Split thread (from effortless power)

[gerard]

I am getting sick of this section of the forum. Maybe they should put someone competent in Internal Martial Arts (preferably Chinese) rather than someone that doesn't believe in qi. Otherwise I am out of here very soon.

[nzric]

I am getting sick of this section of the forum. Maybe they should put someone competent in Internal Martial Arts (preferably Chinese) rather than someone that doesn't believe in qi. Otherwise I am out of here very soon.
Was that comment directed at me?? I'm the mod for the IMA forum. I haven't had any input into this thread so I'm confused about your post.

Also, this post is in the Books section of the forum

Plus I don't see how my ethnicity should be a factor.

[YODA]

I am getting sick of this section of the forum. Maybe they should put someone competent in Internal Martial Arts (preferably Chinese) rather than someone that doesn't believe in qi. Otherwise I am out of here very soon.

1. We choose our Staff not you.

2. Why should we have an IMA person in charge of the books section?

3. Prefereably Chinese? Do you realise how dumb that makes you look?

4. Looks like you're out of here very soon then :rolleyes:

[Shadowdh]

I am getting sick of this section of the forum. Maybe they should put someone competent in Internal Martial Arts (preferably Chinese) rather than someone that doesn't believe in qi. Otherwise I am out of here very soon.


People that make comments like this make the easter bunny cry...

Its such a close minded, racist and petulant statement that it beggars belief...

Bye...

[gerard]

Was that comment directed at me?? I'm the mod for the IMA forum. I haven't had any input into this thread so I'm confused about your post.

Also, this post is in the Books section of the forum

Plus I don't see how my ethnicity should be a factor.

I wasn't thinking of you. Sorry if that's the case.



1. We choose our Staff not you.

Maybe you should choose me soon. :)

2. Why should we have an IMA person in charge of the books section?

Sorry, I misjudged this thread. Didn't realise it was a kind of a book critique

3. Prefereably Chinese? Do you realise how dumb that makes you look?

Not really. Chinese discovered many things when Europeans lived in fear and destruction.

4. Looks like you're out of here very soon then :rolleyes:

Maybe. Who knows. Nothing is permanent in life. Maybe this board will no longer exist next year. :D


People that make comments like this make the easter bunny cry...

Its such a close minded, racist and petulant statement that it beggars belief...

Bye...

I am not surprised with your post. Not at all my :Alien: friend.


************************************************** ********



BTW, sorry for being sarcastic

[CKava]

Not really. Chinese discovered many things when Europeans lived in fear and destruction.
Thanks for brightening up my day. Its nice to see all Chinese people reduced to mere manifestations of some Western fantasy of Chinese history.

[gerard]

Thanks for brightening up my day. Its nice to see all Chinese people reduced to mere manifestations of some Western fantasy of Chinese history.


WHAT? :confused:


Maybe you are another :Alien:


;)

[CKava]

Hehe maybe... perhaps you could explain to me though why the Chinese discovering many things while "Europeans lived in Fear and Destruction" would mean that a Chinese person living today is a better choice for a moderator?

[Visage]

...Someone kick him already :rolleyes:

[TheSanSooStorm]

You know its funny how people suggest to mix martial arts opinion and everyone to come together to stop the rivalary between martial artists and martial art schools and styles. And then if someone doesn`t join them they paitronize them for it. Its like saying "Yes join our society of completely mixed world where the external martial artist lectures the internal martial artist about internal aspects, and the internal martial artist lectures the external martial artist. But if you don`t join that makes you a shallow minded fool and you are disrespected, discredited, and you suck, we all hate you." lol that statement isnt pointed at anyone on this forum, however I said that to make a point for what I`m about to say.

Debate this, debate that. Have a fun time, but in the end of the day don`t get bent out of shape because did it really matter? I`m just curious, are you going to tirelessly dedicate you life to something then come on the internet and do a complete 360 in your believes because some guy on the internet posted something? No. We can enhance our knowledge in conversation, but don`t think it will compromise peoples believes. Once again I just directed that at no one, let me make my point before this post turns into something long enough to be a book lol.

