My Eldest Daughter Sue-Ling - Club Constellation - 2004-2005
Author’s Note: When I inherited the Ch’an Dao Hakka Gongfu Style in 1994, I was 27-years old. Everything prior to that date must now be viewed as nothing but “preparation”. All my myriad of experiences – good, bad, or indifferent – served as streams flowing into the large river and sea of life. Hereford was a vast cauldron of transformation - and this is where I lived and trained between 1984-1989. Master Chan Tin Sang had fought in the New Territories during WWII (1941-1945) – and is known to have killed Imperial Japanese soldiers using our Hakka family gongfu style. Below, I explain the situation and transformation of the Hakka Chinese community as it existed in Sutton in 1994. Many Chinese children attended “Mintak” a Chinese-language Saturday School held at a local State school. Meanwhile, I taught a remedial class for Chinese children who had trouble speaking English. Gongfu teaching, like Chinese dancing for girls, was viewed very much seen as a cultural activity – with non-Chinese lineages ignored as being racist or merely a form of mimicry (as the teachers had not sought “Permission” from the Chinese community to set-up and teach gongfu). This is still the situation today, with many well-established and affluent gongfu schools being viewed as “not Chinese” and therefore not legitimate. Those making money do not care about this contradiction. Indeed, many do not even know that such a judgement has been levelled against them – such is their ignorance. Between 1994-2011 – I participated in around 100 (witnessed) Honour Fights – and won them all. Needless to say, our school was sanctioned by the Chinese community and remains the only legitimate school in the Sutton area – despite hundreds of others. ACW (21.6.2025)
A number of readers have asked to learn more about my early teaching of gongfu. I am happy to oblique as such an undertaking will serve as a historical statement as I thunder into older-age and to the inevitable “shuffling-off of this mortal coil” – as Shakespeare once said – and Richard Hunn once quoted to me. I took-over teaching gongfu in 1994 – a year after my teacher – Master Chan Tin Sang (1924-1993) passed away. We taught then in a small hall hidden at the back of Highfield Hall in Carshalton Road, Sutton. The main hall was set-up for high-end dancing and ballet – but a friend of a friend new the Caretaker who said that a smaller hall – which was usually used as a Badminton Court – was much cheaper because it was boiling hot in the Summer and freezing cold in the Winter (it had been a small swimming pool which had been filled-in and covered over). Virtually no one would rent it – so this was perfect for a toughened Hakka-Fist gongfa style. Initially, the Sunday morning classes ran from 10am-12pm (gongfu 10am-11am – Taijiquan 11am – 12pm) – with everyone sitting down for a cup of tea and biscuit for around 45 minutes afterwards. One-year was considered the right amount of time for public mourning (Confucius) of Master Chan Tin Sang – whilst the family carried-on privately mourning for two-more years (three in all).
These classes were for ethnic (Hakka) Chinese children (many of whom I taught English to in private education classes held elsewhere in Sutton). We also taught their older siblings (male and female), and their older relatives, such as mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, etc. This tradition stemmed directly from that as practiced in Banana Village, in the Sai Kung area of the New Territories, Hong Kong. Prior to Highfield Hall, (that is, before 1990), Master Chan taught in the large utility room next to his flat in a Council High-Rise in Sutton – usually late at night or early in the morning when no one else was using the place to wash and dry their clothes. Sometimes, we would practice forms outside on the concreted areas, or head to the nearby local parks. The non-Chinese people in these flats (the vast majority) were excellent human-beings and were always supportive and protective of this small Chinese grouping. There was NEVER any cultural friction and nobody took exception. In return, our heathen group gave out Christmas and Easter cards, respective Devali, and recognised Ramadan and any other important holidays – including the Sikh holidays.
Gongfu was viewed as a Chinese religious practice and given that level of respect. We practiced because it was all we culturally knew. We practiced as an expression of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. We practiced because Hakka history is strewn with pogroms aimed at us – and gongfu was a means to protect the group. We were happy in Sutton and just got on with being alive. Sutton had a different feel in those days, a feel that anyone could achieve anything. I had spent four-years in Hereford during the late 1980s – perfecting my education and following Master Chan’s advice of researching the Chinese-roots of Karate-Do – as he felt (quite rightly) that the West was hiding this reality to boost a fascist Japan over a China that had once been a military ally of the West. He had come to the UK in 1956 at the behest of Enoch Powell and Churchill’s Tory government – to clean toilets and sweep-floors – jobs which he quietly did for ten-years, until he earned enough money to bring his wife and two daughters to the UK in 1966. Yes – my Chinese relatives now live in the UK because they were law-abiding citizens of the British colony of Hong Kong.
They had a right to be here – as the British invasion of sovereign Chinese territory immediately inflicted upon them the status of “British Subject”. My Chinese family did not break the law in Hong Kong, never participated in any riots, and believed in law and order – unlike the new batch of Hong Kong criminals that now live amongst us and practice a cult-like Christianity. Of course, whilst benefitting from British Imperialism, my family still had to live under the colonial oppression of British rule. We had no choice. The passports issued to my relatives born in Hong Kong had the description “British Subject – Third-Class”. My Chinese relatives and friends born in the UK had on their passports “British Subject – Second-Class” – whereas White British born inside or outside the British Isles had on their passports “British Subject – First-Class”. This is where the idea of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class citizens come from within Sociology – although today these distinctions have been withdrawn. In the 1980s, the Thatcher Tory government took away every Chinese person’s British Citizenship born after a certain date – with about half of my family and many friends having to return to Hong Kong following the 1997 hand-back of Hong kong. The inner core of my family survived these “racist” British governmental purges.
I took-over the gongfu teaching role in Sutton during 1994, teaching a Chinese-only class on Sunday morning. Although my family has had links with China extending back hundreds of years – I look “White” – and so for people who do not know me, this can be a surreal experience, as I speak Hakka and Cantonese, can read Chinese script, and have been brought up within Chinese culture. It is odd – but perhaps I am something of an Anthropologist – like Captain Blith of the HMS Bounty who he reached the lovely people of Tahiti in 1789. Whatever the situation, when I was teaching one Sunday morning in 1994 in Highfield Hall, an old White man with grey hair and beard came in and sat quietly. I was surprised because this NEVER happened and I did not know what was going on. Anyway, I got talking to him (“Pat”) and he told me how Sutton used to be a Kyokushinkai Karate area – and how he and hundreds of others used to train in this tough style. He suggested opening the class to non-Chinese people – and as this fitted-in with Master Chan’s idea of modernising whilst maintaining the tradition – this is what we decided to do. Of course, it was never about money, which is just as well because we never made a penny.
RSS Feed