Cheng Man-ch'ing

Cheng's Student Ed Young to Have Art Exhibit

2011-11-10T09:42:00.000-08:00

Ed Young, children's book artist and tai chi teacher, will be having an exhibit of his works in Abiline, Texas, November 11, 2011-January 28, 2012 at the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature. Young, who is about to turn 80, immigrated to the United States as a youth, and studied architecture, before turning to illustration.
In 1964, he happened to meet Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing, who was visiting the United States. After Cheng decided to stay on in New York City, Young became one of his assistants and translators, and became a taiji teacher himself in the New York area and beyond.

Young's book Lon Po Po, the Chinese Red Riding Hood story, won the Caldecott Medal, the highest US honor in children's book illustration. Two other books, The Emperor and the Kite, and Seven Blind Mice, by Young himself, have won Caldecott Honors. Recent books include Wabi Sabi (with Mark Reibstein), Moon Bear (with Brenda Guiberson), Hook, and Tsunami (with Kimiko Kajikawa). His newest book, The House Baba Built, a picture-book memoir about his boyhood in wartime Shanghai, is meeting with critical acclaim.
For an article about the exhibit, see the Abiline Recorder.
Young can be seen on this BBC video discussing The House Baba Built.

Robert W. Smith, Student of Cheng Man-ch'ing

2011-07-04T07:27:00.000-07:00

Martial arts historian Robert W. Smith passed away July 1, 2011, in North Carolina. A man with a voracious appetite for learning---whether intellectual pursuits or martial arts---Smith combined those interests adeptly over many decades of involvement with the Asian arts of judo, taijiquan, and other disciplines.
Smith met Cheng Man-ch'ing (Zheng Manqing) while posted as a CIA analyst to Taiwan in the late 1950s. He wrote about Cheng, whom he felt to be the most accomplished of all of his teachers:
"Zheng was unique, a happy aberration. He was able through tedious practice (much of it so arcane that it is a safe bet that it resides now in no living person) to take an intelligent and creative mind and to soften, reduce, and even empty it in the service of a none-too-robust boddy. From this synthesis came an absolutely unparalleled art of health and protection of health." (Martial Musings,p. 323)
Together, Smith and Cheng wrote T'ai Chi: The "Supreme Ultimate" Exercise for Health, Spoort, and Self-defense (Tuttle, 1967). This book presents taiji philosophy and Cheng's particular views, and the taiji form with detailed photos.
Smith's delightful memoir Martial Musings: A Portrayal of Martial Arts in the 20th Century (Via Media, 1999) is a mix of social, cultural, and personal history and commentary. Smith also featured Cheng in his book Chinese Boxing: Masters and Methods (Kodansha, 1974).

See further reports and links for Robert W. Smith on the Taijiquan Journal blog.

Cheng Man-ch'ing on Women's Health

2011-04-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

Cheng Man-ch'ing was, from the 1930s on, a practicing doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. He wrote several books on Chinese medicine topics related to women's health, cancer, and orthopedics, as well as newspaper columns on meditation and tai chi. His books on medicine discuss theory, application, cases, and prescriptions, and give insight into how Cheng thought about medicine.
The complete Insights on Women's Medicine (女科心法Nu'ke xinfa) has just been released, translated by Douglas Wile, who also writes an extensive introduction to the work, giving the historical context of twentieth-century Chinese medicine and Cheng's place in it. The book is published by Sweet Ch'i Press (order through Redwing Books). Wile, formerly professor of Chinese at Brooklyn College, is a prolific translator, having previously translated and annotated several books: Thirteen Chapters, Cheng Man-ch'ing's Advanced Form Instruction, Zheng Manqing's Uncollected Writings, as well as Lost T'ai Chi Classics, T'ai Chi Touchstones: Yang Family Secrets, Tai Chi's Ancestors, and The Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics.

A Visit from West Point

2011-03-25T20:39:00.000-07:00

Cheng giving a demonstration
(source unidentified).