I think that there are Good and Bad sides to martial arts Externally and Internally. (kinda like star wars ;)) I think that you can misuse the External side of your art by hurting innocent people, and I think there are points in Internal martial arts that although are in a supreme state of mind, are in my opinion evil. Do I damn those who practice it? No. But Internal arts have there good sides too, and have helped many people as people and as fighters. And External arts have helped numorious people also, as fighters and (thats right internal practioners, you can admit it) as people too. I almost see my current post as a completely neutral comment on the behalf of the post, but thanks for reading anyways.

My friends, in the end of the day TaeKwonDo practioners will still kick high, Wushu practioners will still do awsome flips and forms, Boxers will still jab, grapplers will grapple, and inpractical will be inpractical and practical will be practical. So lets all talk, but keep a sense of reality in perspective, and not hate me for my incredibly long posts lol. :)

[gerard]

Hehe maybe... perhaps you could explain to me though why the Chinese discovering many things while "Europeans lived in Fear and Destruction" would mean that a Chinese person living today is a better choice for a moderator?

Hello,

For instance:

http://east_west_dialogue.tripod.com/dialogue/id1.html

or less dogmatic:

http://www.crystalinks.com/chinainventions.html

Or simply this is enough to prove that superior status:

http://groups.msn.com/NeiWaiChiaKungFu/thismonthsarticlescientificstudyofchiandmeridians. msnw

I don't believe that anyone should better than anyone; however, knowing European's utter arrogance (especially the AngloCeltic cultures) when it comes to deal with social issues then I say: Hey guys, cool down and let the Chinese do their job because they discovered and mastered it. They have been practising TCM, Qigong and Neijia for thousands of years whereas Europeans have been in touch with Chinese Ancient practices for only 50.

Let me ask you know dear CKava:

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Should the moderator of the IMA be Chinese or a Westerner? (or at least a Westerner exceptionally sensitive to Chinese issues) (Because the crew we got now doesn't believe in Qi/Chi)?


Note: Generally speaking China has always been a wiser culture than any of the European crowd


Regards.

[LiaoRouxin]

You're full of crap, Gerard. Clearly you're not Chinese, have never lived in China, and do not understand our history or our culture. Cease speaking immediately.

Qi is breath. That's all it is. Ask any master in Sichuan or Xi'an if you don't believe me, Qigong are exercises to manipulate breath to cause shifts in the body's inhibitions and reactions using breathing. Qi is not a magic force, nor will it ever be. It's the Westerners you decry so much, not the Chinese, who made Qi into something mystical, or Chinese who come to the West and find a way to sell their skills in making it out to be something it is not.

I thought the Westerners were the first to invent the steam wheel, calculate the circumpherence of the globe, and make steel (the Greeks made a very low quality steel a few hundred years before my *superior* people did).

I call your BS that Chinese have been a superior culture. Prove it to me. You act as if we never had our dark ages, like Europe did, where cultural achievements were limited. Perhaps you should research our history, and you'll find that from the invasion of Liu Yuan's Xianbi until the unification of the Sui, and quickly thereafter the establishment of Tang the Chinese were in a state of cultural decay and political strife. Oops, guess we "lived in Fear of Destruction", too. And what's this about wiser culture? What about the Han occupation of the Yue and the massacre of the Yue who did not bend to fit the Imperial rule? What about the extravagances of Dong Zhuo, the Court at Wu, the atrocities of the last king of Xia, the deceit emperor of Sui, Cao Cao's use of mass forced labor, the indiscriminate destruction of Xiongnu during "ceasefires"? How is that wiser than the crusaders attacking the Jews, Byzantines, and Muslims? It's not.

If someone from the West understands IMA why is that person a bad choice for moderator? Oh my God! A white person knows something about internal based fighting, whatever shall we do? What advantage does thousands of years of experience with internal martial arts give a contemporary Chinese person over a white or black or Hispanic person with access to the same material?

Man, you need to shut up and get out. If you had any respect for the Chinese culture and for people in general you wouldn't be babbling such nonsense. I am vastly offended by your racism.

