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1:02

Sounds Music Radio podcasts,

1:07

Hello and welcome to you're dead to

1:09

me. The Radio For Comedy podcast the

1:12

takes history seriously. My name is Greg

1:14

Jenna I'm a publicly story or for

1:16

and broadcaster had today. We are channeling

1:18

our g and journeying all the way

1:20

back to Ancient China to learn about

1:22

the history of complete and to help

1:24

with isn't the shape. I've joined by

1:26

to very special Kung Fu masters It

1:28

History Corner. He's a historian of China

1:30

and an expert in the history of

1:32

the station, Science, Medicine, the technology reality

1:34

based you have live where Lincoln and

1:36

now works University. And college union to

1:39

stop the Leo russia vocally on

1:41

hi i'm too young I know.

1:43

kung fu only historically so got

1:45

massive for useful in a fight.

1:49

And in comedy Go Eat! A fantastic comedian

1:51

actor and author. You will know him from

1:54

Taskmaster Live at the Apollo have of the

1:56

news for you and his Netflix comedy special

1:58

maybe you've read his. Well, sidesplitting book,

2:01

sidesplitter, it's fantastic. But you'll definitely

2:03

remember him from previous episodes of

2:05

You're Dead to Me on the

2:07

Borgias, Chinggis Khan and the Terracotta

2:09

Warriors, entering the podcast dojo for

2:11

a fourth time, it's Phil Wang!

2:13

Welcome back Phil! Hiya, hiya Greg,

2:15

hiya Leon, hiya everybody, it's good

2:17

to be back, hiya! Oh hello,

2:19

very nice. I'm already doing

2:21

my jump kicks, I'm so excited. Uh Phil,

2:23

today we're talking about Kung Fu, and I

2:26

know from reading your book that you are

2:28

a black belt in martial arts. I

2:30

am a black belt in martial arts,

2:32

I'm a black belt in Shorinjikempo, which

2:35

is a Japanese modification of

2:37

Chinese Shaolin Kung Fu. And

2:41

my father and his brothers became

2:43

obsessed with this martial art, Shorinjikempo,

2:45

before I was born, to the extent that they

2:48

all became multiple level black belts,

2:50

which are called dams, so like third

2:52

dams, fourth dam, black belt. They set

2:54

up a dojo, so I studied Shorinjikempo

2:56

as a dojo as a kid. Before

2:58

I moved to the UK, I went

3:00

through a sort of crash accelerated course

3:03

with my uncle, to

3:05

get a black belt, which I definitely do

3:07

not deserve. I am

3:09

without a doubt a Kung Fu neppo baby. And

3:13

what do you know about the history of Kung

3:15

Fu? It's hard to separate sort of real history

3:17

with, I guess what I would

3:19

call a kind of folklore,

3:23

but for me the folklore come history of

3:25

it is that Shaolin

3:27

Kung Fu was developed by

3:29

Shaolin monks centuries ago

3:31

because the monks kept getting attacked

3:34

by bandits. Oh, he

3:37

knows things. This

3:45

is the Sowadian Note, this is where I have

3:47

a go at guessing what you, our loving listener,

3:50

might know about today's subjects. and I'm guessing most

3:52

people have seen at least one martial arts movie,

3:54

Kung Fu or at least Kung Fu esque martial

3:56

arts movies are all over the place. You've got

3:58

your Bruce Lee. Enter the Dragon

4:01

he got crouching tiger Hidden dragon. More

4:03

dragons you got my to If The

4:05

Matrix Trilogy he Will Kill Bill Kung

4:07

Fu Panda Admin costs the classic pop

4:09

song Michael Douglas. Everyone the

4:11

country fighting. We know about

4:14

kung fu through pop culture, but

4:16

how did this most lot first

4:18

come about? And what of clenching

4:20

your bum whole have to do

4:22

with any of it? Leon, did

4:24

you give us a definition. Of

4:26

come food. I hear it involves

4:28

kickstarter lightning expert timing, and it's a

4:31

little bit frightening. Direct, Kung

4:33

Fu all Gone Through is

4:36

really a generic name for

4:38

a number of martial arts

4:40

from China. Some of these

4:42

martial law screwed indeed be

4:45

traced back to the Buddhist

4:47

Monastery of Shower. And so

4:49

the time com food really

4:51

translates into daily practice or

4:54

walk or something. Us a

4:56

little bit tedious so an

4:58

Excel spreadsheet worthlessness, suddenness, auto

5:01

and in China today actually

5:03

more people were prefer to

5:05

tim Wu Shu an auto

5:07

commonly perceived to be ancient

5:10

Historians generally agree that Shouting

5:12

Come Through and related martial

5:14

arts actually came from more

5:16

or less continuous process of

5:19

change of evolution, with key

5:21

developments happening around the sixteenth

5:23

century until the proposed. Give.

5:26

Or take five hundred years old as we

5:28

know it now. But. The route

5:30

so running deep. I mentioned ancient China in

5:32

the introduction so we gonna go deeper to

5:34

begin with. Lay on so how how far

5:36

back are we going? and in time? what

5:40

there ought to important precursor

5:42

traditions so the first would

5:44

be unarmed combat and strength

5:46

training and we have written

5:48

records for the app from

5:50

the warring states pairs and

5:52

china so we're talking about

5:54

sister first century bc a

5:57

this mostly involved wrestling and

5:59

weight lifting and perhaps

6:01

boxing contests and

6:03

would have been associated with lower

6:05

ranking common soldiers. You also have

6:08

weapons training, especially archery, and that's

6:10

more associated with the nobility. There

6:12

are two branches that are in

6:14

the origins of Kung Fu. One

6:16

is unarmed combat by soldiers. The

6:18

second branch, do you know what that was? Oh,

6:21

the second branch is at

6:23

monks. It's at monks' self-defense. It's come in later,

6:25

I think, because actually when we're... I

6:28

just want to say this fact. Okay,

6:30

so one is unarmed training for soldiers.

6:33

The other route is meditation.

6:36

Crossfit? Crossfit. Crossfit class. I went

6:38

too far. Leon,

6:41

I think he's closer with meditation than Crossfit. Is

6:43

that right? Yeah, meditation

6:45

is kit shao, so

6:48

the second precursor tradition. It's

6:50

actually Taoist. Taoism

6:52

is a school of Chinese

6:54

philosophy that kind of came

6:57

into being in the One

6:59

States period. So we're talking

7:01

about the fifth or fourth

7:03

century BCE, and Taoism

7:05

as a Chinese philosophy emphasized

7:08

things like passivity, naturalness,

7:12

or spontaneity, or

7:14

simplicity, and

7:16

it kind of stood in

7:19

direct contrast to another philosophical

7:21

school in early China

7:23

known as Confucianism. So Confucianism

7:25

and Taoism were opposites of

7:27

each other. These kind of

7:29

Taoist exercises, they were intended

7:31

to improve the flow of

7:33

qi, or energy, or

7:35

vital essence around the body. And

7:38

the goal is to increase

7:41

longevity and cure or prevent

7:43

illnesses, and

7:45

usually involve some kind of

7:47

breathing exercises, physical postures, sometimes

7:50

meditation. And the

7:52

text that these exercises were recorded

7:54

in, that would have been the

7:56

preserve of high status elite men.

