Happy Lunar New Year 2018

I should be telling you about the upcoming Earth Dog Year which starts on February 15th. But what is there to tell? Train your puppy carefully in the first few months, and it should be a smooth and uneventful year. Loyalty pays off big time in an Earth Dog Year. Make new friends and be bold in relying on old ones. Get plenty of exercise, and learn some new tricks. If you do not have a clear plan for the year already established, there is a danger of getting distracted. So discipline is a must--especially for artists and scientists. Balance more responsibility with more play.

Hunyuan in Toulouse

Just wanted to give a shout out to my friends in the French speaking world. My dear friend and Professor of Chinese Anthropology Georges Favraud is working on a Chinese Studies Degree that focuses on the body. He is also giving classes locally that I recommend checking out if you are in the area. 

Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole

I just did my first awesome podcast with the guys from Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole.

I talk about my book, and the latest research I've been doing. The interviewers are into trance and possession from a cross-cultural point of view so we talked about that too. Enjoy! 
Let me know if you think this is a good format for 'going deeper' in general.

From Our Endless Video Library

This video shows the links to Lotus Hands from North Indian Classical Dance (Kathak), as well as liuhexinyi. 

This next video shows the tight connection between history, Chinese opera, film, and martial arts. Wong Fei Hung was real person who is credited with ending opium addiction in South China, among other things, he became a mythic kungfu hero. Numerous films have been made about him. And to top it all off, his wife, his real wife, is doing kungfu in the video below, in an opera costume on a movie set. Hat Tip to Practical Hung Kyun

The Legend of the Condor Heroes

The entire series of Legend of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong is right here on Youtube for free with English subtitles. I have heard it is good, but I have not watched it yet. If you do, please leave some review comments below. 

There is a new translation of it in the works.

The background to this epic collection of Wuxia stories is fascinating. After the Boxer Uprising, there was a massive effort to eliminate martial arts, religion and theater because the way they were mixed together was blamed for China's humiliation at the the hands of foreigners and the main source of the "Sick Man of Asia" concept. But then Jingwu and similar movements in religion and theater figured out they could follow the Western model and separate theater, martial arts, and religion. For martial artists this was a huge struggle. Because what are martial arts without story and morality and aesthetics? They are nothing and not worth giving a second thought. Just get a gun. Anyway, Jin Yong was at the the center of the movement to re-think this problem. He created a whole new set of stories and mythology to go with the Martial Arts. The characters were not entirely new, but the stories were. They got rid of a the more offensive characters from Chinese Opera that were the original source of "the problem." They handle religious issues as fantasy. Which was a big step, because they did not want people believing that Martial Arts would make them bullet proof. 

It is also interesting from a Jungian Psychology point of view. It was like the new stories Yin Jong and other wrote, came from the Chinese Collective Unconscious. Such a cool idea when you dig down into it. Enjoy.