er]

for martial arts ?

I mean, there are plenty for the japanese arts. Book for the five rings, Bubishi, a few from each karate style founder, Bushido, Hagakuri (sp), Budo, etc etc. There are an abundance of classical japanes text concerning the military arts. But it seems to me that there is actually very few in the market for the chinese. I know for a fact that it is not because China didn't have any. If anything, I would say with a little tongue in cheek that the chinese had more of these. However, the only one that really seem to be known is Sun Tze's art of war. My Friends in HK tells me to read things like Ji-Hau-Shen-Shu, the chinese version of bubishi, Jianjing, Wu-bian-ja-yaio, and quite a few others. But the problem is that I simply can't find them.

I wonder why this is the case
Any thoughts ?

[Ray Pina]

I've read Sun Tzu a number of times and study it on-and-off pretty regularly. It's all in there. That's all you need.

Also: Doa Te Ching, Chuang Tzu and Mencius. This will get the nogging working pretty well.

[Losttrak]

Cultural Revolution: Vast majority of all works of art or literature destroyed. I believe there were other occasions in Chinese History where literature was burnt but I cant recall them offhand.

Perhaps one of the most tragic things ever.... centuries of artifacts, history, and culture destroyed from one of the oldest civilizations, no less. Really irritating to think about.

[NorthernShaolin]

In the past, the reason was because of limited resources. Finding a printing press was something that just did not exist and if it was available, it was controled by the governement officials. Many books were hand written and were copied the same way. Therefore availablity was limited.

Remember in the Culture Revolution, there was the "burning of the books" and the government officials just burned what they felt would or could be tools for a revolution againt them, i.e., Marital art books, military literature, etc.

Other more recent reasons are the controls that PRC has over what is published, what is the distribution and what is allowed to leave the country.

Some books escaped the control of PRC and made their way to countries like Taiwian, Japan and Russia and can be found in their libraries.

[Chinwoo-er]

Actually, I think you have misunderstood what I meant.
Those texts that my friends advised me to read, they are still in circulation around HK. While he said that he found them in libraries, the fact that they exist. These are ones that were not destroyed. Some of them are old military manuscripts. Others were private publications. If I recall correctly, Praying mantis master Fan Yu Dong one published a "Shao Lin Jin Chuan" which was considered a bible for preying mantis artists. Since it was NOT destroyed during the revolution, why is it that they are not translated and spread into the western world like the bubishi ? Seems rather odd to me.

[NorthernShaolin]

Again limited resources and control by the government.

Generally when approved by the government, China publish a limited number of books distribute them and that's it for the next re-print cycle of 20 to 30 years. Since the demand for MA books is not in high demand, many HK bookstores threw these books in storage and take them out whenever they feel it is necessary. Usually if you ask them, they will make a special trip to their back room and dig them out.

Keep a eye on Taiwain. There is a publishing company that is currently re-printing old matial art books.

[David Jamieson]

Check the book list at my site for literally hundreds of Chinese Martial arts books.

many are published pre-cultural revolution.

cheers

[stimulant]

There are a few (more in taiwan I think in traditional chinese). My shifu had a few published about Qing Ping Jian and Mizong Quan....but they are collectors items now and I dont think the chinese publisers ever had plans to re-publish them.

[manofkent]

I know what u mean. Ive bin looking in book shops for chinese ma books and cant find much, u always just get the crappy karate books. I even found one called "the Shoalin Karate Way" WTF's that all about.

[GeneChing]

...only very little of it is translated into English. I have two theories on this. One is that, due to history, we had to learn to translate Japanese. WWII made that mandatory. War necessitates konwing your enemy, and the same can be said for Korea, in some regard. The other is cultural. I've done a lot of work translating Chinese and it's really hard. I've done only a tiny amoutn of work translating Japanese and that seemed much easier (but this is pretty subjective).

Fortunately, there have been many recent efforts to work on recovering old texts, and soem efforts in translation. The Taiwan publisher that NorthernShaolin mentions, Lion Books, we've been working intimately with them recently (see our Treasures of Taiwan series that has been running since Mar Apr 2003). Also, there has been some recent academic interest in scholarly journals.

So be watchful - I think you'll find the field of research is expanding now.

[WanderingMonk]

Bubishi was a chinese text that was taken to okinawa by Okinawans after studying in China. The Okinawans did a good job preserving it and popularizing it. It is so nice that it has become a "Japanese text" now.

[KC Elbows]

I remember reading one text that someone put a link to here, back in the dark ages. It was pretty good. Each "lesson" would begin with one pithy phrase, and then be expounded on by what may or may not have been actual historical occurences.

The one I remember was something like "there can be no teeth without the lips, because the air will rot them", or something like this. The historical sample was two small nations that were always in conflict with each other, and the leader of one was approached by a third, more powerful nation bordering them both to form an alliance to beat the other smaller nations. If I recall correctly, and advisor came out and said "if we unite with this stronger nation to beet our foe, when all is said and done, the stronger nation could then defeat us, but if we do not, the stronger nation cannot take us both on."

All in all, a pretty good summary of the subtleties of international politics, for an ancient.

KL might remember the text. If I recall right, it's one of the classicsthat old scholars were expected to know.

I think Sunt Tzu without some of the other chinese military texts is a very incomplete view of chinese martial classics.

[mantis108]

Interesting topic. I believe there are a lot of reasons that Chinese MA books are not popularize enough and readly available in English.

First and foremost, MA isn't exactly the mainstream academic interest in the west. Even in China, martial is consider less than civil in status (pun intended). Military institutes would want to translate strategies and tactics related books only. A book such a the General Chi Book is very indepth. It's after all a thorough military report to the imperial court and the military administration of Ming dynasty. In a sense, General Chi was pitching for his "renovative" rapid deployment tactical troops which had immense success over the wide spreading and highly mobile Japanese priates. The Ming dynasty situation was quite unique and doesn't seem to catch the attention of the western military minds. Something broad and general like the Sun Tze book would be more palatable.

A lot of the Quanpu/Quanjing (pugilistic manuscripts) were private and guarded from public eyes. They are mostly style specific meaning if you don't study the style, they are of very little use to you. But in the hands of the style's practitioners they are like gold. These Quanpu also have lots of problems. They are most of the time not proof-read. So different characters would be used for the same or similar sounding words. For example, in Mantis Bizhou means wrist (Bi) elbow. Some Quanpu use secret (Bi) elbow instead. Now there is a big difference in the characters used and the meaning can be interperted vastly different. Without studying the style, it can never be determined that wrist elbow is the only logical and physcially sound term and that the 2 terms meant the exact same thing. That's only one of the many problems a translator faces.

Most people borrow strategy books which mostly would have familiar worldview and cultural knowledge such as the yinyang, 5 elements, Taoism, Buddhism, etc... Sometime they would be able to borrow other styles Quanpu and mix them with the strategy books. This we see a lot in the Qing dynasty era manuscripts. So a translator would have to take those into consideration as well.

Most the stuff that come later than 1949 and on, are shakey at best. Arround 1980s, there was some movement in "revitalize and reorganize" Wushu terminologies and stuff. Some changes make to ancient terms and different characters would be used in old texts. This further complicates the problem. Most of the stuff you read now have to be take with a grain of salt. This is due to the enormous drop in the quality of education in the Classical Chinese literature.

Mantis108