7:59

So commoners and women are not

8:01

welcome to do that. A different

8:03

time. And

8:07

that text is called the Dao Yin Tu, is

8:09

that right Leon? Yep, that's right. So

8:11

Phil, this text, the Dao Yin Tu, has

8:14

several postures named after animals. So we're

8:16

going to do a mini quiz for you.

8:19

Which of these five postures was not described

8:21

in the Dao Yin Tu? Was it the

8:24

bird stretch? The bear

8:26

amble? The gibbon jump?

8:29

The dragon rise? Or the

8:31

crane call? Oh man, I thought

8:33

this would be a lot easier. Those all sound viable.

8:37

The bird, what was the first one? The bird

8:39

stretch. The bird stretch. Okay,

8:41

this feels possible. What was the next one?

8:44

Bear amble. Bear

8:46

amble. Okay,

8:50

I'm going to put that on the probably not pile.

8:52

And the next one? Gibbon jump. Gibbon

8:54

jump, yes. I will

8:56

say gibbon jump is yes. Dragon rise?

8:59

Dragon rise, it's gotta be. Come on,

9:02

so on brand. And the crane call.

9:04

Crane call? We've already had

9:06

bird stretch. Yep. I'm going

9:08

to say that the fake ones are

9:10

the bear amble and the crane call.

9:13

Well, I'm afraid we have to add

9:15

a sixth one, the red herring, because

9:17

they're all in the document. Ow,

9:19

I knew it was one of those. Part

9:21

of me knew it was one of those. Sorry,

9:23

I'd agree that the bear amble to me

9:25

feels very gentle for a martial art. And

9:27

in fact, we can show you an image

9:30

from that manuscript, a gentleman doing

9:32

the bear amble, and I would describe it

9:34

as adorable. It's

9:36

a sort of old fashioned Chinese illustration

9:38

of a man, Chinese man in

9:41

a robe. And

9:43

to be honest, there's nothing bearish about him.

9:45

He's sort of doing a cha cha, he's

9:47

got his arms pointed a bit to the

9:49

right. He looks like he's just pointing

9:51

to the ground. There's nothing berry about this. No. Can

9:54

I see his legs? Oh, he's got very

9:56

puffy pantalons and you only really see his feet

9:58

speaking out the bottom. Dan

12:00

Tien for instance, which is the

12:02

region that is below your belly

12:05

button and just above your pubes.

12:08

That's usually considered to be

12:10

one of the key repositories

12:12

of Qi in human body.

12:15

I think the equivalent of Fakras then. Yeah, I mean

12:17

they're basically like organs in the body and they're

12:19

also repositories of Qi and then there are channels

12:21

which are kind of analogous to rivers or vessels

12:23

that connect all of these different organs and repositories.

12:26

I feel like I'm going to have to sort

12:28

of bring the tone down a little bit because

12:30

the next thing in my script is Phil, what

12:32

do you think a buttock pull was? A

12:36

buttock pull. Yeah. I

12:39

think it's what happens to me when I stand up too quickly. You

12:43

haven't been doing your martial arts. I haven't been training.

12:45

I haven't been training for a while. A buttock pull.

12:48

I imagine it's one of the sort of feats

12:51

of strength that a Shaolin master will

12:53

do. Will they attach some great

12:55

weight to their buttocks and move it along

12:57

with the strength of their butts? Strength

12:59

of their butts. It's absolutely not that but that's

13:02

a great mental image for the podcast. No, I

13:04

can't say I do then. The

13:07

buttock pull is probably one of the

13:09

most important postures. It

13:11

involves clenching one's anus. There's

13:13

a lot of emphasis in

13:15

Chinese medical texts on

13:18

that particular region which includes the anus

13:20

and the perineum which is commonly known

13:22

to you perhaps as the gooch. Oh

13:24

yeah, the gooch. It's

13:27

crucial to the cultivation and circulation

13:29

of chi, right? So there's one

13:31

medical manuscript that would describe how

13:34

you should rise at dawn, sit

13:37

upright, straighten your spine and open

13:39

your buttocks and then suck in

13:41

the anus and press it down.

13:44

If you do that, then you're cultivating chi. And

13:47

also when you're eating and drinking, you

13:49

should relax the buttocks, straighten your spine,

13:52

suck in the anus and let the

13:54

chi pass through you. And that's called

13:56

moving the foot. I

14:00

want to try the drinking one. Straight back?

14:03

Straight to the back. Titan Vainus. Relax

14:06

the buttocks and tighten the anus, which might sound

14:08

contradictory. Yeah, I got it. He's going for it.

14:11

Wow, that's the finest scalp of water

14:14

I've ever had. So

14:17

you should now feel some chi that's

14:19

shooting up from your gooch area up.

14:21

Yeah, I'm feeling something. I

14:24

mean, Phil, you and I once were in a horrible history sketch

14:26

about a man who held in a fart and died, but I

14:28

feel like we've definitely come on a whole level now. Yeah,

14:31

there's a blurry line between chi and...

14:34

What is it when we can't do it, Phil? Conservation.

14:37

Yeah. Well, I hope you feel better. It

14:39

was quite a strange bit of radio, but thank you. And

14:42

Leon, another aspect of these martial arts

14:44

of these sort of health practices is sexual

14:47

health as well. So are we talking

14:49

about contraceptives? We talking about cures for

14:51

SDIs? So

14:53

the sexual cultivation, certainly speaking,

14:55

text, they talk about

14:58

how you can promote health and

15:00

you can increase your lifespan by

15:03

following a set of rules on the

15:05

best times for sexual intercourse and how

15:08

frequent one can have sexual intercourse. So

15:10

to give you an example, a key

15:13

text that's called yin chu from around

15:15

the second century BCE and yin chu,

15:17

you can translate that into the stretching

15:19

book or the polling text if you

15:21

want to. It prescribes

15:23

a daily exercise that's

15:26

usually attributed to the legendary figure

15:28

Peng Joo and Peng Joo allegedly

15:31

practice this kind of sexual cultivation,

15:33

which then allowed him to live

15:35

for 800 years. Whoa. What?

15:39

What? At this Peng Joo regimen. I called BS.

