Bloodline Organization of Disseminating Chin Woo Athletic to Nanyang: From Cultural Matrix China to SEA

Abstract

This paper sketches out the mode and influence of the sports culture of martial arts, from Republican China to Southeast Asia’s Chinese societies. The Chin Woo Athletic Federation was the first non-governmental sports organization in Republican China after the feudal monarchy. In the 1920s, it began to expand its organizational territory to Southeast Asia, and its development reached its peak in the 1930s. This paper focuses on the spread of Wushu to Southeast Asia against the background of the rise of overseas Chinese nationalism. It interprets how it embodied the Chinese immigrant nationalism, especially contextualizing the conflict between tradition and modernity in the early twentieth century, which is a rarely discussed topic. The results show that the dissemination of Chin Woo organizations was a form of organizational cloning of ‘mother’ organizations in the mainland. The association between different Chin Woo athletic associations suggests an attempt at cloning the organizations and their practice in the interests of building a form of quintessential Chinese-ness, at the initiative of Chinese business and other community leaders. The physical training and performance of the Chin Woo members was a manifestation of Southeast Asian Chinese immigrant nationalism. Finally, Wushu was a cultural element in the historical identity of Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia.