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What is Wushu?

The term “Wushu” includes all Chinese martial arts dating back to about 5,000 years ago. Its origin is lost in the mists of time and it was constantly improved over the centuries.

Wushu is not only the art of fighting with bare hands and/or with weapons: it also means culture, history, philosophy and religion. All Far Eastern martial arts originated from Wushu, which hence strongly influenced nearby nations such as Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, etc.

The term “Wushu” belongs to the ancient Chinese nomenclature and is composed of two words: “Wu” – “martial”, “warrior” – and “Shu” – “art”, “technique”. Thus, the correct translation of this word is ”martial arts”, to be intended in their entirety. It should be noticed that only 130 martial arts have survived so far.

Wushu is divided into traditional and modern Wushu. These two types belong to the great Chinese families of Northern styles (Béi Shi) and Southern styles (Nan Shi). Furthermore, Wushu is characterised by the “internal family” (Nei Jia) and the “external family” (Wai Jia).

These two great schools, Taoist and Buddhist respectively, are a part of the Chinese historic, cultural and religious tradition, which is thousands of years old.

In 1936 Wushu was introduced into the Olympics in Berlin as an exhibition sport, but the events of the Second World War and the subsequent Chinese Revolution prevented this discipline from becoming an official sport during world Olympic Games.

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Wushu or Kung Fu?

As explained above, Wushu is the term the Chinese have been using since 2400 BC to indicate their martial disciplines.

The word Kung Fu, instead, expresses “the person that devotes himself/herself to something”.

In fact, Kung means “work”, “perseverance”, while “Fu” denotes the “person” that carries out a job. Therefore, Kung Fu is a too generic term and can not identify the Chinese martial arts. However, the Chinese ideograms for “Wushu” and “Kung Fu” coincide. That means that the same thing is referred to when using these two words. The word “Wushu” belongs to the official Chinese language (Pŭtōnghuà), whereas “Kung Fu” is Cantonese (Yuéhuā).

The expressions Kung Fu and Wushu are often confusing since their ideograms correspond. “Kung Fu” is the Cantonese pronunciation of the Guangdong province. Canton and Hong Kong are located there and are known especially for the numerous martial arts films produced in those two cities. On the contrary, “Wushu” is the Mandarin pronunciation, also called “Northern Pekinese”.

It should be noticed that Cantonese is spoken by a minority of people in Southern China, whereas Mandarin is the official Chinese language used at school (Guóyŭ).

In short, it is a common and frequent mistake to believe that Kung Fu is the traditional Chinese martial art and Wushu the modern evolution of the same one. The correct expressions for traditional and modern Wushu would instead be respectively “Wushu Chuántóng” and “Wushu Xiàndài”.

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