style differences

[mortal]

You are all wrong.

Gong fu means very simply, training. When westerners saw the chinese practicing martial arts they asked "what are they doing." The chinese replied "gong fu" (training). So gong fu is an american misinterpretation of what the chinese meant.

Wu(war) shu(arts). This is what the chinese use when speaking about martial arts with each other. They call kungfu wushu. The chinese standardized certain movements from traditional forms and added a certain flare(acrobatic martial movements). So to us it is just wushu. To chinese it is much more than that.

[zachsan]

you are all wrong.

gongfu is a kind of martial art, and wushu is for show.

why hasn't anyone said this by now?

[dogchow108]

Mortal- you are wrong. WuShu means Martial TECHNIQUE; Wu Yi means Martial art.

see what happens when you get hung up on details?

[LeiYunFat]

Originally posted by mortal
You are all wrong.

Gong fu means very simply, training. When westerners saw the chinese practicing martial arts they asked "what are they doing." The chinese replied "gong fu" (training). So gong fu is an american misinterpretation of what the chinese meant.

Wu(war) shu(arts). This is what the chinese use when speaking about martial arts with each other. They call kungfu wushu. The chinese standardized certain movements from traditional forms and added a certain flare(acrobatic martial movements). So to us it is just wushu. To chinese it is much more than that.

Right, which is why Gong fah means homework and mo surk means moving art....I guess, that's just thae way I have learned it from my parents when they say,

"Wei, jo gong fah!!" (Hey, do homework!!)

or

"Cui hay choot bein hawk-gun mo surk" (He's out there, learning moving art)

Argh, they are telling me to jo gong fah now.

[dogchow108]

cantonese?

I once made the mistake of saying in Mandarin "Jia Gong" back when i was still trying to string words together. It was funny...but the weird thing is i dont remember what was the correct thing to say...

[LeiYunFat]

Chi gong? It would be hay gong in cantonese. Eh? I don't really know what's going on right now.

[dogchow108]

No, what i meant was i tried to just say "homework" by connecting home and work...Jia Gong....but it didnt really work.

[LeiYunFat]

oh, hahahahhahahhahhaha!

I find myself just speaking in Chinglish many times.

[xing_jian108]

Homework in Mandarin Chinese is "zuo ye". Training is "xun lian".

And it's funny how many foreigners (to Chinese) are on here trying to say what Chinese mean and what the words actually mean. When none of you were completely right.

Wu Shu means martial art. Wu Yi also means martial art. The difference is Shu means art or a skill. Yi means art or a craft. Not much difference. So they are both meaning martial art.

I don't know where you got the idea of Gong Fu meaning training. It doesn't. It's not a misunderstanding from foreigners who thought Gong Fu meant the martial art they were doing. I don't know where that came from. If they would answer "training" they would say either "xun lian" or "lian xi" which means practice. But it's plain wrong. Chinese have used the word Gong Fu to mean this Chinese martial art for a long long time.

I have explained in another thread. Gong is made up of two characters. The left side of the character is a character that means work, also pronounced "gong". The right side is a character that means power, "li". So power and work are together to make this character which means accomplishment. You can't achieve anything without work and putting your power into it. So we have work + power = achievement. But that's not the end of the idea. We also have the character Fu. Which means man or husband. You can't grow into a man without first going through the stages of life. Infant, toddler, adolescent, etc. This gives the idea of time. So we now have work + power = achievement BUT only through time. "Climb a mountain one step at a time."

That's the meaning of Gong Fu. So it can go for anything that takes work and power (hard work) and time to accomplish. Although this is mostly just used for the Chinese martial art. When Chinese hear "Gong Fu" we think Chinese martial art. Chinese Wu Shu is Gong Fu. Japanese Wu Shu is Kong Shou Dao (karate). Korean Wu Shu is Tai Quan Dao (tae kwon do). Of course they have other styles in the country but basically that's it. Chinese Wu Shu is Gong Fu. We can say a pianist has good Gong Fu. But this isn't used like that now. When we hear Gong Fu it is meaning Chinese Wu Shu, Chinese martial arts. Although now, to people into martial arts, we take "Wu Shu" to stand for the competition performing art. And Gong Fu as the traditional fighting art.

A mi tuo Fo
-Xing Jian

[zachsan]

xingjian, you are 100% wrong.

(let's see how long we can keep this going.)

[dogchow108]

HahahAHAHAHahAHAHa

Look, Gong Fu is simply what you see in the movies...tiger, crane, and in at least one movie...centipede or chicken.

Then there's Jackie Chan's revolutionized Cat style.

Why is everyone taking the "us foreighners not being perfect at Chinese" thing so seriously now?

see, this is what happens when people replay this "actually kung fu means..." garbage.

[zachsan]

dogchow, you are 100% wrong.

[LeiYunFat]

You are all wrong, even zach. Even though Zach is 100% wrong, it doesn't change that fact he was right about everyone else being wrong.

No one is right, because who knows how to speak chinese anyways? It's more rare than finding people who speak Mayan.

[dogchow108]

Zachzan: you're the 100% wrongest...


times a million...


okay man we need to end this thread...wait thats wrong...

[xing_jian108]

The only right person here is LeiYunFat for saying everyone is wrong. But he is also wrong because I can speak Chinese. It's my language. Puhaha. And Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world. So you are the wrongest in the world. And you're all 100% wrong. Just plain wrong. And that's right.

A mi tuo Fo
-Xing Jian