Legends and Heroes of the past

Legends and Heroes of the past

What is a hero? What is a legend? It is all someone's perception of a certain individual who stand out above the ordinary. They must have done something great to merit being called a hero or legend. He/she does not always have to be the best fighter. Obviously they are many masters who does not fight for their personal glory and are seldom in the limelight. These masters lived a hermit live in the jungle or mountain such as Wudang Shan, Soong Shan, Wah Shan, Kunlun Shan, Ermei Shan and etc. Founding Legendary Master Chang San Feng of Wudang seldom venture out of Wudang. Damo (Boddhidarma) the legendary Indian Buddhist monk that teaches the Shaolin martial arts also seldom fight. Then there are others who will try every mean to challenge the established masters to become famous. Fong Sai Yuk was known for "his bronze skin iron bones" (invincible). When he was small, his mother Miu Chui Fa (daughter of Miu Hin one of the 5 masters who escaped the burning of the Southern Shaolin Temple) used to beat him  up daily and soak him in a barrel fill with medicinal herbs purportedly to make him impregnable. Most part of his body was like steel. He was a mischievous person who love to fight and get himself into all sort of troubles. Kind of remind us of Bruce Lee when he was young. In those days they like to have fight to death/submission "luitoi" matches. His victory over Lui Low Fu (one of Canton 10 tigers made him very famous and he became extremely arrogant). He was always looking for a fight. He was accidently killed by Ng Mui See Tai (Wu Mei Ser Tai) in a "luitoi" platform fight. She had no intention of killing Fong Sai Yuk. Ng Mui See Tai was just trying to teach Fong Sai Yuk to be humble and not to be too arrogant (and think too highly of himself as if there was no one who could beat him). Ng Mui See Tai and Fong Sai Yuk's grand father Miu Hin were masters from the southern Shaolin Temple which means she was considered grandmaster to Fong Sai Yuk. 


We see movies about Shaolin Temple but most of us are not aware there were two Shaolin temples. The northern Shaolin is on Soong Shan (Mount Soong) while the Southern was in Fukien Province. Most of the stories were exploits from masters from the south such as Hung Hei Kun (Hung Shi Kuan in Mandarin). Wu Chu Chuan (Five Ancestors Fist) are martial arts based on the five masters (Miu Hin, Ng Mui See Tai, Pak Mei Tow Yan (became Taoist and turned traitor), Fung Tow Tak (became Taoist and turned traitor) and Jit Sin Sim See (the Cha'an master that taught Hung Hei Kun the Tiger style) of Southern Shaolin that managed to escaped the burning of their temple by the Manchu Emperor during the eighteen century. The Southern Shaolin were thought to side with the previous Ming dynasty and used to fight against Japanese pirates trying to rob the local people living along the vast coastline.     


One of Ng Mui See Tai's disciple was Yim Wing Chun, the lady founder of Wing Chun. A bandit chief wanted to marry Yim Wing Chun by force. They agreed to a duel in which if the bandit chief was to win she would have to marry him.  If Yim won, he would have to call her mother. Yim Weng Chun knew she would not be able to match the bandit chief with pure raw power (external martial art). She had to come out with something special that can counter and neutralized his powerful external martial art. Together with the heavy spear he used, there was no way she could absorb and neutralized such powerful strikes. She was on the verge of given up hope and resigned to becoming the bandit's wife when she suddenly remembered some of Ng Mui See Tai's teachings. She thoroughly analysed what her master told her. She came out with Wing Chun techniques to neutralize and overcome him.  It is kind of David vs Goliath.  Of course there are other famous figure such as Hung Hei Kun, the Southern Shaolin rebel that escaped capture and end up as the founder of Hung Kuen. There are people who attribute Wong Fei Hung's Hung Kuen to Lok Ah Choy a fellow disciple of Hung Hei Kun.


