Lau Bun Stories

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
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Any there any more interesting stories or happenings regarding Lau Bun of Choy Lay Fat?

this one posted in the cts stories thread for example, made me interesed.

“For example, Lau Bun was an assassin for the hop sing tong and was known to carry throwing darts in his shirt pocket, butterfly knives in his waistband, or even a pair of double steel whips. one time-even with eye witnesses- lau bun killed a rat in the dark with one of his throwing darts and precisely hit its target killing the rat. there were eye witnesses, but try telling that story and instead of absorbing the information everyone says thats fantasy, or not real. Why? because they can’t say that about their own teachers.”

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How Lau Bun came to learn Choy Lee Fut

The one good thing about the Chan Tai San Stories is that Chan Tai San actually had some non chines students who could learn about his past prior to his passing.

I want to preface it by saying this, it’s well known that Lau Bun disassociated himself from anyone non chinese and many of his students felt the same way.
I completely understand where Dave Ross is coming from because because as a gwai lo i had the hardest time trying to dig up old Lau Bun Stories. Overtime, the walls eventually began to fall and some people opened up to me and threw me a couple of little tid bits.

I’m not going to lie, gathering information on Lau Bun was extremely hard to do. The moment you starts asking questions everyone clams up, tight!!! Because you’re not chinese they act like they don’t know whay you are talking about.

But I can only touch on some things here because im finishing up my book called "American Hung Sing Kwoon which is just a record of our history, photo’s and some techniques. So can lightly highlight some of what i’ve learned.

In a nutshell, Lau Bun originally began learning Hung ga. One day he was to meet with his friends in hong kong, and along the way he happened to get into a fight with two guys carrying poles. Somehow some words were exchanged and Lau Bun used his Hung Ga against the two and won. He was pretty happy and couldn’t wait to tell his friends about what happened.

When he finally met up with his friends he re-counted his ordeal. But one of his friends was a student of Master Yuen Hai -who was one of Jeong Yims most Senior Students if not one of the first. Lau Bun’s friend asked for a friendly match to see who’s better. Lau Bun agreed and quickly lost to Yuen Hai’s student.

Lau Bun was completely impressed with his friends skills and demanded to know who his teacher was. The friends said it didn’t matter because his sifu was retired some where in Canton and refused to so he can live the rest of life peacefully with his wife. However, Lau Bun was determined to locate Yuen Hai and beg to be accepted as a student.

Lau Bun devised a plan and once he located Yuen Hai he would offer to pay for his room and board if he would agree to teach him. Yuen Hai discussed it with his wife and to two agreed to the conditions. It was at this point that Lau Bun began learning the Fut San Hung Sing Choy Lee Fut as it was taught in the original Hung Sing Kwoon.

Yuen hai instilled the beliefs, core principals and such of the Hung Sing Kwoon within Lau Bun. Not only to kill, but yuen hai also taught him how to heal.

Lau Bun was the very last student of Yuen Hai and stayed with him until his teachers death. Shortly after the death of Yuen Hai, Lau Bun began learning the Um Ying Kuen from Yuen Hai’s wife who had never taught another person.

Some time after that Lau Bun made his way over to the United States in the early 1900’s.

Hsk

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America’s First Gung Fu Teacher

Lau Bun came over to the U.S. under the paper name of Wong On Low (I actually have his death Certificate) and settled in Los Angeles. Now i can’t be honest and say he was the “ONLY” gung fu master here at that time (pictures on the net show a guy with a que posing with butterfly knives during the 1800’s) but we can honestly say Lau bun was the only person “Teaching” gung fu in america at that time.

Back then there were only 3 chinatowns, SF, L.A. and New York and the chinese community was pretty close knit so word got around pretty quick. But Lau Bun opened the Wah Keung Kwoon (Strong Chinese School) in the early 1920’s, giving him the honor of being called America’s First Gung Fu Teacher.

