He ran one of the last studios in Kowloon, but soaring rents caused it to shut down, along with other family businesses that were once a fixture of Hong Kong street life, such as Dit Da, or bone-setting, shops that use traditional Chinese medicine to treat sprains and fractures. So’s master, Mak Che Kong, 64, is less hopeful about the future. “It feels like if you knew kung fu, you could beat the bad guys and help the needy.” “Kung fu always gave me a sense of justice and pride in being Chinese,” So said while stretching his legs for a Sunday night lesson at Kowloon Park. When he was a boy, he and his friends would run home from school as fast as they could to watch kung fu shows on television.
So Tak Chung, 59, remembers how different things were. “But I rarely see such competition for kung fu, which makes me wonder whether those kung fu masters really are good at fighting or they just claim to be,” she said.
WATCH KUNG FU FIGHTER PROFESSIONAL
“You can see how fierce Thai boxing is from watching professional matches,” she said. She noted that kung fu masters often do not have defined muscles and that some of them look, well, a little chubby. Valerie Ng, a 20-year-old college student, says she prefers Thai boxing because it is “attractive and charming” and does not take as long to master. When they do train in martial arts, younger people here tend to pick Thai boxing and judo. He added, “Kung fu is more for retired uncles and grandpas.” Choi, 22, said that “kung fu just never came to mind”. Though he lives in Yau Ma Tei, Tony Choi, a recent college graduate, has never been tempted to check out the remaining schools. Nathan Road - where the young Bruce Lee learnt his craft from Ip Man (often spelt Yip Man), the legendary teacher who was the subject of Wong Kar-wai’s 2013 film “The Grandmaster” - is now lined with cosmetic shops and pharmacies that cater to tourists from the mainland. “Sadly, I think Chinese martial arts are more popular overseas than in their home now.”Īccording to Leung’s organisation, the International WingTsun Association, former apprentices have opened 4,000 branches in more than 65 countries, but only five in Hong Kong.įew kung fu schools remain in Yau Ma Tei, a district of Kowloon that was once the centre for martial arts. “When I was growing up so many people learned kung fu, but that’s no longer the case,” said Leung Ting, 69, who has been teaching wing chun, a close-combat technique, for 50 years. With a shift in martial arts preferences, the rise of video games - more teenagers play Pokémon Go in parks here than practise a roundhouse kick - and a perception among young people that kung fu just isn’t cool, longtime martial artists worry that kung fu’s future is bleak. “After work, people would go to martial arts schools, where they’d cook dinner together and practise kung fu until 11 at night.”
Gone are the days when “kung fu was a big part of people’s cultural and leisure life”, said Mak King Sang Ricardo, the author of a history of martial arts in Hong Kong. And its real estate is among the world’s most expensive, making it difficult for training studios to afford soaring rents. Hong Kong’s streets are safer, with fewer murders by the fierce crime organisations known as triads that figured in so many kung fu films. The kung fu culture that Lee helped popularise - and that gave the city a gritty, exotic image in the eyes of foreigners - is in decline. After perfecting moves such as his 1-inch punch and leaping kick under the tutelage of a grand master, he became an international star, introducing kung fu to the world in films such as “Enter the Dragon” in 1973. It was 1955, and Hong Kong was bustling with schools teaching a range of kung fu styles, including close-combat techniques and a method using a daunting weapon known as the nine-dragon trident. Bruce Lee was 14 years old, and on the losing end of several street fights with local gang members, when he took up kung fu.