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got qi?
Author: Gene Ching
Most guys think about one thing when boarding an airplane alone. They are scoping the other passengers for hotties and fantasizing about sitting next to them for the duration of the long, uncomfortable flight. Come on now, guys, be honest. You know it's true. On my last flight coming home from covering a kung fu tournament, such fantasies were crushed again. Instead of a hottie, I found myself seated next to this grossly obese guy. Gone was the usual "push hands" contest for that precious armrest real estate. His flank fat was so excessive that it spilled over the armrest like pizza dough, completely eliminating all opportunity for me to gain any purchase on it whatsoever. He was polite enough, but also rather flatulent, which distracted me from my Zen paperback even more than the Seinfeld DVDs he watched on his laptop. This made for a miserable flight, but there was one irony about the experience that made me smile - how we were dressed. Since I had just come from a tournament, I was wearing my standard tournament uniform - a "got qi?" shirt. My corpulent companion's shirt posed the equally important question "got beer?"
The journey of the "got qi?" shirt is a peculiar barometer of our work, which serves as some measurement of the progression of Chinese martial arts as a whole in America. When I first conceived of the "got qi?" shirts, I certainly never thought it would make a fashion spread in ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, right next to Gucci and Petro Zillia. But it did, and I have always been proud of that moment, another baby step on the long road to the popular acceptance of kung fu. Like kung fu, "got qi?" took its initial inspiration at a Zen mountain temple - although unlike Shaolin Temple, this was in my native state of California. In 2001, I took a retreat at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center where one of the monks was wearing a shirt "got rice?" from YOLK, a "generasian next" magazine. A few days later, as I was attempting to assimilate back into suburban Fremont culture, I saw this shirt again at a festival at the Southern Alameda County Buddhist Church. This time, it was on the back of this punked-out teenager. That kind of synchronicity just begged to be plagiarized. Since YOLK copped their concept from "got milk?", arguably one of the greatest contemporary ad campaigns, I had no qualms about lifting it from YOLK. Honestly, it's a sign of my great respect for YOLK magazine. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. YOLK has since moved on to add "got sushi?" and "got adobo?" , not to mention the hilarious Han's Martial Arts Tournament T-shirt. But wait, this is supposed to be an infomercial for our shirts, not YOLK. If you wind up ordering any YOLK shirts, tell them KungFuMagazine sent you. It's the least I can do for stealing their satirical shirts.
Now I'm cursed by "got qi?" wear. Like I said, it's become KungFuMagazine.com's standard uniform, which means I wear it on all my reporting excursions, like sporadic weekend flights sitting next to flatulent "got beer?" guys instead of hotties. Moments like the "got qi?"/"got beer?" episode are rather commonplace for me now. So for this e-zine piece, I'll share the history of our "got qi?" shirts, mostly in hopes of selling a few more. Sure, it's another infomercial, but there will be kung fu masters and kung fu hotties - honestly, what more do you want from free read?
got qi? girl: Carol Wong
The "got qi?" Girls
So what's the best way to sell a t-shirt? It's probably not an e-zine informercial, but if you all read this and then buy "got qi?" shirts, you can prove me wrong. No, the best way to sell a t-shirt is to put it on the chest of a hottie, like the ones guys fantasize about sitting next to on airplanes. This is not a sexist remark and I don't just say that for the sake of my few female readers. In America, the martial arts circles are dominated by men - men who appreciate beautiful women. And unlike the Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, it's challenging to showcase beautiful women in a kung fu magazine while remaining respectful. For one thing, it's hard to look sexy in horse stance. For another, the traditional Chinese uniform tends to obscure those body curves that are most appealing. I've seen Italian martial arts magazines with full-on centerfolds, and while I can appreciate that, it doesn't really work for us. KUNG FU TAI CHI magazine has a legacy of women publishers and editors, so being respectful towards the fairer sex has always been at the forefront of our work. We always do our best to respect everyone, even flatulent "got beer" guys.
