Talk:Kung fu (term)

Initial Comments

Hello everyone.
I have some ideas how to improve the sections that regard Chinese martial arts (Kung Fu, Wushu etc), all to make it more accurate and easier to understand. Here are the first of my proposals, which regard the term Gongfu (Kung Fu):

In Kung Fu, explain that it's an obsolete, though widely used, spelling of Gongfu, and that it uses Wade-Giles Romanization instead of Pinyin. Link to Gongfu for further information regarding the meaning of the term, and to Chinese martial arts for more details about Chinese martial arts in general. Move all the current information about Chinese martial arts and the term Wushu into their proper articles (more on this later).

In Gungfu, explain that it's the term made popular by Bruce Lee, and that it uses the older Yale Romanization. Use same links as above.

Make Gongfu the chief section for this term, and describe the meaning of the Chinese characters, and the differences between how this term is used in China and how it’s used in the West. Include links to Wushu and Chinese martial arts.

The main change would be that Kung Fu, Gungfu etc. redirects to Gongfu, and that the Gongfu article only includes information about this specific term (and how it’s also being used in the West), and not about Chinese martial arts or Wushu.
I think this change would make the meaning of this term and these different spellings more clear. Also, by using the Pinyin terms for all Chinese words (Gongfu, Wushu, Qigong, Taijiquan etc), instead of mixing the various spellings together, we avoid much confusion. Some might argue that because “Kung Fu” is a more popular spelling in the West, this should be the name of the main article used to describe the term, but my opinion (though it has varied much over time) is that it’s better to use the official spelling (Pinyin) as it’s both more accurate and is commonly used for other terms (like Qigong and Taijiquan), especially as this is an encyclopedia.
Another way of solving this is to simply redirect Kung Fu and Gungfu to Gongfu, and explain the various spellings there. I do, however, still think “Gongfu” should be the spelling favored in the description of the term, and that the other spellings link to this and not the other way around.

Here are my other ideas, on how to sort the rest of the Chinese martial arts sections:

Make the Wushu section describe the meaning of wu3 shu4 and the Chinese characters, and that it’s in the West often associated with the newer modern Chinese martial arts, aimed at exhibition and competition. Link to Chinese martial arts.

In Chinese martial arts, include history of Chinese martial arts, and describe common features seen in many Chinese martial arts styles (differences between external and internal styles, etc). As there are so many styles of Chinese martial arts, my idea is that we should link to “Chinese martial arts styles” for detailed lists of styles.

Chinese martial arts styles should in that case be a detailed list of styles (linking to each style's individual article), perhaps divided into external and internal styles, or northern and southern styles.

What I want to do here is to make the Wushu article only contain information about the term itself (much like Gongfu above), and instead direct readers to Chinese martial arts for history and information about Chinese martial arts.
First I was thinking of using the Wushu article for explaining Chinese martial arts, but the reason I decided I did not want that is because “wushu” is the term in China for “martial arts”, which, from what I’ve understood, in China can refer to any martial art, and not just those originated in China. If anyone has another impression of this, please tell me.

That’s all my thoughts for now. I’d love to hear comments or ideas from all of you reading this, so we can discuss how to make the Chinese martial arts sections as accurate and easy to understand as possible. My hope is that this will keep expanding (I will myself start writing about the styles I train in as soon as these sections are sorted out), and I therefore wish these main sections to be as clear as possible, avoiding the confusion that seems to pester so many other sites of information out there.
Also, if there are any Chinese readers/writers here, I’d love to hear from you, as my simple Chinese studies cannot compare to someone who’ve actually lived there and used these terms in everyday life.

- Wintran 15:47 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

Questions about Syllabification and capitalization

Anon,

Why did you separate the syllables of the word gongfu? They are used as a word in Chinese and never a pause in between. The official pinyin documents state that syllables of one single word should be connected.
Why did you capitalize gong and fu? It's used as a common noun in Chinese, not a proper noun. Also, both Merriam-Webster Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary use lowercase for kung fu. I know that there are a lot of popular use of capitals out there on the net, but that doesn't make it right.

Explain. --Menchi 06:48 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

First, I have to say that I agree with Menchi about using "gongfu" and "kung fu". A question I have to Menchi though: Is wushu used as a proper or a common noun in China, i.e. should it be capitalized or not?

