Since ancient time, cultural exchange between China and Korea has come into being. Co-existing in the East Asian cultural circle, China and Korea have a lot in common while varying from each other in some ways. Generally speaking, Korean culture lies ...
Since ancient time, cultural exchange between China and Korea has come into being. Co-existing in the East Asian cultural circle, China and Korea have a lot in common while varying from each other in some ways. Generally speaking, Korean culture lies between Chinese culture and aggressive western culture, functioning as a bridge. Taekwondo, like martial arts, is an outcome of eastern martial culture. Therefore, taekwondo is similar to martial arts regarding form and cultural connotation.
As a traditional national sports in Korean, taekwondo has become a fashionable kickboxing sports across the world through half-a-century efforts. So far, there are 206 member countries that have introduced in taekwondo. In particular, after taekwondo became an official competition item in Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, Korean, kimchi, hanbok and other representative marks of Korean culture have been known by people all over the world, which has enhanced Korean people’s sense of national pride. On the other hand, Chinese martial arts has a long history. After the foundation of People’s Republic of China, martial arts began to gain rapid development. Compared with the wide attention to taekwondo, however, that to martial arts is much less. Since the foundation of International Martial Arts Federation in 1990, a total of 149 member countries had joined the federation by the end of 2014.
Compared with the development of promotion of taekwondo, those of martial arts are much less. During the past decades, taekwondo have swiped across the world and remarkable achievements have been made, which is to a great extent attributed to its reasonable promotion model and strategies. As a saying goes “Absorbing Others Experiences and Improving Ourselves”, many successful promotion strategies and ways of taekwondo are worth learning. This research is aiming at identifying similarities and differences between taekwondo and martial arts through analyzing and comparing international development history and promotion models of the two, exploring for factors that contribute to successful promotion of taekwondo as well as the deficiencies in the process of globalization of martial arts, and putting forward a strategy that is appropriate for international development and promotion of martial arts after giving consideration to national conditions of China.
In order to achieve objective of this research, methods like literature review, expert interview,logic analysis and comparative analysis are applied. Finally, the following conclusion is attained.
(1) As fighting skills of eastern countries, both Korean taekwondo and Chinese martial arts have complete content systems and eastern philosophy ideas. Therefore, there are many similarities between taekwondo and martial arts regarding the process of international development.
(2) As traditional national sports items, Korean taekwondo and Chinese martial arts are supported by governments and there are relevant policies. However, the two are varying regarding to implementation of the policies.
(3) Both of the two have been greatly advertised and performed in international level. In the case of taekwondo, a great deal of coaches were sent for teaching after promotion. However, the situation is opposite in the case of martial arts. There is a big number of assigned coaches of taekwondo because the country has a plan to send out coaches for free. As with martial arts, however, the number of assigned coaches is small and the assignment is paid.
(4) Many international competitions of the two sports items have been held. In comprehensive sports meetings, however, martial arts is far lagging behind taekwondo which has become an official competition item in not only Olympic Games but also some competitions of non-Olympic alliances. In terms of training international coaches and judges, a policy that attaches importance to popularization and competition is practiced for taekwondo while martial arts is trained especially for competition.
(5) Olympic development strategies and popularization development strategy have been formulated for taekwondo. Under guidance of unified idea, taekwondo is operating towards popularization and competition. In terms of selection of Olympic items, a confrontation form that is highly integrative with Olympic has been applied for taekwondo so that the confrontation form of taekwondo can enter Olympic Games before martial arts. When Olympic development strategy for martial arts was made, the strategy of popularization was overlooked. In terms of selection of Olympic Games, stereotyped form has been applied. Due to great cultural differences, the difficulty to promote is increased.
(6) In order to facilitate internationalization of taekwondo, a World Taekwondo Headquarters that centers around studying and spreading taekwondo has been established. Similarly, a “Martial Arts Institute” has been established in China. As with specific operation, however, the taekwondo headquarters is more active.
(7) In 1973, World Taekwondo Federation (WFT) was established, So far there are 206 member countries in the federation. In 1990, International Wushu Federation (IWUF) was established and there are so far 149 member countries. As we can see, both of the two countries have done a lot to facilitate internationalization of their sports items. In spite of that, the range of activity and enthusiasm of WFT is superior to those of IWUF.
(8) The Dunwei system of Korean taekwondo is relatively more complete as its content of assessment, management system and operational system are very mature. On the other hand, the Dunwei system of Chinese martial arts remains in the pilot stage and there is no a mature system and operational mechanism. The Dunwei system of Korean taekwondo has made a great contribution to internalization of taekwondo.
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