After a victory for mixed martial arts over tai chi, This Week in Asia settles another long-running combat rivalry
The martial arts world was recently set abuzz when MMA fighter Xu Xiaodong defeated tai chi master Wei Lei in a one-sided, 10-second bout in Chengdu, China. Some believe the victory proves Xu’s claim that traditional martial arts are outdated; others question whether Wei was fit to represent his sport. Either way, with a host of martial arts experts now lining up to fight Xu, the debate over the merits of various fighting styles looks set to rage on. Here, Chow Chung-yan weighs up another long-running combat rivalry – this one with its roots in the second world war
It is common for a country at war to hype up a certain weapon to motivate its people. In China during the second world war, the weapon that most captured the public’s imagination was the Chinese dadao (broadsword) .
The war was brutally one-sided. Against Japanese imperial troops armed with bombers and tanks, most Chinese soldiers had only a simple rifle. Not only were the Japanese much better equipped, their soldiers were professionally trained. All Japanese soldiers had to go through intense training in jukendo – fighting with a bayonet.
Jukendo was a combat technique borrowed from the West and combined with traditional Japanese spear fighting moves. In battles, the Japanese applied it with deadly effect.
While the Chinese enjoyed a numerical advantage, their soldiers were mostly peasants who had little martial training.