After Lau bun there is question about who came next. The second gung fu teacher to follow was either Wong Ark Yuey (Los Angeles) or Shaolin Fut Ga master T.Y. Wong (San Francisco). Still, in San Francisco T.Y. Wong was the 2nd sifu to arrive and start teaching gung fu.

Then Sometime around 1931 Lau Bun came to San Francisco where he was hired as the Chief Gung Fu Instructor of the Hop Sing Tong on the west coast. In 1939 Lau Bun"officially re-opened the Wah Keung Kwoon and began teaching gung fu to the chinese community only. Not long after he changed the name of his school to the Hung Sing Kwoon to reflect the true lineage of this school.

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Frank cool stuff tell me more, oh yea I forgot to ask whou did your sifu train with?

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lineage

Frank I’m curious how your lineage tyes into my lineage, did any of you ancestors train at the Clear Cloud monestary AKA Green Cloud monestary?? I’ve also herd CTS talk about Lao bun. Just wondering if there was a connection.

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:slight_smile:

hskwarrior

great stuff.

thanks!

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Thanks folk-ers’ (folks)

Greed Cloud, I’m not sure about the connection between Chan Tai San and Lau Bun, mayber because they are from toi san they got into contact with each other. but in SF it was customary that ANY sifu who came there pay respect to Lau Bun first.

After Lau Bun passed, and Jew Leong took over, that very same tradition continued. The Lee Koon Hung made a point to meet with my Sigung (Jew Leong), and even so did Tat Mau Wong. That’s the whole reason why Tat Mau never opened in chinatown, my sigung had chinatown covered and asked him to open elsewhere.

I wish your sifu was around becaue i love hearing stories of Lau Bun. Last year at Tai Chi Legacy in Texas i got to meet sifu Dean Chin, and Henry Poo Yi who both still have some very cool memories, and the latter even travelled with Lau Bun around the u.s. I have to talk to him to pick his brain. Like i said, you try asking older chinese anything, and they clam the F up.

Green Cloud, my sifu learned from first a Lau Bun’s student Bing Chan who died a year after my sifu joined the Lup Mo gung fu studio. After that my sifu and a few other Lup Mo students transferred over to my sigung Jew Leong, who was one of Lau Bun’s more Senior students—outranks Doc Fai Wong by more than 20 years.

But i’m gonna try and attach a photo here of my sigung…

but if it doesn’t appear then please visit the website i created for him at

http://www.jewleong.zoomshare.com

this is the site i created for my sifu
http://jewleong.zoomshare.com

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here is another photo of my sigung who has never lifted weights in his life. all gung fu training baby! man for a person shorter than 5’4" he is pretty buffed.

check out the attachments.

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check out this attachment.

it has Professor Left to right: our late elder Roy Wong, Sigung Jew Leong, the late great Lee Koon Hung, and Mak Hin Fai, and the back row was Doc Fai and Phillip Au.

the caption read "the real master are the ones sitting down.

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sorry

oh well, they say the photo is too big to post here.

sorry. Just check out his website.

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Hop Sing Tong Connection

The early 1900’s for Chinese in America were pretty dangerous. Lau Bun was illegally here in the U.S. and one day he was being chased down by some Immigration cops and which led him to a bathroom on the second floor of a building. Fearing for his life Lau Bun he ended up taking their lives with his choy lee fut and escaped by jumping out of a 2nd story window. (there’s more to that story but thats for the book.:wink: )

Anyways, incident found the ears of the Hop Sing Tong in L.A. who hired him to become their Chief Gung Fu Instructor (pictures of him are still found in L.A. Hop Sing Tong). But in San Francisco’s and Oaklands Chinatown Tongs were at war with each other. Very very bloody fights, and even bloodier stories. For example based off one of the net sites…tong members began to chop and slice and dice someone right out in the open. but they did it super close and right behind this street vendor getting him hella bloody all over his back. the vendor never even turned around out of fear. and when someone told him he was all bloody on his back the vendor acted like he didn’t know what the person was talking about.

