March 13, 2010 by Adam.

Some people have commented that they would like to know more about the history of Kung Fu in Chinatown. Chinatown used to be a very small and tight community where everyone knew each other, so the man I am telling a story about in this article might be known to many of the old timers. His nickname was Crazy Ming or “Ngau Ming.”

I think I was in College when I met him. Jing, Sifu’s son, told me Ngau Ming would be stopping in with his son so I should try to be at the school when he came so that we could do some forms for him. He was an old friend of the school and had brought us down to Worcester to do Lion Dance (He owned a restaraunt there). Before we used to have people with sticks to barricade some space for the Lion Head to move. Apparently in Worcester, Ngau Ming had done this job himself by swinging a Gwan Do (Polearm Sword made famous by General Gwan) around hard. Needless to say people moved and obviously Ngau Ming had his nickname for a reason.

Upon going into one of the restaurants, the head waiter in the front had said, “Oh that’s okay. We don’t need a Lion Dance.” Ngau Ming replied in angry tone dabbled with expletives about the man’s mother, her reproductive organs, their age and smell, that he should get the owner out to the front right now, and did he know who he was talking too. etc.

In Chinatown Ngau Ming had quite a name for loving to fight. He would hang out at the bars, get drunk and get into fights with Americans, and then befriend them afterward. When I met him I realized more clearly why it was easy for him to get into a fight. He had a crazy stare that just looked off and made you nervous even if you were his friend. Whether he was born like that or became like that over a lifetime or a combination of both is unknown to me. He had met Sifu in China. And at that time I think he was already in “Collecting” business. He did the same sort of occupation in Hong Kong and probably in the States too.  He saw a great deal of violence and talked with one of the other Chinese Workers associated with our school about just how disgusting those fights can look in real life, when hands are being hacked off etc. In other words he was a Gong Wu/Jiaghu person if there ever was one. And he also practiced various forms of Kung Fu.

In China he had actually questioned Sifu’s skill. Sifu demonstrated a technique which passed/parried his attack and pushed him flying out the door. He came running back in and bowed down saying “Sifu!”

But for some strange reason I do not understand, when he came to the school with his son, he seemed to praise Jing’s (the son) Kung Fu over the father, our Sifu, Woo Ching. All of us know that Woo Ching’s power, fighting, skill, Gung Lik, and many other aspects of the art far exceeded Jing, especially when Woo Ching Sifu was in his prime.  But Ngau Ming kept talking about Jing’s sword form. When I performed a form, he said “That’s alright, but it’s not as intelligent as Jing’s Kung Fu. I only want my son to learn from Jing.” I should back up and say that by this time he had already written a large check to our Sifu.

Now all these events I describe didn’t happen one after another, but rather all jumbled up, mixed together, repeated again in a very bipolar schizophrenic like fashion.

“Son bow down to Jing and let’s take a picture of it!”

“Take a picture in the Lion Head!”

“Son show them that Karate form that Lo Fahn taught you. They don’t have Kung Fu where we are so he has to do Karate. But you can’t use that form if you’re really fighting!

See son block this punch.” He threw a punch at his son and his son passed it and avoided. “See that’s not what they taught you that’s the hand techniques I showed you.”

The techniques in the Karate form were a lot like Fukienese White Crane and were more straight in and a hard to hard philosophy of fighting. His son was very courteous and good at his form. I have heard that he has since grown very tall and  done well in some fighting tournaments.

Then at some point he started praising my Kung Fu, saying that I was strong and young and should keep practicing, while touching my stomach. I stepped back he stepped forward. I sort of thought he was going to punch me in the ribs as hard as he could. Not to be mean, but just out of excitement, like “Wow you do Kung Fu!” Punch.

I said, “Hey what do you want to do first.” I wasn’t sure if he wanted to try hands or what, but I got the feeling he was going to start punching. I was getting a little on edge because he had alreday challenged my skill and now it looked like he was going to physically challenge me. At the same time, he had just donated a large sum of money to the school. Awkward situation, you had to be there. His wife told him to stop scaring people.

