Modern History of East Asian Martial Arts

Modern History Of East Asian Martial Arts

East Asia, the region dominated by Chinese, Japanese and Korean culture, was greatly transformed following its contact with the West in the 19th century. This defining period can be considered as the start of the modern period of East Asian history, and also happens to be the time of origin of most schools of martial arts of East Asian origin practiced today. New approaches and ideas about martial arts were created that were distinct and different from previous history of martial arts, especially under the influence of nascent nationalism in the region, which took the respective traditions of martial arts as being part of the nation's heritage to be polished into a pure form and showcased.

As a result, the modern martial arts of China and Japan are for the most part a product of the nationalist governments in power during the 1920s and 1930s, in the case of Korea developed under Japanese occupation and cast in terms of a Korean national art during the 1950s. The modern history of Indochinese martial arts is closely related, and especially modern Muay Thai was developed in the years leading up to and following the Siamese revolution of 1932.

In many countries local arts like Te in Okinawa, Kenjutsu and Ju-Jutsu in Japan, and Taekyon and Soobak in Korea mixed with other martial arts and evolved to produce some of the more well-known martial arts in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries like Karate, Aikido, and Taekwondo.

Read more about Modern History Of East Asian Martial Arts:  China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Western Interest, See Also

Famous quotes containing the words modern, history, east, asian, martial and/or arts:

    Not “Seeing is Believing” you ninny, but “Believing is Seeing.” For modern art has become completely literary: the paintings and other works exist only to illustrate the text.
    Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)

    Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)

    We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)

    To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.
    George Orwell (1903–1950)

    The arts are the salt of the earth; as salt relates to food, the arts relate to technology.
    Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)