Chiu Chi Ling in Oakland Chinatown
Just wanted to give Chiu Sifu congratulations on giving a very good talk and demonstration at the Oakland Chinatown New Year's Streetfest. He did a segment on stage for Sing Tao Daily and was informative and entertaining.
I had no idea he would be there and just happen to run into him. He was definitely the local star. People were constantly coming up to him to say hi and ask for photos. Chiu Sifu was very gracious and gave time to all his fans.
I missed the early part of his talk while I was corraling my kids but the part I saw had him picking volunteers from the audience and explaining how chinese kung fu would respond to different self-defense situations; from pick-pocketing to full on attacks. He had a good mix of real applications and comedic timing. The crowd loved it. While probably lost on most people watching, I especially enjoyed seeing solid Hung Gar tactics being displayed. Parts from tiger crane and some definte flavor of Chiu style hung gar.
Funny you should mention that...
I asked Master Chiu if he had a list of his filmography. He said he did, but I'm nost certain he understood my question. His IMDB filmography is severely lacking. He was telling us of some very old films he did, but most of that stuff has yet to be documented on resources like IMDB. I suppose there's more on HKMDB, but they killed their golden-egg goose by making it membership only. That's no way to work the web. Anyway, I'd love to see his complete filmography. He was telling me about how he had to work under different names because he used to run the border of HK and PRC, which was illegal back then. That would make for a messy filmography, but most HK stars are no stranger to messy filmographies...