“Even if the Chinese Grow Wings and Fly”: Recasting Martial Arts in a Tanzanian Karate Dojo

Summary In a Tanzanian seaside dojo, Sempai Ali Issa Hassan, a Swahili martial artist, filmmaker, and healer, offers an alternative history claiming the East Asian martial arts originate in the Afro‐Islamic world. Starting from his reaction to a visit by a Chinese Shaolin master, we trace the contours of our experience making sense of claims which both challenge and recast assumptions about Afro‐Asian cultural exchange.