In December of 1967, Cheng Man-ch'ing welcomed guests from West Point, the United States Military Academy located in upstate New York. Led by John Kress, instructor of unarmed combat, a group of officers and cadets visited the New York Tai Chi Association studio on Canal Street in Chinatown. Kress and his group exchanged ideas and demonstrations with Cheng and his students. Many years earlier, Cheng himself had taught tai chi at the Whampoa Military Academy, China's "West Point."
As Tam Gibbs, Cheng's assistant and translator later recorded, "Mr. Kress demonstrated some Army field fighting techniques. All were helpless against him. Strong as a bear and as fierce as a tiger, he crouched in a stable posture, quick and light on his feet. Cooly concentrated and never initiating an attack, he took advantage of the slightest opening. Each of those to face him was sent staggering; no one could penetrate his long arms, which seemed like flagpoles with the hugest hands at the ends of them that I have ever seen on a man."
The tai chi students also gave demonstrations, and to everyone's delight, Kress and Cheng Indian wrestled. Cheng, a half-foot shorter and much lighter, bested Kress, but was worried, as he could sense Kress' high skill. The two men came away with a great appreciation of each other.

Traces of a Master

2010-12-06T08:28:00.000-08:00

Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing left a number of ways in which people could observe and appreciate his work, and derive guidance for their own practice of taijiquan and other arts.
For instance, Cheng's own exploration of qi development (養生 yangsheng) is evident not only in his taijiquan movies and in the stories people tell of his medical abilities, but in his calligraphy and painting. After all, Chinese calligraphy is based on some of the same principles as taijiquan: alignment, focus (yi), balance, and relaxation. In these four examples below of his calligraphy, done over the span of fifty years, we can see—despite the low resolution of these pictures—how his work dramatically changed over time.

4th European Cheng Man-ch'ing Cup

2010-05-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

The European branch of Cheng Man-ch'ing's lineage holds a large event, the European Cheng Man-ch'ing Cup every year or two with guest masters, workshops, practice, discussions, tournament, demonstrations, lion dance, banquet, and socializing.
This year's event will be held July 31-August 3 in the mountains of southwestern France near the border with Spain. Featured presenters include Rosa Chen, Wang Chin Shih, Chu Hong Bin, Nigel Sutton, Fong Sutton, Lau Kung Kim, Nils Klug, Ken Van Sickle, Epi Van der Pol, and William Nelson.
For registration information, see the group's website (English and French).
Un événement exceptionnel!

Tracing the Past: Art Exhibit

2010-02-01T10:45:00.000-08:00

"Tracing the Past, Drawing the Future: Master Ink Painters in 20th-Century China," an exhibit of Cheng Man-ch'ing's elder colleagues works will be held at Stanford University in California.

The exhibit presents more than 110 works, in two rotations, February 17 through July 4, 2010. Admission is free. “This landmark exhibition illuminates a turning point in the development of Chinese ink painting during the 20th-century,” explained Dr. Xiaoneng Yang, the Cantor Arts Center’s Patrick J. J. Maveety Curator of Asian Art. “Drawing upon paintings and calligraphy on loan from Chinese collections new to American audiences, the exhibition presents monumental portraits, vibrant bird-and-flower painting, and spectacular landscapes by Wu Changshuo (1844–1927), Qi Baishi (1864–1957), Huang Binhong (1865–1955), and Pan Tianshou (1897–1971). Collectively known in China as the ‘Four Great Masters of Ink Painting,’ these artists faced the dual challenges of negotiating the impact of encounters with the West, while inventing new directions for long-held practices of ink painting.”
A fully illustrated catalogue with scholarly essays in English accompanies the exhibition, including two introductory essays and essays on each artist. Full entries, translated from Chinese, accompany images of the works in the exhibition.
An international symposium, "The Politics of Culture and the Arts in Early 20th-Century China" will be held February 19–21. Cosponsored by Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center, Center for East Asian Studies, and Department of Art and Art History, the symposium is open free to scholars and the public."

Cheng Man-ch'ing was well acquainted with these men as colleagues in the Shanghai art scene, the art colleges, and painting societies. Wu Changshuo wrote a colophon for Cheng's 1924 album and praised the young Cheng highly. We can see an influence of Wu and Qi Baishi on Cheng Man-ch'ing's painting.

