Jun 18

Jun 18 S02E06 - Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting

Transcript

Jay Ooi

This is Kevin Cheung, giving me my first wing chun lesson. And for the record, my experience of martial arts was a couple of years of karate in primary school, but nothing too serious.

Kevin Cheung

Wing Chun vs Wing Chun is very messy...

Jay Ooi

The Chinese are well known for their kung fu, but what exactly is it, and what does it mean to Aussie Asians?

Hello and welcome to Shoes Off, stories about Asian Australian culture. I’m Jay Ooi.

When we say the words Kung Fu, something very specific comes to mind. Probably some Chinese guy, maybe in a crane stance, busting out some stylish punches and kicks to take down a bunch of enemies in succession whilst making weird noises. And whilst there might be some truth to that when it comes to some Chinese martial arts, there’s certainly a lot more to it.

Stephanie Jack

Okay. So in Chinese it's Kung Fu, not Kung Fu, but I'll say Kung Fu because it's a little easier. And basically it is Chinese martial arts, but there are so many different kind of sub-branches of Kung Fu that you can learn in China.

Jay Ooi

This is Stephanie Jack, a half Singaporean half caucasian Aussie actor and vlogger who has spent a year living in China.

Stephanie Jack

So I think something that's super well known is Shaolin, Shaolin style Kung Fu. It's probably what most people would picked up if they just think of Kung Fu. And the type of Kung Fu that I was learning in Shanghai was called Long Fist and one of the elements was this Shaolin Kung Fu. So it was quite performative, quite traditional.

Jay Ooi

Now the term “kung fu” literally translates to effort, or skill, so its original meaning can refer to any discipline that requires effort and skill to achieve, any sort of mastery, and not necessarily a martial art as we know it. And the style Stephanie is learning, Long Fist Kung Fu, is known for its broad range of movements with a balance of hand and foot techniques, as well as the use of a variety of weapons.

Stephanie Jack

It's a lot more cardio than I expected. It involves flexibility and strength in equal measures, which is actually really tough to kind of get like the right balance of. And the other thing is because I was learning it in Shanghai, well the classes were bilingual. It was like a teacher who also speaks a little bit of English. But I was also kind of learning Chinese while I was learning Kung Fu, which is a cool experience.

Jay Ooi

Stephanie’s an actor, and she started to realise that martial arts might help her get more roles.

Stephanie Jack

I'd seen it come up in casting calls where they'd asked for martial arts experience. And so I figured I would, I guess kind of cave in and go with that stereotype and learn some martial arts.

Stephanie Jack

And then also it was really nice learning some Kung Fu and then visiting Shaolin Temple, for instance, because when you go there, you see all these amazing, ridiculously good, Kung Fu performances.

Jay

Yeah. What else did you notice when you went and visited the Shaolin Temple?

Stephanie Jack

Well, so for anyone who doesn't know too much about it, the Shaolin Temple is in Henan, which is like an inland province of China. And it is a huge tourist attraction now. So I think it's not as traditional as I was kind of hoping it would be just because of the scale of tourism there now, but having said that, it's still very beautiful. It's basically a series of like temples and there are a lot of monks who I guess study Kung Fu. And then there's also a performance troop. I'm not really sure if they're technically monks, but they perform for the tourists every day in their amazing Kung Fu. And then there's also a school right next to it, a kind of academy that's for young Chinese boys. Well, actually I don't think tourists generally see too much of that, but I like went there with some friends at 5:00 AM and like watched their morning routine and watched them all kind of like coming out of the dormitories.

Stephanie Jack

And it's really interesting, particularly watching that was really interesting because you see all these young kids who are sort of maybe seven-years-old to 15-years-old and there's such an intense level of discipline. And like when I was watching them come out in the morning, there were barely any adults around. Like they had this whole routine that they just knew how to do without any supervision and it was just so precise. It was kind of like militaristic almost. But it was kind of impressive to see these young kids doing that.

Stephanie Jack

And it was just kind of a cool experience to be able to look at that. And even though I couldn't do probably 90% of the moves, there are like little bits where I'd be like, "Oh, I've done that in class," or like, "I know how to practice to do that. I don't know how to do it yet, but I know what the exercise is." So that was kind of cool.

Jay Ooi

So Stephanie’s learning quite a traditional Chinese martial art, and has seen the more impressive mastery of it at the Shaolin Temple as something to aspire to. But inspiration can come from somewhere else too.