15:41

I don't believe it. That's definitely a typo. Take

15:43

news. Say 800 years. Yeah,

15:45

80 years, fine. 800 years, come on. So

15:47

that's Peng Choo, is it? Was his name?

15:50

It's Peng Joo. Yeah. I

15:53

mean, allegedly, I think he had at

15:55

least 50 wives and 100

15:58

sons and countless daughters. all

16:00

of whom he managed to outlive because

16:03

he was practicing sexual conservation. What

16:06

did this involve? So it involved the

16:08

best times to have sex according to

16:10

the season of the year. In

16:12

spring it is recommended that men

16:14

would enter the chamber, i.e. have

16:16

sex, between evening and late midnight,

16:19

so about 1 a.m. in the

16:22

morning, and having more sex

16:24

than that would harm the chi. In

16:27

autumn it is advised that

16:29

you can enter the chamber or have

16:31

sex, however often the body finds it

16:33

beneficial and comfortable, and that would lead

16:35

to a long life and so on.

16:37

Wow, I always knew autumn was my

16:39

favorite. Well

16:42

okay, I think I've spotted a loophole

16:44

here. If Peng Joo

16:47

lived to 800 by abiding

16:49

by this strict schedule of when to have sex,

16:52

surely his sexual partners would have

16:54

also lived to 800 because they would

16:56

have by definition also followed the same schedule.

17:00

Wow, that's an interesting

17:02

one because, so first of all in

17:04

a lot of these texts which are

17:06

of course written for elite men, women

17:09

are largely not sort of

17:11

theorized in any clear way. In

17:14

this kind of sexual cultivation practice,

17:17

women are usually seen as

17:19

a kind of repository of

17:21

chi, or more like

17:23

a battery. Peng Joo will basically

17:26

use these women as

17:28

batteries and take their energy to

17:31

boost his own lifespan. I had no

17:33

idea chi was so problematic. The

17:35

historians who also actually call this kind

17:37

of sexual cultivation form sexual vampirism, so

17:40

we're bringing in vampires. One of our

17:42

chi sex vampires. Leon briefly you

17:44

mentioned the idea of the text for pulling

17:46

and I believe here, having read

17:49

your book Phil, that your dad clearly has read

17:51

the text on pulling or rather the modern sense of

17:53

the word because he used kung fu to chat up

17:55

your mum right? That's right yeah

17:57

my mother who is an English lady

17:59

she... a

20:00

system of self-defense

20:02

to protect them from

20:04

bandits. Pretty good. I mean, Leon, can

20:07

we have the more specific history? So

20:10

the tradition of unarmed combat

20:12

and the tradition of self-cultivation

20:15

techniques from Daoism, they

20:17

came together at the Shaolin Temple,

20:19

which is of course in Meng

20:21

Song, near the cities

20:24

of Luoyang and Zhengzhou. Now,

20:26

the Shaolin Temple is a Buddhist

20:29

monastery founded in the 5th century

20:31

CE, allegedly by an Indian monk

20:33

named in the Chinese sources as

20:36

Ba Toa or Fo Toa. In

20:39

the 7th century CE,

20:41

Shaolin became an important center

20:43

for a new school

20:45

of Buddhism, known as Chan

20:47

Buddhism or in Japanese Zen

20:50

Buddhism. By the 8th century

20:52

CE, it was said that

20:54

the legendary Indian monk Bodhidharma

20:57

had founded Chan Buddhism and Shaolin

20:59

and he sat in a cave

21:01

near Shaolin Temple for nine years

21:04

and he was staring at a

21:06

wall and he was meditating. And

21:08

there's still a rock in

21:10

the Shaolin Temple today and it has

21:12

a carved image of the Bodhidharma and

21:15

the rock was said to have come from the

21:17

cave and because his shadow was

21:20

imprinted onto the rock from

21:22

him sitting motionless, meditating

21:24

for nine years. Now

21:27

historians generally agree that Chan philosophy

21:30

actually emerged a century after the

21:32

death of Bodhidharma, so probably not

21:34

a whole lot to do with

21:36

Bodhidharma. But in any case,

21:38

because of all of these kind

21:40

of sacred associations and because Luoyang,

21:42

which is a city that was

21:44

near the Shaolin Temple, was an

21:46

imperial capital for most of the

21:48

first millennium CE, Shaolin

21:50

Temple actually enjoyed a lot of patronage

21:53

from the ruling elite and became fabulously

21:55

wealthy. I have a question about this

21:57

shadow on the rock. Why

22:00

does he have a shadow? Well,

22:03

presumably he's sitting with his back

22:05

against Entrance to

22:07

the cave and the light coming from up.

22:09

So he's pretty close to the entrance. He's

22:12

barely in it. Okay So okay My other

22:14

question then is how can the shadow if

22:16

it's from natural light will move with the

22:18

Sun? So how can it be

22:20

on any one person? I feel like I'm focusing

22:22

on the wrong detail. Yeah I

22:25

mean Leon you

22:27

mentioned that the the wealth and the prestige

22:29

is it pretty big the monks are also

22:32

Siding with a certain political faction. Is that right? Yeah,

22:36

that's right. So the 7th century

22:39

Textual evidence celebrates the victory

22:41

of Shaolin monks over raiding

22:44

bandits in 610 CE So

22:47

finally we've got some wow, so this is

22:49

like war they fought them So

22:52

this is possibly a form of self-defense So

22:54

there were bandits who were like, well you

22:56

guys are fabulously wealthy and you have things

22:58

that we may want to nick So we're

23:01

going to attack the Shaolin temple and the

23:03

Shaolin monks say well Home

23:06

alone The

23:11

swinging paint cans their heads But

23:16

the Shaolin estate then get involved

23:18

in big Chinese politics Yeah,

23:21

so basically it was in 621

23:25

CE that the Shaolin fighting

23:27

monks decided to side with

23:29

the future Tang Emperor Li

23:31

Ximin By essentially helping

23:33

the Ximin to defeat his right wrong

23:35

to the throne How in helped a

23:37

particular King defeat another would be Emperor

23:39

in what sense of the helping are

23:41

they actually literally going on punching them?

23:45

This is monk power so they are

23:47

literally going and Wow what the

23:50

rivals like soldiers and like

23:52

personal bodyguards Etc. What? That's

23:55

no way to achieve enlightenment To

23:58

me I will relinquish possession of

24:00

your life! Wow,

24:03

amazing. So they were like mercenaries. Yeah.

24:06

So for the late Ming period, which

24:08

is the 1500s, so I guess the

24:10

equivalent of the Tudor era over in

24:13

Britain, we have loads of evidence the

24:15

Shaolin martial arts have become more widespread

24:17

throughout China. And Phil, do you know

24:19

which weapon the monks are

24:21

now notorious for using? Long stick?

24:24

It is long stick, yeah. Just big old long stick.

