Kung Fu or Gong Fu? The answer first.
There is only one way to write Gong Fu (功夫) correctly, and it’s the way we just typed it: Gong- Fu. The pronunciation doesn’t change (although it’s never a “KunG”, it’s more a “gon….” (last G is mute).
Why not Kung Fu?
- First: “Kung” produces a sound that has nothing to do with the Chinese character 功 “gong” . “Kung” has been forced in dictionaries as being the closest sound to “gong” for most of the English-based countries, but it’s not the correct sound. Same issues applies to Tai Ji Quan and Qi Gong.
- Second: the words “Gong Fu” belong to Pinyin, the official and worldwide recognized Romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China , and it should be the only method to maintain the correct spell of Chinese words, along with avoiding any gong-fusion 🙂
One more thing…
Gong Fu means putting effort, working hard, but the term is nowadays seen as “Martial Arts”, although it should be more correct to say “wu shu” 武术
A personal question to you: why you Academy is written Shunlian Shenghuo Kung Fu Academy, then…?
My Academy was founded in Italy as the Xunlian Shenghuo Gongfu Academy. When I moved to Australia, in order to give English-speaking people an easier name to identify it, I decided to modify its name in Shunlian Shenghuo Kungfu Academy. This decision of mine might be misleading, but it was necessary for our Students to better identify the Academy for the services it offers, and to avoid gong-based misunderstandings.