Oh yeah, and why should it matter if the moderator believes in Qi or not? The moderator's job is not to pander to the members of the board, but to provide a safe environment for people to express their views.

If I have offended anyone in this post, I will gladly accept a flame warning or banning, but this kind of disrespect makes my blood boil.

-Liao Rouxin

[TheSanSooStorm]

You're full of crap, Gerard. Clearly you're not Chinese, have never lived in China, and do not understand our history or our culture. Cease speaking immediately.

Qi is breath. That's all it is. Ask any master in Sichuan or Xi'an if you don't believe me, Qigong are exercises to manipulate breath to cause shifts in the body's inhibitions and reactions using breathing. Qi is not a magic force, nor will it ever be. It's the Westerners you decry so much, not the Chinese, who made Qi into something mystical, or Chinese who come to the West and find a way to sell their skills in making it out to be something it is not.

I thought the Westerners were the first to invent the steam wheel, calculate the circumpherence of the globe, and make steel (the Greeks made a very low quality steel a few hundred years before my *superior* people did).

I call your BS that Chinese have been a superior culture. Prove it to me. You act as if we never had our dark ages, like Europe did, where cultural achievements were limited. Perhaps you should research our history, and you'll find that from the invasion of Liu Yuan's Xianbi until the unification of the Sui, and quickly thereafter the establishment of Tang the Chinese were in a state of cultural decay and political strife. Oops, guess we "lived in Fear of Destruction", too. And what's this about wiser culture? What about the Han occupation of the Yue and the massacre of the Yue who did not bend to fit the Imperial rule? What about the extravagances of Dong Zhuo, the Court at Wu, the atrocities of the last king of Xia, the deceit emperor of Sui, Cao Cao's use of mass forced labor, the indiscriminate destruction of Xiongnu during "ceasefires"? How is that wiser than the crusaders attacking the Jews, Byzantines, and Muslims? It's not.

If someone from the West understands IMA why is that person a bad choice for moderator? Oh my God! A white person knows something about internal based fighting, whatever shall we do? What advantage does thousands of years of experience with internal martial arts give a contemporary Chinese person over a white or black or Hispanic person with access to the same material?

Man, you need to shut up and get out. If you had any respect for the Chinese culture and for people in general you wouldn't be babbling such nonsense. I am vastly offended by your racism.

Oh yeah, and why should it matter if the moderator believes in Qi or not? The moderator's job is not to pander to the members of the board, but to provide a safe environment for people to express their views.

If I have offended anyone in this post, I will gladly accept a flame warning or banning, but this kind of disrespect makes my blood boil.

-Liao Rouxin


Liao Rouxin, this may sound like I`m kissing ass but I have no reason nor desire to kiss ass. But just let me say this, Go you. You nailed it. Finally someone who has some convictions behind there beliefes and arent so touchy feely and putting being "seeeeensitive' infront of just plain honestly. You were honest, you were truthful. Train hard friend. If someone wants to flame you, they should flame me too. Because I agree with you. I`m not asian, I`m white, but still I must say, go you.

[jonmonk]

Thanks Liao, bye bye Gerad.

Right, so what do you think then, do I need these books in my collection?

[CKava]

Let me ask you know dear CKava:

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Should the moderator of the IMA be Chinese or a Westerner? (or at least a Westerner exceptionally sensitive to Chinese issues) (Because the crew we got now doesn't believe in Qi/Chi)?
Well I think LiaoRouxin's impassioned post above covers much of what I would have said but to answer your question directly... In my opinion the moderator of the IMA forum should be someone who is a good moderator and who is interested in and has experience with IMA, ethnicity is not a factor to me. My friend Zhu Ce who has no interest in IMA (yet strangely is Chinese) would do a much worse job at moderating than nzric and the other moderators. And I might add that personally, I think nzric does a fine job and as for the need to be "exceptionally sensitive to Chinese issues" I think what you actually mean is "exceptionally sensitive to gerards issues". A few of my Chinese friends who I've discussed IMA with have taken an entirely different perspective from yourself so it seems your "Chinese issues" don't apply to all Chinese...

[LiaoRouxin]

Thank you for your kind words.

