Hun Ga History: Me and Master Chan Hon Chung, Alberto Biraghi. 13 page

2. From the early 2000 on, with the diffusion on the Internet, when googling “Chan Hon
Chung” some information started to surface.
So from time to time I searched the web to find information and pictures on a past that is one
of the most important parts of my life. During one of those searches I retrieved the scan
of a magazine with a picture of me with master Chan Hon Chung, taken in Hong Kong in
1977. It had been published in a NaamKyun.com forum whose members, surprised that master
Chan had unknown European students in those years, wondered who those people were.
I logged in and wrote: “hi, I am the guy in the picture, student of master Chan from 1977 on”.
People were surprised and pleased that I accepted the invitation to tell my Hong Kong
experience with master Chan. That story, edited and cleaned, is the content of this book.
I spent at least one month per year in Hong Kong for more than one and an half decades, from
1977 to mid eighties in Hon Chung Gymnasium, then (after the sale of the 729 Nathan Road
building and Sifu’s sickness) in Cheung Yee Keung’s Gymnasium, today in Prince Edward Road.
I hope this story can help keep alive the memory of one of the greatest modern masters of the
Hung style and of an outstanding group of people, the Hon Chung Gymnasium Student Union,
a real family, a solar system kept together by mutual love and respect, spinning around
a human sun: Master Chan.
Foreword

3. I had never been involved in the Gung Fu
community neither did I know the Western
Hung Kyun world before 1974.
I dropped into the Hong Chung Gymnasium by
pure chance, thanks to my interest for martial
arts. I started learning Shotokan karate in 1972,
when I was 19 years old, but after five years of
katas and competitions I lost my motivation. I
was pretty good at it, but I didn’t find any inter-
est in karate, apart from the competition.
But during my frequent flights to the States, where
part of my family lives, I had got in touch with Chi-
nese martial arts, mostly through American maga-
zines. So when I discovered that my girlfriend had
a Chinese classmate, Benjamin Fung, I asked him
if he knew Gung Fu. He replied that not only he
knew Gung Fu, but that he was a student of “the
greatest master of Hong Kong”.
I knew nothing about the Hung style, there were
no sources of information in Europe, but I liked his attitude when he introduced me to the
story of the Hung style. Then he started teaching me the basic positions, some movements,
eventually the Mui Fa Kyun.
It was 1976 and in a few months I learned whatever Benjamin knew, which was not much (in
fact the good one in his family was the older brother, Fung Kyu, one of the best students of the
late Chan Hon Chung, winner of the South East Asian tournament in the early 70’s), but enough
to open my eyes on a fascinating world. So in spring of 1977 I decided that I had to visit this
“greatest master” Chan Hon Chung.
At the time I was a student, money were scarce, so I worked in a flower shop until the end
of July to raise the amount that I needed to buy the cheapest flight (Thai international via
Roma, Bahrein, Bangkok) and the cheapest “hotel” (well, it wasn’t a real hotel, the Chung King
Mansion, a cheap and dirty place in Tsim Sha Tsui, that is still there as a last heritage of the
“pre-mass-transit” Kowloon). My girlfriend and a friend of mine came with me, with the program
of visiting Hong Kong and surroundings while I was “wasting time with Gung Fu” (their words).
A minute after dropping the luggage in my not-too-clean room I was out of the Mansion,
pressed between millions of Chinese people on bus 6A, with Benjamin Fung, directed to the
to Mong Kok Road - Nathan Road crossroads stop, just a few meters from 729 of Nathan Road,
the address of the Hon Chung Gymnasium.
The Beginning