Suddenly the conversation shifted to story telling, “You know Master X?” (Master X is a Sifu who was quite well known in Chinatown for being a good fighter, and people say able to punch while holding 100 pound bags of rice. His name is not really Master X, but I will refer to him as Master X in this story unless he reads this story and tells me I can use his name.)

“Master X and me are sworn brothers. (geet bai hing dai) I was able to hit him like this!” and he demonstrated his Kung Fu (now at a distance from me.) A second a go I thought that if I went hard to hard with him at close range I would 90% win because he was old and short and skinnier than me.  After seeing him demonstrate, if I had to fight him, I would definitely stay outside and be cautious.

His hands were so fast. The technique was to touch the attaching punch and then follow it in with a counter punch. Now many people practice this, but his hands were very fast. Real Kung Fu Fast. As in not just technique, and youthful quick hands, but the counter strike had gung. Even when I demonstrate this technique to others and they say “Wow that is fast.” I have to explain that his hands were much faster.

Now if people ask me, do you think Ngau Ming could beat Master X in a fight, I would say I don’t know, and maybe not. Ngau Ming often tied or even lost his bar fights. He also didn’t always look where he was punching and hunched his head over much the same way boxers do, which can leaver the back of the head open or leave you open to a tackle which would result in two people rolling on the ground.

But if you ask me, “Do you think Ngau Ming really was able to hit Master X?” I would reply yes, because of the speed of the hands, and the technique’s philosophy. Especially if it was unexpected. Apparently Master X’s reply was, “You are the first person able to hit me.” and none of the students wanted to play hands with Ngau Ming. Again, he was also sworn brothers with Master X, which would explain the dynamic of the situation.

If I had played hands with Ngau Ming before seeing him demonstrate, I could easily have been knocked down, out, or dead, especially if the counter strike attacked the neck. he learned the techniques in China from Tong Bak (Grandfather Tong?) who other of our members have also talked to recently when they went back to China to visit family. That Kung Fu is supposed to be Hung Gar, but is recognized as the practitioners as completely different than any other Hung Gar, and is claimed to be by the practitioners to be more original than other Hung Gar.But who ware we to judge since that is not the system we practice. (We practice White Crane. Both the Shaolin and Tibetan Branch. Sifu also absorbed the best of the Kung Fu of the surrounding Villages, and Masters he defeated in Guangzhou while hiding out there.)

As Ngau Ming left he continued to touch my stomach pushing on it with his fist even as we saw him off to his car. “Keep up! Keep Practice! More Power! Very Powerful.” He kept telling me in English, despite the fact that we had been conversing in Chinese.

Meeting him was definitely an eye opener in many ways and a good experience. His was the true face of many of the average Kung Fu practitioners in China of that generation. They learned Kung Fu for fighting, but also were so excited by the joy of doing the moves that besides life or death fights, they might not be able to restrain themselves from challenging friends. I think if he was younger, he definitely would have started hitting me. Not that he would have meant anything bad by it, but simply because seeing how my Kung Fu was in the form, we would want to try and crack it’s code, or solve the puzzle playing out the Kung Fu in real time fist to face.

The reason why he so respected Jing’s Sword form, was because he saw no counter to those moves. They were too fast and smooth. Also, I think his real fights, the gang related ones, involved the long knives they used to hack away at each other and seeing that must have left a deep impression in his mind, as he spoke of regret of having been a part of that stuff now that he had  dealt with those memories in old age.

I have heard since that he passed away in his sleep. Considering his life, which had much violence and hardship in his youth, I would say he had a good and peaceful end, being survived by a strong son, and a good wife who was a good businesswoman as well.

I don’t know where his son is now, but we would love to have him at our school if he would still want to learn with us.

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March 11, 2010 by Adam.

Tonight, Woo Ching White Crane helped the U.S. Kung fu Federation host its annual New Year banquet. We performed first as host, followed by Wah Lum and Darin Yee’s School from Plymouth. I would like to thank these schools and the individuals that are part of them for showing support to the Federation.