24:26

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I

24:29

mean, obviously up to this point, we've heard

24:31

about unarmed combat, so fists and feet. I

24:33

feel like somehow they've cheated slightly by agreeing

24:35

now that they can use weapons. So why

24:37

the stick? Why not? I don't know, swords

24:40

or axes? Well,

24:42

possibly because a staff would be

24:44

less lethal than blades and the

24:46

Buddhists afterwards, and they're not supposed

24:48

to kill people, though they mostly

24:51

did. But also the

24:53

staff was also a kind of

24:55

religious symbol in Buddhism. There are

24:57

also historians who have noted that

25:00

the monks also use other weapons anyway, like

25:02

spears and swords and blades and so on

25:04

and so forth, and those would have been

25:07

far more effective in actual combat. So

25:09

the staff is kind of important, but

25:11

perhaps it's more of a symbolic. By the

25:14

1540s and 50s, now we can bring in

25:16

pirates into the story. And we've got monks

25:18

being sent off to go and like hunt

25:20

down pirates. So they're not just like defending

25:22

their land anymore. They're now like getting on

25:24

boats and tracking people down and then kicking

25:27

the crap out of them. I'm sorry, what

25:29

happened to the meditating? I thought all these

25:31

guys did was eat soup and meditate, and

25:33

now they're going on trips?

25:35

What is this? They're going on cruises?

25:37

I feel like

25:40

they've lost their way in a thousand

25:42

years. Man, they haven't been the same

25:44

since they adopted that stick. I think

25:46

the stick has gone to them, to

25:48

ruin them. Leon, I

25:51

mean there's one example in 1553 where

25:53

these monks were showered in and won

25:55

a series of victories. They're really vast

25:57

violent. Don't tell us a story. There

26:01

were several groups of people like so there

26:03

were Shaolin monks, there were sailors, there were

26:05

salt workers. The Shaolin monks

26:08

were considered to be the most effective group

26:10

by the state. And

26:12

the 1540s and the

26:14

1550s saw a huge number of

26:17

raids by pirates on the east

26:19

coast of China, especially

26:22

in the Jiangnan region. The

26:24

pirates even started to move

26:26

inland and pillaged war cities.

26:28

And these pirates were known

26:30

as wokou and wokou literally

26:33

meant Japanese bandits, but they were

26:35

not all Japanese. Some of them

26:37

were foreigners, possibly Dutch, possibly Portuguese.

26:40

And there were also actually a large

26:43

number of actual Chinese people who joined

26:45

the pirates and were involved in the

26:47

illegal overseas trade. There's a real cosmopolitan

26:49

dream, it's like very mixed. It's cosmopolitan.

26:51

Yeah, wow. So the piracy is very

26:53

progressive, it's very multicultural, it's very welcoming.

26:58

And so in 1553, so

27:01

the Shaolin monks allegedly won

27:03

a series of really important

27:05

victories against the pirates at

27:07

a place called Wenjia Gang.

27:10

And there were apparently 120

27:12

fighting Shaolin monks who beat up

27:15

a huge group of pirates. And

27:17

those monks even chased the survivors for 10

27:20

days along a 20 mile run. And

27:26

hundreds of pirates were allegedly

27:28

killed and only four Shaolin

27:30

monks died. Because

27:32

of this famous victory in

27:34

1553, the Shaolin temple received

27:36

a batch of honor, a

27:38

medal of honor, imperial patronage

27:40

and wealth and recognition and

27:43

prestige throughout the 16th

27:45

and the 17th century. Now, it's

27:47

like when you read a

27:49

rare Batman comic where he kills someone, you're like,

27:51

Batman's not supposed to do that. I feel that's

27:54

how I feel listening about these Buddhist monks, the

27:56

Shaolin monks, jumping on boats, killing

27:58

people and stuff. I mean, can you

28:00

imagine the terror of being hunted down by

28:02

Buddhist monks? Like you're like, go faster, go

28:04

faster, they're catching us, they're catching us. Yeah,

28:07

they're just like cross-legged levitating on the deck.

28:09

It's like, oh my God, what the hell?

28:12

They don't even have any possessions. How

28:15

they doing? Now, Liam, I don't

28:18

know if this is an obvious question, but

28:20

there seems to be a pretty glaring conflict

28:23

here between the Buddhist monks'

28:26

presumed commitment to

28:28

peace and meditation and moderation, and

28:30

them literally going out and killing

28:32

pirates with their bare hands. How

28:35

did they hold those two philosophies

28:37

at once? So

28:40

fighting is indeed at

28:42

odds with Buddhist philosophy. And so

28:44

Buddhist texts from the period, from,

28:46

you know, let's say the main

28:48

dynasty were conspicuously silent

28:50

about how they just pretended that

28:52

it wasn't happening. On

28:55

very, very rare occasions, you

28:57

would get some Buddhist manuscripts

28:59

that would criticize the monks

29:01

who voluntarily used

29:04

violence. And

29:06

historians have looked into, you know,

29:08

the evolution of this. There might be

29:10

some reasons, pragmatic reasons

29:13

for the Shaolin temple monks

29:15

to deviate from the path

29:17

of peace and to take up violence. These

29:20

would include self-protection. And then

29:22

also it's political pragmatism. So

29:24

they want to be noticed

29:27

and have a say on the

29:29

Chinese empire politics. So those violent

29:31

monks basically got a slap on

29:33

the wrist, but because it was

29:35

from other martial arts experts, it

29:37

was a very painful slap

29:39

on the wrist. Slap

29:46

on the wrist, Michelle in monk, your wrist is

29:48

immediately severed. Because straight off, the

29:51

worst slap on the wrist possible. There's

29:55

also another story, a legendary story of

29:57

how the stick, the fighting stick, the

29:59

staff come. in. Do you know

30:01

this story Phil, of why the monks adopt

30:03

the staff? The invention of the stick? Actually

30:06

that was before the 1500s. Okay,

30:08

not so much the invention, the

30:10

adoption of the stick. It's to

30:13

do with a kitchen boy or

30:15

maybe not a kitchen

30:17

boy because actually Leon it's supposedly the

30:19

incarnation of Vajraya Pani, is that right?

30:22

Yeah, supposed to be the incarnation of Vajraya

30:24

Pani. So we're talking here that someone has

30:26

returned to the new body and they're like,

30:28

oh, that guy is special and

30:31

he's using a stick to fight off pirates. We can

30:33

use a stick to fight off pirates. Is that right? Yeah,

30:36

so we're talking about a young

30:38

monk who's fairly low in the

30:40

pecking order in the Shaolin temple,

30:42

basically just somebody in the kitchen

30:44

who would keep the fire going

30:46

in the stove. And

30:49

there were the so-called red

30:51

turban banded rebels. They wore

30:53

a red bandana, so they're

30:55

kind of like axel rose.