Painting by Wu Changshuo
Flower and Vegetables album:
Narcissus, Eggplant, Grapevines, Lotus, Chrysanthemum, 1904.
Album Leaves. Ink and colors on silk. Zhejiang Provincial Museum.
Reproduced with permission.

Chinese Painting Forgeries

2009-10-03T20:08:00.000-07:00

There is a long history in China of forged artwork, and these days it has become a big business, with "painting factories" churning out cheap imitations of great works. Cheng Man-ch'ing's paintings have, along with those of hundreds of other artists, been forged, often quite ineptly.

A forger copies the format and content of the original painting (in most cases working from a printed version), but unless the forger is highly skilled, the net result is nowhere near the work of the master. In this example of a forgery (left), Cheng's style is superficially copied in terms of layout, content, and subject matter. However, we can see that the forgery has missed the mark: it is flat and unexpressive, the plant has no life in it, and the parts of the plant do not relate to each other. When compared to an original work of Cheng's (right), we can see that the authentic work is imbued with qi, and that everything--composition, line, detail, brushstroke, color--"hangs together" as a whole. The plant looks alive, as if the wind has blown it into place just at that moment.

What is missing in most forgeries is the indelible mark of the artist, the focus of the mind and execution of inner expression, sponteneity, feeling, depth, skill, and technique: the power of brushwork, strength of line, facility in ink tones, and an intimacy of understanding the interconnected brushstrokes of both painting and calligraphy.

Ironically, forgery in Chinese art is to a certain extent a byproduct of study. An aspiring artist is expected to master the styles of prior great artists, and gradually work towards development of his or her own style. In fact, Cheng Man-ch'ing's friend and colleague Zhang Daqian (張大千 Chang Ta-ch'ien, 1899–1983), one of the great figures of 20th-century Chinese art, took great delight in creating such skilled forgeries that he was regularly able to fool experts. Nevertheless, forgery remains trickery.

Seven Friends of Painting Exhibit

2009-04-21T14:32:00.000-07:00

Cheng Man-ch'ing and six of his colleagues started the "Seven Friends of Painting Association" (七友畫會) in Taiwan, holding annual exhibits. This May, a retrospective exhibit is being held May 22–June 14, 2009 in honor of the group's 50th anniversary, at the National Museum of History in Taipei. The seven artists were Ma Shouhua, Chen Fang, Tao Yunlou, Zheng Manqing (Cheng Man-ch'ing, Liu Yantao, Gao Yihong, and Zhang Gunian (馬壽華、陳方、陶芸樓、鄭曼青、劉延濤、高逸鴻、張穀年), all influential figures in the painting scene during their lifetimes.

Cheng Man-ch'ing Videos

2009-01-28T11:50:00.000-08:00

For t'ai chi ch'uan enthusiasts, a new authorized site has links to a number of video clips , and information about ordering DVDs.

Cheng Man-ch'ing's Literary Output

2009-01-13T07:42:00.000-08:00

Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing had a love of reading, study, and writing that permeated everything he did. He was a college poetry instructor by his late teens, and as an artist, merged painting, poetry, and calligraphy into each of his works of art. He wrote poetry to mark occasions, to capture ideas and sentiments, and in honor of teachers, friends, and family. He wrote theoretical works about poetry, calligraphy, and painting, about medicine, and about tai chi ch'uan. Three compilations of his paintings were made, and he selected about five hundred poems for two volumes of his poetry. In his later years, Cheng distilled his thoughts on a number of Chinese classics: Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching (Daodejing), the Analects of Confucius, the I Ching (Yijing), the Book of Poetry, and others.

Cheng wrote "as many books as he was tall" —all told, about twenty books. Of these, the one with possibly the most impact was his Cheng-tzu's Thirteen Treatises on T'ai Chi Ch'uan (鄭子太極拳十三篇), a work of theory, philosophy, and application aimed at an experienced audience. Cheng had worked on the book in the 1940s; it was published in the 1950s in Taiwan. It has since been translated into a number of different languages. In addition, he wrote several other books, still widely available, on t'ai chi ch'uan aimed at beginners, two of them in English.

