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Native Songs and Dances: Southeast Asia in a Greater Chinese Sporting Community, 1920–48

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

Andrew Morris
Andrew Morris
Affiliation:
Colgate University
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Abstract

In the 1920s and 1930s, Republican Chinese thinkers viewed modern sports and traditional martial arts as important ways of invigorating the Chinese nation and race, and institutions in the ROC used both in attempting to extend the nationalist impulse to the Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. These alternative physical culture models provide insights into both the diversity of thinking and the shared modernist assumptions that inspired projects directed toward the creation of “Greater Chinese” communities.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 2000 , pp. 48 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2000

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References

1 My use of these terms “Huaqiao” (“Overseas Chinese”), Southeast Asian Chinese, and Nanyang (South Seas) Chinese is not absolutely interchangeable. As Wang Gungwu has pointed out, the majority of Chinese in Southeast Asia, while identifying themselves as ethnically “Hua” (Chinese), do not call themselves “Huaqiao”. Wang Gungwu, “Political Chinese: Their Contribution to Modern Southeast Asian History”, in Gungwu, Wang, China and the China Overseas (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1991), p. 142Google Scholar. This term “Huaqiao” carries a decidedly statist flavour, one which resonates much more with official Guomindang or PRC nationalism than it does with the complicated identities of the Southeast Asian Chinese. Therefore, I use this term only to reflect this official nationalistic view or fantasy of Southeast Asian Chinese as forever loyal to the Chinese state.

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11 The Jingwu's own English translation was “Chin Woo Athletic Association”. However, I prefer to translate “Jingwu” into English, “Pure Martial” hopefully capturing this notion of their martial arts as the purest and most essential of China's martial tradition.

12 The final impetus to start the organization supposedly came when Huo's star pupil Liu Zhensheng was able to scare away a barnstorming foreign muscleman who was stirring up trouble in Shanghai's brothels and other dens of vice, publicly claiming that the whole of China could provide no competition for his strength and fighting abilities, and pledging to “flatten any Sick Man of East Asia” who dared challenge him. The foreign knave was either Russian or English, depending on which version of the story one hears. Wennan, Kuang and Xiaoming, Hu, Zhongguo tiyu shihua [Items from the history of Chinese athletics] (Chengdu: Badu shushe, 1989), p. 219Google Scholar; Wu Wenzhong, Zhongguo jin bai nian, p. 40; Zhihe, Jiang, “Aiguo de Jingwu tiyuhui” [The patriotic Pure Martial Athletic Association], Shanghai tiyu shihua 30 (1991): 36Google Scholar; Xizeng, Han, “Jianping Chen Yingshi faqi chuangban Jingwuhui” [A brief evaluation of Chen Yingshi's role in launching and founding the Pure Martial School], Shanghai tiyu shihua 29 (1990): 32Google Scholar.

13 “Quanshu yu quanfei” [Boxing and Boxer bandits], Xin qingnian (La Jeunesse) 6, 2 (1919): 218–21Google Scholar. This exchange is also described in Morris, “Cultivating the National Body”, pp. 450–52, and Cohen, Paul A., “The Contested Past: The Boxers as History and Myth”, Journal of Asian Studies 51, 1 (1992): 84–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Morris, “Cultivating the National Body”, pp. 441–65.

15 Weichang, Lu, “Zhongguo wushu zhi jianglai” [The future of Chinese martial arts], in Di san ci quanguo yundong dahui tekan [Special publication of the Third National Games] (Hankou: Hankou jidujiao qingnianhui, 1924)Google Scholar.

16 Wang Gungwu, “The Limits of Nanyang Chinese Nationalism, 1912–1937”, in Wang Gungwu, Community and Nation, p. 50.

17 Jueʼan, Yu, “Jingwu nan chuan jiqi fazhan zhi chutan” [A preliminary inquiry into the Pure Martial Association's southern spread and development], Shanghai tiyu shihua 30 (1991): 41Google Scholar.

18 Yangwu, Cai, “Jingwu shukan xi” [An analysis of Pure Martial Association publications], Shanghai tiyu shihua 29 (1990): 45Google Scholar; Peiyu, Zhou, “Lun Jingwu nüjie” [On the heroines of the Pure Martial], Shanghai tiyu shihua 30 (1991): 34Google Scholar.

19 Xiaoʼao, Luo, Jingwu waizhuan [An alternative history of the Pure Martial] (Shanghai: Jingwu tiyuhui, 1921), pp. 28–29Google Scholar.