30:57

So imagine a bunch of

30:59

axel roses, just kind

31:02

of like randomly decided to attack

31:04

the Shaolin temple around the

31:07

1350s. And then there was this young

31:09

lad who may or may not have

31:11

been the reincarnation of Vajraya Pani,

31:14

decided to get there the stove

31:16

poker, the fire poker and started

31:18

poking those bandits. So that's how

31:20

you get the stick became this

31:22

kind of symbolic thing. Right. Okay.

31:25

A fire poker, I would say

31:27

is more lethal than a stick.

31:30

Also, not to cast

31:32

any doubt on reincarnation, but

31:35

if I were a lowly kitchen boy, I would

31:37

also say I was the reincarnation of

31:39

Vajraya Pani. You know what

31:41

I mean? Was there any way that they

31:43

could verify a reincarnation? Was

31:46

there like a capture for reincarnation? How

31:48

could they confirm? Because surely people, there

31:50

must have been chances all the time,

31:52

who would say, I am the reincarnation

31:54

of the big boss from 100 years

31:56

ago. So I'd like two lunches

31:58

today, please. Yeah,

32:02

these kinds of things are usually kind

32:04

of retrospective. So it's like if you

32:06

have performed a heroic deed, that must

32:08

be because you are a reincarnation of

32:11

some sort. So if you fight

32:13

off an Axle Rose, then you get to be a... You

32:15

fight off like 10,000 Axle Roses, then

32:17

you can be a reincarnation. Okay, okay,

32:20

okay. I get you. There's also

32:22

a classic Ming manual called the Sinews

32:24

Transformation Classic, 1624. What

32:26

a typo, Phil. You could have called

32:28

your book Sinews Transformation Classic. You've missed

32:31

out there. Sinews Transformation Classic, I

32:33

think that's when they brought the brand back. Because

32:38

they'd rebranded a whole bunch of times and

32:40

they were like, let's sell the original version.

32:42

We'll call it classic, it's just the original

32:44

recipe. And

32:46

it was composed by the author known as the Purple Calagulation

32:49

Man of the Way. Wow! I

32:53

mean, a Purple Calagulation is just a bruise, isn't it? On

32:56

a bruise is in a Calagulation. Sorry.

32:58

That's my turn. Confusing

33:03

total aside, the text that we had mentioned here, the 1624

33:05

text, it's really important.

33:07

It combines Shaolin fighting techniques with

33:10

the Taoist system of self-cultivation that we heard about

33:12

at the beginning of the episode, Leon. So we've

33:14

finally got the fusion of the fighting stuff and

33:16

the health stuff and they're coming together in the

33:18

1620s. Yeah,

33:21

so the Sinews Transformation Classic,

33:23

which by the way, it's

33:25

also translated as the Tendon

33:27

Moving Classic, is kind of

33:29

weird text. So it combines

33:32

military and therapeutic and religious

33:34

ideas into sort of one

33:36

book. It's all about training

33:39

the body, but potentially also

33:41

making one invulnerable or immortal.

33:44

From the 17th century onwards,

33:46

Shaolin monks, members of

33:48

the Sinews Transformation Classic, they

33:50

began to increasingly focus on unarmed

33:52

combat to the extent that the

33:54

staff now was kind of de-emphasized.

33:57

And in the 17th century, Leon,

33:59

we're getting... household manuals as well

34:01

starting to appear. And

34:04

it's offering advice on household

34:06

management and lifestyle choices. So

34:08

anything from like arithmetic divination,

34:11

nutrition, diet, recipes, arts, jokes,

34:13

even ideas about romance, etc,

34:16

etc. And there

34:18

are also sections on in this

34:20

household manuals on anom combat and

34:22

self-defense for the entire family. Now

34:25

in terms of training in Kung

34:28

Fu, some of the schools would

34:30

claim lineage from the Shaolin Temple,

34:32

but also would include lay

34:34

people. There were individual kind

34:36

of traveling martial artists who would move

34:39

up and down the country to study

34:41

with particular masters and to learn from

34:43

others, or to improve

34:45

their skills by testing themselves against

34:48

worthy rifle. Cool. And

34:51

so not everybody's doing Kung Fu fighting because

34:53

there's other branches of martial arts, there's Wu

34:55

Dang, there's Tai Chi. But

34:57

the one I want to talk about has got

34:59

a beautiful name. It's Wing Chun, which means beautiful

35:01

springtime. What a charming name

35:03

for extreme violence. Beautiful

35:08

springtime, beautiful springtime to be kicking

35:10

your ass. Yeah. Have

35:13

you heard of Wing Chun? Do you know that?

35:15

I've heard of Wing Chun, yes. It's

35:17

associated with one of the fights, one of the

35:19

famous fighters, but I can't remember which one it

35:21

is. It's not Jet Li, is

35:23

it? It's Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee, yeah.

35:25

Yeah, okay, all right. So he studied Wing Chun under

35:27

the martial artist known as Ip Man. And

35:31

we'll come back to Bruce Lee later on. But

35:33

Wing Chun's got a fun origin story, a legendary

35:35

origin story they always do. Do you

35:37

want to guess? I'll give you a clue. It involves a nun.

35:41

A nun. Yeah.

35:44

Well, a nun went to

35:46

the shops one day and it

35:49

was beautiful spring day and

35:51

a good for nothing ragamuffin

35:53

came up out of a size

35:55

tree and said, give me a buns, give me a

35:57

bread rolls. Give me a nun bun. Give

36:00

me your nun buns. Give me them buns, nun. And

36:03

she flung the bun at his

36:06

buns. So he got a

36:08

bun's buns and Wing Chun was born. That's

36:12

a beautiful story. Thank you. My

36:15

father told me that story when I was a boy. Right.

36:17

That is not the story I've got in

36:19

my script. Leon, can we

36:22

have the story of the nun without the bun?

36:24

And can we have some nun chucks? Are nun

36:26

chucks part of the Shaolin Kung Fu story or

36:28

are nun chucks different? Nun

36:30

chucks, you're thinking of Nick Angelo

36:32

from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I am. You're right.

36:36

But nun chucks are actually more of

36:38

a Filipino or Japanese weapon, although it

36:40

was used by Bruce Lee in some

36:43

films. But Wing Chun, on the other

36:45

hand, is a Kung Fu style that

36:48

emphasizes a high stance and very,

36:50

very small, close range movements. So

36:53

like small jabs, as opposed

36:55

to sort of like long range punching. And

36:58

in the 20th century, an origin

37:00

story, a legend arose that Wing

37:02

Chun had been taught by Ing

37:05

Muy. And Ing Muy

37:07

was a mythic Shaolin nun.

