Chinese Popular Culture - Essay Example

e styles of Chinese people are entirely different from that of the other parts of the world, mainly because of political reasons rather than cultural reasons. Chinese people do not have the freedom to express their views and opinions freely. They forced to adapt a culture or living style which is digestible to the communist administration. Chinese media is under the control of Chinese communist administration and independent functioning of media is impossible in China. Another cultural aspect of China is the spreading of martial arts.

In fact many of the current popular martial arts like Kung Fu, Tai Chi etc were originated in China. This paper analyses Chinese popular culture in general and media and martial arts specifically to know more about the Chinese popular culture and its effects on people. Morton & Lewis (2004) in their book, China: Its History and Culture, have pointed out that “Buddhism is wide spread in China with somewhere between 70 and 100 million followers. Buddhist and Daoist philosophy advocates deep breathing and slow motion martial arts activities in order to improve health” (Morton & Lewis, p.278). Buddhism and Daoism are two of the prominent religions in China.

There are many similarities in the beliefs and practices of Daoism and Buddhism in China. Both the religions stress the importance of practicing martial arts and deep breathing for maintaining physical and mental health of the people. Moreover, ancient Chinese administrators and military also asked the people to practice these things in order to prepare a strong military force. “One can trace a history of military support for sports and martial arts back to the early imperial period peaking in the Tang dynasty”(Morton & Lewis, p.267). According to Kennedy and Guo (2010), “up until about 1900, Chinese martial arts training were conducted either in the military by active duty soldiers or villagers” (Kennedy and Guo, p.1). In order to win sports events and also to win