Chinese martial arts is like a religion which entails more than the art of fighting. In the olden days, the masters test your patience and character before accepting the prospective student to be a disciple.  If the master choose the wrong disciple, the disciple might be a danger to others. With power comes responsibilities. The master need to choose his disciple carefully. You have to have the right aptitude and attitude to be considered as a potential student. Therefore there were equal emphasis on martial arts and ethics of a master. Through this rigorous trainings of both mind and body it would equip the prospective disciple to be a future master, There is a Chinese saying of "Yat yat wai see chong san wai fu (It ret wei ser chong sern wei fu in Mandarin)". It simply means a master of one day is a father for life. So becoming a disciple is a very serious matter. It is not like the westerner's concept of teacher student relationship where the teacher is paid to teach the student. In many organization such as Wudang or Shaolin, the disciples are given names by their masters (as one would give to one's children). For instance, You Li Tai and You Li Han are all foreigners and disciples of Grandmaster You Xuande, the head of Wudang Pai. You will notice all the students follow the master's surname You and a middle name Li probably to distinguish the generation.  Then each disciples are given a special name by the master. This is usually done in a ceremony attended by all the heads of the various Wudang Palaces. It is available in Youtube. Of course due to western influence, many masters now are actually more realistic and following the western teacher student relationship rather than the ancient disciples master relationship. The masters now charged  thousands of dollars for a few days qigong classes. Previously the master had to absorb the disciple's food and logging and get nothing in return (treat the disciple like his own child). When the student had reached a certain standard, the disciple can help earn some money by demonstrating his martial arts skills and perform certain escorting tasks on behalf of the master. Some masters teach very little and try to test your patience. In many circumstances you learn practically nothing other than to be a more patient person. You get beaten up for trivial matters, humiliated in front of outsiders, doing temple works and end up learning nothing useful purely because the master think the time is not right for you. I wasted 6-7 years learning how to be more patient. In the end I was not interested in making statues and talismans of Buddha and monks which the master wanted me to do.      


Legendary Master Huo Yuan Jia was not allowed to learn martial art as he was frequently ill when he was young. His father was probably afraid it might tarnished their reputation should he lose to some unworthy opponents. He even lost to smaller and younger kids and was therefore deemed as not suitable material as a martial artist.  He had to peep behind the bushes to watched his healthy brothers trained. He secretly trained on his own for the next ten years. One day a martial artist who lost to his father Huo En Di during his younger days came to seek revenge. As the father was not in the condition to fight, his sons fought on his behalf and were soundly beaten. The atmosphere in the room was very tense and rather embarrassing as the intruder started to gloat about how pathetic and useless they were. Suddenly the "untrained" Huo Yuan Jia stepped out to the horror of everyone. No one gave him any chance since he was not trained in wushu. Unexpectedly he made the intruder yield in submission. His father was pleasantly surprised and pleased with what he saw. From then on he was permitted to learn wushu like his other brothers.


Master Wong Fei Hung did not have such problems as he was able to learn from his father Grandmaster Wong Kei Ying of Canton 10 Tigers fame and many of his father's friends. He was born in a top martial artist's family and was destined for greatness. He was expected to surpass his father since he was learning from so many other great masters.

It is a matter of opinion who was the best fighter. You have the Ten Tigers of Canton with their disciples who might be good fighters. You also have the Shaolin and Wudang masters and disciples. There were so many martial arts clans and schools in China all fighting for fame and prestige. That might be probably why Master Wong Fei Hung's Po Chi Lam had to close down when he died in 1924. Some of his sons and disciples were killed earlier on. His fourth wife Mok Kwai Lan together with his remaining two sons and disciples left the hostile environment for Hong Kong in 1924. Chin Woo never fought for territorial control had no such problem even after the death of GM Hou Yuan Jia.

Bordhidharma (Damo) and Chang San Feng represent Shaolin and Wudang Pai respectively. Without them, Shaolin and Wudang would not be famous for their martial arts. So their legendary status as founding fathers of the two most famous martial arts styles cannot be questioned. Then there was Grandmaster Wang Chung Yang  who was the head of a Taoist sect called Chuan Chern Pai which was the dominant Taoist sect before Great Grandmaster Chang San Feng founded Wudang Pai. After Wang Chung Yang's death, there was no one capable of taking over. Later on they were so impressed with Great Grand master Chang San Feng that they decided to be absorbed into Wudang Pai. Even today you can still see Chung Yang Pai or Chuan Chern Pai within Wudang.


Fong Sai Yuk's reckless and disrespectful attitude should be a lesson for all arrogant peoples. There is a need to be humble knowing that someday somehow someone will be better that you. Nothing last forever. Hung Hei Kun was a famous fighter who fight against all odd to try to get rid of the Ching Dynasty. Though he did not accomplished the mission, his Hung Chuan passed down for future generations deserve mentioned as a folk hero. Pai Mei Tow Yan and Fung Tow Tak both converted to Taoism and turned traitors against the Southern Shaolin and therefore cannot be considered heroes. Then you have the Ten Tigers of Canton who were considered the ten best fighters of Canton.









GM Wong Fei Hung (1847-1924)

Wong Fei Hung was a great master and folk hero probably due to the publicity from many sensationalized movies and prior to that by famous story tellers such as Lee Tai Soh. It was also rumoured that he was a great healer and practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine. He did not collect money from the poor for his services and was a good example of how a hero should be. It was surprising that he and his students were often ambushed by triad and local martial art organizations. China was a lawless society where survival of the fittest was most evident even in Canton.  His eldest son Wong Hon Sam and favourite disciple Leong Foon were killed in fights. Master Wong was invited to perform at the opening ceremony of Chin Woo Athletic Association's Guangzhou branch in 1919. While he might not be a Canton 10 Tigers and get ambushed all the time, he was still one of the most well known person in both Canton and China.










