Alibaba founder Jack Ma Yun and movie star Jet Li have bowed out of a lifestyle firm Taiji Zen International, which they jointly founded, as the pair withdrew from several cooperation projects, domestic news site Time Weekly reported.
Li has stepped down as president and general manager of Taiji Zen, while Hangzhou Kunbao Investment Consultancy Co, controlled by Ma is no longer a shareholder of the company, according to company information search platform Tianyancha.
Early in October 2020, Ma stepped down as director of Taiji Zen, with former vice president of Alibaba Fan Chi no longer a director of Taiji Zen as of January this year, the report claimed.
According to an introduction on the company’s website, Taiji Zen was jointly established by Jet Li and Ma to promote tai chi, a traditional form of Chinese martial arts.
Ma is a keen devotee of the exercise. During the Singles Day shopping festival in 2017, Ma debuted in a movie called Gong Shou Dao, or The Art of Attack and Defence, alongside with Li, Donnie Yen and other movie stars to promote tai chi.
Li said in an interview that Ma has practiced tai chi for 30 years, he sees it as a symbol of traditional Chinese culture. “We founded Taiji Zen together. Our shared goal is to get Chinese martial arts – specifically Gong Shou Dao – enshrined as an Olympic event,” chinafilminsider.com reported.
It’s worth noting that the movie didn’t garner much attention, nor did Taiji Zen’s business. The company’s official store on Alibaba’s online marketplace Taobao has few fans, with mats for exercising tai chi, priced at 599 yuan ($94), showing zero sales.
Taijiquan enthusiasts practise Taijiquan at a traditional martial art school in Yongnian District, Handan City of north China’s Hebei Province, Dec. 16, 2020. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) inscribed on Thursday China’s Taijiquan on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Taijiquan, a kind of traditional martial arts, was born in the mid-17th century in a small village named Chenjiagou located in Central China’s Henan province, before it spread to more than 150 countries and regions, attracting more than 100 million people to practise.Photo:Xinhua
