Based on what I’ve encountered, I’ve interpreted the Japanese version as being more broad and metaphysical (the power of friendship, Killing intent), whereas the Chinese version is more like Alchemy: not quite science, but sorta-kinda tries to be (Fengshui and TCM, but also conservation of energy and such). There is considerable overlap, since ki is literally qi filtered through Japanese culture, but I generally expect people who talk about qi to be more interested in the Alternative Medicine route, whereas Ki indicates one or more of anime fan / Aikido practitioner / practitioner of Japanese spirituality. (These are more probabilities than hard categories; Reiki is a good counterexample.)
whereas Ki indicates one or more of anime fan / Aikido practitioner / practitioner of Japanese spirituality. (These are more probabilities than hard categories; Reiki is a good counterexample.)
Chinese spirituality/meditation practices/internal martial arts like T’ai chi ch’uan and Qigong also use the concept of qi in that sense. In fact, all Japanese martial arts and spirituality/meditation practices derive from Chinese ones.
Qi, ki, prana, etc. are pretty much the same concept, also similar to traditional Western concepts such as pneuma (spirit), psyche/anima (soul), vis vitalis, and so on. People form all cultures noticed early on significant qualitative differences between living things, specifically animals (literally, “things with a soul”) and non-living things, but without a scientific body of knowledge they couldn’t precisely define what life was in a reductionist way, so they resorted to broad and vague notions of “life force”, typically associated with breathing.
Today we have more reductionist definitions of life, typically involving reproduction and homeostasis while in thermodynamic disequilibrium, but we still struggle with a reductionist definition of consciousness.
Based on what I’ve encountered, I’ve interpreted the Japanese version as being more broad and metaphysical (the power of friendship, Killing intent), whereas the Chinese version is more like Alchemy: not quite science, but sorta-kinda tries to be (Fengshui and TCM, but also conservation of energy and such). There is considerable overlap, since ki is literally qi filtered through Japanese culture, but I generally expect people who talk about qi to be more interested in the Alternative Medicine route, whereas Ki indicates one or more of anime fan / Aikido practitioner / practitioner of Japanese spirituality. (These are more probabilities than hard categories; Reiki is a good counterexample.)
Chinese spirituality/meditation practices/internal martial arts like T’ai chi ch’uan and Qigong also use the concept of qi in that sense. In fact, all Japanese martial arts and spirituality/meditation practices derive from Chinese ones.
Qi, ki, prana, etc. are pretty much the same concept, also similar to traditional Western concepts such as pneuma (spirit), psyche/anima (soul), vis vitalis, and so on. People form all cultures noticed early on significant qualitative differences between living things, specifically animals (literally, “things with a soul”) and non-living things, but without a scientific body of knowledge they couldn’t precisely define what life was in a reductionist way, so they resorted to broad and vague notions of “life force”, typically associated with breathing.
Today we have more reductionist definitions of life, typically involving reproduction and homeostasis while in thermodynamic disequilibrium, but we still struggle with a reductionist definition of consciousness.