WING CHUN'S LINK TO TRIADS It's Not What You Think!

One of the most popular systems of kung fu in the world today is wing chun. It was cast into the international spotlight by Bruce Lee, whose formal training started in the art, but its popularity has exploded since Donnie Yen brought founder Ip Man to life in four blockbuster movies.

- Benny Meng

Despite all this exposure, many aspects of the southern Chinese system are not well-known outside of Hong Kong. One of them is its crime connection. That link is so prominent in the former British colony that wing chun is sometimes referred to as “gangster fist.”

This moniker came about because of the relationship the system had with the Chinese Triads, the secret societies known as saam hap wui ( ). When Ip arrived in Hong Kong in the 1950s to spread wing chun, the Triads were very active. One of Ip’s students was Jiu Wan. Jiu was schooled in the Chan Yiu-Min lineage in China. Chan Yiu-Min was the eldest son of Ip’s teacher Chan Wah-Shun. It was not widely known, but Jiu was also a Triad member. The gangster-fist nickname stemmed more from Jiu’s involvement than from anything Ip ever did.

One of Jiu’s students was Lee Hoy Sang, my first wing chun sifu. That makes Jiu one of my sigung. When I was a young student, I first heard that he was involved with the Triads — we all understood the meaning of “gangster” in this context. It was not until I’d completed two decades of subsequent research into wing chun’s origins that I learned there’s a second triad connection, one that has a completely different meaning than what’s generally understood by the public.