Lives of Chinese Martial Artists (22): Wang Ziping and

the Strength of the Nation

chinesemartialstudies.com/2018/06/15/lives-of-chinese-martial-artists-22-wang-ziping-and-the-strength-of-the-nation/

June 15, 2018

Wang Ziping. Source:http://www.helenwutaichistudio.com/?page_id=193

Telling a Tale

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Brief biographical sketches of Chinese martial artists are some of my favorite posts to
write.I am not sure why, but I find the challenge of reconstructing a very different type of life,
or way of living, irresistible.Societies and cultures are never stable targets.They are
constantly moving, splitting and changing.A good biographical discussion reveals not just
the details of one individual’s life, but throws light on the concerns, events and issues that
shaped it.If approached correctly, biography can be an enlightening case-study touching on
all sorts of theoretically relevant issues.

Which is not to say that writing something like that is easy.Authors face a couple of critical
challenges.First, one must locate an individual who lived in interesting times.Second, you
need to work with someone whose life was well enough documented that that you actually
know what they were up to. Yet they cannot be so well understood that there is nothing left
to say.The first of these conditions is generally not limiting when dealing with Chinese
martial artists in the late Qing or Republic era.The process of revolution and social
upheaval that gripped Chinese society during much of the 20th century ensured that the
nation’s martial artists were living in proverbially “interesting times”.Yet finding a figure
whose life was well enough documented to permit actual study is often a challenge.The
flames of social transformation do not always leave as much of a paper trail as later
historians might want.It is all about finding a happy medium as our first and second
conditions often work against each other.

Luckily for us, Wang Ziping (1881-1973) appears to be the exception who scores well on
both scales.The son of a locally well known martial artist (and the father of a martial arts
dynasty in the current era), Wang lived through some the most wrenching transitions in
modern Chinese history.Each of these eras left a mark on his long and varied career.Best
of all, the celebrity that he acquired in his lifetime ensured that this life would be
comparatively well understood and documented.That doesn’t mean that we know
everything.Tantalizing mysteries emerge as we attempt to piece together both the facts and
legends surrounding an exceptionally full life.But in doing so we are rewarded with a better
understanding of pivotal moments in the development of the Chinese martial arts.

As always, the standard disclaimers apply to this essay.I am not a student within Wang’s
lineage and I do not claim to have any private information regarding his life or career.This
essay was constructed from a number of publicly available Chinese and English language
sources, as well as my own work with Republic era newspaper articles.Various accounts
given by Wang’s own family have been particularly helpful in understanding his personality
and the texture of his life. By synthesizing these accounts we may yet learn something new
about Wang’s impact on the martial arts.

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 Wang Ziping in his late fourties. Source: http://www.helenwutaichistudio.com/

Strong Body, Strong Nation

Wang Ziping was born to a family of locally well known Muslim martial artists in Cangzhou,
Hebei Province, in 1881.One might think it only natural that this child would go on to have a
distinguished career in the same field.After all, the rising tide of nationalism at the end of
the Qing dynasty ensured that the popularity of the martial arts would increase until
1900.And the growth of social disorder in the late 19th and early 20th century suggested
that an armed guard or soldier would always be able to find work.

Ironically, Wang would have to struggle to carve out a place for himself in the region’s rich
martial landscape.Various accounts have stated that Wang’s father thought his son was too
frail to be a martial artist and so refused to train him.On the surface such a story seems odd
as its the reversal of the “standard formula” in which parents, worried for the health of a
sickly child, seek out martial instruction in an attempt to boost development and

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vigor.Family accounts suggest, however, that Wang’s father actually wanted his son to
pursue a more academic education, and thereby contribute to the family fortune by finding
professional work.

This ban on martial arts practice did not sit well with the family’s youngest member.At the
age of six Wang headed out into the forest where he would dig trenches to practice both his
vertical leaps and long jumps.He made improvised training equipment from stumps and tree
trunks.And with the encouragement of his mother he began what would be a life long quest
to develop new modes of strength training (such as swimming to retrieve weights from the
bottom of a pool) in the hopes of developing both his body and future prospects.Through
diligent work Wang developed both an extraordinary level of functional strength and
jumping abilities that would shape his reputation for decades to come.

Still, it may not have been immediately evident as to whether these superhuman efforts
were going to paying off.Some accounts suggest that as a youth Wang was expelled from
his village for being a “Boxer Bandit.”I suspect that this has fed the belief that he was a
sworn member of the local Yihiquan chapter and got caught up in the Boxer Rebellion in
that way.While not an expert in this particular area, I wonder how likely it would be that a
devote Muslim youth would seek to join a heterodox religious movement based on spirit
possession by Chinese gods and legendary figures?

Other accounts, which seem a bit more plausible, suggest that the young Wang actually
joined the army and worked as a physical trainer/martial arts instructor, putting his years of
solitary physical training to good use.Many Muslim youth would get caught up in the chaos
of the Boxer rebellion, but as soldiers who were brought in to reinforce the capital. Indeed,
Muslim soldiers were on the front lines of some of the most bitter military battles in the
campaign.