4. First Time in Hon Chung Gym
Learning the Hung style was
not easy in 1977, especially if
you were Italian.
I knew nothing about Gung
Fu apart from what I saw in
a few movies, neither did
I know about Chinese cul-
ture in this miserable con-
dition I entered a temple of
knowledge and tradition and
to make it worse, Benjamin
Fung introduced me as “an
Italian karate expert who
wants to check out Chinese
Gung Fu”. As you can under-
stand the first welcome was
kind of cold and suspicious (I didn’t realize it immediately, I was told a month later
by the students, after friendship had been established, that no presentation could
have been worse in that community).
The first day (a Sunday) was frightening: Sifu Chan welcomed me with a smile,
then, once understood that I wanted to learn Gung Fu, he put me in front of the
wall with my feet together, knees slightly bent, arms wide at 45 degrees and asked
me to kick at low level, one leg after the other one, slowly. Then went away. Around
me I heard people training the forms, kicking the bag, punching the dummy, using
the weapons, but I had to stay in front of the wall doing the damned kick. One hour
later (it was August with 40 degrees, 95% of humidity and the back of the aircon
system blowing hot air in the gym) I was as wet as after a shower. Eventually Chan
Sifu appeared from his office, came to me, looked for a while, smiled, put two fin-
gers on my waist and pushed me down a little, showing me to go on, but in a lower
stance. Awesome!
An hour later I was ready to collapse when he appeared again, put me in Ji Ng Ma,
told me to slap the front knee with the opposite hand, then start rotating the arm
backwards: ten turns then change the position with a 180 degrees waist turn and
start again with the other arm. This went on for one more hour, then Sifu came back
in, told me to stop, showed me the toilet where I could wash some sweat away and
pushed me out to the nearest tea house, where I was introduced to the first cup of
Pu Erh tea (Pou Lei in Cantonese) of my life. I never quit Po Lei and Chinese tea is
still a basic part of my day.

6. There’s No Gung Fu
without Dim Sum
The tea house, with its smells, its noise, its screaming ladies (“Cha Siu Paau.... Cheung
Faan....”) is significant part of my Chinese story, the place were the friendship with my
Chinese friends have been created.
I started to love Chinese food and I am still fond of Dim Sum and from time to time fly to Lon-
don where I can have the only decent Chinese food without reaching Hong Kong.
Master Chan was never alone at the tea house, at least two or three students followed him,
opening the doors, ordering his Sau Mei tea (eventually he switched to plain warm water)
and his food. I was given Pou Lei (because it’s the Gung Fu tea and Sau Mei “is tea for the old
Chinese”, I was told) and I liked so much that I have kept on drinking it on a daily basis ever
since.
I have a clear memory of that first meal with the soon-to-be-brothers Cheung Yee Keung, Seto
Wing (who become one of my best friends), Hui Wing, “Kerry” Kong Pui Wai, and Lee Yun Fook
(“Fook Chai”), whom I eventually nicknamed “Mr. Lion” for his great lion dance (I see on the
web that that nickname is still alive, I am proud of it) and the young and pretty June Lau (to-
day si-mou in Fook Tong). This crowd of senior students were trying to make me feel comfort-
able in spite of the karate thing. Hospitality is part of Chinese culture and tradition.
That night, back to the Chung King Mansion with sore legs after the first training session and
hours of walking with my nose in the air for a first impression of Hong Kong, I crashed on the
bed without even taking off my clothes, with the alarm set at 6 am.