Bruce Lee (1940-1973)

Bruce Lee came out as the first man to mainly use legs in a movie The Big Boss. There were very few high kicks in Chinese movies either from karate or wushu. The speed of the kicks and punches of Bruce Lee were exceptionally fast and powerful. There were big demands for such types of movies. Currently most martial artists can kicks high kicks and some even have more exceptional kicks. Bruce's second film Fist of Fury (Ching Woo Men in Chinese) was about Chan Charn (a fictitious disciple of Master Huo Yuan Jia) seeking revenge for Master Huo's death. 

Bruce Lee only learn 5 years of Wing Chun from Grandmaster Yip Mun and his disciples. After that he learned other martial arts such as Taekwondo and karate from his friends and associates. He modernized his training methods to be in the best of shape physically. He also look after his nutrition saying that one cannot expect the body to perform if it is fuelled by inferior fuel. He also said that one should take whatever that is good from anywhere and discard those that are useless. He trained harder than everyone else and his doctor said he had the body of an 18 years old (when he was actually 32 years old). Very soon he went into a coma and died. Bruce Lee was a western educated intellectual who trained the way any western educated man would. Somehow modern science is flawed and has not catch up with ancient Chinese science. The pot bellied Wudang founding legendary master Chang San Feng lived well past a century and founded Tai Chi Chuan in his golden years. Somehow the balance of Yin and Yang is more important than a perfect body like Bruce. No doubt he remind me of Fong Sai Yuk's arrogance. Before he left for America, Bruce was always involved in gang fighting around his school. The police informed his father that should Bruce be involved in one more fight they will have no choice but to put him behind bars. So he was a street wise person.  Bruce Lee trained harder than everyone else but his martial art hardly qualified as wushu. His students were Karate Champions and has nothing to do with wushu. However for his part in promoting martial arts in movies, he deserve to be in the hero status. He did bring back much pride and respect for the Chinese (and Asian) and smaller size people all over the world. Whether he meant to do it or not, he had done for the Asian more than anyone else and deserve to be respected and admired. His master Yip Mun also became very famous after it was revealed that Bruce lee had learned Wing Chun from him. There were 2 movies starring Donnie Yan Chi Tan which sensationalised Yip Mun as if he was a real legend. 

  


Other notable names not mentioned so far are General Choi of North Korea who was credited as the founder of Tae kwon do after the second world war. He compiled the moves and patterns with more emphasis on legs. The Chinese has a saying "Nan Chien Pei Tui" (or Nam Kuen Pak Tui in Cantonese) meaning Southern Fist, Northern Leg. So it is not surprising the Korean were good at legs as they were greatly influenced by their Chinese neighbor who were once the most advanced country in the world. The South Korean formed their own Taekwondo organisation calling it World Taekwondo Federation with its head office in Seoul, South Korea.  Fearing being persecuted by.the South Korean, General Choi moved to Canada and open his International Taekwondo Federation. It is said that the WTF (South Korean) wanted TaeKwondo to be a sport while ITF (General Choi) wanted Taekwondo to be a martial art meant for real combat. This probably why you see some Taekwondo classes with injuries and bloodied nose/mouth while the other look very tame. Jhoon Goo Rhee or Jhoon Rhee is a 10 dan black belt with ITF now residing in the US credited with opening of several Taekwondo organisation especially in the US. He was also credited to have taught Bruce Lee the side kick which became famous in his movies. Jhoon Rhee also acted in several Golden Harvest movies. He could lift an adult with his leg. 




There are lots of other masters, some even more powerful which might escape being mention here. I am aware of the Tai Chi Chuan masters like Chen Fa Ke, Huang Shin Shyan and others. As there is no way we can compare any living person with people in the past, I have chosen not to mention any living person here. 







 GM Huo Yuan Jia  (1867-1910)

Master Huo Yuan Jia was assisting his father to provide security for caravans around northern China when he defeated a bandit chief. Later on as a porter he was able to save his employer Nong Jin Sun's pharmaceutical company from paying ransoms to a large group of bandits by defeating the bandit chief and forcing them to disband.  Nong Jin Sun saw his exceptional martial arts abilities and pointed out to Huo Yuan Jia that the Chinese were helpless and oppressed by foreigners even in their own country. There was a need for someone to come out and help the Chinese people. After Huo Yuan Jia had managed to defeat/scare away more foreigners and bandits, Nong Jin Sun requested Master Huo Yuan Jia to set up a martial art school (Chin Woo Men) in Shanghai with the noble aim of providing training for all Chinese youth to enable them to learn the essences of Chinese Martial Arts to strengthen both their body and mind to fight/protect themselves and their country against foreign oppression/occupation. There were millions of martial artists in China but only Huo Yuan Jia came out to fight against the foreigners. He invited the other martial artists/organizations to join him and help their country. The others including Wong Fei Hung, masters from Shaolin and Wudang were only active against local Chinese triad and martial arts schools. Huo Yuan Jia never fight against local triad or other schools since very few Chinese would want to look unpatriotic. He was never fighting for control of any area/territory. All he wanted was to help the Chinese people get back their self respect and pride. If only he had lived longer, I am sure Chin Woo would have been a more powerful organization. None of his students had his abilities and his mizhong chuan is now things of the past.