37:11

And she taught Wing Chun to

37:13

a teenage girl called Yim Wing

37:15

Chun. So Wing Chun is the

37:17

name of this young girl, because

37:20

she was basically just constantly

37:22

harassed. And she had like

37:24

unwanted sexual advances and marriage

37:26

proposals. And so this mythical

37:28

Shaolin nun taught this Kung

37:31

Fu style to this young girl and said, okay,

37:33

so you can just go and beat

37:35

up all these lecturers, men, and

37:38

harassers. So that's a

37:40

sort of legendary origin story. In

37:42

reality, Wing Chun probably developed relatively

37:44

recently. So we're talking about the

37:46

late 19, maybe even early 20th

37:48

century, in a

37:50

city called Fushan, which is in

37:52

Guangdong province in Wing Chun. The

37:55

uses that wooden practice

37:57

thing with all the little pegs sticking out and you can

37:59

stand real close to it and in the movies I was

38:01

like, is that for Wing Chun? It's all very short range

38:05

movements. Yeah, you

38:07

may have seen that in either

38:09

the Iman franchise or in the

38:11

Grandmaster, the Wong Kar-Wai film. So

38:13

basically to practice, Wing

38:15

Chun used that thing which

38:17

is a wooden stick with like multiple... It

38:20

looks kind of almost like a Christmas tree-ish.

38:22

It's got like multiple branches sticking out from

38:24

the pole and then... Yeah, and that

38:26

emulates short range punching. Well, you mentioned

38:29

the late 19th century and Guangdong Province

38:31

to southeast China, which means hooray, here

38:33

come the British to ruin everything. In

38:35

the late 19th century, we are

38:37

talking about the European colonial empire into

38:39

South China and the horrible stories that

38:42

come from that, but it's this process thereby

38:44

where we start to get people in the

38:46

West becoming aware of Kung Fu

38:48

because of things like the Box of Rebellion,

38:50

which is what Brits call the uprising from

38:52

the Chinese people. So, Leon, this is a

38:55

complicated piece of political history, but in terms

38:57

of the martial arts story, is this a

39:00

kind of really important meeting of East and West?

39:03

Yeah, this is a very important moment. So

39:05

in the wake of

39:07

the Western imperial interference, particularly the

39:09

Opium War, martial

39:11

arts became associated with

39:14

the assertion of Han

39:16

Chinese identity. It's

39:18

now about kind of cultural pride in

39:21

the face of Western foreign invasion. It

39:24

became so popular that it kind of

39:26

actually threatened the state. So martial

39:28

arts training was outlawed by the Qing

39:31

dynasty and actually a number of Kung

39:33

Fu masters were executed because they

39:35

then started to pose a security

39:37

problem. These themes contributed to the

39:39

sort of uprisings in the 19th century. So

39:41

the Box of Rebellion, which is 1898 to

39:44

1901, and it's named

39:48

after the participants who

39:51

were martial artists, hence

39:53

the Boxes. And

39:55

the Box of Rebellion and their

39:58

Kung Fu styles became known to

40:00

Britain through a number of channels

40:02

like military reports or diplomats. Christian

40:05

missionaries were a particularly important source

40:08

of information because they were frequently

40:10

harassed or even murdered by the

40:12

Boxes from the Boxer Rebellion. And

40:15

martial arts, although a lot of

40:17

it was Japanese, started to appear

40:20

in this country in Britain from

40:22

around the late 19th century. So

40:24

Edward Barton Wright invented something called

40:27

a Ba-Tetsu, which is based on

40:29

the Japanese Ju-Titsu, which

40:32

the suffragettes then learned

40:34

for self-defense. And so

40:36

Arthur Conan Doyle, who

40:38

famously misspelled the

40:41

kung fu style as Ba-Ritsu, as

40:43

opposed to Ba-Tetsu, he

40:45

used Ba-Ritsu, quote unquote, to

40:47

explain how Sherlock Holmes could

40:50

escape from the grip with

40:52

Moriarty on the Reichenbach. Oh,

40:55

so Sherlock Holmes knew Ba-Tetsu? So

40:58

yeah, I mean, Sherlock Holmes supposedly knew

41:00

kung fu, and I think that's also

41:03

then in the Robert Downey

41:05

Jr adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. Wow,

41:07

I had no idea the suffragettes

41:09

knew kung fu. That's

41:11

incredible. Yeah, yeah,

41:13

they learned it from, I think, a Welsh lady who

41:15

taught them all how to defend themselves against police officers

41:17

trying to arrest them. I think we've got a

41:20

variety of names there for martial arts, Ba-Ritsu, Ba-Tetsu, we've

41:22

had Wing Chun before. Phil, if you were going to

41:24

invent your own martial arts, what would you call it,

41:26

and what would it involve? Oh,

41:29

Wang Chung. Wang Chung, nice, nice.

41:31

Wang Chung is a highly

41:34

aggressive, completely

41:37

unfair martial art. It's

41:40

random, it comes out of nowhere, it is

41:42

highly unjust, it

41:45

is never morally defensible, it is

41:47

a scourge

41:49

on society, and

41:51

the government will try and stop us

41:53

just like they tried to stop

41:55

the Shaolin masters in China. That's

41:58

Wang Chung. It

42:00

has no honour. You

42:02

only attack sleeping people, is that right? Yeah,

42:05

that's right. Yeah,

42:10

we find the best offence is

42:13

just a good offence, and

42:15

when they have no defense. That is

42:18

Wang Chong's motto. Good, great.

42:20

Heading to a dojo near you soon,

42:23

rolling out the franchises. Well,

42:27

just so you know, back to producer

42:29

Emma, her dad's nickname was Kung

42:31

Stu or Bruce and the Goose.

42:33

No! Bruce the Goose! Because

42:36

you said I'm in the goose, so Bruce and

42:38

the Goose was his nickname. Bruce and the Goose.

42:41

That's so good. And that brings

42:43

us rather beautifully to Bruce Lee. Phil,

42:46

Taskmaster fans will know you from

42:48

your iconic and somewhat scandalous yellow

42:50

jumpsuit. So in my series of

42:52

Taskmaster, I wore Bruce

42:54

Lee's Game of Death outfit, which

42:57

I wanted to do as an homage

42:59

to Bruce Lee, but it ended up

43:01

being an homage to my

43:03

own reproductive capability. Which

43:06

was not the plan. If you look at photographs

43:08

of Bruce Lee and his outfit, the

43:11

word I would use is flush. It

43:14

is flush. He is flush for the

43:16

outfit. But that did not happen when

43:18

I wore it. No, there

43:21

was some crotch prominence. Yeah, you could

43:23

say there was some detail. Yeah, for

43:25

the old 4K HD to work on.

