Mok kwai lan wiki

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 19 th and 20 th centuries were male, a certain number of women also adopted the art. 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.

Lau gar kung fu wikipedia

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 20 th 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.

She is a figure whose influence spans generations. She was born in the final decade of the 19 th 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 s and s, before having her own career disrupted by the invasions of the Second Sino-Japanese War.