One way or another, Wang survived his brush with the the Boxers, and like so many other
displaced soldier and martial artists, melted into the countryside ahead of the punitive raids
carried out by each of the eight allied nations.While a formative period in Wang’s life,
sources dealing with these years are scarce and stories abound.As Cohen might caution
us, painting someone as a Boxer is the sort of thing that would have gone over much better
in 1930 than in 1910.By the 1960s any involvement with the porto-marxist peasant uprising
might even be seen as glamours.Yet in 1901 such an admission might get you killed.As
such we need to exercise caution when dealing with accounts of this period that are not
based on contemporaneous sources.

The various stories agree that following the abortive uprising Wang moved to Jinan (the
capital of Shandong province) and attempted to make a living as an itinerant merchant.As
he traveled from place to place he sought out other martial arts masters.Some Chinese
language accounts also suggest that he became involved with Ma Liang’s attempts to
promote a simplified martial arts regime among the provinces troops and population.

It is also clear that it was during this period that Wang first encountered Yang Hong Xiu, his
future teacher, possibly performing a public feat of strength including a mill stone.In point of
fact mill stones figure prominently into many stories of Wang’s early exploits.It was at this
time that he began to devote himself to the full time study of the martial arts.

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During his third decade Wang developed a reputation for fighting challenge matches with
the foreigners who intruded into local life in Shandong province.Of course all of this was
happening in years after the 1911 revolution and the immense rise in national
consciousness that this portended.Perhaps the most famous of these stories, related by
Wang’s daughter and granddaughter, revolves around an effort to save the culturally
significant carved doors of a local mosque from a group of Germans who wished to
purchase them.This story likely took place sometime between the start of the Republic and
the German retreat from the area at the end of WWI.As with many (though not all) of these
encounters, Wang won the bet and saved face for the nation through a display of his
strength (lifting sets of bells or mill stones) rather than by fisticuffs.Indeed, he seems to
have been just as famous as a strongman as a martial artist.

That is not to say that he never fought.At some point in the 1910s he is said to have
crossed hands with an American physical education teacher in Qingdao and another
German fighter.Some accounts also suggest that later in the decade he confronted a group
of Japanese martial artists.They were armed with spears and he carried a pole.It is known
that Wang confronted a Russian strongman in a park in Beijing in 1919, and in 1921 he got
involved with a challenge laid out by an American named fighter Sullivan who seems to
have been making the rounds of the local theaters.That last point is important as it reminds
us that many of these confrontations were between professionals. They had an undeniably
economic component to them, even if they are now mostly discussed in terms of national
honor.This sort of activity was a common way for traveling boxers, strongmen and
wrestlers across the world to make a living in the early 20th century.

Still, an undeniable pattern emerges when we examine the accounts of his activity in the
1920s.Whether in the ring or engaged in feats of strength in the local marketplace, Wang
was making a name for himself by systematically knocking down representatives of each of
the foreign powers in China.He was putting his prodigious physical capital to use in ways
that could only be read politically.

This aspect of his career would be magnified in the coming decades.It appears that Wang
had some sort of relationship with Genera Ma Liang and would appear in some of his
famous martial arts exhibitions.These events were often witnessed and reported on by
foreign reporters.In December of 1922 the North China Herald ran a breathless article
narrating a particularly grand demonstration staged by Ma in Shanghai before a
cosmopolitan audience.It was a long and detailed piece.But a full third of the article was
dedicated to an account of the strongman show that Wang staged right in the middle of the
performance.Some of the feats he performed were Chinese in their cultural origin, while the
reporter identified others as being identical to the sorts of stunts that one might see
performed in the West. By the end of the evening no one doubted Wang’s extraordinary
strength.One wonders how many other shows and tournaments Wang was part of in this
era as Ma Liang was staging events like this one with some regularity.

All of this exposure paid off and Wang Ziping’s reputation began to grow at the national
level.His granddaughter reports that in 1923 the famous Chinese painter Qi Baishi even
wrote a poem celebrating Wang’s achievements in defense of the nation titled “Subduing
the Tiger in the South Forest, Dispelling the Dragon from the Ocean Depths.”In many ways
the charismatic (and photogenic) Wang was becoming a recognized public face of the era’s
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martial art movement.

This same prominence would also carry Wang through the following decade.In 1928 he
was named the first director of the Shaolin teaching division of the newly created Central
Guosh Institute.This was a a very high profile appointment that once again gave Wang a
degree of national exposure.Unfortunately it didn’t last long.The initial plan for the Guoshu
organization called for it to be split into “Shaolin” and “Wudang” divisions that would be
responsible for promoting the external and internal arts. As Andrew Morris has noted, the
plan turned out be a disaster. While the Guoshu movement was tasked with uniting China’s
squabbling martial artists, this division basically forced different styles to compete with each
other for scarce budgetary resources. It took mythic rivalries and made them real.

