TIME Magazineのインスタグラム(time) - 11月12日 16時00分

Xu Xiaodong has spent a lifetime fighting, first at school and later channeling a red-hot adolescent temper into competitive mixed-martial-arts (#MMA). But the fiercest blows he suffered were far from the ring, when he took on practitioners of traditional Chinese martial arts, known officially as wushu but more colloquially as simply kung fu. The dispute started with an argument on social media. Xu wanted Wei Lei, a #kungfu master in the discipline of tai chi, to account for the outlandish powers he claimed to possess. Wei boasted of using an invisible force field to keep a dove on his hand, and pulverizing a watermelon’s innards without damaging its skin. The idea that masters of kung fu achieve mystical skills is widely accepted in China; Wei is just one of many making such claims. The online quarrel escalated, and before long Xu and Wei were facing off in a basement in the central Chinese city of Chengdu for a bare-knuckle match. Xu says he only wanted to open people’s eyes, but the bout was billed as East vs. West, the master of a hallowed tradition vs. an alien upstart. The April 2017 bout, in which Xu claimed victory in 20 seconds, left Xu with barely a scratch but a life in tatters. A video of the match quickly became a viral sensation on China’s social-media platforms. Online trolls accused Xu of humiliating traditional Chinese culture, and he found he was banned from #socialmedia. The Chinese Wushu Association condemned the “suspected illegal actions that violate the morals of martial arts.” He and his family received death threats. Many wanted a rematch. Xu insists his aim was not to disparage Chinese martial arts, but to show that what is often sold as a powerful fighting skill is useless in actual close combat situations. But his efforts were framed by his critics as placing the Western culture of MMA above cherished Eastern traditions—a perfidious sin in an increasingly nationalist #China. “A lot of people have been brainwashed by these fake kung fu masters,” says Xu, who broke his silence to talk to TIME. “I’m trying to wake them up and let them know what real traditional kung fu actually is.” Read more on TIME.com. Photograph by @patwack for TIME

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