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"traditional" shaolin kung fu in china

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  • "traditional" shaolin kung fu in china

    I was just wondering.. what is traditional shaolin actually called in mandarin? I presume if you turned up in deng feng and asked to be taught 'traditional' nobody would know what you are on about so what is it called there?

  • #2
    Gong fu...? Just a guess.
    Becoming what I've dreamed about.

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    • #3
      just

      In my eye,
      nothing,maybe it mean old and things like that.

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      • #4
        Well, I don't know. Good question. Wu shu means "martial arts", or study thereof, so, if you trained in traditional shaolin many years ago, it was called wushu. The meaning has changed a bit, in one way, though it still means "martial art", it also has picked up moniker for the more stylized competitive martial art practiced nowadays.

        The "gong fu" that you see used predominantly on this site, was my doing, as that is how it sounds in mainland Mandarin (not kung fu, though, it's the same thing. The kung fu I think evolved because of the emergence of martial arts from Hong Kong in the sixties, which is predominantly Cantonese speaking. It's pronounced with a "g" in Shaolin; gong fu means "work hard".
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        • #5
          功夫 gong1 fu1 is the pinyin romanization.

          功夫 kung1fu1 is the wade giles romanization.

          the characters are the same, as is the pronunciation. however, when using pinyin, a consonant g is adopted to represent the the "ge" sound. wade giles uses a k to represent the same sound. the pinyin system "ong" is also equal to the wade giles "ung," though both are pronounced ... basically with a "owng" sound. hence, the pinyin system is a more accurate system for native english speakers to use, because regardless of the system...the correct expression of the above two characters is something like..."ge/owng" "fe/ oow."

          cantonese speakers use different systems to romanize the sounds of the cantonese language, so i don't think that has anything to do with it. but, mandarin speakers in hongkong probably used the wade giles system back then, and they still might, as does taiwan...which is most likely where the popular "kung fu" romanization came from.

          my teacher uses 武术wushu and 功夫gongfu interchangeably. when talking about performance stuff (what we term "wushu"), well, he'll simply make an inference that it is competition, performance stuff, which has changed. we may briefly discuss the changes, what they are, and why some actions are done in error... yet, ultimately "wushu" does mean martial arts. "gongfu" is another word that really can't be translated well in english. i would prefer to think about it as a term that indicates and is representative of a certain skill, one that has been developed over time and which continues to be maintained through practice. it's a noun.

          typically...you would say "练功“ to act as a verb. for example, i want to practice gongfu...in chinese becomes...i want to (lian) practice "gong," your skill, not i want to (lian) practice "gongfu." -- if that makes sense. his "gongfu" is very good, therefore, in chinese would just mean his skill is very good and refer to an individual's martial ability.
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          • #6
            Just a tidbit...

            The word Kung Fu was first used by a Westerner in the 17th century. A Jesuit Missionary named Père Amôit wrote in his journals about strange exercises he witnessed and wrote it down as ''Cong Fou''. The term ''Kuoshu'' was popular in China, to describe the martial arts, until approximately 1930. This term has now been adopted by the Taiwanese government to describe martial arts and other sports. However, in the Western World, the Term Kung Fu is the term most often used. For old-fashioned people like myself however, Gong Fu is the term, since it sounds more closely like the cantonese.



            Uwe

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            • #7
              it sounds more closely like the "cantonese?" how do you say 功夫 in cantonese?
              ZhongwenMovies.com

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              • #8
                this could be what you looking for...



                i'd do a copy and paste but the machine i'm on doesn't support mandarin characters...

                if you not happy with that try

                http://sh.dict.cn/en/search/ or http://www.iciba.com/


                There are only 10 types of people in this world.
                Those that understand binary and those that don't.

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                • #9
                  oh ........... gongfu
                  Does it still have traditional gongfu in China?

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                  • #10
                    I have read your answers and I wish to tell to you here that.
                    According to my knowledge, names of ancient styles kung-fu had no transfer into the Chinese language or other languages. The style name is a name! In an antiquity the style name was specially created as the code number of a fighting method, had mantra sounding. The proof - analyse sounding of names of styles.
                    As far as I know, shaolin is very rare way of fight, it is based on esoterics of a swastika and has only one fighting principle. I met people who it knows. Time erases knowledge of it. Now as a name shaolin understand that is primary it is not.
                    I offer experiment: draw a swastika on a wall and long it behold. After that do movements and breath. If to take control group of people and to force them to do it you are surprised: they will do the same movements!

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