Ten Tigers No. 4: Wong Kei-ying (黄麒英), Wong Fei-hung's Father, and the Truth About the "Shadowless Kick"

Wong Kei-ying (黄麒英) is read Huang Qiying in Mandarin. Some Chinese websites miswrite the name as 黄麟英, which is worth watching for when you search. On the most widely used list of the Ten Tigers of Canton, Wong Kei-ying is number 4, and he usually comes with the Shadowless Kick nickname attached.

Interestingly, the oldest list that can be traced, in the preface to a novel by the Hong Kong writer with the pen name 我是山人, has both Wong Kei-ying and Wong Fei-hung on the same list, with Wong Fei-hung in place of Chau Tai. The list most used today has only Wong Kei-ying. I explain the different versions of the list in the main article, Who Were the Ten Tigers of Canton?

More importantly, a Chinese columnist who has studied the subject concludes that when the book《广东武术史》(History of Guangdong Martial Arts), compiled in the 1980s, set aside the invented characters, Wong Kei-ying was still one of the few counted as real people, along with Luk Ah-choi, Wong Fei-hung and Lam Sai-wing in the Hung Kuen line. I cite this through a secondary article, because I have not yet seen the book itself.

Chinese sources agree that Wong Kei-ying came from Xiqiao (西樵) in Nanhai County (南海). The Foshan Museum states that the Wong family's ancestral home was Luzhou village (禄舟村) at the foot of Mount Xiqiao. This needs to be kept distinct: it is the family's ancestral home, not a birthplace. The museum writes that Wong Fei-hung was born in the town of Foshan itself, and for Wong Kei-ying no source says for certain where he was born.

Under the Qing, Nanhai County covered both the western part of Guangzhou and the market town of Foshan. Today Xiqiao is in Nanhai District, Foshan. That is why sources can call him a Xiqiao man, a Nanhai man or a Foshan man without contradicting each other.

On his year of birth, Chinese Wikipedia gives 1810, without a reference, while English Wikipedia gives around 1815, tagged as needing a citation. All I can write, then, is that his year of birth is not known for certain. His year of death is different, with good evidence: on its page about Wong Fei-hung's family, the Foshan Museum writes that his father, Wong Kei-ying, died of illness in 1886.

The story Chinese websites use most often is that the young Wong Kei-ying was poor and had to perform martial arts in the streets to make a living. One day he performed in the square in front of the general's headquarters, and Luk Ah-choi (陆阿采), a Hung Kuen teacher who was passing by, saw his potential, took him on as a student and taught him for ten years.

I treat this as legend, because every website uses the same wording, copied from one to the next, and I have yet to find a contemporary document. What is better evidenced is the street performing and selling of medicine, which the Foshan Museum mentions in its Wong Fei-hung biography: at 12, Wong Fei-hung went with his father to perform martial arts and sell medicine.

There are two other versions worth knowing. English Wikipedia says Wong Kei-ying learned martial arts from his own father, who in turn had learned from Luk Ah-choi; that rests on a single source. And the picture of a young Wong Kei-ying training in secret because his father forbade it comes from the 2006 TV series《南龙北凤》, not from history.

Luk Ah-choi himself belongs to the layer of legend too. The stories tie him to Hung Hei-gun (洪熙官) in the Southern Shaolin legend cycle. If you want to know how the Southern Shaolin legends differ from history, read Southern Fist, Northern Kick: Shaolin Split Into Two Lineages.

The same set of stories goes on to say that Wong Kei-ying became a martial arts instructor to the troops under the general stationed in Guangdong, but was paid only 3 taels 6 mace (三两六钱), not enough to support his family, so he opened a fresh-herb shop to add to his income. The same text says the shop was on Jingyuan Street (靖远街) in the western part of Guangzhou.

I treat this as single-source, because every version uses the same passage of classical Chinese, even a biography page on a local government website, and the original has not been found. The "general" in the story probably means the Eight Banners general the Qing court stationed in Guangzhou, but I have not found a document confirming the exact title, so I do not render it as anyone's name. Nor do I compare this pay with the cost of living, since there are no sourced figures to compare it with.

On online lists of the Ten Tigers, Wong Kei-ying usually carries the nickname Shadowless Kick (无影脚). But when I traced it back, I found no lineage source saying Wong Kei-ying invented the technique. Some list websites even put the names of father and son together beside this nickname, which suggests the nickname attached itself to him through Wong Fei-hung's fame in film.

The oldest account: Wong Fei-hung got it in an exchange

An article by 徐帆 (Xu Fan), excerpted from the book《技击百年》, summarises the writing of 朱愚斋 (Zhu Yuzhai), a student in Lam Sai-wing's line, as saying that Wong Fei-hung got the Shadowless Kick by exchanging techniques with a kung fu teacher named Sung Fai-tong (宋辉镗). Wong Fei-hung taught Sung tiger fist and the Iron Wire Fist, and Sung taught Wong the Shadowless Kick. This is still a story, but it is the oldest account I have found, and Wong Kei-ying does not appear in it at all.