Johnson Yeung

So, if I want to talk about wushu or wuxia, it all started off, I think in the 70s when there's a person, an author called Kam-Yeong. And then, he was like a newspaper columnist and then he would have a section about short ... It's not short ... It's like little excerpts of stories. Like, you do a chapter every week, kind of thing. And then, people were really stuck onto that. It's like the equivalent of Manga doing every week, that kind of stuff. But it was in the novel format, yeah. And so, it was super popular at those times because basically, you go back to sort of ancient China when it was like the olden days with emperors and all that kind of stuff. But it's talking about the ... It's like the mafia tribe world where you have all these heroes and they've got super good abilities with sword fighting. They know special powers, kind of thing.

Johnson Yeung

So, my name's Johnson. And I was born in Hong Kong, but our family, we migrated to Australia when I was just around seven years old.

Jay Ooi

Johnson grew up watching a lot of Hong Kong TV that were adaptations of Wuxia, Chinese Martial Hero stories.

Johnson Yeung

So, I can probably portray it as like anime culture. Anime, Manga culture in Japan. A similar culture sort of exists in Hong Kong for sure.

Johnson Yeung

And so yeah, that's why in TVB, they would broadcast the video adaptations of these kind of wushu novels, kind of thing.

Johnson Yeung

Yeah, since I was young, I was always watching TVB series.

Jay Ooi

We’ve got a lot of terms flying around so let me just clarify. You’ve got Kung Fu, which although literally means mastering an art or skill, is now more used as an umbrella term for Chinese martial arts. You’ve got wushu, which literally means martial arts but is now used for a particular sport and performance of Chinese martial arts, and wuxia, which is a genre of Chinese fiction featuring martial heroes. I know, words and language is complicated, but for the purposes of this episode, if you hear Kung Fu, think the more generic umbrella of Chinese martial arts, and if you hear wushu, it’s one specific sport and style of martial arts.

Jay Ooi

So wait, the TVB series were about people with superpowers doing wushu?

Johnson Yeung

I wouldn't call it superpowers, but it's like powers that's like really believable.

Johnson Yeung

So, it's not magical, but it's not normal. It's like raised and elevated to an extent that it's kind of believable, but it's sort of made up as well.

Jay Ooi

Right, okay. Okay.

Johnson Yeung

Or if you've seen some of those Chinese wushu movies, like Hidden Tiger, I haven't seen Hidden Tiger.

Jay Ooi

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Johnson Yeung

Crouching Dragon, yeah, or Heroes. Yeah, that one or Heroes, then you know how they fly around and then they can do really weird kind of stuff. That's probably a better example.

Jay Ooi

So, is that based on wushu?

Johnson Yeung

Yes, yes, yes. Yes, all of those kind of special stuff is based on wushu, yeah.

Jay Ooi

I remember watching Heroes and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and not really getting it. People were sort of jump floating in the air, doing these movements that seemed to carry the force of the wind behind them, and bouncing off tree branches, I just couldn’t appreciate the art form myself, but for Johnson, it was quite different. This is what happened when someone mentioned they taught wushu.

Johnson Yeung

because when I first heard of it, my thought was kind of like, "Are you serious? Does wushu really exist?" Because I didn't know anyone that was teaching wushu. So, yeah. I joined. I sort of took some introductory classes. And I know it's like nothing in the movies, right? But it still feels really cool to be doing the moves, doing the routines. Usually it's based on routines.

Jay Ooi

can you tell me more about the energies and the ... What do you call that in wushu? I don't know what you call that.

Johnson Yeung

So, the skill is called like qigong, it basically means internal skill.

Johnson Yeung

For example, this internal energy, it's ... Say if you punch someone, then physically they get hurt, right? But if you use that with internal energy, then it might sort of break their organs as well. There's like different abilities. Like, some special ones, for example, you can hit someone and then you just melt all their bones, right?

Jay Ooi

So, when we talk about these weird abilities, do you ... Are they to you stories? Or what element of truth is there to that?

Johnson Yeung

Like, how can you punch someone and then make all of their bones melt? It's not possible. But at the same time, there's a bit of fantasy that goes on with it, because some of it is quite believable.

Johnson Yeung

So, I know I won't be flying around and hopping on trees and that kind of stuff. But maybe I can increase my ability to do so to a little degree.

Jay Ooi

So Johnson picked up Wushu because he saw a lot of it on TVB growing up, but what exactly is it? How do we use the term today?

Johnson Yeung

I always compare it with gymnastics because that's what you do. On the floor routine, a wushu ... A proper wushu routine would take no less than one minute and 20 seconds. They've got rules for it.

Johnson Yeung

So, that's why wushu is more called martial arts because it's like an art form. You just display the sort of elegance and beauty of doing something that's choreographed. But it's like a fighting routine, kind of. It's inspired by a fighting routine.

