Kung Fu lessons
staffanlincoln
October 11, 2009, 11:43 AM posted in General Discussion
pretzellogic
October 14, 2009, 04:16 AMLet us know when there's a lesson with dialogue like, "Master, after 'beauty looks in the mirror', what comes next?" "Grasshopper, this is going to be a long journey indeed".
simonpettersson
October 12, 2009, 07:51 PMI requested a wuxia lesson at the intermediate level some time ago, but no results as of yet. ChinesePod does get a lot of requests, so all we can do is wait ...
pretzellogic
October 13, 2009, 01:50 AMperiodically, people have requested kung fu lessons. I know they've been requested more than a year ago, so we've been waiting for awhile.
simonpettersson
October 13, 2009, 03:00 AMWell, there is an intermediate lesson on tai chi, as well as an upper intermediate on the Shaolin temple. So we're not completely without material.
pretzellogic
October 13, 2009, 03:14 AMare you kidding? Tai chi is arguably a cousin to Kung Fu, or maybe a brother, but it is not Northern Long Fist. Plus, i'm not sure why we're supposed to make do with 1 lesson about the Shaolin temple, when there are more than 100 lessons about food at multiple levels.
BEBC
October 12, 2009, 05:24 PMNot only vocab useful for standard Kungfu films, but also for the broader period action type of films like Hero, House of Flying Daggers, etc
Vocab for military rank, strategy etc and vocab useful for political intrigue.
That would go quite a way to understanding what is going on in such films without recourse to the subtitles
pretzellogic
October 13, 2009, 06:13 AMyeah, I know i've posted before that this lack of Kung Fu lessons is interesting. In the US, Kung Fu is one of the biggest reasons Americans are aware of Chinese culture (in addition to famous Chinese Americans, Chinatowns, Chinese restaurants and so on. Plus living in Los Angeles, which had a relatively large Chinese and Asian American presence and influence). If Quentin Tarantino and the Wu Tang Clan were subscribing to this site, they'd be pretty disappointed.
simonpettersson
October 13, 2009, 06:18 AMNow that I think about it, I remember there being a lesson on Bruce Lee many years ago, in the infancy of ChinesePod. I recall that Ken didn't know what to call the "double stick weapon" (nunchucks). We also learned the Chinese word for "wail".
This was when I was not a member, just listening to the lessons (they were all free back then) and not really studying the language.
pretzellogic
October 13, 2009, 06:27 AMyou're right!! I found the one lesson:
I will say this lesson is light on actual Kung Fu dialogue (like "Li Jian, you have desecrated the temple!"), as it just seems to discuss how big a star Bruce Lee is. They don't really even discuss "Enter the Dragon" or "Return of the Dragon".
podster
October 14, 2009, 03:18 AM- There is more than one Tai Chi Lesson:
and
Strangely, the latter does not seem to be indexed by tai chi, taiji, or taijiquan. There is one other lesson that mentions Tai Chi; Elementary - A Walk in the Park
podster
October 14, 2009, 03:20 AMAnybody who appreciates the genre should see Kung Fu Hustle; great sendup
simonpettersson
October 13, 2009, 06:03 AMWell, you do learn a couple of useful terms in the tai chi lesson. As to whether tai chi is or is not kung fu, that's a matter of definition. It's a martial art and it's from China.
But yeah, I hear ya, bring on the "Your Thousand Dragon style is no match for my Five Elements Fists!" dialogues.
One can speculate, though, that such a famous aspect of Chinese culture cannot have been missed by accident ...
pretzellogic
October 11, 2009, 01:08 PMI totally agree with you.