It seems that everyone wanted to get in on the act. It all becomes even stranger once we realize that these colorfully clad individuals are often the same middle-aged merchants, clerks and bankers who funded the movement and provided its administrative background. Rather, their representatives would take to the stage, perform a demonstration, or pose for press photos, dressed explicitly in the feline trappings of the stereotypical Western strongman. Yet China’s “Pure Martial” movement was not trying to draw on this long and illustrious train of cultural associations. Of course Chinese soldiers and martial artists have a long history of dressing themselves in the colors of predatory cats, or wearing “tiger crowns.” That is very much a part of traditional Chinese culture going as far back as the archeological record can take us. Without a doubt my favorite of these is the frequent appearance of Jingwu’s modern martial artists decked out in nothing but leopard or tiger skins. The rapid pace of modernization and westernization that swept over China in the early 20th century ensured that the Republic period was a cornucopia of such images. More common is encountering a known practice or personality in a totally unexpected setting. It is heady stuff, and probably why so many document finds of dubious origin have emerged in the last few years (often tied to efforts to create a new tourist destination).

In all honesty, the historical documentary record on these fighting systems is so thin that the emergence of a single well placed source can still disrupt our understanding of what was going on in a given region or time period. Perhaps the most exciting is the shock of discovering something totally new.

Strange images occasionally emerge from the annals of kung fu history. Nicholas Thomas, Entangled Objects (Harvard UP, 1991), p. We take the “concrete and palpable” presence of a thing to attest to the reality of that which we have made it to signify our fantasies find confirmation in the materiality of things that are composed more of objectified fantasy than physical stuff.

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