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From Bruce Lee craze to regional hub: how China’s kung fu captured Ivory Coast
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From Bruce Lee craze to regional hub: how China’s kung fu captured Ivory Coast Films of the 1970s have offered a model of discipline that resonates with working-class youth in Abidjan, sending ripples across West Africa Meite Siaka wears many hats. By day, he is a senior tax official, a lecturer at the National School of Administration and deputy mayor of Kani in northern Ivory Coast. But outside government, he serves as the founding president of the Ivorian Federation of Chinese Martial...
From Bruce Lee craze to regional hub: how China’s kung fu captured Ivory Coast
Films of the 1970s have offered a model of discipline that resonates with working-class youth in Abidjan, sending ripples across West Africa
Meite Siaka wears many hats. By day, he is a senior tax official, a lecturer at the National School of Administration and deputy mayor of Kani in northern Ivory Coast.
But outside government, he serves as the founding president of the Ivorian Federation of Chinese Martial Arts (FIAMC), a group he established in 2008. He also works as a master and instructor, running several martial arts clubs.
“Bruce Lee movies played a role, but it was not the only factor,” Siaka said in Abidjan recently. “Hong Kong films and local television exposure also contributed significantly to the popularity of martial arts.”
The films have offered a model of discipline and resistance that resonates with working-class youth in Abidjan, with ripples spreading across French-speaking West Africa.
[Image text:] STAGE
WING CHUN
KUNG FU