Reprinted with permission from Pak Mei—A Dedication, 2008 from Unique Publications,
Reprinted with permission from Pak Mei—A Dedication, 2008 from Unique Publications, www.up-publications.com or .
“While much has been written about Pak Mei, we know virtually nothing about him.”
Pak Mei, meaning White Eyebrow, is a reference to the supposed originator of the style, a shaolin monk with bushy eyebrows. In fact, the name Pak Mei was only given to this style during the 1950s, when grandmaster Cheung Lai Cheun began teaching in Hong Kong. Before this time there was no name attributed to it and it was Cheung’s students who suggested using the title. As was common in China at that time, many styles did not have their own names and were often referred to after the family or teacher’s name.
The Dragon style learned by grandmaster Cheung Lai Cheun before Pak Mei was not originally known as Lung Yin, but as Ying Jow, 鹰爪, or Eagle Claw. When the style was brought to Hong Kong it was prudent to give it a distinctive name; Dragon Form was thought to be mysterious and enticing.
While much has been written about the monk Pak Mei, we know virtually nothing about him. In fact, to date we have no confirmed proof of his existence. Unfortunately, there are myriad conflicting legends and oral teachings that surround this figure. These include:
* That Pak Mei was a Shaolin monk, 少林 和尚, indeed that he was a high monk.
* Pak Mei was one of the five elders who escaped the Shaolin Temple on its destruction by the Manchurian army (historically unsubstantiated).
* Pak Mei was a Ming Revolutionary.
* Pak Mei was a traitor to the Ming and pragmatically worked for the Ching Dynasty (the Manchurians) in return for his life.
* Pak Mei killed another monk, sometimes named as Jee Sin, 至善, (who’s sifu was the founder of the Hung Gar, 杏家, style), and was subsequently banished from the Temple.
* On leaving the Shaolin Temple, Pak Mei lived as a hermit in the mountains, Emei Shan, 峨嵋山. Emei Shan, beauty’s brow, has been a place of pilgrimage for more than 1800 years and by the 6th century it had become one of China’s 4 sacred Buddhist mountains.
* Pak Mei was a Taoist monk, 道士, or subsequently became a follower of the Tao.
* Pak Mei Quan is a forbidden art.
However, anyone capable of objectivity or logical application will quickly appreciate that most of the above stories simply do not hold water. So much nonsense has been said and printed about the origins of Pak Mei that certain ideas have become entrenched.
Perhaps the biggest contributor to the confusion surrounding the figure Pak Mei has been the post-war novel, Fire Burns Down the Red Lotus Temple,
火烧红莲寺, a Ching dynasty period fiction following the exploits of a prince who was the 14th in line to the throne and changed the number 14-to-4 to inherit. The prince was exposed and turned to Taoism, taking the name Pak Mei. Thus, the name Pak Mei has become a byword for an errant monk in Chinese popular literary culture and bears no relevance to the Buddhist monk who created Pak Mei Quan.
The historical dating of Pak Mei also belies the myth that the monk Pak Mei was a Ming revolutionary. A generation is normally determined as being from 25-to-30 years and a gong-fu generation gap between master and disciple is probably closer to 20 years. We must also bear in mind that the average life expectancy in China during the mid-1800s was only 35 years.
We know that grandmaster Cheung Lai Cheun, who was born in 1882, started learning from the monk Juk Fa Wan in Guangzhou around 1900 when he was about 20 years old. If we assume that the monk Juk Fa Wan was 50 at this time (taking 30 years as a generation), we can attempt to date his birth at around 1850. Assuming that Juk Fa Wan started to learn Pak Mei Quan at age 20 (in 1870) from the monk Kwong Wei we can date, in a similar fashion, the birth of Kwong Wei as around 1820. Using the same calculations we can put the date of birth of the monk Pak Mei at the earliest around the year 1790.
Even if the monk Juk Fa Wan was aged 92—as has been suggested—when he taught Cheung Lai Cheun, this still only puts the birthdaqte of Pak Mei at around 1750.
There are four generations between the monk Pak Mei and grandmaster Cheung Lai Cheun. Using the straight definition of a generation as 25 years, this puts the birthdate of Pak Mei at around 1800. It would seem logical to suggest that the creation of Pak Mei Quan was somewhere between the years 1800 and 1830.
However, the fact that the Ming dynasty came to an end in 1644, when the Manchurians overthrew the Ming emperor and established the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Unless we are missing some of Pak Mei Quan’s unknown generational teachers, it would seem to be stretching credibility to put the monk Pak Mei at the time and place of any Ming uprising or burning of the Shaolin Temple—supposedly in 1727—which most historians now believe to be fictitious.
While there are no Shaolin records mentioning the monk Pak Mei, it seems most probable that he was a Buddhist and not a Taoist. Certainly the subsequent monastic lineage of Pak Mei was Buddhist and the last monk to teach this art, “Juk” (a sort of nickname meaning India or from India, as in Buddhism) Fa Wan, was a Buddhist monk originating from Sichuan province who stayed for three or four years at the Buddhist Temple Guang Xiao Chan Si, 光孝寺, in Guangzhou, where he taught grandmaster Cheung Lai Cheun. This temple remains a practicing Buddhist monastery.
However, in the late H.B. Un’s, 阮浩斌, book Pak Mei Kung Fu (Crompton), a photograph of sifu Cheung Lai Chun contains the caption “Cheung Lai Chun in Taoist robes.” A closer inspection of the original print of this picture clearly shows that he is seated in Buddhist robes.
Chan Buddhism, as studied in the Shaolin Temple, is the synthesis and fusion of the long traditions of India and China, and its roots are as much Taoist as Buddhist. However, they remain totally separate approaches and are non compatible in the strict sense of religious order. A Taoist monk wears Taoist robes and resides in a Taoist monastery; a Buddhist monk wears Buddhist robes and resides in a Buddhist monastery. While Chinese popular religion contains a mixture of Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist icons on the family altar, this was not and still is not the case in monastic societies.
The final piece of evidence pertaining to Pak Mei gong-fu’s purely Buddhist origins is that its principles of Tun,吞,and Tow,吐,are considered to be a Shaolin art, and should not be confused with the Taoist Kai, 开, (open) and He, 合, (close).
I have talked to the few remaining fifth-generation practitioners of Pak Mei, including master Cheung Ping Lam and master Liu Chi Cheung. These remarkable gentlemen have absolutely no doubt that Pak Mei originates from the Shaolin Temple.
Perhaps the best way to conclude this age-old debate is to quote the only words attributed to this legendary monk Pak Mei,
Ng Wu (5 lakes) Say Hoi (4 seas)
五湖四海
from the opening salute and taken to mean worldwide, as in the “four corners of the Earth,” or inclusive of everyone, regardless of race, religion and origin.
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