What's the oldest photo of WCK you've seen?

[Kuen]

Just curious if anyone has seen any really old photos of someone doing Wing Chun other than the Yip Man, YKS, Sum Nung photos you more commonly see.

[reneritchie]

The Vietnamese have some old photos of Yuen Chai-Wan playing the wooden dummy. I think the Fung's and the Chu's probably have some old photos of Gulao and Pao Fa Lien, respectively.

Rgds,

RR

[Kuen]

that's cool.

I've heard that there is supposedly an old photo of a guy playing the jong on an opera junk. Maybe it's from one of Leung Ting's books I don't know.

[S.Teebas]

Does anyone know if there are any photos of Leung Jan?

[Kuen]

I don't think there are but I'd love to see what he looked like.

[Jeff Liboiron]

I have the book in which Yip Man demonstrates all the dummy movements, so those are the oldest photos i've seen. It's an excellent book to.

[reneritchie]

"The guy playing the wooden dummy on the boat", I think is the one up in Foshan (some people have taken pictures of it, or spoken/written about it). They claim its the oldest picture of WCK. However, it's my understanding it's actually a still from an old Hung Ga Kung-Fu movie (I forget which one but should have the name somewhere around here).

Unfortunately, pop culture is not always kept separate from historical work in China (where people with no connection to Bruce Lee dress up in yellow track suits and teach "Jeet Kune Do", Wushu athletes tour as monks, old Mo Hop/Wu Xia novels are treated as factual documents, etc... wait... sounds like here too! ;)

Rgds,

RR

[Roy D. Anthony]

Hi Rene, actually I have seen the pic and have a copy of it myself. I wouldn't agree that it was taken on a movie set because it doesn't look like it. However I may be wrong. But I must say that the dummy is not really a dummy. it is more like the Mast of the Red Boat. I'm sure you can see it on the museum website.
I have heard of an old pic existing of Leung Yee Tai. Anyone have any ideas where that might be?

[reneritchie]

Hi Roy,

I'll try to find the notes on that, along with the movie title. A lot of the old movie stills aren't/weren't in the best of condition (and didn't have great production values to begin with), so their appearance can be remarkably *aged*.

If we look at even the 1950ish photos of WCK people around (Yiu Choi, Yuen Kay-San, Cheung Bo, etc.) the quality is not great, far from what you'd see in the West. Going back even further, the quality/technology in Foshan was probably worse still. The Red Junk's of the WCK ancestors were destroyed in 1850s following the defeat of the Red Turban rebellion, so any real WCK ancestor practicing on a mast-dummy would have to predate that (unless it is of one of the Gulao WCK people who went back to the junks in the early 1900s, like Yeung Fook, but even then, the quality of an actual photo from that time, nevermind the 1850s, would in all likelyhood be ghastly).

I've heard of photos of Leung Jan and Leung Yee-Tai, but invariably when I've tried to track them down, they've been from Prodigal Son or Warrior's Two 8(

BTW- Nice to see you on the forum again!

Rgds,

RR

[Dave Farmer]

You Mean prodigal son is only a movie??

I thought it was a fly on the wall documentary!!!!!!!!!!!!

My belief is shattered ;) ;) ;) ;)

Regards

Dave F

[Roy D. Anthony]

Thank you for the warm welcome Rene. In Montreal, I was hoping you would stay longer, in order to talk further , where did you go?

Rene your response is informative. My point was that from the looks of the pic, it didn't even seem like a movie set.my reasoning for that was that what the players are using is the mast of a boat. a movie set would probably have used a Dummy.
It would be interesting to note when a camera was invented and how early was it used.
The Leung Yee Tai pic actually existed and not from the movie at all. but from what I understand it went missing.Anyone with any clues?

[reneritchie]

Hi Roy,

It was great to meet you at Bernard sifu's tournament. Unfortunately, it was the day of my step-mother's birthday and the day before my little brother's birthday, so I had to leave with time enough to stop by the flower shop and Toys R Us 8).

The mast dummy, I don't think, was that unique in terms of the Southern Wuxia tradition. There are stories of costal fishermen using them, and Hung Ga folks training on boats (the most famous is probably the one about the boat cabins being so short it forced all the students to keep their square horses for fear of knocking their heads on the roof). The Red Junks were known to have White Crane (Lee Man-Mao, the leader of the Precious Jade Flower Union during the time of Wong Wah-Bo, Leung Yee-Tai, Dai Fa Min Kam, et. al was a White Crane boxer), Hung fist, Hakka (the Taiping movement spread first among the Hakka), and perhaps Sichuan and other fists (the migration pattern of the High Qing saw young men, including boxers, move from Fujian, through Guangdong, Guangxi, and into Sichuan and back).

I'll try and see if I can find anything on the Leung Yee-Tai picture. If it's for real and can somehow be tracked down, it would be amazing!

BTW- Dave, yes Prodigal Son was a movie, and Star Wars was not filmed on location ;)

Rgds,

RR

[FIRE HAWK]

I was reading Wong Kiew Kitts questions and answers section on his website back in 2000 and he mentioned that he had pictures of Leung Jan from some old magazine ? I wrote to him to see if he would put the pictures up on his website but with on luck .

[Kuen]

any chance you could scan that picture in and post it for those of us who'd like to see it? It sounds pretty cool.

Thanks

[Roy D. Anthony]

Kuen are you referring to the one on the boat?

[Kuen]

yes, I'd love to see that.

[Roy D. Anthony]

Kuen, I believe that you can find it on the Ving Tsun Museum site. If not let me know.

[Kuen]

So far I've had no luck finding it on the Museums site but I'll keep looking. Thanks!

[Roy D. Anthony]

Let me know. one of my students has it on his digital camera, and gave me a copy. So I bet I can get a copy for you.