What's Up China?

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Here are three good articles on what’s happening in China these days.

This is an analysis of the Current Trade war framed as a part of the Cold War.

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China is Losing

It is roughly predicated on the assumption that American (USA) leadership is aware that it is in a war. That assumption seems new. What does winning look like? I have no idea. Are we talking ideology, power, stability, individual freedom, or something else?

Perhaps the conversation is about social control or a future bodycount. In that case it will depend somewhat on how we frame the bodycounts of the past. These two articles together paint a dark picture. The ‘game of life’ is a totalitarian metaphor. Speaking as a non-conformist, Big Brother was birthed to crush human spirit.

Remembering People Who Died During the Cultural Revolution and How

Big Brother China Gives Everyone and Obedience Rating

Georgian Dance

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Great video of Georgian Dance group Erisioni. They call it “folk” dance, but it is competitive professional dance, partially sponsored by the state. I think I saw this group live around 1990 before the end of the Cold War. They were more neutered back then.

I did about three years of professional Ballet. Georgian dance is one of the roots of Ballet, and Ballet had a big influence on Georgian dance as well. I took a few Russian Character Dance classes back then too, and they are even closer to this sort of dance.
For Baguazhang practitioners notice how much power they get in the spins and how committed they are to them. Spinning is a major defining element of Baguazhang, I love to spin, I suspect the old school Baguazhang performances in Beijing before the Boxer Uprising were street displays, rituals of speed and power, with incredible whirlwinds of spinning. That’s the descriptor they use to describe Dong Haichuan’s movement on his tombstone (dated 1883). Much more about this will be revealed in my next book! But for now, enjoy the video.

Read about the group here. And here is their website: Erisioni

Was 'Kung Fu Hustle' Based on Historic Events?

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Was 'Kung Fu Hustle' Based on Historic Events?

I have been reading a dissertation called, "Opera Society and Politics: Chinese Intellectuals and Popular Culture, 1901-1937," by Li Hsiao-t'i. It is from 1996, and an updated version will be published in 2019 but I could not wait. 
Li Hsiao-t'i explains that Beijing Opera used fake weapons [probably because after 1860 it was constantly being performed inside the city gates, where weapons were banned]. However, Shanghai developed a version of Beijing Opera using real weapons, swords, spears, etc...

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The Measure of Freedom is a Horror Movie

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The Measure of Freedom is a Horror Movie

Long time readers of this blog will recall the Phillips Theory of Democracy. Here is the back story.

In the mid-1990s I ended a 10 years Movie and Media fast by attending a foreign horror movie festival. It started as a whim, but I fell in love with several of the movies in that first festival. After that I became a mass consumer of horror films, particularly foreign horror. I became a specialist in Asian Religious Horror and wrote a lot of reviews for the San Francisco Film scene. 

In 2004 Natan Sharansky…

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Transformations

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Transformations

I am going through some big shifts. I had a dream about the perfect dance partner, everything we did together always worked. Part of the dream was that this is a dream I have had over and over out to infinity. It as if the perfect dance is always here with me, and yet my life is an obstacle to it. 

Here are a few choice links for my weekly blog. 

Ever wonder why women in the 1800s dueled topless? The best part of this fascinating piece of history is the reason they were dueling. Not love, or truth, but beauty.

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The Four Mass Destructions

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The Four Mass Destructions

I just finished reading Do Not Say We Have Nothing, by Madeleine Thien. It is a fictional account of China from 1920 to the present. It follows a family of musicians. It is a great piece of fiction because it gets you inside peoples thoughts. It is historically accurate and emotionally mature, although incredibly sad. I highly recommend it. I am considering making it mandatory reading for my students.

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Zombie Tai Chi Movie

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Zombie Tai Chi Movie

Can't you just see it? A horror movie where seemingly normal people just start doing Tai Chi, then they creep towards you to try and eat your brains. Hollywood, are you listening? 

It is going to need a cause. The disease thing has been overdone. An electronic, cellphone-activated brain re-wiring app, perhaps. But for the deep chill down the spine, it should be caused by political indoctrination. Government hypnosis conspiracy using Tai Chi to eat people's brains. Dang.


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Re-Thinking the Importance of Comic Martial Arts

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Re-Thinking the Importance of Comic Martial Arts

My new book uses the idea of a YMCA Consensus. That is, after the Boxer Uprising all the voices of reform and Modernity can be understood as conforming to a Protestant Christian notion of religion and the state. There were three or four categories of thought that martial arts reformers subscribed to, but they were all within the YMCA Consensus. They all agreed that martial arts had to be separated from the gods and immortals. They all agreed that temple-festival martial arts were a cause of China's suffering. They all agreed that some forms of theatricality degraded the martial arts--demonstrations of invulnerability being number one on the list.

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