Being more familiar with southern Chinese martial art schools, I prefer to use Cantonese, which is why I will use the term Gung Fu instead of Kung Fu, but both terms are similar and mean the same thing. Now according to the Oxford dictionary, Gung Fu is a primarily unarmed Chinese martial art resembling karate. But I'm sorry Oxford, as respectable as I find your university, you are wrong. Gung Fu here in the west, and especially where I am in the USA, is almost automatically associated with Chinese martial art, sort of like a coined term. But even today, this term is used out of context. The correct term for Chinese martial art is what they call Wu Shu, or Wushu, and some people use these terms interchangeably, but I don't.
Gung Fu has a very deeper meaning, not just to me, but in actual literary context. So instead of going into some rant about my personal experience with Chinese martial art, I will attempt to explain true Gung Fu, and by the literary context itself, I hope that others will be able to see the difference and know the difference in quality without the need for any physical demonstration. When you read this article, you will automatically know that my personal Gung Fu is of a higher caliber than many others simply by the time and effort I put into explaining what Gung Fu actually is, rather than what many other people say it is.
So what is Gung Fu? Well at a glance, it is actually two words. Gung literally means effort, hard work, merit or achievement. Fu means man, but it can also mean time. So literally speaking without speculation, Gung Fu means the achievement of man. Or perhaps more accurately, time and effort. Gung Fu then basically means Skill, and in the context of role-playing, Skill is not an ability or talent, or even necessarily having to do with martial art, but is some kind of merit or skill achieved through hard work over a period of time.
Say you are a fisherman, and you are really good at catching fish. You study the tide, the weather, everything. You know what spots to fish in, and what tools to bring. This skillfulness is known as Gung Fu, because it requires time and effort, or hard work to achieve. Now say you are a culinary artist, or a chef. You know what ingredients you need, and what to do to appease your customers. You study the menu, and you get into the habit of a natural routine. This too is Gung Fu, because it takes time and effort to develop good quality meals that will effectively appease your customers. So it doesn't have to be martial art. Gung Fu can be any skill which is achieved through hard work.
One day, a Westerner witnessed a Chinese individual practicing martial art. He asked the Chinese individual, what is that you're doing? I want to learn Chinese martial art. How do I learn that? The response was Gung Fu, and to this day, that is what Chinese martial art has been known as in the west. But it is by no means limited to martial art, as I've just explained. So I want to clarify when I say that I practice Gung Fu, that I am not just speaking about Wu Shu, as I find that particular term to be very limiting and not entirely what I am trying to convey. There are schools which teach Wu Shu, and then there are schools which teach the broader aspect of Gung Fu, and you will find that most Gung Fu schools include martial art as part of their training, but not as all of it.
That being said, it is true that the quality of Gung Fu is higher in the USA and the UK than it is in mainland China, and there are many reasons for that which require some understanding of Chinese history. China underwent many political struggles in the past, and cultural revolution so many of the really good high quality Gung Fu branches were completely wiped out, and many Gung Fu masters fled to the west. I was privileged enough to train with some of those Gung Fu masters, particularly from places like Kowloon in Hong Kong who passed this knowledge on to me, and so I am now passing it on to you, so that good quality Gung Fu may be preserved for generations to come.
Thank you. :)