Jay Ooi

Okay, so Johnson’s wushu is definitely more performative, and likewise Stephanie’s martial arts is to help her look the part for acting roles. What about one that’s actually going to help you get out of a sticky situation?

Kevin Cheung

A smart person walks away from a fight. That's the first thing. The second thing is martial arts does not make you a superhero of any kind. It just means you're going to do better than the average schmuck.

Kevin Cheung

My name's Kevin Chung. I am a Chinese Australian born in the United States, and I am an instructor in Wing Chung Kung Fu, and I'm also a media professional by day.

Kevin Cheung

Wing Chun Kung Fu is one type of Kung Fu out of hundreds of different styles that you'll find all around the world. Wing Chun is specifically of Chinese origin and it's the exact style that you find portrayed in movies such as the IP Man movies, of which there are four.

Kevin Cheung

For myself as well, I rationalised that Wing Chun was designed by a woman for a woman to beat a fundamentally larger person. And I thought I was really clever saying this. Look, I live in Australia. I'm an Asian, I am on average going to be smaller than anyone who's going to be attacking me. I need a style that lets me leverage another person's force against them. I'm not going to beat them with pure strength. So that was it.

Jay Ooi

Wing Chun is one of the younger martial arts to come out of China, and there’s a whole story or mythology behind it involving this woman Ng Mui who designed it, but we’ll let you read up more about it, link in the show notes.

Kevin Cheung

It became more prominent after the communist revolution when the Chinese government basically said, "That's it, no more martial arts." So one of the more famous teachers, his name is IP Man. He was based in an area called Fat San and he escaped to Hong Kong. Many martial artists actually escaped from China to Hong Kong, and he preserved Wing Chun from there.

Kevin Cheung

The most famous of his students was Bruce Lee who went on to star in movies such as Enter The Dragon and inspired a whole generation of martial artists with his variant called Jee Kun Do.

Jay Ooi

Yes that’s another form of martial arts that we’re not going to get into today. Kevin’s been doing Wing Chun for 5 years now, and he says that what makes it Wing Chun is it’s all about direct, straightforward movements, and it’s all about simultaneous attack and defense. [insert me learning stuff here?] I asked him why he chose this martial art over others.

Kevin Cheung

Why Wing Chun specifically? Well, it's because it is a style that is extensively from Hong Kong. That's where my family is from. And I said, "I want to learn a style that's closer to my family and to my roots." And pleasantly that became something that really blossomed as I learned the style.

Jay

What sort of connection do you feel to Hong Kong?

Kevin Cheung

A lot of times you see in movies about how, oh, there's a secret formula to doing moves and it unlocks the secrets, and all that. The truth of the matter is that what it's doing is it's using Chinese words to tell you as a metaphor how you should perform a certain move. If you're told in English, your blood's worth bottling, well, you know exactly what that means. If you're told that person's a snake in the grass, you know exactly what kind of person that is. The same goes for the kind of metaphors that are used in Kung Fu. They use a metaphor to describe a move. You know exactly what you have to do.

Kevin Cheung

A word literally means circle, for instance. That's what you're meant to do with your hand. I mean, of course you need a teacher to tell you how to apply that metaphor, you don't instantly know how to do it as soon as you hear the word. But hearing that word, and I know from personal experience because certain words just don't translate well into English. You get so much more meaning if you know what that word means in Chinese

Kevin Cheung

And all of a sudden there are words that I understand the meaning to even better, words that I can write. It really does make me feel a lot closer to a culture that I've struggled to feel part of.

Jay Ooi

So language is a key instrument in tying us back to our culture, and Kevin definitely feels this through Wing Chun. And for Stephanie, taking up a Chinese martial art helped her connect to her Chinese side, especially as a mixed race person.

Stephanie Jack

I mean certainly the type of Kung Fu that I learned, it certainly looks very Chinese. I don't think you would think that it was Karate or anything, I think you would see it and you would definitely think China.

Stephanie Jack

I definitely feel like learning something that looks so Chinese definitely made me feel an enormous amount more Chinese.

Stephanie Jack

And even just the fact that if you're studying Kung Fu versus say Karate, like the terms are going to be in Chinese. So you've got that like language element too.

Stephanie Jack

I feel like as a result of my experience of moving to China, I would really like if I have a family, for my kids to learn things like Kung Fu but also traditional Chinese instruments and just any number of cultural things that originate in China and not super common necessarily in Australia. Because it's, I don't know, I don't want to like lose that link, and I think these are really nice ways of continuing with that link.

Jay Ooi

And Johnson also feels a cultural connection with Wushu because he grew up watching a lot of Wuxia.

