Chinese Taekwondo Team Receives Severe Punishment for Performing 'Gangsi Dance'... "Insulted Chinese Culture"

1st Place in Korean Taekwondo Competition with Zombie Group Dance
Chinese Taekwondo Association Disciplines for “Making the Nation Look Ugly”

A Chinese Taekwondo team was severely sanctioned and banned from participating in competitions by the local association after performing the ‘jiangshi dance’ at a Taekwondo festival.

According to foreign media including Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP), China’s ‘CHINAX’ Taekwondo team participated in the World Taekwondo Hanmadang Festival held in Seongnam City, South Korea, on the 24th of last month.

Co-hosted by Kukkiwon and Seongnam City and organized by the World Taekwondo Hanmadang Organizing Committee, this festival is a cultural event showcasing poomsae, breaking, Taekwondo gymnastics, and more, rather than a Taekwondo competition with sparring by weight class.

The CHINAX team, consisting of seven members, performed a Taekwondo group dance wearing Qing Dynasty costumes on the day of the festival. Among their choreography was a movement mimicking the jiangshi, a legendary Chinese hopping vampire, stretching both hands forward and shaking up and down while hopping.

The CHINAX team won first place in the senior overseas division of Taekwondo gymnastics. Their coach reportedly created and directed the ‘Jiangshi Taekwondo Gymnastics’ inspired by horror movies.

China X Team's Gangsi Taekwondo Group Dance Performance [Image source=Captured from 'Taekwontv' YouTube channel]

However, their performance video spread on Chinese social media (SNS), sparking controversy locally. Some Chinese netizens reacted strongly, saying it “made a mockery of Chinese traditional culture.”

Subsequently, the Chinese Taekwondo Association revoked the qualification of the ‘X-Taekwondo Center’ in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, to establish a dojang, where CHINAX is affiliated. They also stripped the center of membership rights, promotion exam hosting rights, and competition participation rights, and the coach who created and directed the jiangshi Taekwondo gymnastics lost their instructor qualification.

The association explained the disciplinary action by stating, “They widely publicized outdated customs and depicted the national image disgracefully, insulting Chinese culture and causing negative influence.”

They added, “This incident is malicious and has provided a significant lesson,” and “It revealed problems in the Chinese Taekwondo Association’s industry supervision, management, and cultural development.”

The association announced plans to strengthen qualification screening, supervision, and management in the Taekwondo industry, as well as education on socialist core values and excellent Chinese traditional culture, warning that a comprehensive investigation and improvement efforts targeting Taekwondo centers nationwide will commence.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.