As for your question Jon, I started reading it on Amazon.com and while I can't say I really understand the book as I havent read it in its entirety, I'd like to make a few statements:

Based on the table of contents it seems to focus a lot on Daoist mysticism which is fine, if not something I'm a huge fan of. It ends with an essay by the pseudo-famous Japanese swordman Chozan Shissai (who created the Tengu style of Japanese swordsmanship in the 18th century). I don't understand the purpose of this, and while I don't think that Chozan was a bad choice to choose to end the book, I would have thought some ancient Daoist's treatise would have been more fitting. I also think it's a bit in poor form to end your book with a large chunk of text taken from another, much older, text.

On the text itself, I do not like the writing style. I think it's a bit pretentious like many english books on Eastern "mystic" topics. Using quotation marks (not unlike I did around mystic :) ) around a bunch of words like "Be" "Being" "In" "Thing" "You", etc. etc. is an unfortunate trait of many of these books. I don't think it's really neccessary, and I think it's a tactic used by these writers to increase the mysticism of their trade. Well, I'm also biased against these quotation marks because Chinese doesn't have any, so why should people purporting to spread Chinese knowledge make such extensive use of them, the Dao De Jing contains many philosophical mysteries but it manages to present them matter of factly.
It's hard to determine the actual content of the book from the introduction, as it likes to focus on abstract concepts and takes a long time to make a point. He seems to shift focus from the standard mystical Qi based discussions and move to the Daoist Purity of Body line of argument, which I think is refreshing. Also, he puts great store in the name of the martial art, which I think is interesting and can lead to different interpretations from the standard internal martial art treatises (the Hsin is the same as the Xin in my name, Heart. In my case Rouxin means Gentle Heart which has some similar meanings to the Chengxin on a funky Chinese spiritual level).

If you're looking for a bit of Daoist philosophy, this book may be good. I dont know if I can speak for the practical martial applications within the book, but someone else may be able to tell you.

[soggycat]

You're full of crap, Gerard. Clearly you're not Chinese, have never lived in China, and do not understand our history or our culture. Cease speaking immediately.


Errr....many Chinese themselves do not even understand their own culture. To imply that "that only the Chinese truly understand the Chinese" is bigoted and short sighted.
How many Chinese have "given up" their own culture for a Western one ?
Perhaps you ?
How many Chinese have chosen to study an INFERIOR Japanese martial art style all of which are derived from Chinese MAs?
There's an ancient Chinese proveb that says something along the line of " It takes an outsider to truly appreciate something taken for granted"
So before you accuse Gerard of anything, mebbe take a good look in the mirror .


Qi is breath. That's all it is.

That is a very shallow understanding. But after looking at your profile , I realise why.
You background is completely in External Martial Arts .
And you're what, 18 yo?
EMA people have a very poor understanding of what Qi is and is not.
Qi literally means "breath", but has much more interpreted meaning. If you don't understand that, you have very poor command of the language. I refuse to argue with people who get their basic facts wrong.
It's like trying to explain colors to the blind.


I call your BS that Chinese have been a superior culture. Prove it to me.

I won't say Chinese culture is more superior. That's a matter of perspective.
But what I will say is if we took a reference point in time say the year 1 AD and examined the techonological progress we have this:

Most non Italian /Greek Europeans were still Barbarians.
They lived in grass huts and hunted and gathered fruit and did not take regular baths. They bartered sheep for fruit for gold etc. They had no cities or stone buildings.They had no sophisticated writing system. They wore animal skins and furs. Cooking was primitive, meat was roasted or boiled.

At that very same time, many Chinese were already living in wooden/ stone buildings. Parts of the Great wall was already in existence for 500 years. Paper money was in use. Many lived in cities. They had libraries and a civil examination system to select Imperial Court officials. Paper ,Gunpowder, accupuncture and Herbs were in use. A sophisticated writing system was already inplace 2000 years . Women were already wearing fine clothes made of cotton and silk. People were eating a fine cuisine and sipping tea.None of these things were used by these Europeans at the same period.