Before I stopped working, I always wondered why older people in the community like Henry Yee seemed to enjoy running things like these banquets, even though they didn’t turn a profit. “Shouldn’t they just be relaxing?” I would think. I used to find such banquets somewhat of a hassle, but now that events like this banquet are one of my few contacts with the outside world, they are social opportunities that seem to keep me sane.  A few of the members of our group who are restaurant workers who had days off stayed very late too and seem to find the banquet relaxing. They rarely get to see anything but the back of the kitchen, so this was also a social gathering for them that proved to themselves that that they are human, as opposed to just workers. Quite a few people that come to the U.S. from China actually do crack mentally from the lifestyle. Either that or become extremely addicted to gambling, which is a form of mental break down that can ruin whole families.

When I got home I started watching a program on PBS called “Brain Fitness.” it was talking about PTSD, inter-generational learning and Alzheimer’s, and various therapies for other mental health issues. It showed the benefits of elderly people teaching young kids to read or interacting with them in general, as well as the importance of elderly remaining active in the community. It showed how the elderly keeping active physically and mentally in the community, benefited the individual’s health but also society as a whole. Then I started to think about my Sifu and other old Chinese men that are not English speakers. Well, if kids don’t read Chinese, then story telling from a book is out. So essentially a Chinese School like Kwong Kow protect our traditions but also the health of the community.  If kids only know how to speak Chinese well we can still have inter-generational learning through Kung Fu and Story telling. The program mentioned how kids with ADHD would sit still for 45 minutes listening a old person talk about some life experience, even if every time they come back the old person tells the same story. I used to lose patience when my Sifu told some stories repeatedly, but I see now it is as important to the health of a family or community, as the physical practice is.

I may try to reach out to the free After School program  run by Haravrd’s Phillips Brooks House that is across from us to see if they will work with me on this. In the past, when I taught a Lion Dance workshop for them the kids were shocked that I spoke to them in Chinese. Not because I am white, but because they were told that they were not allowed to speak Chinese in that after school program. I understand  why they would do something like that, but I think Chinese Americans seem to catch up pretty well by College in terms of English and may do better on average than many White Americans. The kids should really be learning Chinese, not only for their benefit, but for the benefit of the elderly in our community who cannot learn English.  I wish Phillips Brooks House would work with Kwong Kow, because now even though they are providing a free program that supervises children doing homework, ultimately they are working against Kwong Kow, a by income, affordable after school programs that has many programs including Chinese Classes. Kwong Kow loses out because those kids would have gone to Kwong Kow’s program instead, which even if it is not free, is by income. If my mother could afford it working at the A and P, then families with two parents should be able to afford Kwong Kow.

The kids lose out for not keeping up with Chinese. Their parents, grandparents and relatives in China lose out for not being able to communicate with them. If they were being offered other enrichment programs like at Red Oak that would be different but they are just watching the kids do homework. The program means well, but I disagree with the no Chinese Policy very strongly as it will ultimately further damage inter generational communication in the community.

Kung Fu and Lion Dance is another medium through which the old people in Chinatown can interact with youth. Many of the older people learned or are slightly familiar with these traditions, from when they learned as children from older members in the village, or at a school, if they lived in a city. All the Young Children should not just be learning these arts, but being taught by the elderly in the Community. This keeps the elderly active mentally and Physically, allowing them to tell their life experience to children, passing on the culture and oral history. If this could somehow be put into the curriculum that gets kids to read Chinese it might make these stories and reading lessons more relevant exciting to the children who have a hard time paying attention in Chinese School.

Back to the Banquet. For Our performance, I did a lot of the play by play for our forms in Chinese, which often have historical significance. Not all of my words were correct but as it turns out, one of my old Chinese School Teachers was in the audience, and she came up to congratulate me on at least being able to speak Chinese if not write it. (We were at odds when I was a student to say the least.) I learned Chinese from Kwong Kow, but I learned a lot of it from my Kung Fu School as well, and it was there that I was forced to speak and translate. I always knew that this was important to learn, for young people. But it also benefits the elderly to teach. My mind flashed back to me being at McDonald’s with my White mother, and all these Old Chinese men helping me with my Chinese Homework. I failed repeatedly but it was important for them to teach me, and I think in the long run I identify myself as Chinese because of the input of so many people reinforcing my cultural identity.

