China Popular Itineraries |
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Wushu After the Founding of the People's Republic of China |
Since the founding of the People' s Republic of China, Wushu has be-come a component of the socialist physical education and has been carried on as valuable heritage of Chinese national culture. The backward situation of Wushu has been changed fundamentally. In 1949, Marshal Zhu De pointed out, "Many traditional forms of Wushu should be adopted extensively." In 1952, Wushu was officially placed as a popular sport event, and, in 1954, it began to be listed among the formal courses in the institutions of physical edu-cation and sports in China.
In the decade of 1956 to 1966, Wushu was steadily developed in China. In 1956, the state demanded that Wushu be placed as a performance event to be held regularly. In the same year, the National Wushu Association was founded in Beijing. Afterwards, local associations were set up in all the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government. All kinds of public groups and training courses of Wushu e-merged in various parts of China, which formed an extensive network of phys-ical education. These organizations of Wushu enlivened the mass cultural life by teaching Wushu publicly, training key members, and holding perfor-mances and competitions regularly.
Wushu continued its development in China after 1978. Heritage of Wushu was explored, many national symposiums on Wushu and competitions and performances were held. In 1989, physical education institutions, directly under the National Committee of Sports, in Bejing, Shanghai and Chengdu, offered programs of Wushu, and hence brought up a large number of special-ists of Wushu.
To be concrete, the achievement of Wushu in the new China can be seen in the following aspects:
(1) The purpose of Wushu to serve the people has been established. Wushu has become a part of socialist cause of physical culture to improve the people' s health.
(2) A great deal of work on exploration, systematization and research on Wushu has been done.
In 1957, the Physical Culture and Sports Commission of the People's Republic of China (PCSCPRC) mobilized some Wushu masters to systematize a series of simplified taijiquan, Chinese boxing series A, B and primary Chi-nese boxing series, sword and so on, up to more than twenty. In 1979, the PCSCPRC dispatched "A Circular on Exploring and Systematizing the Her-itage of Wushu," by which Wushu masters and specialists were greatly en-couraged.
(3) The status of Wushu has been distinctively raised. Many Wushu masters who used to make their living by performing in the streets, looked down upon as a kind of beggars, have now become representative members of the People's Congress and the Commission of Political Consultation, or pro-fessors and scholars.
(4) Mass activities of Wushu have flourished and spread to all parts of China. According to the incomplete statistics of the 15 provinces and munici-palities by official investigation in 1989, the number of folk Wushu schools and centers had reached 12,000. In some schools such as Song Jiang Wushu School in Shandong Province, Kaifeng Wushu School in Henan Province and Tagou Wushu School, the number of students has now increased by 3,000 to 5,000. Wushu has become a part of popular cultural life in the spare time of the masses.
(5) Skills and techniques of Wushu have been improved enormously ever since. Wushu was listed as official sport event in 1957. National competitions have been held annually and Wushu level has been raised greatly in respect of style, series and movement.
(6) Chinese Wushu is advancing worldwide.
Asian Wushu Tournament was held in Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and Philippines in 1987, 1989, 1992, and 1998. In 1990, in Beijing, Wushu was placed as an official event in the 11th Asian Games. In addition to the Bei-jing Asian Games, Wushu has also been included in the 12th and 13th Asian Games in Japan and Thailand in 1994 and 1998. European Wushu Tourna-ment has been held three times so far in Brussels (1986), Barcelona (1987) and Stockholm (1989).
In 1991, the first world Wushu tournament was successfully held in Bei-jing, in which more than 300 athletes from over 40 countries participated. So far, six international tournaments have been held in different countries and ar-eas of the world. The latest one was held in the year of 2001.
Wushu also became an official event in the Southeast Asian Games and East Asian Games held in Shanghai, Manila and Hanoi in 1991, 1993 and 1995.
Besides, some folk activities of Wushu such as the International Taiji-quan Exchange Meeting and the International ShaoLin Wushu Festival, have been carried out in Hebei, Henan, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and other places in China.
Since 1980, more than twenty international Wushu interchange meetings have been held in China. More than thirty Wushu delegations have been dis-patched by China to visit dozens of countries over the world. Visiting experts and scholars of Wushu have been abroad over 1,400 person/times, which has greatly enhanced the popularity of Wushu all over the world. The number of international Wushu associations has been doubled from 38 to 77 between, the years of 1990 and 1999.
The dissemination and development of Chinese Wushu has reached an-other peak and is advancing towards the outside world. On November 2, 1998, International Wushu Association submitted to the International Com-mission of the Olympic Games the application that Wushu be adopted a formal event of competition of the Olympic Games, which was a significant mark of Chinese Wushu marching to the world. |
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