The Hop Sing Tong had groups of Assassins called “Boo How Doi’s–or Hachet men” who were used to either kill or protect certain chinatown dignataries. Lau bun was hired to teach Hung Sing Choy Lee Fut to the tong members. He himself was also hired as a boo how doi as well as to protect gambling houses and Opium dens.

When it came to Lau Bun, he only had one way to do his choy lee fut, and it was the most effective for him to “kill with it”. in those days he made sure his students understood that gung fu was like a gun, you never pull it out unless you planned to kill. so most of the time his students would totally ingore you when it came to gung fu as if they never heard you ask the question. Or say “i don’t know.”

There were a few killers within Lau Buns group, and one of them was being chased down by a big old sailor and Lau Buns student was only about 5’2" inches or so. anyways, lau buns student decided to kill this salior and allowed the sailor to catch up and lau buns student made it look like they collided but he thrust a finger into the sailors throat and they both fell to the floor. the police ruled it out as an accident.

hsk

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Wasn’t Lao Bun wanted by the police after he killed those imigration guys???

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TTT for the stories

I forget how Sifu Chan knew Lau Bun… other than they have similar lineage somewhere along the way… Sifu Chan studied with Chan Sai Hung, a Hung Sing teacher

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i’m sure they got to know each other somehow. but i’m sure they would have share something being that they both came from toi san.

Here is the link to the site i made for my sifu. hope you like it, some pictures i need to fix-mean reset, some are stretched out.

http://www.tienloong.zoomshare.com

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yeah, thats a big reason why people like ed parker ralph castro and wally jay kept him a secret so no attention would come his way. he was very protected in chinatown.

frank

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That’s pretty cool

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hskwarrior - nice websites and photos.

How can Lau Bun and Jew Leong be “professors”? You’re not talking about an honorary academic post at some University are you?

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Thank’s eveyone for any interest in Lau Bun, this is a good thing becaue it helps to keep his memory alive.

Now in TCMA you don’t really have too many titles…for example, sifu-sigung-Dai sigung etc. But these are usually used within your own school.

The term “Professor” when it comes to martial arts is equivalent to that of your highest level college or university professors. What makes them Professors? and what does it mean to be a professor as opposed to a normal everyday teacher? I think you can see where i’m going with this.

Traditional martial arts has NO and i mean NO ranking system. But if there was a ranking system it would look something like this…

student, teacher, grand master, great grand master or Professor. People like the late Lee Koon Hung, Jew Leong, Ralph Castro, Wally Jay, y.c. wong, Chan Tai San etc etc can be considered “Professors”. When it came to choy lee fut Lau Bun was one of the truest of masters. when it came to gung fu Lau Bun was head over heals above many martial artists.

But seriously. what title would you give to someone who has surpassed the grand master level? “professor”

this is the way i see it…

a sifu is a sifu until about 60 years old. by that time he should have students and grandstudents. after 60 and onwards and after someone who has literally spent their whole lives in martial arts, thats when they earn the right to be called “professor”. also its usually when someone has passed or is old enough to pass is when we refer to them as Professor’s because if there was some grading format then these masters would surely be given the title grand master or professor.

so in a nutshell, the term Professor is one of “TOTAL” respect for someone who has dedicated his whole life to martial arts.

if anyone is unclear let me know, i tried my best after just waking up to explain why we use that title. hopefully was clear minded enough. but will explain further.

before i end this post i will say that in TCMA their is no official testing to make someone a grand master, we usually refer to some one as a grandmaster usually because of his age and the time he put in, the same goes when you title someone Professor.

peace

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oops the post doubled up, sorry.

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Dave and Greencloud

I would love to hear what Chan Tai San had to say about Lau Bun. No matter what i love to hear about him, so you guys could also be contributing to this thread as well.