- When the government not only stopped suppressing traditional
practices of many kinds but also actively promoted them, all sorts of
practitioners reemerged. The traditional arts had been damaged by the
first decades of communist rule, particularly the decade of the Cultural
Revolution, without being entirely destroyed.
1978 to the Present
After Mao Zedong died in 1976 , there was some uncertainty as to the
direction the country would take. Would it continue on the path set by the
Cultural Revolution, or would it turn to a more pragmatic course and
rebuild the shattered economy? This question wasfinally answered in
1978 with the ascension of the pragmatic Deng Xiaoping as the dominant
figure in the leadership. Deng was a committed communist, but he was also
clear that China was in desperate need of economic growth and political
rejuvenation. China reopened its universities and colleges and began
rebuilding its economy and society. It also opened up to the outside
world, leading to both massive foreign investment in China and an export-
led boom in Chinese industry.
These changes did not immediately affect the practice of Chinese mar-
tial arts as it had developed since 1949. The limited government-sponsored
training centers for martial arts continued as they had, but perhaps with
less fear of political criticism. The larger changes had taken place, as
mentioned above, outside of China, and with the new openness, those
developments began to influence the martial arts within China. Probably
the most significant import with respect to the martial arts was foreign
movies and media. Hong Kong martial artsfilms brought an invigorated
and exciting performative tradition of Chinese martial arts back to China,
and foreigners interested in studying the Chinese martial arts (and who
became interested in them as a result of thosefilms) also began trickling in
tofind teachers. Foreign conceptions of the Chinese martial arts directly
affected the Chinese understanding of the martial arts.
During the entire twentieth century the arguments over the place of the
martial arts in a modern China had never been settled. Very little attention
was paid to these questions while the new nation struggled to define itself
politically and economically under communism in opposition to dynastic
or traditional China. There were some government centers for martial arts
training, and these centers operated under the pre-communist era idea of
specific style curricula in national styles. The forms and skills of these styles
were usually established by committees of practitioners who all studied
1978 to the Present 229