43:29

So, Leon, why do

43:31

we get Bruce Lee? What is it

43:33

historically culturally that's happening in China and

43:36

Southeast Asia that gives us this

43:38

new cinematic art form?

43:42

When the CCP, the Chinese

43:44

Communist Party came to power

43:46

in China in 1949, the

43:48

state actually got involved in Kung

43:51

Fu and downplayed a lot of

43:53

their spiritual and contemplative elements, transforming

43:55

Kung Fu into a form of

43:57

sport and exercise. So

44:00

a lot of Kung Fu masters

44:02

actually left for Hong Kong or

44:04

Taiwan or America or European countries

44:08

and that included Bruce Lee's teacher, Yip

44:10

Man, who left for Hong Kong, I

44:12

think it was in 1950. Hong

44:15

Kong at the time was of

44:17

course a British colony. And in

44:19

the early communist years, Kung Fu

44:22

and the related traditions were encouraged

44:24

in the communist education system and there

44:27

were Kung Fu societies that were set

44:29

up in major Chinese cities

44:32

and popular manuals were published in

44:34

China to meet the growing demand.

44:37

But all of the spiritual

44:39

enlightenment stuff, all of the

44:41

qi, the meditative elements, all

44:43

of those were downplayed or

44:46

de-emphasized. So during the

44:48

Cultural Revolution period, so now we're in

44:50

to 1966 to 1976, martial arts

44:55

then came to be seen

44:57

as elitist and corrupt and

45:00

superstitious and so forth. And

45:02

so during that communist Cultural Revolution

45:05

period, the Kung Fu competitions

45:07

and a lot of the training would

45:09

then stop and books and weapons were

45:11

confiscated and then this led to even

45:14

more Kung Fu masters leaving China for

45:16

Western countries. You get a kind of

45:19

governmental crackdown on martial arts, which

45:21

gives us Bruce Lee

45:24

essentially. Yes, right. Because his family

45:26

was, I mean he was from

45:28

San Francisco, wasn't he Bruce Lee?

45:30

And so he sort of went back as

45:33

it were to Hong Kong and

45:35

sort of kick started the Kung Fu

45:37

movie industry. You wore his game of

45:39

death outfit and I know at

45:41

the beginning of your book you talk about Bruce

45:43

Lee as a sort of bit of an icon.

45:45

Yeah, I had the formative experience of going to

45:47

the Bruce Lee exhibition in Hong Kong and

45:51

they have his outfits out there, they've got a lot of photos of

45:53

him, lots of footage of him and he

45:56

was just so, I hadn't appreciated

45:58

before, just how like powerful. and

46:01

confident and sexy he was and

46:04

it must have been, I mean it still

46:06

is to me right now, a

46:08

pretty revolutionary idea of

46:10

like the very sexy Chinese guy and

46:13

he was doing it in you know, was

46:15

it the 60s or 70s? And

46:18

he built like a whole

46:20

culture, a whole industry, an

46:23

entire cultural movement. He's just

46:25

so incredibly impressive

46:28

and driven and determined and skillful.

46:31

It's one of the things where you know, he's

46:33

something like someone like Bruce Lee becomes so turtemic,

46:35

you sort of lose sight of how

46:39

revolutionary he was. But when I went to this

46:41

exhibition in Hong Kong, you know, I really started

46:43

to appreciate that. And that's

46:45

what I wanted to embody with

46:48

my outfit choice for Taskmaster. But

46:50

I don't know if I completely accomplished it,

46:52

but that's what I was aiming for. I

46:56

enjoyed it. I mean, Leon, in terms of

46:58

the movies he made, he's got Five Fingers

47:00

of Death, The Green Hornet, Enter the Dragon,

47:02

and we get this sort

47:05

of kung fu craze almost, which then leads

47:07

on to subsequent other artists.

47:10

And he's also developing his own martial arts

47:12

style, isn't he? He's not doing Shaolin kung

47:14

fu anymore. He's come up

47:16

with something new. Yes.

