| Hugo Voisine wrote: |
|
I don't know if it's just me, but if I were to come across a guy on a horse with a spear while doing some cross-country or hiking, my first reaction would not to be offended. Would be more like "Damn, this country is so great, can I live here ?".... :lol: |
So would mine but unfortunately the western world is populated by a vast mayority of people who do eat meat but do not want to be confronted with the fact this grows on something alive and is equally hypocritical about anything that can be conceived as dangerous. That is called political correctness nowadays. In our valley the locals, as do we, still kill and eat their own home fattened pig but foreign tourism does bring in money and what we experience with those tourist is beyond words (and understanding).
| Quote: |
| You seem to like chinese sword.... maybe you can find a long jian repro for under 1000 dollars on ebay ? |
I have no preference for chinese or say french and in fact like the german reitschwert a lot. My inclination to the jian/dao originates from taichi being very usefull for my riding.
Although more a WANT then a MUST, all things equal I will choose a well balanced sword I can use for my taichi excersizes which for ME might just as well be a smallsword or a jian.
The repro quality I am looking at is produced by Huanuo and ZengWu and can be bought through various outlets. Ebay is not the best nor cheapest source in this instance.
The issue of authentic or not still remains though. In this price bracket serviceable originals CAN (still) be found. Since I am not going to clobber trees, nor cilinder blocks nor molest water bottles and prefer to EAT melons ;) I do not need the sturdyness I expect from the axe I chop wood for the stove with.
'Silly sharp' or even meat cutting sharp is not needed, in fact NOT wanted which means the edge can have a lot more support behind it thus asking less from the blade if it ever were to meet with something like .... a dog ;)
Yes, a quality reproduction will obviously be more robust than the original but the replica seldom meets the geometric qualities of the example and prizewise the difference is often nonexistant. Remember that one should compair compairable quality. If you are looking at a 18th century smallsword that a french baron might have owned you should compair this with something by Vince Evans and the like AT LEAST. Even then the original would carry the flag in balance...
Now as I am looking at swords a long way removed from this level even if it were to suffer from me using it, it would hardly be an archeological disaster :)
I have made an appointment with my instructor specially about the + and - of authentic-, replica-, and competition swords.
The suggestion to look at the GreatRiverTaoist Forum was very worthwhile although raising as many questions as answering :lol:
Meanwhile this 'quest' has unearthed an unexpected wealth of related information for me. I was quite surprised p.e. to find that the chinese often carried their sword from a bronze ' clip' directly compaireable with the smallsword clip.
Thus thanks all for the food for thought sofar.
peter