rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_13217353-4846-570d-85a7-bf6f87d2b566">2). Lung was one of a few senior students who were recognized as legitimate successors to Ku Ju-chang. At the time, the Hong Kong Athletic Association served as an informal headquarters for martial arts instruction and training in Hong Kong, and Sifu Lung’s classes were held there. Under Sifu Lung’s guidance, Lai Hung embarked upon his study of traditional Pek Sil Lum, classical Chinese weapons, Yang-style t’ai ch’i ch’uan, and various forms of ch’i kung.
Initially, Lai Hung’s mother objected to his martial pursuits. Years of poverty and food shortages had left Lai Hung skinny and frail, so naturally his mother was concerned that his training would lead to injury. But within a few months of joining Sifu Lung’s class, she noticed dramatic improvements in his posture and overall health. From that time on, she fully encouraged his desire to learn Chinese kung-fu.
In the period immediately following World War II, Hong Kong emerged as a fertile environment for the continued development and expansion of the Chinese martial arts. This was primarily due to the fact that dozens of famous masters from all over China fled to the island territory when the Communists assumed power on the mainland. Young students like Lai Hung benefited enormously from this chain of events. For the first time in history, accomplished practitioners of every conceivable style found themselves living together in a very small, interdependent community. Although this situation produced plenty of conflicts, it also resulted in an unprecedented degree of collaboration between these martial arts patriarchs. As a result, Lai Hung and his fellow pupils enjoyed an unusual amount of interaction with a variety of instructors.
When Lai Hung was seventeen, a famous Choy Lay Fut practitioner by the name of Li Ch’ou was invited to participate in Sifu Lung’s classes. Li Ch’ou and Lung Tze-hsiang were actually brothers in the kung-fu lineage—Li Ch’ou was a disciple of T’an San, and in the years when T’an San and Ku Ju-chang were exchanging students, Lung Tze-hsiang had also studied Choy Lay Fut under T’an San. Lai Hung eagerly took advantage of the opportunity to learn this relatively new martial arts style. He soon discovered that he enjoyed the direct simplicity and forcefulness of Choy Lay Fut. Lai Hung continued to study with Li Ch’ou for the next eight years.
Lai Hung’s first major martial arts competition was the Hong Kong-Macao-Taiwan tournament held in Taiwan in 1957. At the time, the custom was for Hong Kong’s preeminent martial artists, known as the Ten Tigers of Kwangtung,6 to each select their best students and have them all compete against one another for the honor of participating in important tournaments. Sifu Lung nominated Lai Hung without even bothering to inform the latter of his decision. Lai Hung didn’t learn that he was to compete until a few days later, when a group of newspaper reporters showed up at the Athletic Association to interview him.
Lai Hung was unsure of how his father would react to this news, so he kept it a secret. Needless to say, when his father opened up the morning paper several days later and discovered his son’s picture and a story on his participation in the upcoming tournament, he was very angry. The elder Lai was concerned that his son would either be injured or would fight badly and cause a loss of face for the family. He initially refused to allow Lai Hung to take part in the competition, but after Sifu Lung invited him to tea and explained the situation, he grudgingly gave his consent. The elder Lai, however, was not content to leave anything to chance, and so he arranged for an old Choy Lay Fut master named Ch’en Chen to come to his house every evening to provide special training for Lai Hung.
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