The Old and the New: Chinese Boxing and the Integration of Traditional and Modern Chinese Identities

Studies of Chinese modernisation have tended to make use of binary oppositions such as traditional versus modern. Although this paper recognises the relevance of such models, it seeks to take a more nuanced approach. This approach examines notions of identity, within the context of Imperialism and modernisation, which take into account the convergence and integration of traditional and modern Chinese identities during the period 1900 to 1935. Specifically, the paper demonstrates how the revival of traditional Chinese boxing at this time involved the construction and maintenance of both modern and traditional identities that utilised aspects of a traditional China from the past as well as elements derived from new cultural movements influenced by foreign imperialism. Rather than being in binary opposition these emerging identities represented hybrids of both old and new, traditional and modern, foreign and indigenous in an attempt to resist and negotiate with foreign imperial pressures at the time.