With decisive exclamations, two students in loose t-shirts and bare feet delivered resounding leg blows to a punching bag on the floor of Risley Music Hall. These students were among the approximately twenty members of the Kung Fu club, which holds practices twice a week under the instruction of Tran Hoai grad.
This young club began last year as a joint effort between Maria Nguyen ’06, club president, and Hoai, both of whom had a strong interest in Vietnamese culture and in extending that culture to others on Cornell’s campus. Hoai explained that he saw Kung Fu as part of a “culture and tradition that is good to share with others,” a statement evidenced by the varied ethnic backgrounds of the club’s members.
The club is an active participant in many cultural events on campus. Last year, besides organizing a lunar year tour, Kung Fu members demonstrated their martial arts prowess at Caf