North Western Europeans ( Nords, Slavs, Angles, Saxons, Celts,Gaelic, ) attained civilisation after the Greeks, Chinese, Egyptians , Jews, East Indians and Arabs.
This is a fact of history.
It is only around the 15th century when Europeans caught up with the technology race and surpassed China, Egypt, Greece and Italy.
The Chinese fell behind because of internal strife , isolationist policies and arrogance that "they had nothing to learn from the Barbarian Europeans"


Man, you need to shut up and get out. If you had any respect for the Chinese culture and for people in general you wouldn't be babbling such nonsense. I am vastly offended by your racism


And I'm offended by your own self hating of your own race. The grass is always greener eh?
You remind me of me at your age.
:)




Oh yeah, and why should it matter if the moderator believes in Qi or not?

Because a poorly informed moderator might inadvertently mislead others by sounding "authoritative".
It is counterproductive when people have a different definition of Qi, but use the same label.
It misleads others.
If you believe Qi isn't a mystical energy, isn't it better not to refer to it as "Qi"?
Call it something else, say Bio Mechanics.
It's alright that the Moderator has a diff opinion, I have no quarrel with that.



If I have offended anyone in this post, I will gladly accept a flame warning or banning, but this kind of disrespect makes my blood boil.



You sound like a passionate young person with strong untempered views.
Keep this message somewhere and revisit it 5 years from now and observe how your perspective has changed with more knowlegde and experience.
You become more circumspect.
:)

[soggycat]

LiaoRouxin,
And incidentally didn't Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong make similar remarks that too many Singaporeans are dumping their own sophisticated and ancient cultures for the pop modern culture of the West?
For instance, McDonalds is full of poison, tastes plain....yet many young Asians are attracted to the lifestyle image it engenders.

I'm not knocking Western culture here, but I am making a statement about gullible Asian youth who reject their own culture wholesale in search of something more flashy.

Both East and West have good things to offer. Wisdom is required to be able to discern and choose which values that take you the furthest in life.

[gerard]

You're full of crap, Gerard. Clearly you're not Chinese, have never lived in China, and do not understand our history or our culture. Cease speaking immediately.

Hello,

I guess talking to a Westernised Chinese from Singapore is a waste of time, but I'll try


Qi is breath. That's all it is. Ask any master in Sichuan or Xi'an if you don't believe me, Qigong are exercises to manipulate breath to cause shifts in the body's inhibitions and reactions using breathing. Qi is not a magic force, nor will it ever be. It's the Westerners you decry so much, not the Chinese, who made Qi into something mystical, or Chinese who come to the West and find a way to sell their skills in making it out to be something it is not.

Qi is breath. :cry: You really should get back to Sichuan and train with a real Daoist /Buddhist master to see if qi is just breath. This is funny.

Let me ask you something:

Do you meditate at all?


I thought the Westerners were the first to invent the steam wheel, calculate the circumpherence of the globe, and make steel (the Greeks made a very low quality steel a few hundred years before my *superior* people did).

It sounds to me that you are pissed-off with your own culture. Sorry but don't blame that to China, blame it to KARMA.


I call your BS that Chinese have been a superior culture. Prove it to me. You act as if we never had our dark ages, like Europe did, where cultural achievements were limited. Perhaps you should research our history, and you'll find that from the invasion of Liu Yuan's Xianbi until the unification of the Sui, and quickly thereafter the establishment of Tang the Chinese were in a state of cultural decay and political strife. Oops, guess we "lived in Fear of Destruction", too. And what's this about wiser culture? What about the Han occupation of the Yue and the massacre of the Yue who did not bend to fit the Imperial rule? What about the extravagances of Dong Zhuo, the Court at Wu, the atrocities of the last king of Xia, the deceit emperor of Sui, Cao Cao's use of mass forced labor, the indiscriminate destruction of Xiongnu during "ceasefires"? How is that wiser than the crusaders attacking the Jews, Byzantines, and Muslims? It's not.