20 Yu Jueʼan, “Jingwu nan chuan”, pp. 42–43.

21 Ibid., p. 42.

22 Wang Gungwu, “The Limits of Nanyang Chinese Nationalism”, pp. 51–52.

23 Ibid., pp. 53–54.

24 Cochran, Sherman, Big Business in China: Sino-Foreign Rivalry in the Cigarette Industry, 1890–1930 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 63–69, 109, 120–21, 178–85Google Scholar.

25 Jueʼan, Yu, “Jingwu shiliao” [Historical materials on the Pure Martial Association], Shanghai tiyu shihua 24 (1989): 16–17Google Scholar.

26 Jueʼan, Yu, “‘Jingwu shengnü’ — Li Zhixi” [Li Zhixi, heroine of the Pure Martial], Shanghai tiyu shihua 26 (1990): 56–57Google Scholar; Zhou Peiyu, “Lun Jingwu nüjie”, p. 35.

27 Jueʼan, Yu, “Jingwu nanxing Hang xianfeng” [Two pioneers of the Pure Martial's southern expansion], Shanghai tiyu shihua 27 (1990): 40Google Scholar.

28 As one might guess, imagined nation-ties were not the only connections operating here. The Jingwu branch in Haiphong (Tonkin) was housed on the premises of the Xinhui County (Guangdong) Native-Place Association, allowing us to see how regional loyalties were also an important aspect of the Pure Martial's push into Southeast Asia. Zhongwen, Su, “Haifang Jingwu jinxun” [News from the Haiphong Pure Martial branch], Jingwu zazhi 46 (1924): 28Google Scholar.

29 “Ji Furong Jingwu huanyinghui” [On the Pure Martial welcoming party in Seremban], Jingwu zazhi 38 (1924): 64Google Scholar.

30 Shijian, Jian, “Huanying Lu Yao liang zhuren huiguo ji” [On the welcome-home reception for Directors Lu and Yao], Jingwu zazhi 40 (1924): 59–64Google Scholar.

31 The Jingwu were not the only Republican martial arts presence in Southeast Asia; also notable were the “South Fujian Martial Arts Squads” organized and taken to Malaya on fundraising tours by the Singapore-based Chinese business leader Tan Kah Kee in 1929 and 1930. Zhengfu, Hong, Yinsheng, Lin and Yinghan, Su, “Sanbai nian lai de Yongchun baihequan” [Yongchun's White Crane boxing over the last 300 years], Tiyu wenshi 19 (1986): 31–32Google Scholar.

32 The Pure Martial also retained its dual emphasis on martial arts and Western-style sports in its Southeast Asia branches. In fact, the Manila Jingwu basketball team captured the 1928 Philippines basketball championship. Liangyou (The Young Companion) 24 (1928): 22Google Scholar.

33 Ruiqiu, Zhong, “Lun Jingwu tiyuhui yu Xin wenhua yundong” [On the Pure Martial Athletic Association and the New Culture Movement], Shanghai tiyu shihua 29 (1990): 40Google Scholar.

34 Tiesheng, Chen, “Di san jie quanguo yundonghui guocao jishi benmo” [A full account of the national calisthenics demonstration at the Third National Games], Jingwu zazhi 42 (1924): 6–8Google Scholar.

35 It is perhaps a similar logic that sustains the Jingwu's popularity in Southeast Asia to this day; contemporary worldwide Jingwu rosters are still dominated by branches in Malaysia and Singapore.

36 Boyuan, Lin, Zhongguo wushu shi [The history of Chinese martial arts] (Taibei: Wuzhou chubanshe, 1996), p. 448Google Scholar.

37 Morris, “Cultivating the National Body”, p. 481.

38 “Westem Australia Chin Woo Athletic Association Incorporated: Chin Woo — One Big Family”, <http://www.chinwoo.com.au>.

39 Purcell, The Chinese in Southeast Asia, pp. 299–300.

40 Purcell also describes Chinese nationalism in the Dutch Indies during this period (Ibid., pp. 448–50, 466–67).

41 For later examples of this type of imagined Greater China, see 1950s-era “maps” of a Qing Dynasty that covered all of continental Southeast Asia in Uhalley, Stephen Jr., “‘Greater China’: The Contest of a Term”, Positions 2, 2 (1994): 277–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 “Di ba jie Yuandong yundong dahui zhi xiansheng” [Welcoming the Eighth Far Eastern Championship Games], Jiaoyu zazhi (The Educational Review) 19, 7 (1927): 9Google Scholar.

43 “What's What in the Sporting World”, Tiyu (Physical Education) 1, 2 (1927): 33Google Scholar.

44 This likewise was true of the Honolulu Chinese baseball team, who came back to represent China in the 1927 Far Eastern Championship Games after a twelve-year absence.

45 Yinzu, You, “Yuanyun qianjing (Ma-ni-la tongxin)” [A Far Eastern Games preview (Letter from Manila)], Renyan zhoukan 16 (1934): 323Google Scholar.