Our School already offers free Lion Dance Practice on Saturdays at 2pm when we don’t have an actual performance. Now I would like to somehow get our Kung Fu into a story telling and reading curriculum where my Sifu can benefit by having interested, Cantonese or Taishanese Speaking Children who will listen to Sifu talk about stories from China. I’ve even seen Sifu communicate with Mandarin speakers too. Though his Mandarin is limited, stories and experiences were exchanged, making both sides stronger and more knowledgeable. I see how his spirit rises when he has people around who he can talk to about Feng Shui,  Kung Fu, politics, or history. The next generation can benefit from hearing these things, in Chinese. And I know it is not just my Sifu who has so much knowledge to share, but many of the elderly in Chinatown. Some of these elderly have great English skills, and some do not. Chinatown needs this inter-generational learning in Chinese as well as English. Not enough of it is happening and as a consequence  part of our culture is dying out and our community is breaking down.  And don’t think “Oh well, at least it will survive in China.” Because much of the truly traditional arts left China and are in the United States. In fact old masters from America are only recently reopening schools in China. Yes China has many skilled people still, but a lot of the history, experiences, culture, and arts are in Chinese America because of the Cultural Revolution. These stories if told in a comfortable  setting can help the storyteller therapeutically by hashing out old issues and at the same  time educate our youth.

Storytelling, Kung Fu, and Lion Dance can really be used to make our community  stronger and healthier mentally and Physically. I hope we can start to take more advantage of this as soon as possible.

-Adam Cheung

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February 16, 2010 by Adam.

Yesterday, after doing  two Lion dance performances at the Museum of Fine Arts, we also performed the opening ceremony for the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association’s New Year’s Banquet. I have been doing so many workshops geared toward people of non-Chinese descent that it has been a while since I have done a lion dance in its more natural setting. We did two lion heads and I even got one of my students to do more combos with me where we jump, stack on top of each other  to make the lion appear to suddenly reared up growing inhumanly tall, and then drop down and whirl around like a snake spinning in a curling tornado.

I appreciated the effort but I wished we had been practicing and performing this all along instead of waiting until now. (Although it does mean that today and everyday this week at the MFA we will perform this techniques.)

Maybe it was because I was tired before I even started the dance and so was slightly tranced out, because we were in China Pearl like so many lion dances we have done, maybe it was because as I look back in the head to the drum I saw that my Si Bak had suddenly appeared to play the drum (his Cantonese Music Association is also part of the CCBA so he happened to be there.) But I felt like I felt when I was first starting to do lion dance as a teenager learning about my Chinese Heritage.

The difference was of course was that instead of being unclear as to what to do, I confidently called out to Wingkay Leung (CCBA President) to get the lettuce from the Lion Head, instead of being afraid to communicate what needed to be done. It helped that I knew him from Crime Watch.  I also know Karen be caused she tried to tutor me when I was a very small child. (I was a terrible student.) Of course the Lion Gave her an orange.

And our team got a table which is a rare thing at these events. That’s probably the most fun I had as an adult at a banquet where we weren’t allowed to make a ruckus. It was good to be out of the house. I suppose I have started to think like an old man if I find these banquets to be a fun night out. But getting trashed at a club isn’t really that great when you think about it anyway.

-Adam

adam.cheung@bostonchinatowngateway.com

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February 4, 2010 by Adam.

Since my last demo I have been told by Master Ng, (the Feng Shui Man) that I have become a little famous in a new circle of people for being a white guy that speaks “bak wah” a term for Cantonese. Interestingly when I first heard this term years ago I though it meant English because it sounds like “White Language.” Master Ng one of the Principals at ABCD told Master Ng’s friend, “that white guy speaks better ‘Bak wah’” than you!” (This is because Master Ng and his friend speak Taishanese as their first language. In fact as Master Ng was telling me the story, the man standing next to him yelled at me that I should have spoken Taishanese instead. (My Taishanese is not as good though I can sort of fake the Doushan dialect of it.)

Anyway, more recently I did a Kung Fu demonstration  at the Peabody Essex Museum for an exclusive event for members who were top donor and their kids. Gung Kwok Asian Woman’s Lion Dance team was hired to perform a dragon dance and they referred me as someone who could do a Martial Arts demo.