I know all that stuff, as I know that China become a modern country 2,000 years ago. To me the China I really care is the one that produced this kind of legacy:

Li Er (LaoTze), Zhuang-zi, I-Ching and before that Huang Di (Yellow emperor); and the true Daoists who observe their teachings. They lived according to the Way (Dao). Remember:

A good man never justifies himself by arguing; he who justifies himself by arguing is not a good man (DDJ)

Please don't argue my little Chinese fighter. Cool your Li because it's burning you. Cool it with Kan (meditation is the key). Living in a city is no good, specially at the begining of practice.


If someone from the West understands IMA why is that person a bad choice for moderator? Oh my God! A white person knows something about internal based fighting, whatever shall we do? What advantage does thousands of years of experience with internal martial arts give a contemporary Chinese person over a white or black or Hispanic person with access to the same material?

I must say that culture detemines the outcome. However in certain occasions foreign elements to that culture will grasp the key concepts and apply it diligently.

Man, you need to shut up and get out. If you had any respect for the Chinese culture and for people in general you wouldn't be babbling such nonsense. I am vastly offended by your racism.

You need to calm your Li. Please visit either a master of meditation or a TCM practitioner.


Oh yeah, and why should it matter if the moderator believes in Qi or not? The moderator's job is not to pander to the members of the board, but to provide a safe environment for people to express their views.

Someone who doesn't understand qi makes them uncapable of riding the horse. Qi is the horse, you are the rider and the carriage is your body. Imagine what would happen to the carriage if the horse gets under control.

I see that happening in this forum :D


If I have offended anyone in this post, I will gladly accept a flame warning or banning, but this kind of disrespect makes my blood boil.

-Liao Rouxin


Let me finish with this:


Truth, sincerity, love and service to humanity.

Take care my young fighter

:)

[gerard]

Thanks Liao, bye bye Gerad.

Right, so what do you think then, do I need these books in my collection?


Thanks Liao, bye bye jonmonk



:D

[nzric]

First of all, I'm not a moderator of this particular forum, but... LiaoRouxin, please try to keep it civil. Also, some comments from some members are focusing too much on the race issue, which is not welcome in MAP. Discrimination on the basis of ethnicity is wrong (and yes, I'm in the recruitment industry :D).

I know some people disagree with my own views when I express my opinions as a MAP member. This is a forum and if we all agreed then it would be a very boring one, but I think I need to clarify the position of a Moderator.

It is not the job of a moderator to dictate the type of discussion to be made, or to have a monopoly of authority on a subject. It's a mod's job to monitor the content of posts, make sure people stay within the bounds of decency and are reasonably polite to each other, and to keep everything rolling along, as a neutral party. Of course I have my own views, but my status as a contributing member is always separate from my role and duties as a mod.

It is also the role of the mod to make sure people keep to the forum topic, and in my case that's Tai Chi and Internal Martial Arts. As I have said before, the subject of qi is welcome as long as it applies to IMA in a martial context... talking about qigong and meditation is fine, but you should use the Philosophy/Off Topic/Books/Health & Fitness sections of MAP to do this. This is not bias, it's housekeeeping.

Can I remind everyone that under the TOS, if you have a comment about any topic mod, you should send a PM to one of the Global Mods or Admin. They can review your message and act accordingly. A thread isn't the correct place.

[gerard]

LiaoRouxin,
And incidentally didn't Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong make similar remarks that too many Singaporeans are dumping their own sohpisticated and ancient cultures for the modern culture of the West?
For instance, McDonalds is full of poison, taste plain....but so many young Asians are attracted to the lifestyle image it engenders.

I'm not knocking Western culture here, but I am making a statement about gullible Asian youth who drop their own culture wholesale in search of something more flashy.

Both East and West have good things to offer. Wisdom is required to be able to discern and choose which values that take you the furthest in life.