46 Ibid., p. 323.

47 Still, those Huaqiao, like tennis stars Khoo and Lum, who represented the more authentically Chinese locales of Shanghai and Sichuan at the National Games, were surely appreciated that much more. Yangwu, Cai, “Jiu Zhongguo wangtan san wei Huaqiao qiuxing” [Three Overseas Chinese stars of the Old Chinese tennis world], Tiyu wenshi 37 (1989): 33Google Scholar.

48 In contrast, Kho's fellow Javanese Chinese tennis star Khoo Hooi-hye represented China in these Far Eastern Championships.

49 You Yinzu, “Yuanyun qianjing”, p. 324.

50 Cai Yangwu, “Jiu Zhongguo wangtan”, pp. 33–34.

51 Chen Jian, a Malayan Chinese sprinter, was the first woman to appear in three Chinese National Games. However, her similarly chequered past — running for Fujian (her ancestral home) in 1930, Shanghai (where she studied at the East Asian P.E. School) in 1933, and the Malayan Chinese team in 1935 — also made Chen a liminal figure in the sporting world. Quanguo nuyundongyuan mingjiang lu [Roll of the nation's women athletes] (Shanghai: Qinfen shuju, 1936), p. 11Google Scholar.

52 The summer of 1933, only months before the triumphant Fifth National Games held in Nanjing on 10–20 October, was the busiest time for Chinese teams plying these ancient routes. That summer, Shanghai's East China (Donghua) Soccer Club toured the Philippines, the Fudan University volleyball team made a trip to Southeast Asia, the Shanghai Southern Commercial Institute track and field team traveled to Manila, and the Fujian Provincial men's and women's basketball teams concluded a tour of Malaya and Singapore, the women's team returning to China an undefeated 17–0.

53 Hengzhi, Yu, “Nanwang de Lehua zuqiudui” [The unforgettable China Joy Soccer Club], Shanghai tiyu shihua 2 (1982): 12–13Google Scholar.

54 Ibid., p. 13.

55 Yusen, Pang, Zhenzhong, Li and Baokun, Tang, “Nanjing Zhongyang Guoshu Tiyu Zhuanke Xuexiao Nanyang lüxingtuan chufang zhuiji” [Recollections of the Nanjing Central Martial Arts and Physical Education Institute trip to the South Seas], Jiangsu tiyu wenshi 3 (1985): 31–34Google Scholar.

56 Ibid., p. 32.

57 Ibid., p. 33.

58 Wang Huaiqi, Xingqiu guize [Starball Regulations] (Shanghai: Zhongguo jianxue she, 1928), front cover and pp. 6–16. These commercial plugs do not constitute the full extent of Wang's obsession with the capitalist nature of modern physical culture; some of his musings on the ties between modern tiyu and capitalist labor discipline are almost downright chilling. One passage of Wang's went, “[A]thletes' rules-respecting participation in sports is just like the work done by laborers to produce goods.… [T]here is also the matter of athletes' respect for the rules. Whether in defeat or victory, there will always be some violation of the rules. Again, how much does this resemble the factory discipline that all must follow?” (pp. 57–59).

59 Cook, James A., “Bridges to Modernity: Xiamen, Overseas Chinese and Southeast Coastal Modernization, 1843–1937” (Ph. D. diss., University of California, San Diego, 1998), pp. 202–203Google Scholar.

60 Liangyou (The Young Companion) 40 (1929): 7Google Scholar; Tiyu zazhi 1, 1 (1935): 97Google Scholar; Wu, Zhao, “Lisheng gongchang jishi” [The story of the Victorious Student Factory], Qinfen tiyu yuebao (The Chin Fen Sports Monthly) 4, 3 (1936): 205Google Scholar.

61 Chuxi Di shiyi jie Shijie yundonghui, Section 1, pp. 2, 8–9, 17–18; interview with Cheng Jinguan, Suzhou, China, 2 March 1997; Morris, “Cultivating the National Body”, pp. 413–15. The rest of the Olympic delegation, on board the Italian Conte Verde, made stops in Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Bombay, each stop bringing fabulous welcomes from the local Chinese population. In Singapore, more than 1000 Overseas Chinese greeted the team, taking the Olympians in ten cars on a tour of the city and then to a banquet hosted by ROC Consul Diao Zuoqian. Huge crowds also attended a basketball scrimmage between the Chinese Olympians and the Singapore All-Stars, which was followed by a demonstration by the nine-person Olympic martial arts team. See Chuxi Di shiyi jie Shijie yundonghui, Section 1, pp. 18–19.