Hung Kuen teachers explain it as a high feint and a low kick

The same article says that Hung Kuen teachers in Lam Sai-wing's line explain the Shadowless Kick not as a mysterious technique but as a hand feint at upper level followed by a sudden low kick, so that the opponent cannot see where the foot came from. It is one of a set of techniques in the Wong Fei-hung line of Hung Kuen, not a series of flying kicks.

The flying kicks come from film

As for the picture of the "Foshan Shadowless Kick" as a string of flying kicks, a Chinese article says plainly that the credit belongs to director Tsui Hark (徐克) and his Wong Fei-hung films of the 1990s. The film that ties the Shadowless Kick directly to Wong Kei-ying is HBO Asia's 2016 TV film 《擎天无影脚黄麒英》(Master of the Shadowless Kick: Wong Kei-ying), which is fiction.

In short, the Shadowless Kick is a nickname that websites and films have given to Wong Kei-ying, not a technique he is recorded as having invented. If you are interested in how Hung Kuen really uses the hands and fingers, read Hung Kuen finger techniques.

Wong Kei-ying's life cannot be separated from that of his son, Wong Fei-hung (黄飞鸿), and the son is far better documented than the father. The most reliable source is the "佛山黄飞鸿" website made by the Foshan Museum, which can now be read through the Wayback Machine archive.

His real name, and birth years that conflict

The Foshan Museum records that Wong Fei-hung's original name was 黄锡祥 and his courtesy name 达云. His year of birth comes in two versions.

So I write that he was born in 1847, and note that some sources, including the Foshan Museum itself, say 1856. The birth date "9 July 1847" seen on English Wikipedia and Thai Wikipedia comes from entering the lunar-calendar date (the 9th day of the 7th month) as a Gregorian date, which is wrong.

Childhood with his father, and the Iron Wire Fist from a student of Iron Bridge Three

The Foshan Museum sets out the early years clearly. Wong Fei-hung began learning martial arts from his father at six, went with him to perform and sell medicine at 12, and at 13 met Lam Fook-sing (林福成), a student of Iron Bridge Three, who taught him the Iron Wire Fist (铁线拳) and a swinging-weight weapon. This line makes Wong Fei-hung a grand-student of Leung Kwan, or Iron Bridge Three, the tenth tiger, and it is the best-documented link between members of the Ten Tigers.

At 16 Wong Fei-hung opened his own kung fu school in the Xiguan district of Guangzhou, and most of his students were metalworkers and street hawkers, according to the Foshan Museum's records.

Po Chi Lam: the son's shop, not the father's

Po Chi Lam (宝芝林) is the medicine shop and bonesetting clinic people know from the films. The Foshan Museum records that it was Wong Fei-hung who opened it, on Ren'an Street (仁安街) in Guangzhou, after his father died in 1886. Yet both the Chinese and English Wikipedia say Wong Kei-ying opened it. I give more weight to the museum, because it is an institutional source and its chronology fits.

Today the name Po Chi Lam is used as a brand by several medicine makers and shops, none of which is a direct continuation of the original shop.

Liu Yongfu and the Black Flag Army: what is evidenced, and what is still doubtful

Chinese Wikipedia says that in 1888 Wong Fei-hung treated the leg of Liu Yongfu (刘永福), leader of the Black Flag Army, and then became an army doctor and instructor in Liu's forces. This comes from a secondary source, but it fits the timeline, because Liu Yongfu received a military post in Guangdong after the Sino-French War of 1884–1885. As for the story that Wong Fei-hung followed Liu to fight the Japanese in Taiwan in 1895, Chinese Wikipedia itself says it is suspected to be a later embellishment, so I do not write it as history.

A murdered son, the 1924 fire and his last years

The Foshan Museum records that Wong Fei-hung had four wives, the last being Mok Gwai-lan (莫桂兰), and that in 1919 his son Wong Hon-sam (黄汉森) was assassinated in Wuzhou. The character "Aunt Thirteen" in the films is fictional, not a real wife.

In 1924 a great fire swept the Xiguan district while the Guangzhou government was suppressing the Merchants' Corps, and Po Chi Lam burned to the ground. Wong Fei-hung fell ill and died in a hospital in Guangzhou on 17 April 1925, according to the Foshan Museum's records. Sources that say he died in 1924 confuse the year the shop burned with the year of his death.

The students who took Hung Kuen around the world

Wong Fei-hung's most important student was Lam Sai-wing (林世荣). A Foshan Museum article records that Lam Sai-wing moved to Hong Kong and published several Hung Kuen manuals, and that most of the Hung Kuen that has spread around the world today belongs to the line of Wong Fei-hung and Lam Sai-wing. Today the Wong Fei-hung line of Hung Kuen is on Guangdong Province's list of intangible cultural heritage. As for Leung Foon (梁宽), the student people know from the films, only his name appears in the list of students; the personality seen on screen belongs to the films.