Agree with you feline brother ;)

What I have seen so far is that many of the Asians that left their countries have adopted the extreme way of the West:

1. Money

2. Latest mobile phones

3. Brand new clothes of certain brands

4. Brand new cars of certain brands

5. Chic hairstyles

6. Corporate jobs, i.e. IT, Business, Law and Commerce, etc.

7. And when it comes to beliefs they all embrace Christianism, but not the pure and real version. They follow pagan sects like Pentecostal churches where they only go there to sing, socialise, pick up people of the opposite sex, or feel good because they fear life. I have been there and I observed these places. What I waste of time and what makes me sick if that they believe in Jesus (if they only knew that Jesus was a Buddhist :). Check:

www.tombofjesus.com

How sad is this. It happened because they never understood the Way, Buddha's teachings and Universal Consciousness (God). These places promote real beliefs:

http://www.crystalclarity.com/yogananda/33.asp

http://www.christianmystics.com/

http://www3.la.psu.edu/textbooks/PM-China/ch4_main.htm

http://www.arches.uga.edu/~godlas/Sufism.html

http://www.purifymind.com/Sutras.htm


And when I see China today it makes me sad read comments of people that link esoteric Daoist practices with the devil:

www.chinaforjesus.com (this link hasn't been working lately, but keep trying)

They blame the devil because they just jumped into higher level practices without having a solid foundation. It's not the devil, it's human insanity.

With Metta,


:)

[CKava]

My God Gerard your so incredibly condescending that it actually took my breath away... It seems you want all Chinese people to conform to your Western fantasy of what a real Chinese should be, i.e. all Chinese should agree with your beliefs on Qi, or else they have become "Westernised" or "do not understand their own culture" (or in the case of LiaoRouxin you question how Chinese someone not living in China can be- ironic don't you think?!?). I would imagine a Singaporean of Chinese descent would have a much greater command of Chinese than yourself who I believe does not speak it at all! Oh and someone who is capable of recognising good and bad points of a countries history and culture does not make them "self hating of your own race" it just seems it makes them hating of how you portray Chinese history and culture. By the way what is the Chinese race?

As for the history, well its fine I wouldn't dispute that China had a more advanced civilisation than Europe for a long period of history still don't get your point though, if your taking technology and such things as a measure of the value of a civilisation your living in the greatest human civilisation to date... Its a hallmark of the romantic view of the 'orient' from the colonial period that Westerners regarded Asian cultures as having a magnificent past and nothing of real value in the present (unless of course its teachers or texts who keep the knowledge of the glorious past alive). Glad to see this attitude is still alive and well today.

For being Daoist/Buddhist you also seem to have a remarkable need to carve the world into dichotomies- external MA/internal MA, "Westernised" Chinese/Authentic Chinese, Meditators/Non Meditators. Maybe you should take more time pondering over some of the following excerpts from the Dao De Ching...

Chapter VII
"Therefore the sage puts his person last and it comes first,
Treats it as extraneous to himself and it is preserved.
Is it not because he is without thought of self that he is able to accomplish his private ends?"

Chapter XIX
"Exterminate the sage, discard the wise,
And the people will benefit a hundredfold;
... These three, being false adornments, are not enough
And there will be no more thieves and bandits."

Chapter XXII
"Therefore the sage embraces the One and is a model for the empire.
He does not show himself, and so is conspicuous;
He does not consider himself right, and so is illustrious;
He does not brag, and so has merit;
He does not boast, and so endures." (and this message is repeated in Chapter XXIV)

and the infamous

Chapter LVI
"One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know."

Sorry for derailing again everyone, gerard's posts just seem deserving of responses.

[Knight_Errant]

My God Gerard your so incredibly condescending that it actually took my breath away... It seems you want all Chinese people to conform to your Western fantasy of what a real Chinese should be, i.e. all Chinese should agree with your beliefs on Qi, or else they have become "Westernised" or "do not understand their own culture" (or in the case of LiaoRouxin you question how Chinese someone not living in China can be- ironic don't you think?!?).
Hear, hear. Today, china and japan are modern countries who actually have better education systems than a lot of western countries. To portray them as ignorant peasants who believe in chi etc. is deeply racist.

[jonmonk]

Thanks, I'll probably use my normal miserly technique of reading a couple of chapters in a bookshop to see if I like it :)

[Saz]

I think this lame excuse for a discussion has on far enough.

Posting racist bile is not welcome here.

If anyone has an issue with a moderator, raise it to an Admin or Global Mod via PM. Anyone who doesn't want to do that has no right to post complaining.

The original thread has been salavaged and can be found here http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30106