By all accounts Wang had never lost a public fight, and he wasn’t about to start now.His
battles over simple administrative matters with Zhedong (a Xingyi master and head of the
Wudang division) quickly escalated from merely epic to truly dangerous.The pair’s
underlings even attacked each other with spears.At this point the Guoshu movement’s
political leadership intervened and disbanded the pathological divisions which they had
inadvertently created.A new administrative team was brought in and the organization was
put on a firmer organizational footing.Wang kept an appointment, however, as an instructor
of the Shaolin arts.

That turned out to be quite fortunate for one of the group’s new administrators.Tang Hao
was involved with the group’s early publishing and education efforts.The Japanese
educated lawyer used the opportunity to pursue his passion for martial arts history and in
1930 began to release the results of his research into the true origins of Taijiquan (which he
placed in Chen village) and Shaolin Boxing (which he argued had nothing to do with
Bodhidharma or the other popular myths).

While he is now remembered as the father of Chinese martial studies, audiences at the
time were less appreciative of his work.Tang Hao’s efforts to explode the mythology
surrounding the Chinese martial arts led to a remarkable number of threats in a short period
of time.Nor does it appear that his employers did much to back him up.Wang, however,
supported Tang Hao and helped to assure his safety as he made a tactical retreat from the
capital.This was early evidence of shared sympathies that would see both Tang and Wang
become part of the new martial arts establishment after the rise of the Community Party in
1949.

A later NY Times article (written in 1949) suggested that Wang Ziping fought a Japanese
martial artist in a public bout in 1933, at close to the age of 50.That would seem to be
entirely in character, but I haven’t been able to find any other specific references to the
match.But we do know that in 1935 Wang received yet another prestigious appointment,
this time as a judge for both the boxing and wrestling portions of the Sixth National
Games.While Wang’s credentials as a martial artist are often discussed, we forget that he
was also a talented wrestler.Indeed, the entire topic of Republic era wrestling seems to
have slipped out of the current conversation.

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 Wang Ziping with Jian

Wang remained active with the Guoshu movement right up until the very end.In 1949, in a
strategic bid to increase the profile of his floundering organization,General Zhang Zhijiang
gave an exclusive interview to the NY Times discussing the state of Chinese martial
arts.The end result was a lengthy article in one of the most important English language
newspapers examining the highs and lows of the Guoshu movement.Of all its many
heroes, Zhang chose to focus much of his discussion on Wang Ziping, and the
extraordinary physical abilities that he retained even at the age of 70.

There appears to have been something undeniably charismatic about Wang’s

personality.Beyond his physical talent, or abilities as a teacher, people just liked him. While
he never wielded the level of influence of Generals Zhang Zhijinag or Ma Liang, those sorts
of people saw in him an ideal public face for the Chinese martial arts.

Nor would this be the last time that English languages audiences would hear of Wang’s
exploits.The immigration of family members to the West ensured that Wang’s contributions
to the Chinese martial arts would take root here.But during the Cold War, PRC propaganda
publication such as China Reconstructs, continued to run features on the reform of the
martial arts that highlighted Wang’s contributions.

After the rise of the Communist Party, Wang accepted a number of appointments in athletic
and political bodies.He continued to be involved with the teaching and promotion of the
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martial arts, and the practice of traditional Chinese medicine.His daughter held a
prestigious professorship in Wushu, coaching both a martial arts and archery team. In 1958
Wang published a volume titled “Twenty Therapeutic Exercises for Treating Disease and
Prolonging Life.”This, along with the creation of his “Green Dragon Sword,” have remained
among his most appreciated original contributions to the Chinese martial arts.

The apex of this final phase of Wang’s long career came with the dawning of the 1960s.In
1959 he was appointed the Chief Referee of the First National Wushu Exhibition.Then in
1960 he was invited to accompany Zhou Enlai on a state visit to Myanmar.Here he was
once again called upon to demonstrate, and to be the public face of the Chinese martial
arts.At the time he was nearly 80 years old.

The situation for China’s elite martial artists deteriorated rapidly with the start of the Cultural
Revolution.University Wushu programs were mothballed and coaches and professors (such
as Wang’s daughter and son-in-law) lost their employment.Wang himself was forced to
close his traditional medicine practice and to stop publicly teaching the martial arts.His wife
had a heart attack and died after a visit from the Reg Guard.Wang’s granddaughter, Grace
Xiaogao Wu-Monnat, has given a particularly detailed (and touching) account of her
family’s fortunes during this time period that is well worth reading.

While he passed away in 1973, and thus missed the “Kung Fu Fever” that would erupt at
the end of the decade, Wang remained dedicated to his beloved martial arts.Perhaps being
forced to struggle to learn them taught him that any vision could be accomplished with hard
work.As he repeatedly told his young granddaughter, struggling to find her own path to
martial accomplishment in the depths of the Cultural Revolution, “All you need is a dream.
And you can be everything you ever want to be.”What better ambassador could the
Chinese martial arts have had?

oOo

If you enjoyed the biography you might also want to read: Lives of Chinese Martial Artists
(16): Yu Chenghui – Realizing Swordsmanship in an Era of Restoration

oOo

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