47:18

So he developed a martial art

47:21

style called Jikkun Bao, which drew

47:23

on a number of influences, primarily

47:25

Wing Chun, but also from Shaolin

47:28

kung fu. And I guess

47:30

really as Phil was saying, what Bruce Lee

47:32

really brought to the table, and that was

47:35

kind of unique to Bruce Lee, he

47:38

was incorporating kind of Western

47:40

bodybuilding cultures and big muscles

47:42

into kung fu. And

47:45

he also at the same time, he promoted

47:47

quite a kind of violent and

47:50

virile Asian masculinity, and

47:52

a kind of like a Chinese nationalism

47:55

and Asian pride that proved

47:57

very important culturally and

47:59

also commercial. incredibly successful in

48:02

Sinophone communities but also with

48:05

Western audiences. And

48:08

Bruce Lee would pave the way

48:10

for Chinese stars like Jackie Chan

48:13

and Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh

48:16

and he also influenced often directly

48:18

the careers of Hollywood stars, of

48:21

white Hollywood stars like David Carradine

48:23

who was of course in Kung

48:25

Fu theories and also Bill from

48:28

Kill Bill and one

48:30

of Bruce Lee's students was Chuck

48:32

Norris. Chuck Norris of

48:34

course the internet's favorite meme Chuck

48:36

Norris. So

48:40

I mean Bruce Lee is this incredible icon

48:42

of ancient story going back really we could

48:44

take it back about two and a half

48:46

thousand years we said the 1500s is

48:49

when Shaolin Kung Fu really

48:51

emerges but some of that tradition we

48:53

were exploring in the

48:55

Warring States period is

48:58

in the 5th century

49:00

BCE so that's a

49:03

long long history. This

49:05

is part of the show where Phil and

49:07

I quietly practice some buttock pulls and clench

49:10

our anuses while Leon tells us something that

49:13

we need to know so my stopwatch is

49:15

ready. Dr. Leon take it away please. Well

49:18

I want to say a little bit

49:20

about what's happening in Shaolin Temple these

49:23

days so if you're not satisfied with

49:25

just watching Kung Fu on a big

49:27

screen or small screen you can learn

49:29

Kung Fu you can visit the Shaolin

49:31

Temple yourself and do a

49:33

quote-unquote Shaolin Kung Fu summer school you don't

49:35

actually have to become a Buddhist monk to

49:37

do that. The Shaolin Temple by the

49:40

1990s and 2000s has

49:43

become a major tourist center with

49:45

more than a million visitors every

49:47

year it has its

49:50

own kind of performing troupe that

49:52

would regularly tour the world

49:54

and of course there's

49:57

an official Shaolin martial arts

49:59

academy with tens of thousands

50:01

of students and many of these students

50:03

would go on to become professional athletes

50:06

or maybe even movie star or

50:09

soldiers in elite military units in

50:11

China or the personal bodyguards for

50:13

Chinese billionaires. And

50:15

if traveling to China to visit the

50:17

Shaolin Temple sounds too time consuming and

50:20

far too expensive, you can learn Shaolin

50:22

Kung Fu at one of the many

50:24

quote Shaolin franchise schools in

50:27

large cities around the world. There's one in London, there's

50:29

one in Paris, there's one in Berlin, there's one in New

50:31

York, there's one in San Francisco. And

50:33

all of this is a result of Chinese economic

50:35

reforms in the 1980s and 1990s. And this level

50:37

of commodification

50:41

of tradition and consumption

50:43

of tradition were

50:46

part of the unleashing

50:48

of entrepreneurialism and

50:50

market forces onto Chinese

50:52

society. And it was

50:54

something that was actively

50:56

supported and endorsed by

50:59

the Chinese state. So

51:01

here you have Kung

51:03

Fu meets capitalism. Unstoppable

51:06

partnership. Yes,

51:09

capitalism by the fist. That's fascinating. That's

51:11

cool. Oh, thank you, Leon. So what

51:14

do you know now? I'm

51:22

now for the quiz. This is the so what do

51:24

you know now? This is our

51:26

quickfire quiz for Phil Wang to see

51:28

how much he has learned. Now, Phil, across

51:30

the series, I think you're averaging nine out

51:32

of 10 on the quizzes, you're very high

51:34

scoring. Come on, full score

51:37

today. Full score today. Full score would be

51:39

a real feather in your cap.

51:41

Come on, daddy needs a new Shaolin stick. Come

51:43

on. And you are a black belt. So technically,

51:45

I'm expecting you to get 10 out of 10

51:47

here because you know, my nepotism is going to

51:49

really show if I don't do all right, we've

51:52

got 10 questions. Here we go. Question

51:54

one in Chinese traditional medicine, what is

51:56

Qi and why is it important? It

51:58

is an energy that flows. through

52:00

your body and it's important because

52:02

it's energy and it's in your

52:04

body. Yes,

52:07

it protects your longevity and prevents

52:09

illness as well. Question

52:11

two, name two of the ancient poses

52:13

that were part of ancient Taoist self-cultivation

52:16

exercises based on animals. Bird

52:18

stretch and the

52:21

bear amble. Yay, very good. The

52:23

famous bear amble. You could have

52:26

also had the gibbon jump, the crane

52:28

call and the dragon rise. Lovely. Question

52:31

three, how do you do a buttock pull? Oh,

52:34

by clenching your anus. Yes,

52:36

not the planet. Yes, your buttock.

52:41

Question four, by following a daily

52:43

regime of self-cultivation, how long did

52:45

legendary figure Pang Joo allegedly live

52:47

for? Eight centuries, the big eight-to-oh.

52:50

Because he was a sex battery sponge or

52:52

something. I can't remember what we said, but

52:54

he did weird things with ladies. Question

52:57

five, which Buddhist monastery in Henan province

53:00

is considered the birthplace of kung fu?

53:02

Shaolin baby. Yes, it is.

53:04

Question six, how did fighting Shaolin monks make

53:06

a name for themselves during the late Ming

53:08

period? By killing a bunch

53:10

of pirates for the government. That's right.

53:13

Question seven, according to the legend, why

53:15

did Shaolin monks start fighting with staffs

53:17

as weapons? Because of

53:19

a young boy, a young

53:22

kitchen boy who was the

53:24

reincarnation of a Buddhist

53:28

monk leader and

53:30

used a fire poker to fend off

53:33

Axl Rose. Yes, he was

53:35

a reincarnation of Vashirapani. Very

53:37

good. Question eight, what was

53:39

the nun-related origin story of Wing Chun developed

53:41

in the late 19th century? She

53:44

was a very powerful high-up Buddhist

53:47

nun and she taught a young

53:50

girl called Wing Chun the martial

53:52

arts so Wing Chun could fend

53:54

off toxic dudes. That's absolutely right.

53:56

Question nine, what happened to martial

53:58

arts in China during the cult-

54:00

revolution. It was

54:02

turned into exercise and suppressed and

54:04

the Kung Fu guys had to

54:06

go to the West and elsewhere.

54:08

That's right question 10 this for

54:11

a perfect score. What

54:13

was the name of the new martial arts

54:15

style developed by Bruce Lee? Jikendall!

54:17

Yay! He's done it!

54:20

100% ah! Black belt!

54:22

Black belt in quiz!

54:24

How does it feel Phil? It

54:28

feels great. You've got a relief. Oh

54:30

my gosh. I

54:32

feel fantastic. There's chi coming out

54:34

everywhere. You're leaking

54:37

g. I'm leaking g all over the place.

54:41

Well thank you so much Phil. Thank you

54:43

so much Dr. Leon and listener. If after

54:45

today's episode you want more Phil Wang in

54:47

your life of course you do. Check out

54:49

our episodes on the Borges, Chinggis Khan or

54:51

the Terracotta army. All absolute classics. And

54:53

why not listen to our episode on Chinese

54:55

pirate queen Cheng Yi Sao. She's very fun.

54:58

And remember if you've enjoyed the podcast please leave a

55:00

review, share the show with your friends, subscribe to

55:02

your Dead to Me on BBC Sound so you

55:04

never miss an episode. But I'd just like to

55:07

say a big thank you to our guests in

55:09

History Corner. We had the legendary Dr. Leon Russia.

55:11

Thank you Leon. Thank

55:13

you very much and to quote

55:15

Bruce Lee, Be water my friend.

55:18

I've no idea. It

55:21

means adapting to your situation. Yeah, fill

55:24

all the spaces. Buy skinny jeans. And

55:29

in Comedy Corner we had the ferociously

55:31

funny Phil Wang. Thank you Phil. Hiya

55:33

Greg. Hiya Leon. Hiya everybody. It's been

55:35

a pleasure. Thank you so much. I've

55:37

learned. I've laughed. I've fought. I've punched.

55:39

I've clenched my anus. What

55:42

a wonderful time it has been. Absolutely.

55:44

And to you lovely listener join me next time

55:46

as we spar with another historical opponent. But for

55:48

now I'm off to sit in a cave for

55:50

nine long years and hope that all the secrets

55:52

of history are revealed to me. Bye.

56:00

Dead to Me was researched by John Mason,

56:02

it was written by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow,

56:04

Emma Bruce and the Goose and me, the

56:06

audio producer was Steve Hankey and our production

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coordinator was Caitlin Hobbs. It was produced by

56:10

Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow and me, our senior

56:12

producer was Emma the Goose and our executive

56:14

editor was Chris Legere. Why

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up toast? I'm Sean Farrington, presenter of the

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BBC Radio 4 series Toast, which examines exactly

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