7. The Second Day: Mui Fa Kyun
The next morning getting out of
bed was pure torture.
My legs hurt, I had no energy, I was
still jet-lagged and the adrenaline
of the first day was gone. I only
felt fatigue, heat and humidity. But
I forced myself to the bathroom
(where a huge, red cockroach was
crawling over my toothbrush, those
nasty fellows appeared wherever
the air cond wasn’t on) and got out
on the Nathan Road at 6.30, through
the hall of Chung King Mansion, en-
countering a pungent smell of curry
(I realized that the building hosted an Indian community and a basement labyrinth of stores
and small companies, a town by itself under the ground level) to reach the bus stop.
Getting the bus (1, 1A, 6 or 6A were OK, all of them went North on the Nathan Road to Mong
Kok) was the first… Gung Fu experience, with millions of Chinese men and women pushing to
get on, pressing themselves like anchovies in a can, with bags of every kind of stuff, includ-
ing live chickens and goats. Fortunately, I realized that in spite of the recent shower, they
smelled my western odor (in those years western people were not common in Hong Kong
outside Tsim Sha Tsui and Victoria) and retreated a little, probably finding me disgusting, so
after a while I had some vital space around me.
The temperature was around 38 degrees, increasing minute after minute, and the humidity
was always above 90%. My legs were so weak and my pressure was below a reason able “low”
that I saw the lights in my eyes and was always on the risk of collapsing.
When I reached my stop, getting out of the red double decker bus was a joy, but I didn’t im-
mediately recognis the gym: the metal rolling door was closed and nobody was around. But
I found it and entered the door, walking straight to Sifu’s office door and seeing him reading
at his table, behind a glass door, the only human being in the place at that time of the day.
I raised my hand to greet him and turned right to the gym, took off my shirt, stood in front
of the wall and started kicking and spinning my arms as master Chan had told me the previ-
ous day.
It was the right thing to do, because 15 minutes later master Chan opened the door that
connected his office with the gym, took my arm, pulled me in the center of the room right
behind the Gwaan Gung worship image and told me “Da Mui Fa Kyun!” (he knew what Ben-
jamin had taught me the first form in Italy, I learned that day that in the “Chinese 23
gymnasium galaxy” the Master knows everything).
I performed the form, excited and ashamed (the previous day I had seen many differences
between what I had learned from Benjamin and the real thing). Then Sifu Chan came to my
side, assumed the opening standing stance and started with the salute, making me under-
stand that I had to imitate him. Feeling the energy coming from that old man was the very
first of a long series of awesome, unbelievable emotions that I would have felt in that mystic
place, for many years to come.

8. 10
Training with Master Chan
Side by Side
We worked together on the salute and on the first 3-4 moves of Mui Fa Kyun (for the re-
cord: from the beginning to the first tiger) for maybe 45 minutes.
In the meanwhile people had started so show up in the place. The first was Cheung
Yee Keung, who lived there, appearing from the stairs that came from upstairs. I later
learned that from 5 to 7 he had cleaned the place, trained, taken a shower and now was
ready to spend some time before work (he was employed in a jeans shop in Mong Kok
road, close to the gym, seven days a week, from 10 am to 10 pm) with the students.
Other people appeared (the gym was a small village, where Sifu Chan was the king, with
many people living there and doing different things). There were the tailors, the travel
agency employees, the man who sold pens and ties on the entrance, other people living
upstairs and working somewhere else. My beloved brother Hui Wing, whom I nicknamed
“Mr. Fireman” because he had a business selling extinguishers, and passed away in 2011,
woke up at 5 AM too, cleaned Sifu’s office and prepared the medicine and the herbal
wine used for the massages.
When the first patients started appearing in the waiting room, Sifu Chan pointed at the
wooden board, showing me how to punch it, then went back to work. After a zillion
punches, with sore and painful knuckles, Cheung Yee Keung came, smiled, lead me to
the toilet, told me to wash my hands, then put some Chinese jelly stuff on the blisters
of my knuckles. Then he told me (in fact he “made me understand”, but he is
such a special person that I could understand what he said even if he spoke Cantonese)
to wash and dress, that I had had enough.

9. 11
Sik Faan!
When I came out from the
toilet, still sweating and so
tired I could barely stand,
he smiled and said “sik
faan!”.
Going out he collected
some students, and I dis-
covered that one of them
(Lau Kam Fu, Raymond,
the best in playing the Bud-
dha character in the Lion
Dance) spoke good English.
That helped a lot!
We went to the tea house,
where my love story with
Cantonese Dim Sum and
Pou Lei tea had started the previous day. Other students joined us and Raymond started
asking me questions, so I finally could tell my story, explaining that I was honored to be
there and that I had no intentions to “check out” Chinese Gung Fu, but “learn” it. Ray-
mond translated some basic information of Cheung Yee Keung about warm up, stances,
how to close the fist, tiger, etcetera and I still remember him drawing things with a ball
pen on the tablecloth, as every Chinese did at the time (one of the long list of surprising
Chinese habits I had to encounter in my Chinese experience), with the waiter standing,
listening and commenting (I realized that for the restaurant having master Chan’s stu-
dents as daily customers was an honor).
At 9.45 everybody jumped from the chair and disappeared after a quick “hallo!”. The bill
was already paid. I was alone again, so I didn’t find anything else to do then going back
to the gym, taking off the shirt and starting again with my exercises, waiting for lunch
time when I would have met my Italian friends From time to time master Chan would pop
through the door and show me some movement, so at the end of the day a good third of
my Mui Fa Kyun revision was completed.
At the end of that first day I had done six hours of training (from 7 to 9, then 10 to 12,
then 4 pm to 6 pm). After a dinner in a mediocre restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui I went back
to the hotel and crashed again on the bed, while my travel partners went to Temple
Street. But this time I had enough energy for taking off my clothes. My second day at Hon
Chung Gymnasium was over.

