that women in that region were reported to have carried halberds and bows
and arrows, and practiced spear routines alongside the males.
During the Tang dynasty (618–960), one of Chinese culture’s grand-
est periods, martial skills were valued alongside intellectual pursuits. The
poet Du Fu immortalized the skill of a woman in his “On Watching a
Sword Dance by Madam Gongsun’s Disciple.” In Chinese, sword dancing
has always been synonymous with the practice of actual sword techniques.
It was a favorite pastime of the female revolutionary Qiu Jin, who was ex-
ecuted on the eve of the Revolution of 1911, and whose memorial statues
often depict her standing defiantly with a sword.
Popular culture in the capital city (first Kaifeng and then Hangzhou)
during the Song dynasty (960–1279) included both male and female
wrestling matches in the marketplace. Women demonstrating martial arts
routines to draw a crowd preceded these matches. The scholar-official,
Sima Guang, derided the spectacle of scantily clad women wrestlers among
the entertainers who gathered outside the Gate of Great Virtue during New
Year celebrations in 1062. Noting the irony of these public displays in front
of this symbol of national decorum, he petitioned the throne to prohibit
women’s wrestling.
Throughout the Song period, China was under threat of invasion
from various northern nomadic groups, and the Mongols finally conquered690 Women in the Martial Arts: China
A woman in Beijing performing a wushuform, November 1997. (Karen Su/Corbis)