62 Aw Haw clearly had other non-Olympic goals in mind during his 1948 visits to Shanghai. That September, Chiang Kai-shek's son Ching-kuo, in charge of implementing his father's Financial and Economic Emergency Measures in Shanghai, ordered Aw's arrest for smuggling gold and foreign currency. Aw quickly fled to Hong Kong, evading arrest but also forfeiting his short-lived Olympic legacy. Eastman, Lloyd E., Seeds of Destruction: Nationalist China in War and Revolution 1937–1949 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984), pp. 186, 267Google Scholar. On a related note, a supposed donation from Philippine Huaqiao (but later found to be a fabrication by Chinese Olympic Committee Chairman Hao Gengsheng in order to maximize his influence during this planning period) was the deciding factor in ensuring that an Olympic team could be sent to London. In the end, the Olympic basketball and soccer teams (the former featuring three Huaqiao players on its 10-man roster) still had to make a draining pre-Games tour of Saigon, Manila, Bangkok, Singapore, Rangoon and Calcutta to raise one last cache of badly-needed funds. Shouyi, Dong, “Aolinpike yu Zhongguo” [The Olympics and China], in Hongmin, Ji, Xingmao, Yu and Changfu, Lü, eds., Aoyunhui yu Zhongguo [The Olympics and China] (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1985), pp. 30–31Google Scholar.

63 Xunyu, Chen, “Ganxiang yu xiwang” [Emotions and hopes], in Di qi jie quanguo yundonghui huakan [Seventh National Games Official Pictorial] (Shanghai: Shenbaoguan, 1948), p. 1Google Scholar.

64 Zhenya, Wang, Jiu Zhongguo tiyu jianwen [Glimpses of physical culture in the old China] (Beijing: Renmin tiyu chubanshe, 1987), pp. 7–8Google Scholar.

65 Di qi jie quanguo yundonghui huakan, p. 61.

66 The schedule also included nine demonstration events: men's and women's archery, Chinese boxing (quanshu, formerly an official competition in the days when guoshu was still a nationally significant form), badminton, men's gymnastics, diving, water polo, baseball, racewalking, and mini-soccer. Di qi jie quanguo yundonghui zhixu ce [Official program of the Seventh National Games] (Shanghai, 1948), pp. 103–117.

67 As a young man, Chen had been a nationally-known track star based in Xiamen. There, in 1920 he ran a race against a train; his reputation soared after he defeated the train and proved the human body's capacity to better even this ultimate symbol of modernity and commerce. Gu Xin, “Tiyujia Chen Zhangʼe” [Physical education expert Chen Zhangʼe], p. 48. (This article from an unknown source was kindly provided by James Cook.)

68 Zhangʼe, Chen, Tiyu mantan [Informal conversations on sport] (Shanghai: Dongnan chubanshe, 1948), p. 4Google Scholar.

69 Di qi jie quanguo yundonghui huakan, p. 28.

70 “Xigong xuanshoutuan jinye Zhuxi” [Saigon delegation calls on the Chairman], Zhengyanbao, “Quanyun tekan” [National Games Special Publication], 12 May 1948, p. 1.

71 Di qi jie quanguo yundonghui huakan, p. 10.

72 Ibid., p. 14; Zhengyanbao, “Quanyun tekan”, 11 May 1948, p. 4. “Malay” is clearly used here as a geographic rather than an ethnic term.

73 Di qi jie quanguo yundonghui huakan, p. 38.

74 Moming, , “Lanqiu quanri zhancheng” [Basketball scores from the entire day], Zhengyanbao, “Quanyun tekan”, 7 May 1948, p. 2Google Scholar.

75 One author explained the Taiwanese athletes' surprising successes in the Games by pointing out that they were naturally obedient “slaves” who had been trained well by the Japanese colonial regime. “Xuanshou jianying” [Athlete shorts], Zhengyanbao, “Quanyun tekan”, 5 May 1948, p. 4; Tong Xiangzhao, “Cong Taiwan xuanshou tanqi” [Talking about the Taiwan athletes], Zhengyanbao, “Quanyun tekan”, 11 May 1948, p. 4.

76 For example, see Liangyou (The Young Companion) 34 (January 1929), p. 22Google Scholar; Liangyou (The Young Companion) 47 (1930): 24Google Scholar.

77 Xiangqing, Jiang, “Yuandong yundonghui gaikuang” [On the Far Eastern Championship Games], in Di qi jie Yuandong yundonghui quanguo yuxuan dahui tekan [Special publication of the National Selection Meet for the Seventh Far Eastern Championship Games] (Shanghai: Di qi jie Yuandong yundonghui quanguo yuxuan dahui tekanshe, 1925), p. 44Google Scholar.