This video debunks a lot of the mythology surrounding the history of Chinese martial arts. The video’s central premise is that “Shaolin Kung Fu” is a modern fabrication born of the marketization Chinese martial culture following the success of Kung Fu films in the 70s and 80s. What’s more, the very idea of the southern Shaolin Temple as the source for the various southern Chinese martial arts like Hung Gar, Choy Lay Fut, Wing Chun, and others is also a myth, one that seems to have been based on early 20th Century novels (for more on this, read The Creation of Wing Chun by Judkins and Nielson).

This video makes me think about the many examples that I’ve seen of Africans in eastern and central Africa, dressed as monks, and practicing Kung Fu. While I admire their skill and discipline. I cannot help but feel that the historicity of what they are doing has been grossly oversold, meanwhile the history and political import of their own local traditions have gone under-appreciated. I am not suggesting that this represents some zero-sum equation (I myself practice various Chinese and Afro-Diasporan martial arts), simply that the mythology of China’s glorious martial heritage (one which continues to be undervalued in China) has been fully embraced outside of China by peoples in Africa, Europe, and the Americas, whose own martial cultures are sadly eclipsed by the luminosity of this falsehood.

https://youtu.be/5_dQ-xYcm5k?si=SNQQsPqhb4i8Ew7s