I decided to bring very fake looking weapons to perform with, which ended up being a good decision. I was just thinking that maybe the parents would be a little apprehensive about the weapons if they looked real. I didn’t take into account the fact that the stuff we practice with might look like artifacts. I guess in many ways our school is living history.

I did two back to back half hour performances/workshops where  I punch, powed, cupped, tiger clawed, and crane beaked the air and then had the children and their parents do the same while speaking the Chinese Names of the forms as well. The first group had a chinese mother who helped the energy of the group tremendously. The weapons forms came with a little history from WWII and from the Three Kingdoms period.  The kids then went on to other galleries in a sort of scavenger hunt which ended in the lobby with a surprise dragon dance from Gund Kwok, a meal, and the movie Mulan on a big screen. It was a pretty cool  event to have at a museum.

The Museum itself is probably most recently famous for the old Chinese House that they dismantled and rebuilt. The video on it shows how it was going to be destroyed anyway so  the family that owns it and the ancestors would be relatively happy that the house is at least preserved given the alternative. There was a little video about the life in the surrounding village (probably not there anywmore.) that involved a lion dance for new year. It was interesting because the head looked neither northern or southern. In fact it looked like a box with colorful paper on it. It also didn’t follow a lot of the rules that the Southern Heads usually do, like backing out of the doorway instead of just leaving a house head first. But clearly the people in the village were following other strict rules when it came to making offerings to ancestors and such. It kind of made me loosen up my perspective on what a lion dance was and its place in society, if in parts of China they are almost starting anew with these traditions that might have a disconnect due to the Cultural Revolution. I guess traditionalism was hammered into me by my si hing. My Sifu cares about us following the traditional rules, but says if other people aren’t not to even care about it, just as long as we kept the traditions.

As for myself, I seem to care about tradition when it comes to Kung Fu and Lion Dance, but in other aspects of my life I don’t care at all. Or maybe in my whole life I’ve only really listened to my Sifu and now that I have a family and am not living with him, I am somewhat lost. Like that house at the Peabody Essex Museum, that used to be for living in but is now in a museum.

I guess I do these demonstrations mostly to show myself that kung fu is still living and relevant and that I am not an artifact.

-Adam

acheung-whitecrane@hotmail.com

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August 12, 2008 by Chinatown Blogger.

Just some observations on the 2008 Olympics:

1. The opening ceremony was incredible. Missed the beginning part but tuned in during the parade of nations. For those who were not aware, the opening day 8-08-08 is a lucky number. Who would have thought that 30 years, or even 20 years ago, that China would be mentioned in the same sentence along with the United States as a world “superpower”. Not an understatement from one of the NBC host who said, “This is the biggest event in modern Chinese history.”

2. Li Ning, the final torch bearer,  running in the air around the stadium walls (his shoes didn’t really touch the walls, but the effect was to simulate) while suspended on wires was amazing.

3. If you have a plasma or LCD TV capable of High Definition television, definitely get the HD service from your provider if you can afford the extra $10 a month. Watching the Olympics in HD makes the experience so much better. A cheaper solution? Get a digital antenna to receive over-the-air HD programming for free. Major stations like NBC/ABC/CBS has been broadcasting over-the-air HD for a while now.

4. DVR is great. The Chinatown Blogger understands all these expenses add up, but if you can afford the extra money for the DVR service, the Olympic events can be recorded at 2:30am and watched the next day. (The Chinatown Blogger uses Verizon FIOS with HD/DVR service and running on a 46″ 1080p LCD. The surround sound system is curently disabled due to a neighbor complaining of excessive noise during the Celtics playoff run.)

5. Hidden humor in the interview between NBC’s Bob Costas and George Bush. If you look in the background, there is a portrait of Mao Zedong overlooking the plaza. At certain angles, American audiences saw Costas, Bush and Mao.

6. Jonathan Horton was clutch. Too bad U.S. team couldn’t hold onto lead for silver, especially when his teammates were pulling in 12 and 13 points and the team needed an average of 15 to win silver.

That’s it. Enjoy the Olympics and the few weeks left in the summer!

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