got qi? girl: TammiThat being said, the "got qi?" girls began as what I call a "Pinocchio concept," a puppet that became real, sort of like a lot of politicians today. I'm not sure who here first coined the term "got qi?" girls, but it stuck like a tai chi master to a slow punch. We started promoting "got qi?" shirts using attractive female models and it's worthy of note that the very first "got qi?" girl was my little kung fu sister, a former Shaolin instructor and forms champion, Carol Wong. She debuted in our July August 2001 issue, when we first started giving away "got qi?" t-shirts as a premium gift for a 12-issue subscription, a few issues after the shirt had been introduced. But beyond martial artists, we initially culled models from our sales people and friends, plus a short detour into Miss Asia America beauty queens and a few professional strippers. All our models are volunteers, what the industry calls TFP (time-for-prints) models; this limits our stable of models but we're on a budget here. Call us crazy, but we'd rather spend our budget on forwarding our martial arts research than models. Besides, most paid models don't practice martial arts.
Of course, just because someone is a beauty queen or a stripper doesn't mean they can't practice kung fu. Quite the opposite. Every beauty queen and stripper should learn kung fu, for the betterment and progression of our art. That's just my opinion, but my male readers will probably agree, and I'm sure my few female readers will let me know if their opinion differs at their earliest convenience. So if you know any beauty queens or strippers, you can always pass along my email. Even though we don't shoot "got qi?" girls very much anymore, we're always open to fresh models.
“got qi?” girl, Margie,The sorority of "got qi?" girls was never that vast, but what it lacked in numbers, it made up for in legend and personality. There was a monster thread, "talk to the got chi (sp) girls," on our online discussion forum which, at this writing, remains the most viewed thread on the entire forum. It was started by our former sales person and November December 2001 "got qi?" girl, Margie, or MartialArtsMargie, as she was known on the forum. Margie wasn't a martial artist; since she worked here, she was always eager to model and couldn't have been more convenient for pick-up shots when we were pressed by deadlines. She still checks in on the forum now and again, although once she abandoned that "got qi?" thread, it died. Little sister Carol posted there too, under the forum name "Gene's First" - a clear dig at her older kung fu brother, but where's the fun in kung fu if you can't bust your martial siblings chops now and again, right? If you actually bother to sort through the nearly 400 pages of posts on that thread, you'll discover that there were only a few real "got qi?" girls who ever posted there beyond those two. It was mostly horny male members, which are a heck of a lot better than flatulent "got beer?" dudes, although given the nature of the forum, perhaps they are one in the same. Yep, that's a dig at my dear online forum brothers. If you listen closely, you can hear the "got qi?" girls laughing at that.
10 Year Gala DVDsBeyond the forum - which in no way expresses the opinion or beliefs of our publications in any "official" way - the only actual acknowledgment of the "got qi?" girls we ever made was in our January February 2003 issue. On page 93, in our own review of our 10 Year Anniversary Benefit Gala, there's a picture of our two former salesladies, Judy and Margie, along with Master Joe Keit of the Lee Koon Hung Choy Lay Fut Association. The caption reads 'Joe Keit & the "got qi" girls.' Joe told me later that his classmates busted his chops for that one, but like I said earlier, it's all about kung-fu-sibling-chop-busting. Joe had a great sense of humor about the whole thing, which is good since I didn't want him to Choy Lay Fut my butt. But that tiny reference was it. There were discussions of making a "got qi?" girl calendar here at one point, but that never went past a few trial photo shoots.
The "got qi?" Masters
At that last tournament, the one that I sat next to the "got beer?" guy on the way home from, a master came up to me demanding to know when we were going to put him on our cover. This happens a lot, sadly. It's a sorry indicator of the egos of some masters, and it's even worse when, like in this case, it's a master that I respect. Now we have a standing rule around here: every time you ask to be on the cover, we push you back at least a year. And that's given the rather presumptuous assumption that we were thinking of putting you on the cover in the first place. Given this rule, some of the more egotistical masters have already pushed themselves back for another decade, and in that time they will surely ask again and push it back even further. Everyone wants to be on the cover. They all believe that their face will sell more issues, but that's seldom the reality. If we believed that too, we'd put them on in an instant, but our sales statistics prove otherwise.