Secondly, I wish everyone could discuss and explain things more. The latest days I have witnessed much change back and forth, leading nowhere. So to hopefully start at least a minor discussion, I have two things I need to hear your opinions on:

I have written an article from scratch that includes all current information about the term gongfu and some new material. I was thinking of replacing the current with this, and move the general information about Chinese martial arts into Chinese martial arts and all information on the term wushu into wushu.
Should we move the kung fu article into gongfu (adding a redirect of course), but keep a clear explanation of the different spellings used? This is a complex subject, and I have noticed that opinions vary a lot depending on which articles people have in mind. There's already a general discussion about this held at m:Use pinyin not Wade-Giles. My opinion in the case of this article is that we at least put the explanation and translation of the Chinese term in gongfu, and also explain how the term is commonly used in the West, either in gongfu or in kung fu.

- Wintran 00:18 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

Just try to respect Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines & Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). Follwing these we should not move the content of kung fu to gongfu because in english it's kung fu that is used and not gongfu, it is certainly the case that the word kung fu is now part of the english language. A short explaination about the origin of the term at the begining of the article and a redirect are welcome of course. -- Looxix 00:53 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

You are right, though I personally think the case of romanization is a bit more complicated. I will use kung fu as the main article for this term.

I will soon add my updated version of this article. No major objections against moving most of the current information about Chinese martial arts in general into Chinese martial arts?

- Wintran 00:46 22 May 2003 (UTC)

Question on additional schools

I was reading the article on Adrian Paul and the following martial arts (Kung Fu forms) are mentioned and I can't find any reference to them on the Wikipedia: Choy Li Fut and Hung Gar. If anyone knows about them, a mention either in the Kung Fu or the Martial art article would be good. Dori 05:38 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Unanswered critiques

The kung fu article mixes systems of romanization indiscriminantly. The "Hung Gar" article given a link above uses some other system of romanization without, I think, making it clear that it is not Wade-Giles, is not pinyin, and is not a standard way of recording Mandarin (guo-yu, pu-tong-hua) pronunciations either. The unfortunate general reader is going to be lost, and probably will pass on the misinterpretations that s/he is being set up for. Sometimes less is more and more is less. There may be enough old fossils my age around that we need to keep Wade-Giles around to tide them over. But we shouldn't be messing up the younger generations by using a moribund system to the exclusion of what has become the de-facto standard for representing Chinese in romanized form.

Patrick0Moran 05:59, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Have the contributors to this article understood the Wikipedia policy on "NPOV" (neutral point of view)? The point of this policy is that someone who likes something or dislikes something or approves of one thing and disapproves of another thing should not on that account write an article that is slanted to their own view. Imagine if a Bush Republican wrote the Wikipedia article on Bill Clinton!

In the Kung Fu article, and in the discussion about it, I see some obvious problems caused because somebody thinks his/her way of defining something is the only way that people use the word. I ask that people reflect on what should be clearly visible place in this article where enthusiasm has overcome accuracy.

A highly moral person would not get what he/she needs to know about Cao Cao if an encyclopedia article only called him an evil person and failed to let people know what things he did that were good strategy, good leadership, good administration. You don't have to approve of the Red Baron to know that he was a good pilot whose flying techniques could be studied to advantage by anyone who wanted to be a good fighter pilot.

Patrick0Moran 04:35, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I just visited the wu3 shu4 page and was rather dismayed to see the dogmatic (wu3 duan4) tone of much that is written there.

Patrick0Moran 05:02, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Specific things that need to be fixed

The "wu shu" article begins with information on how many schools of martial arts there currently are. [Wǔshù (武術 in Chinese) means any type of Chinese martial arts, ] It needs to make clear that the term "wu shu" includes many kinds of armed combat.

this article needs a lot work. please see http://www.faqs.org/faqs/martial-arts/faq/ as a starting point for good referenc.

Xah P0lyglut 07:09, 2003 Nov 30 (UTC)

I've done some major updates of totally rewritten articles. Please see Chinese martial arts and its talk page for further details.

Also, I would like to move this article either to gongfu or back to kung fu. We should use gongfu if we would like to use the same romanization for all articles (Pinyin), as this is the correct Pinyin form as far as I know (and is the term I've used in the new article). This is the method I prefer. Or we should use kung fu if we want to use the term most common in Western contexts.

- Wintran 00:12, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)