10. 12
Walking the Line
to 729 Nathan Rd.
The third morning everything was better, my biorhythms started getting accustomed to
the tight pace and the hot weather, the jet lag was disappearing, waking up at 6 am was
not as bad.
Instead of taking the bus I decided to walk the distance between Tsim Sha Tsui and Mong
Kok on the Nathan Road, crossing Jordan and Argyle streets, enjoying the life of Hong
Kong waking up. People were running out of the garages with their trolleys loaded with
food. Elegant bank employees and rag ladies shared the same bus stop line, trucks full
of dead pigs, octopuses and goats unloaded on the walkway in front of restaurants and
tea houses.
Walking was good in the morning, helped to start my metabolism, so when I reached the
gym I was in decent condition. I didn’t feel like eating before the first session of train-
ing, but at the cross with Jordan Road I discovered a small corner shop that sold a dark
warm drink made with herbs and roots that helped starting my body.
I also stopped in a small food shop at the cross of Nathan Road and Mong Kok Road that
sold small bottles of a Chinese mineral water with minerals (it actually tasted salty),
that was perfect for replacing all the minerals I lost sweating.
At 7 am I was at the gym, drank a cup of tea from the always present teapot and started
training. Kicks, arms spinning, board punching, then I started repeating the part of Mui
Fa I had been taught. Sifu Chan appeared as soon as I started practicing the form and
corrected every single position and movement, explaining me the meaning of the moves
with the few words of English that he knew, but mostly showing me the correct move-
ments himself, occasionally using the wooden dummy.
I still have the clear feeling of his arms when he introduced me to the subtle pleasures
of Saam Sing. I’d have chosen a tree, rather than his steel bones, hitting him was like
having a car accident against a column of cement loaded with electricity. But I survived
and learned more Mui Fa, I reached two thirds of the set the second day (in fact I just
had to fix some defects of what I had learned in Italy from Benjamin Fung).

11. 13
Enter the Sihing
When Sifu left to take care of his patients, Cheung Yee Keung was often there with sug-
gestions and details. I loved that guy from the first minute.
He is the buddhist monk type, always serene, calm, gentle, helpful, generous, and at the
same time so tough, powerful and hard when action time comes. Leaving to his work-
place, Keung showed me “1 PM” on his watch then pointed at the floor, meaning I had
to be there at lunch time.
I trained until noon, washed myself in the small toilet with a water hose and waited sitting
down on a chair “reading” a pile of Chinese Gung Fu magazines (Bruce Lee was still superstar,
but Fu Sheng and Chi Kuan Chun were popular, too). Master Chan was present on several is-
sues, pictured while demonstrating techniques, interviewed, meeting actors and politicians or
Queen Elizabeth herself (an always present picture when an article mentioned him).
Five minutes before 1 pm other students came in, one by one: Seto Wing (at the time selling
jeans on Women’s Street), Hui Wing, Kong Pui Way, Lee Yun Fook, Lau Kam Fu, Stanley Lau,
June Lau and others. My Italian friends came, too, and we got out, in the heat of the Hong
Kong summer, walking along Argyle street to the recently opened Dragon Phoenix (!) tea
house, for a traditional Cantonese weekday meal. That day I had my first “Cha Siu Faan”,
a dish that I love and miss every day.