Choreographed Dance & Flash Mobs

Choreographed dance in all its glamor and mega-glitz is a wonderful modern invention. Or is it? 

With such sensational musical spectacles, scientifically honed smut decor, and competitive dance shows on the mainstream media networks, would anyone have guessed it could all have started in China nearly 800 years ago?

Lets start with Flash Mobs. These are "a sudden mass gathering, unanticipated except for the participants", the public performances range from musical farces like "Hey Teach!" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ0pFW-c8mQ) to large electronically synchronized time-stopping mind-fucks (Frozen Central Station https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo) . . .

    . . . these well planned, rehearsed, public displays, as well as choreographed dance, are the modern expression of none other than the China's own - GREAT ULTIMATE BOXING!

(errrh, not convinced?)

For a better comparison here is a more common "Tai Chi" display:

"Thriller" anyone? Michael Jackson was neither Black nor White - he was Chinese at heart.

But to really drive the main point home, consider this common choreographed "flash mob" also known as TAI CHI . . . 

In 1374 a small village located in Henan, China with the name Chenjiagou, (literally "Chen Family Ditch") the birth of Tai Chi is vaguely recorded. It serves as a defensive fighting technique, a moving meditation, a healing medicine practice, a metaphoric blend of the 5 basic elements, and Yin Yang principles.

Another common account tells how "the mystical taiji (Tai Chi) legend of the Taoist monk, Zhang Sanfeng, allegedly invented taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan) through dreaming about or observing a fight between a snake and a crane in Wu-dang Mountains."*

And from such grand beginnings the "Great Ultimate Boxing" - a literal translation of Tai Chi Chuan - has grown into countless different forms while passing through various family traditions of China where it was eventually released to the international scene only in the last 100 years. Since its global fame and bastardization, primarily by Keanu Reeves, it is now easy to see how flash mobs and the glamorized dance styles of MTV have borrowed from this great Chinese Invention:

a) dozens, often hundreds of people gather suddenly in public

b) they occupy any space necessary for the performance

c) Tai Chi enthusiasts then exhibit themselves as if on stage to the world in an elegant & entertaining manner

. . . but most importantly . . . 

d) it was all rehearsed and choreographed beforehand! Offering us a seamless and sophisticated experience that modern dance and mob-scenes are just catching up with.


Stay Zen my friend.




*http://www.indigenouspeople.net/ChineseLit/taichiold.html

Forks, chopsticks, and money oh my!

(but not Hollywood, sorry Dorthy)

  

  The oldest wooden coffin in archeological history is said to be from 3,000 years ago in the Sichuan region of Chinese. Not to say the Chinese invented the coffin, rather, the current cultural heritage the people of that land are endowed with give them the claim to fame through our known historical burial procedures pertaining to this style. And with the shifting trends of what may be called knowledge and information, which are as fluid as the scientific realm of research (i.e. wishy-washy), this "historical" fact might be changing as quickly as a baby's diaper.

 

    One week egg yolks are healthy, the next they're not, and finally we come full circle to accept that cholesterol is an integral part of the human body and necessary for functioning our adrenal system, brain, and stomach bile . . . but in moderation. So when I say China invented the restaurant menu, toilet paper, or coffin i mean that as far as current discoveries in this field have disclosed as of yet - China holds rank as "inventor" but there may be more coffins underground waiting to be discovered by a surprised archeologist in Sweden, Africa, or even a sunken Atlantean city.

 (If so, i hope the deceased left secret messages in form of crystals which only Ecco the Dolphin can activate with his sonar skills)

That said, there are older burial mounds and tombs around the world like the Bronze Age stone coffin in Siberia (5,000 years old), Newgrange's monument (5,000 years), Shepseskaf-Ankh's tomb (4,000 years), and the Vulture Lord’s tomb (2,500 years). But none as old as the Sichuan Chinese coffins, which are also hanging on mountain sides by the hundreds! So ancient China gets bonus points for style.

*The runner-up award for antiquity and style also goes to China for their 2,700 year old Druid/Shamman coffin, in which the blond haired Celt was surrounded by two pounds of psycho-active cannabis!!!

Ketchup

 
The Chinese invented ke-tsiap--a concoction of pickled fish and spices (but no tomatoes)--in the 1690s. 

By the early 1700s its popularity had spread to Malaysia, where British explorers first encountered it. By 1740 the sauce--renamed ketchup--was an English staple, and it was becoming popular in the American colonies. 

Tomato ketchup wasn't invented until the 1790s, when New England colonists first mixed tomatoes into the sauce. It took so long to add tomatoes to the sauce because, for most of the 18th. Century, people had assumed that they were poisonous, as the tomato is a close relative of the toxic belladonna and nightshade plants. 
 
                                      (from http://www.westegg.com/etymology/)

Soccer (Cuju)

  It's fascinating to watch history unravel. Sometimes it's predictable sometimes it's fresh with weirdness. And if you really can twist your head around to see way back down the "linear" path of history then forget trying to keep your hat on because the mind will instantly explode and with it your brain. And with that, your head. . . leaving you without a hat nor any continuing regard for those previously delicate concerns about the fashionability of a tall-hat or short-hat, or maybe one with a duck-bill; fuck it, just go for minimalist cool and rock the kippa (yamaka).
    But keeping our hats on and heads clear, lets look at a familiar region of history, one I find to be incredibly entertaining: Chinese.

    Fireworks, hemp paper, 4,000 year old bowl of millet noodles, the sundial, and the bristle toothbrush - these are the better known inventions. A highlight of their "inventiveness" is the classic foot game of SOCCER. Or the ancient Military training tool as China would have it.

 
      RandomHistory.com shows how "The Munich Ethnological Museum exhibit in Germany includes a Chinese text from approximately 50 B.C. that describes physical education exercises called tsu chu, which consist of kicking a leather ball filled with feathers and hair into a small net—and, like in soccer today, the use of hands was prohibited". (Goldblatt 2008)

    Other sources confirm that between that "cuju" (aka Kickball) was the begging of modern Futbol/Soccer starting between the 3rd-2nd centuries BC. The game is remarkable similar to today's game. Cuju had a no-hands rule and open nets where the ball would be kicked to score. Elsewhere on the globe the Aztec's played the Rubber-Ball court game in Mesoamerica but it's more like racquetball than soccer. The only comparable foot-ball game that shows up in history is from John Davis who explored Greenland and went ashore to join the Inuit for a game of soccer. The Aboriginals played to but nowhere was there much real documentation since Chinese cuju until the Medieval times of Europe. This game known as "mob football" is worth reading about for yourself. It had unlimited team members, punching and kicking almost anywhere was allowed, and the goals were not nets but town churches or other public places BETWEEN towns. So it was basically a Festive Christmas game for fun rivalries between townships back in the day of darkness.

Here is the pre-existing list of things China has the credit of inventing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions

Keep it rolling,
G-Wiz