Hung Gar

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you re welcomed i am more on the other forum but i will try to give you short reply here:

Did Hung Gar really come from the Southern Shaolin temple and when we say 'the' Southern Shaolin temple which one are we talking about (I've read there were three)?

the oral history says Hung Kyun comes from the Southern Shaolin. which? (Fujian, Fuqing, Quanzhou), no clue. old text speak only of Fujian Shaolin or Nine Lotus Mountain Shaolin.

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Did Gee Sim really exist or was the story of the elders escaping Shaolin simply fabricated by anti-Qing rebels to add legitimacy to their style?

- well, i do not know, all we have is oral "history". might be like this or that. what we certainly know is that Jisin simsi is first time mentioned in a written sources in "Thousand Years of Ching", a novel from cca. 1893.

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Who was the historical Hung Hei Goon a tea merchant or an aristocrat and cousin of the Ming royalty?

- Hung Heigun is another story, he seems to be a real person, as a person with this name is mentioned in Fujian archives (as a rebel who killed some guy with a single strike), i have also read that his grave is still somewhere there. traditional oral story goes that he was a tea merchant, but one of his ancestors was 15. son of the last Ming emperor

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How many different branches of Hung Gar are there out there and how do the curriculums differ/compare? Assuming that Gung Gee fook fu kuen is the basis of Hung Gar where did the rest come from?

- many, and many different. for last couple of years i have been doing research in China (so far just in Guangdong), but even there asre many legitimate branches of what we call today Hung Kyun: fu hok Hung Kyun, saam jin Hung kyun, hubg syun Hung Kyun, Lau Taan Ho Hung Kyun, Dang ga Hung kyun... some (old) Hung Kyun branches are also in Fujian. (gung ji) fuk fu kyun is common only to some of them. curriculum differs a lot, but the core concepts are similar. (old) Hung Kyun is very close to all Fujian styles, especially White Crane (i belive it is one of the manin sources of todays Hung Kyun). no doubt that most dominant line in Gwongdung is Wong Feihung's or better say Lam Saiwing's Hung Kyun - i heard them from all of the Hung kyun masters in Southern China i have met, and i have met many of them.

summary: Lam Saiwing and his generation is very well recored. we have also some reliable written and oral sources about Wong Feihung. before Wong Feihung, nobody knows.

the question is: what is it really Hung Kyun? old sources speak just of "martial art" or Shaolin, just rarely of Hung Kyun. Wong Feihung's Hung Kyun is mix of various martial arts of Southern China.

hypothesis: Hung kyun is a generic term of martial art practiced by members of Chinese secret societies (Hung mun) in Guangdong and Fujian? the story about its origing is a typical foundational myth, same as in the case of the origin of Hung mun (Hong men, Tian di hui, San he hui... )?

btw. similar questions (especialyl about Southern Shaolin) bother the historians of so called Chinese secret societies - i recommend you to check them out, some very interesting info there

curently there is quite extensive research about the subjectin China, if you can read Chinese, i can recommend you some articles

also, check this (article written by brother of Sifu, not much details, but in my opinion really good one)

http://www.lghk.org/en/articles/martialstudies.htm