Kung Fu

王靖杰

KUNG FU is a Chinese term be used in English to explain the Chinese martial arts. It's original meaning refers to expertise. Skills are achieved through hard work and a lot of practicing. In the original meaning, KUNG FU can refer to any skill. KUNG FU in Chinese is a compound word. Combining this term, KUNG(功）means "achievement" or "merit", and FU （夫）which translates into "man". So that the literal rendering would be "human achievement"; Its connotation is an accomplishment to get the great effort. In Mandarin, when these two words were combined such as Kung and Fu , the "first tone" is "stress tone (emphasis)", the "second tone" often takes a "neutral tone (softly)". In this case that forming the "Kung Fu". In ancient China, Kung Fu doesn't just mean Chinese martial arts. It also refers to the process of one's training - the strengthening of the body and the mind, and learning how to perfect our skills. It refers to excellence achieved through long practice in any endeavor. You can say that a person's Kung Fu is good in cooking, or that someone has Kung Fu in calligraphy; saying that a person possesses Kung Fu in an area implies the skill in that category which they have worked hard to develop. Someone with "bad Kung Fu" that means someone has not put enough time and effort into training or seems to lack of the motivation to do. So, Kung Fu is also have a name used for the elaborate tea--------KungFu Tea(功夫茶）, it also call Fujian Tea (Fujian is a province in China) .

The term Kung Fu（功夫） was not popularly used in the sense of "Chinese martial art" before the 20th century. Thus the word would be seldom found in any ancient texts. The term was first known to have been reported by the French Jesuit Missionary Jean Joseph Marie Amiot. In the 18th century, this term was uncommon in the mainstream English language. It was not until the late of 1960s when it became popular due to Hong Kong's Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee is known for popularizing "Kung Fu". Before the 1960s, Chinese martial arts was primarily referred the 'Chinese Boxing" . After Bruce Lee, "Kung Fu" become a popular term.

[此贴子已经被作者于2012-11-27 14:49:55编辑过]