"Cheng Man-ch'ing, Master of Five Excellences" Talk Nov. 8th

2008-10-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

Barbara Davis, director of the Cheng Man-ch'ing Biography Project will give a talk about Professor Cheng's life and work on November 8th, 2008, at 6:30 p.m. in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Cheng Man-ch'ing's breadth and depth of accomplishment was quite remarkable, and his work, particularly in the arena of t'ai chi ch'uan, remains extremely influtential. Davis will discuss these topics as well as answer questions about Cheng and the project. She'll also preesnt a slideshow of Cheng's artwork and t'ai chi.

The talk is free and open to the public, and will be held at Sun Gallery, 4760 Grand Avenue South (near Washburn High School).

The I Ching--The Book of Changes

2008-02-20T07:32:00.000-08:00

The I Ching or Book of Changes (Yijing) is one of China's most ancient books. It has served for over two thousand years as a source of inspiration for China and other cultures. It has been used in statecraft, philosophy, literature, history, fortunetelling, and as a book of wisdom. As part of the Confucian canon, the I Ching was memorized by youngsters as they prepared for the civil service exams.
Though the I Ching could be very cryptic, it was brought alive through the numerous interpreters and commentators, and came to form part of the foundation for all of Chinese culture. For scholars, it was typical to ponder the book for decades, and then, late in life, pen a commentary.
Cheng Man-ch'ing followed in this tradition. In the Taipei study that he called "Thatched Hut of No Regrets" (named for a line in the I Ching) Cheng wrote his last scholarly work, a commentary that drew from the writings of Lai Chih-te (來知德，Lai Zhide), a Ming dynasty scholar. Lai, whose book I-ching Lai chu t'u-chieh (易經來註圖解, Yijing Lai zhu tujie) has been in continuous print for over four hundred years, sought to break away from what had become orthodox teachings of the neo-Confucianists.

Cheng Man-ch'ing on the I Ching:
• I Ch'uan (易全，Yiquan, The Complete I). Selections translated in Cheng Man-ch'ing: Master of Five Excellences, pp.133–145 (tr. Mark Hennessy); and Cheng Man-ch'ing's Advanced T'ai-Chi Form Instructions: With Selected Writings on Meditation, the I Ching, Medicine, and the Arts, pp. 126–129 (tr. Douglas Wile).

Some books on the I Ching:
• The I Ching Richard Wilhelm (classic English translation, utilizes Song dynasty commentaries)
• The Zhouyi by Richard Rutt (translation built on earliest layer of text, analytical notes, historical and literary study)
• Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I-Ching, or Classic of Changes) and its Evolution in China by Richard J. Smith (historical study) 2008
• Fortune-tellers & Philosophers: Divination in Traditional Chinese Society by Richard J. Smith (historical study)

New Cheng Man-ch'ing Video Released

2008-01-10T09:13:00.000-08:00

Followers of Cheng Man-ch'ing's t'ai chi school will greatly appreciate the release of Cheng Man-ching: The Master Tapes . This is a four-DVD set of material edited from footage shot in Cheng's New York school in the late 1960s. The content is grouped by form, push hands, sword, and "ch'i" (a compilation of calligraphy, flower-arranging, and informal talks about ch'i and about his own teachers).

These DVDs provide a unique glimpse into one of the first American t'ai chi studios, and give a sense of Cheng's personality and personal breadth and depth of ability in numerous fields.

New Book on Cheng Man-ch'ing

2008-01-10T08:52:00.000-08:00

Douglas Wile's most recent contribution to study of Cheng Man-ch'ing, Zheng Manqing's Uncollected Writings on Taijiquan, Qigong and Health, with New Biographical Notes in addition to offering new, interesting translations of selected work of Cheng's and Cheng's students, draws on Wile's scholarly training by discussing such issues as the historical, geographical, and social influences on Cheng.
The taiji sections include eight essays by Cheng, and anecdotes by students. Translations of newspaper articles about Cheng give insight into how he was perceived in Taiwan.