As far as my searching goes, there is no photograph of Wong Kei-ying at all. Two photographs are claimed to show Wong Fei-hung, and neither has been proven.

• The photograph used by the Foshan Museum. Its provenance story says Mok Gwai-lan gave it in 1976, but Mok Gwai-lan's adopted son and a nephew of Lam Sai-wing say it shows one of Wong Fei-hung's sons. The museum cites the result of an image comparison saying they are different people. The dispute is not over.
• The photograph inscribed on the back "黄飞鸿像 邝祺添". Staff of the Guangzhou Museum found it in Hong Kong in 2005. The photograph is on Wikimedia Commons, which itself captions it as an "alleged photo".

So the paintings or photos of actors labelled as Wong Kei-ying on websites are not pictures of him.

Wong Fei-hung is probably one of the real people most often brought to the screen. There are more than a hundred films and series about him. Kwan Tak-hing (关德兴) played Wong Fei-hung in more than 70 films from the 1940s to the 1980s, the Hong Kong Film Archive held a retrospective of Wong Fei-hung films in 2012, and Guinness World Records lists the Wong Fei-hung films as the longest-running film series.

In Thailand, the films people remember best are director Tsui Hark's series of the 1990s. The first, from 1991, was released in Thailand as Huang Fei Hong Phak 1 Ton Mat Bin Thalu Lek ("Wong Fei-hung Part 1: The Flying Fist That Pierces Steel"), and the second as Huang Fei Hong Phak 2 Ton Thalom Man Yutthachak ("Wong Fei-hung Part 2: Crushing the Demons of the Martial World"). For Wong Kei-ying himself on screen, the notable titles are 《少年黄飞鸿之铁马骝》(Iron Monkey), 1993, in which Wong Kei-ying travels with the young Wong Fei-hung, a fictional story, and the 2016 film that puts Wong Kei-ying's name directly in its title.

If you go to Foshan today, you can see traces of father and son in two places. The first is the Wong Fei-hung Memorial Hall (黄飞鸿纪念馆) in the grounds of the Foshan Ancestral Temple (佛山祖庙), which was added to the temple grounds in 2001. The building is in the style of a Cantonese house with wok-ear gables.

The second is the Wong Fei-hung Lion Dance and Martial Arts Hall (黄飞鸿狮艺武术馆) in Luzhou village at the foot of Mount Xiqiao, built on the original site of the Wong family ancestral hall. Inside are rooms on Wong Fei-hung's life and a Kwan Tak-hing memorial hall, and there are scheduled lion dance and kung fu shows. The tourist signs there call Luzhou Wong Fei-hung's birthplace, which differs from the Foshan Museum, which identifies it as the family's ancestral home.

• "Wong Kei-ying was born in 1810." No reference supports this yet. What can be confirmed is his year of death, 1886.
• "Wong Kei-ying opened Po Chi Lam." The Foshan Museum records that Wong Fei-hung opened it after his father's death.
• "Wong Kei-ying was an instructor to the Black Flag Army." This confuses father and son. The one connected with Liu Yongfu was Wong Fei-hung.
• "Wong Kei-ying invented the Shadowless Kick." The oldest account says Wong Fei-hung got it in an exchange with Sung Fai-tong.
• "Wong Fei-hung was born on 9 July 1847." That is a lunar-calendar date wrongly entered as a Gregorian date.
• "Wong Fei-hung died in 1924." 1924 is the year the shop burned. He died in April 1925.
• "This photo is definitely Wong Fei-hung." Neither photograph has been proven.
• "Aunt Thirteen was Wong Fei-hung's wife." She is a film character.
• Writing Wong Kei-ying's name as 黄麟英. The correct name is 黄麒英.
• "Luzhou is Wong Fei-hung's birthplace." The museum identifies it as the family's ancestral home. Wong Fei-hung was born in the town of Foshan.

1. Does Zhu Yuzhai's original writing record the army instructor's pay and the shop on Jingyuan Street exactly as the websites claim?
2. Was Wong Fei-hung born in 1847 or 1856, and why do institutional sources give different years?
3. Does the general's post in the story match the post of General of Guangzhou under the Qing court?
4. Has the image comparison the museum refers to ever been published?
5. Did Wong Fei-hung really go to Taiwan with Liu Yongfu in 1895?

If you have old books or information that can answer these questions, please let me know and I will add it to the article.

The line of Wong Kei-ying and Wong Fei-hung is Hung Kuen, a southern Chinese style built on low stances, bridging arms and power generated from the whole body. IMAC Dojo does not teach Hung Kuen, but we have a Wing Chun Sambo course, rooted in Wing Chun, another southern Chinese style that also came out of Foshan. If you want to know how many southern Chinese styles there are and how they differ, read How Many Southern Chinese Kung Fu Styles Are There? or Why Cantonese Boxing Stands Low and Rarely Kicks High.

The next episode in this series is Episode 5: Chau Tai, the one before it is Episode 3: So Hak-fu, and you can read the full list of all ten at Who Were the Ten Tigers of Canton?