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, modern, history, east, asian, martial and/or arts:

    Whosoever, in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may haply strike out his teeth.
    Sir Walter Raleigh (1552–1618)

    There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime—namely, repressive justice.
    Simone Weil (1909–1943)

    The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.
    Terri Apter (20th century)

    The very nursery tales of this generation were the nursery tales of primeval races. They migrate from east to west, and again from west to east; now expanded into the “tale divine” of bards, now shrunk into a popular rhyme.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.
    Denis Diderot (1713–1784)

    As yet her conduct has been great both as a free and as a martial nation. We hope it will continue so, and finally baffle all her enemies, who are in fact the enemies of human nature.
    James Madison (1751–1836)

    Musick is certainly a very agreeable Entertainment, but if it would take the entire Possession of our Ears, if it would make us incapable of hearing Sense, if it would exclude Arts that have a much greater Tendency to the Refinement of human Nature; I must confess I would allow it no better Quarter than Plato has done, who banishes it out of his Common-wealth.
    Joseph Addison (1672–1719)