Johnson Yeung

I guess, because growing up, I was influenced by this kind of world. And then, when I get to practice elements that's involved with this world, then it would sort of bring me towards my cultural heritage as well.

Johnson Yeung

Even though it's very basic elements, but seeing a horse stance in a movie and then actually doing a horse stance at lesson, that sort of gives me some kind of satisfaction in living a dream that I will never achieve.

Jay Ooi

So all three definitely feel some sort of cultural affinity to their martial art. But what about these movie representations? What are we to make of them?

Jay

I just thought I'd get your thoughts on them. How do you see the representation of, for example, how Kung Fu Panda represented martial arts versus how IP Man, that Hong Kong film represented martial arts?

Kevin Cheung

All right. I actually have a tremendous amount of respect for Kung Fu Panda.

Jay

I love the films. I think they-

Kevin Cheung

I really loved it. Look, there's this bit in Kung Fu Panda when they do this flashback to when they're all kids, and Tigris played by Angelina Jolie, she's doing this little thing and she finishes with this punch. And then Master Sifu walks up and then just adjusts her hand. That's perfect. That is exactly what happens in a martial arts school, and they had that wrapped up to a T. It was so good that way.

Kevin Cheung

So in terms of capturing the spirit of martial arts, I think King Fu Panda was great. With IP Man and all of the other variant movies such as The Legend Begins or Returns, the one with Tony Long and the other one with [Wong Chau Sung 00:34:02], look, they're all attempting to play on the celebrity of the actual man. They're turning him into Robin Hood, basically.

Kevin Cheung

I get why people like that, and there's a lot of nationalism in the movies as well.

Kevin Cheung

The actual martial arts is terrific, but every now and then if you're sitting in the cinema, they'll be having a fight, and you'll watch two or three people in the cinema just jump up and say, "That's not Wing Chun." Because we know. There's this bit in the last fight, in the first IP Man movie when he does this reverse spinning kick and swats the guy clear across the face. That's not Wing Chun, but it's clearly been put in there because it looks good cinematically. So guy's got to eat, he has to make a movie and there it is.

Jay Ooi

Yes, film representations are what they are, but it’s just good to remember they’re usually quite dramaticised. It is a movie, after all. And there are hundreds of styles of Chinese martial arts, so it’s difficult to stay true to purely one of them. But the other advantage of doing a martial art? It helps keep you fit and active too.

Stephanie Jack

To be honest, going to a Kung Fu class is just like a struggle from the beginning to the end. It's just kind of insane. Like the warmup, just like even the warmups that you do, are really tough.

Johnson Yeung

I'm kind of like a weak type. Like, my body is super thin and I'm not very ... I would say I'm fit and athletic, but I don't have any muscle. And I'm also quite a pacifist, so I don't like fighting at all. So, I probably wouldn't want to join one of those kung fu places, right?

Johnson Yeung

But wushu is a very good compromise because it's like fantasy world. It's like I can try and get fit, because there's a Chinese saying where it's if you practice martial arts, it's good for your body, kind of thing. It's called [foreign language 00:22:44], it's good for you. It's good for your body.

Jay Ooi

And it’s also a different idea of what we consider fit and strong.

Kevin Cheung

To actually understand the finer nuances and to perform the seemingly superhuman tricks requires a lot of concentration, hard work and practice. And once you do get there, once you recognise that you can in fact do the magic tricks, you realise I have achieved something. And as you go along, you realise I can handle myself. You have a little bit more confidence. I can look at a person and have a better idea of how I'd fair. It's not like I'm walking around looking for a fight, but I'm not as worried.

Stephanie Jack

And you can look, like some people who are really good at Kung Fu, if you saw them on the street, you just wouldn't think that they were that strong. But those moves or those moves take a crazy amount of strength.

Stephanie Jack

So I feel like your body shape is not... yeah, it's a very, very, very different kind of body shape and it doesn't come across as strong in that really like typical kind of Western way. But I think it's a very sort of healthy kind of strength to have, because you're combining it with flexibility. It feels like a really healthy way of being strong.

Jay Ooi

[more audio of me learning]

That’s Asians and Chinese martial arts.

This episode of Shoes Off was written, produced and edited by me Jay Ooi.

Special thanks to all our guests Kevin Cheung, Johnson Yeung and Stephanie Jack. You can check you Stephanie’s vlogs where she does cover some martial arts on her youtube channel - just look up Stephanie Jack, mixed up on Youtube.

In the show notes for this episode at shoesoff.net you can find some reading on Wing Chun as well as where you can sign up.

And you can reach me @shoesoffau on facebook and instagram.

If you liked Shoes Off please subscribe, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts, or head to shoesoff.net

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Thanks, and catch you next episode.