A righteous fist

摘要

IN A schoolyard in a village on the dusty north China plain, martial artists drill children in the stylised kicks and punches of Plum Flower Boxing. This discipline, they proudly claim, spearheaded the Boxer Uprising of 1900. In a village recreation room, musicians practise the ear-splitting tunes which their ancestors played for Boxer braves heading into battle with the foreign "hairy ones". Folk memories abound of an event that transformed the country's relationship with the West, and its own view of itself.