Cheng Man-ch'ing's T'ai Chi Contributions

2007-11-02T08:17:00.000-07:00

Cheng Man-ch'ing is often viewed as a "traditionalist," yet he was also an creative innovator. In the field of taijiquan (t'ai chi ch'uan), Cheng's contributions were numerous and influential, with international impact. With a career that spanned over four decades, Cheng:

• created a Yang-style short form; this received the imprimatur of his elder classmate Chen Weiming, one of Yang Chengfu's leading disciples
• helped increase taijiquan's popularity and helped spread it to Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States
• promoted taijiquan as a highly suitable exercise for women
• taught taijiquan as a "dao"—a method of self-cultivation in harmony with Confucian and Daoist teachings
• taught publicly without regard to students' nationality, gender, or ethnicity
• created numerous curriculum innovations and adaptations
• wrote the influential Thirteen Treatises on T'ai Chi Ch'uan that focuses on in-depth theory and philosophy
• wrote some of the first English books on taijiquan
• drew on his in-depth knowledge of the Chinese Classics and Traditional Chinese medicine for his teaching and writing
• gave countless demonstrations
• regarded taijiquan practice as a method of saving the health of the Chinese people, as well as the world

That Cheng Man-ch'ing was able to contribute in such breadth and depth to the field of taijiquan would seem sufficient for one person's accomplishments. However, he was just as prolific in his other fields, writing numerous books and articles, giving interviews, lectures, and exhibits of calligraphy, painting, poetry, and exploring the rich writings of Chinese philosophers such as Confucius, Laozi, Mencius, Wang Yangmng, and others, as well as in his last work, a commentary on the Yijing—the Book of Changes.

Master of Five Excellences/Perfections

2007-08-15T07:57:00.000-07:00

Cheng Man-ch'ing was often called a master of "Five Excellences" in reference to his skills in poetry, calligraphy, painting, Chinese medicine, and taijiquan.But what did that mean?

Since an early time, the three perfections of a Chinese artist—poetry, calligraphy, and painting—were admired talents("Excellences" 絕 jue, can also be translated as "perfections"). Noted artists were labeled as such in admiration. Mastery of the three arts became an ideal. Meaningful poetry executed with a skilled calligraphic hand enhanced a painting, the brushwork of calligraphy and painting were considered to be of the same origin, and "in poetry there was painting, and in painting, poetry." Thus the three perfections were intertwined.

Cheng Man-ch'ing became known for his three perfections by 1926, when Cai Yuanpei, the great educational reformer, inscribed a prefatory page as such for a painting album of Cheng's. In the 1930s, Cheng added the skills of Chinese medicine and taijiquan to his repertoire. Because of this, he later was known as a master of five perfections/excellences.
The illustration above shows part of a painting and poem about a narcissus from Cheng's early album. In it we can clearly see the intertwining of these arts that Cheng had already achieved by his early twenties.

Cheng Man-ch'ing's Names

2007-07-30T07:46:00.000-07:00

Cheng Man-ch'ing was known by several names over the span of his life, and also used a number of artist names (hao)
Below are some of these names, with the Wade-Giles spelling first, followed by the pinyin, and then by approximate pronunciation:

Cheng Man-ch'ing (Zheng Manqing) 鄭曼青 (the simplified characters are 郑曼青) (jung mahn ching)
Cheng Yueh (Zheng Yue) 鄭岳 (jung yweh)
Cheng Man-jan (Zheng Manran) 鄭曼髯 (jung mahn rahn)
Hermit of the Jade Well (Yu-chin shan-jen; Yujin shanren) 玉井山人 (you gin shahn rehn)

Cheng Man-ch'ing's Birth Year

2007-06-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

Over the years, a considerable amount of confusion has arisen over what year Cheng Man-ch'ing was born. The years 1900, 1901, 1902, and even 1903 are commonly cited. However, according to his memorial inscription, he was born in the 28th year of the Guangxu emperor’s reign, the sixth month, on the twenty-fifth day—the Western date of July 29, 1902.