Bullet-proof Chinese Boxers

[cheng]

a little (its real) history;
"Around 1900, after many years of succumbing to the superior military of the West, the Chinese stood up for their country which was weak, backwards and being exploited. The Boxers believed that they could render their bodies impervious to bullets. Their method consisted of 100 straight days of physical exercises and magical incantations, after which an inductee was considered pure enough to resist foreign rifles (usually demonstrated on the uninitiated by firing blank bullets at his body in public).
Their ranking members of the Fists of Righteous Harmony knew full well that their methods didn’t work and that the initiation ceremony was nothing but a con. Yet they still sent the recruits into firefights armed with nothing more than swords, since guns were considered instruments of the foreign devils."

[larryhohoho]

Bai Lian Jiao!

[cheng]

Bai Lian Jiao!

 

[DrDalek6]

Cool figures I like the bare chested guy without the tattoos particularly. Really interesting story sad but, would be cool if there was some truth in that story though at least it will have made the warriors fairly fit   

[playmofire]

Thanks for the interesting history and customs, cheng.  I can remember as a youngster in the early 1950s, pre-teens, that my grandmother had a large book called something like "The 20th Century in Pictures" (it covered 1900 to about 1935).  In it there were pictures from what the book called the Boxer Rebellion, but with no real background explanation.  As my only knowledge of the word "boxer" was either someone who fought in a boxing ring or a type of dog, I found it a bit of a puzzle, but I do remember the bullet proof bit, although the book said this was the result of the Boxers being high on heroine.

[cheng]

Thanks for the interesting history and customs, cheng.  I can remember as a youngster in the early 1950s, pre-teens, that my grandmother had a large book called something like "The 20th Century in Pictures" (it covered 1900 to about 1935).  In it there were pictures from what the book called the Boxer Rebellion, but with no real background explanation.  As my only knowledge of the word "boxer" was either someone who fought in a boxing ring or a type of dog, I found it a bit of a puzzle, but I do remember the bullet proof bit, although the book said this was the result of the Boxers being high on heroine.

thanks for your equally interesting story Gordon! I hope you can still find that book, would be invaluable to many people interested in history like myself. As for the heroin....if they could afford it (it was opium then) they wouldnt be fighting (but lazing around in contented stupor) and would not have needed the 100 days of brain-washing 

[playmofire]

Opium, that was it - I couldn't remember the correct name.  And, of course, there were the infamous "opium wars of the 19th century.

[Georgeag1972]

Wonderful figures, I like them cheng, well done!!!

George.

[Wesley Myers]

Lookin' good!

What would the significance of tattooing be in China at the time?