Chin Woo Men became the first registered Wushu institution in both Shanghai (where most foreigners were  active) and China. It took real heroic courage to open shop in the "tiger den" where the real lawlessness and free for all was most evident. Shanghai was in the control of foreigners such as Japanese, British, US, Russian, Portugal, Spain and French.  Wong Fei Hung had a torrid time fending off other local martial art schools and triad members in Canton. He even lost his eldest son Wong Hon Sam and favourite disciple Leong Foon. Wong Fei Hung himself was injured many times in ambushes by his enemies. So you can imagine how much more difficult it was in Shanghai where guns were frequently used to settle disputes. They even had signs such as "Chinese and Dogs not allowed" in many areas. Everyone were fighting for territories with protection from triad and foreign countries. It was survival of the fittest in a "dog eat dog world". With that kind of gut and no apparent fear of his own personal safety, Master Huo was the real Chinese hero. 

With many foreigners defeated or chickened out against Master Huo, he became a national hero of China.  Unfortunately it would be only a matter of time for the foreigners to seek revenge. He was poisoned by a Japanese doctor who happen to be a martial artist who had lost to Master Huo's students. When the 10 Japanese experts tried to ambushed Master Huo simultaneously, Master Huo quickly floored them and in the process injured the Chief instructor and some others. Since Dr. Sun Yat Sen was hiding in exile in Japan, Nong Jin Sun (a Dr Sun's man and financier backer of Chin Woo) must had encouraged Master Huo to see the Japanese doctor for his illness. I personally think Master Huo was naive to think the Japanese would still help him after he injured their Chief instructor. Japan was a powerful nation and such a loss of face would normally get them to commit suicide by slashing their own belly and a friend on hand to chopped off the head to ensure the man was dead to atoned for such humiliation to their race and country. To complicate matters, the Japanese were pretending to help their fellow Asian such as China. They were really trying to get rid of their other competitors such as US, Britain, France, Russia, Portugal and Spain. Then they want to take over China and Asia. Next they were after the whole world. They were really motivated and highly ambitious. Their first step was trying to get rid of anything that can bind the Chinese together.  If the Chinese were united, they would not be so easy to manipulate.  They cannot allow Huo Yuan Jia to lift up the Chinese spirit and pride. He would have to be eliminated.

Sometimes we let our guard down and paid the price. China was politically unstable and economically weak and often known as the sick man of Asia. There was no way the Chinese government would dare to accuse Japan a super power then of such hideous deeds. Everything was quietly swept under the carpet until many many years later when his body was relocated. There were traces of arsenic poison. If Dr Sun Yat Sen is the father of modern China surely Grandmaster Huo Juan Jia is the father of modern Wushu. He was the one that provide the opportunity for all Chinese to learn Wushu and encourage other martial arts schools to share their skills and knowledge at Chin Woo. No other individual or group has managed to gather so much support for Wushu. Therefore he was truly the legend and hero of the twentieth century without actually seeking to be anything but ordinary. He was a hero and legend forced by circumstances beyond his control. He was a pawn manipulated by politicians. He was often sick yet he had more courage than everyone else to fight against the foreigners and bandits. I am still wondering why the millions of other martial artists (especially those experts from Wudang and Shaolin) did not come out to help. When the big size Westerners make fun of Chinese and calling them sick men of Asia and the Japanese write in their books that Chinese and Koreans were worst than pigs and deserve to die, no one bother to fight back. Chin Woo does not belong to Huo Yuan Jia. He was only the chief instructor for military training and martial arts. The money was from Nong Jin Sun, the first president of Chin Woo Shanghai. After that it was in the hands of his students. So Huo Yuan Jia did not have any reason to risk his life other than being plain heroic fighting for the Chinese people. The only thing he gained at the expense of his life was the recognition from some individuals who are aware of his sacrifices. Bruce Lee was fighting for fame and wealth in his movies.  Wong Fei Hung was also after fame and wealth or else he would never be attacked by triad and other martial art organization in Canton. So obviously the true hero and legend should be Master Huo Yuan Jia.    

See my articles on Bruce Lee, Wong Fei Hung and Huo Yan Jia for more details.