videos: chun qiu dao - the differences between the U.S. & China

check out this video:



this is a very LONG form. but i'm not presenting this video for its kung fu points. rather, i want to use it as a point for cultural observation.

i'm guessing this is in China...or maybe Taiwan. but it's certainly not the U.S. or any other Western country. regardless, it's in an apparently Asian society outside of any Western ones (even if the person doing the form is Western, the entire setting--and the YouTube user who uploaded the video--is in Asia).

apart from it being very impressive, i want you to observe 1) this, to the public eye, is quite obviously a dangerous weapon, 2) that it is in a completely public space, and 3) what's going on in the background is reflective of the location where this video occurs. to me, this is interesting, because i want to note what i suspect would be some major differences in reactions between the U.S. (and maybe Europe) and China to what's taking place:

• China (or Taiwan?)--if you notice, people are either simply walking by, completely oblivious to this, or they are stopping and watching. either way, the reaction indicates mindsets of either passe' recognition (i.e., "oh, he's just another kung fu guy, how nice...") or appreciation (i.e., "ah, he's practicing a cultural heritage, how nice..."). the common element is one of recognition (as in: they've seen it before) and acceptance (as in: it's okay, no big deal). meaning that this is the kind of thing that goes on all the time and people are used to it.
• U.S.--in the U.S., this would be interpreted as a deadly weapon, the man would be suspected as a lunatic, and the police would be called instantly and likely show with handguns drawn. the end result would be a likely conviction for brandishing an unlicensed deadly weapon in public. the reactions would be ones of surprise (i.e., "just what the hell is that?") and fear (i.e., "that looks dangerous!"). the common element would be one of marginalization (as in: a strange person doing strange things with a strange weapon) and suspicion (as in: it's all so strange, there must be something wrong). meaning that this is something people are not familiar with seeing, and something that they'd respond to with human instincts of self-preservation and antagonism.
• Europe--in Europe, i'm thinking the reaction would be similar to the U.S., except that the police would respond much more quickly but would not come out with their guns drawn...they would just stand quietly until the form was finished, then motion the man over for a "quiet" conversation involving batons, nets, and fists. for all that, i suspect that they would let the person go without a conviction, recognizing that there's a cultural misunderstanding and just issuing a warning about public displays of kung fu. the elements, mindset, and underlying meanings of culture would be the same, but the reaction would be expressed differently.
  

i wonder if this is part of the reason why U.S. (or even Western) students of kung fu are sometimes perceived as inferior to Chinese ones--because there's an understanding that the endemic society is just not as welcoming or supportive of it in the U.S. relative to China, and that in the U.S. students just don't have the ability to find the necessary practice resources that exist for Chinese students.

this is especially true for college students (the most likely age group in the U.S. to have the combination of curiousity and physical ability to learn kung fu), who have to walk around on U.S. college campuses dealing with drunken frat boys and sorority girls from whitebread mainstream Orange County (or wherever they're from) whose only contact with the outside world was what they saw channel-surfing through the Travel Channel while waiting to go to their proms.

*sigh*. just goes to show you...culture plays a role.