Got qi Shaolin monk, Shi Decheng Believe it or not, the "got qi?" girls got tiresome, and soon after Margie's "got qi?" spread, we shifted our campaign to feature "got qi?" kung fu masters. The first master was appropriately a Shaolin monk, my own master Shi Decheng, shot on location at Shaolin in our January February 2002 issue, that year's Shaolin special. This began a grand new tradition of having masters model for our "got qi?" line. It has become a unique honor for those who follow our magazine. For those that understand what the Chinese term "guanxi" means, posing as a "got qi?" master has become second only to the cover itself.
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What has become even more flattering is that many masters have taken to wearing our "got qi?" shirts regularly. Cover Grandmasters Lily Lau,
Liang Shouyu and Tu Jin-Sheng frequently don a "got qi?" shirt at martial events and demonstrations. Cover Shaolin monk Shi Xinghao has been captured wearing one in SHAOLIN ULYSSES, a PBS documentary by our former editor, Martha Burr. And of course, Taiji Master Ren Guangyi often wears a "got qi?" shirt just about everywhere. He even gave one to his celebrity student, the godfather of punk, Lou Reed . Masters who want to be on our cover, take note. If you ask me for a cover, it'll push you back at least a year when you ask - and you just better be wearing a "got qi?" shirt when you ask.
Lou Reed & Ren Guangyi Lou Reed was the one who got "got qi?" into ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY. It was the October 10, 2003 issue, the Photo Issue: The Year's Best Pictures in an article titled "Clothes Calls" which focused on the "real (life) style" of celebrities like Ashanti, SNL's Maya Rudolph, and Jack Black. In a red "tai chi" jacket from Chen village, Reed busted out our "got qi?" shirt with that cool Lou Reed style that just cannot be imitated. It took our "got qi?" shirt into a higher realm than we could have ever imagined. Reed says tai chi changed his life, and given his extraordinary background, that is quite a testament. He has always been very generous in crediting the arts, and we've always been grateful for his donning of our "got qi?" shirt.
What's "qi?" got qi? girl: Lianne Lin
When on the road in my "got qi?" shirt, people often ask me "What's qi?" Actually, they usually ask, "What's kwee?" I never answer this question, even to martial artists, because qi is qi, sort of like X equals X. If they ask "what's kwee?" I usually reply, "It's chi" then scurry away as fast as possible before they can figure out that I didn't tell them anything. Sometimes, when I'm feeling cocky, I'll say, "It's IQ spelled backwards." That always stuns them. A lot of energy has been spent by writers, masters and practitioners trying to put qi into western terms. To me, like sushi and adobo, the word qi shouldn't be translated. The translation just muddles the direct experience. It partitions the definition of qi in a way that might exclude the reality of what it really is. We don't really have the vocabulary to describe it in English, so why bother? Just learn Chinese. It's all the more reason for us to use the more abstract pinyin "q" spelling.
I own literally hundreds of shirts. One of the perks of my position is that I get complimentary shirts from every tournament and event that I cover. Also, I've worked in the music industry for Rock Med for nearly two decades; it's my charity work and I'm often given shirts in gratitude. Of all the shirts that I own, the "got qi?" shirt gets the most comments. All the comments have been flattering, or at least great conversation starters if I choose to make them so. Perhaps someday, one will spark a comment from the hottie in the airplane seat next to me.
With the success of our "got qi?" shirts, we've expanded our line of "got qi?" wear from our basic white on black to include black on white or ash, as well as sweatshirts, long sleeve Ts and hoodies, also in the traditional black or white or ash. Be martial art smart, shop MartialArtsMart.com. We now return to our regular programming. ...
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