Body & Mind Training Center

Mok Kwai Lan – The Mistress of Hung Gar

Introduction

This post is the third entry in our series examining the lives of female Chinese martial artists. While it is the case that the vast majority of hand combat practitioners in the 19th and 20th centuries were male, a certain number of women also adopted the art. We started by looking at the life and historical reputation of Woman Ding Number Seven and her contributions to the creation of White Crane Kung Fu in Fujian province. Not only did she make some critical technical contributions to the development of the local arts, but her memory served as an important touchstone for discussions of gender and hand combat throughout southern China.

Next we examined the life and contributions of Chen Shichao and her brother Chen Gongzhe. This dynamic pair was an important force behind the success that the Jingwu Athletic Association enjoyed in the early 20th century. Chen Gongzhe was instrumental in financing the group, while his sister worked tirelessly to promote female involvement in the martial arts on equal footing with men. This goal challenged strongly held norms and resulted in notable (often quite personal) push-back from more conservative elements in society. Yet ultimately the Jingwu Association succeeded in spreading the belief that women should have access to martial training and that this was an area where they could excel. It is unlikely that this social transformation would have been quite so successful without the pen and teaching efforts of Chen Shichao.

In the current post I would like to return our focus to southern China. Mok Kwai Lan is most often remembered as the fourth wife (or more accurately concubine) of Wong Fei Hung, the renown martial artists who is regarded by many as the father of modern Hung Gar. Yet Mok was also a martial artist and practitioner of Chinese traditional medicine before her marriage. Further, she maintained an independent and fruitful teaching career for more than five decades after Wong’s sad death in 1924.

Both Mok Kwai Lan’s life and career deserve more careful consideration than they usually receive. She is a figure whose influence spans generations. She was born in the final decade of the 19th century and her martial training likely started at the same time as the Boxer Uprising. She saw the rapid development and transformation of the martial arts in the 1920s and 1930s, before having her own career disrupted by the invasions of the Second Sino-Japanese War. In the postwar era she witnessed a fundamental transformation in the popular perception of the traditional arts, driven in no small part by her departed husband’s rise to fame as a local folk hero. Lastly she was still active and teaching when the “Bruce Lee Explosion” reignited global interest in the martial arts in the middle of the 1970s. It is hard to think of too many other figures whose careers spanned so many important eras.

Early Life and Training

Mok Kwai Lan was born in Kao-Yao Village (slightly to the west of Foshan and Guangzhou along the banks of the Pear River) in Guangdong. From the start her family life was somewhat unconventional. At a very young age she was given to her paternal uncle who was childless. He formally adopted the young girl and raised her as his own child even though her biological parents were still very much alive.

Mok’s uncle must have had a fairly liberal view on questions of gender and female education. The late 19th century saw a number of developments on this front, from anti-foot binding leagues in larger towns and cities, to the development of neo-Confucian schools of thought promoting formal education for bright young women of good families. These attitudes were by no means universally accepted. There was even push-back against them in some quarters. Still, these currents were in the air in the late 19th century.





photo: Mok Kwai Lan demonstrating the flying plummet


It seems likely that Mok’s new guardians (and her uncle in particular) must have shared many of these ideas. Her Uncle (whose name I am still having trouble verifying) was a both a practitioner of Mok Gar Kung Fu and traditional Chinese medicine (where he specialized as a bonesetter). Soon after arriving in the family Mok Kwai Lan began her apprenticeship in both areas.

This path was not undertaken without some resistance. Mok reports that her Aunt forbade her to study the martial arts as she believed it would strip her of her feminine qualities (and probably make her unmarriageable). At that point her uncle decided to continue to train her “in secret,” though one wonders how private any such activity could actually have been in a household with only three individuals, one of whom was a child.

Mok Gar is rarely encountered today, but it contributed substantially to the development of the other regional styles. Unlike most southern martial arts it is highly regarded for its kicking skills. While still kept below the waist (which is true of the kick in most southern styles), the techniques of this system are said to generate devastating power. Mok’s uncle also introduced her to what was possibly a unique family set referred to as “snapping the iris.”

It is interesting to note that her training in both kung fu and bonesetting probably began sometime between 1900 and 1902. This was the era of the Boxer Uprising, and a time of major social dislocation around the country. The local governor shut down boxing schools and associations all over Guangdong in an attempt to prevent copy-cat attacks on foreign merchants. One has to wonder if the uncle decided to train his daughter as a diversion when other sorts of practice became impossible. On the other hand he may have decided to start her training only after one the general situation settled down.

In either case it is interesting to note that she began her training in Mok Gar at almost exactly the same time that Ip Man (also a young child) was being introduced to Wing Chun by Chan Wah Shun (also a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine) in the Ip clan’s Foshan temple. Similar historical events impacted the lives and future careers of both of these martial artists making their subsequent development an interesting comparative study.

Apparently Mok Kwai Lan was a good student. By her 16th birthday (1908) her training in bonesetting was complete and she had grown into an accomplished boxer (despite her aunt’s objections). At this point she had the basic skills that were necessary to start a career as a practicing martial artist. Nevertheless, slightly unconventional family arrangements would once again bend her career path.

Source: Real Kung Fu Vol. 1 Num. 7