JicJeung,
if you have been reading anybof the stuff I wrote, you should underdstand that I am not an 8th grade girl called Tabitha..
And not from Detroit.
>>>>
Why you didn't see these things on display can be explained by the following:
1. You went to the Yip Man Tong in the Zumiao, but as I stated, you have to go to the newer on they built in Luochun, the ancestral home of the Yip Clan.
2. The documents I am referring to were not on display yet, when you were there. After all, they were just released a couple of years ago..
>>>Correct assumption, thank you I will look into it!
As I have been saying quite a few times, there is a wealth of information available about Wing Chun in China that is not available to people in the West, and most often when presented with this information people reject it because it doesn't correlate with the picture people already have - like you accepting Jim's old articles or the Baniecki's stuff because it corroborates what you believe.
>>>>> I think you are misinterpreting here. I do not seek out information to validate "What I believe" I seek information to guide me to conclusions and use many sources in coming to those conclusions until new evidence causes me to reevaluate those conclusions.
But you have to realize:
Even Mr. Ben Judkin's great work is - when it comes to Wing Chun information - based on a handful of Wing Chun books only, which basically have the same sources or even borrow information from each other, and as such not really presenting anything which is not already known in the West. What he does mention about various Wing Chun ancestors, which is new to most readers, is information he got from a book called "Fatsaan Martial Culture", which is mainly about CLF, actually, and also very limited when it comes to information about Wing Chun's history.
Another problem is that people take Mr. Judkin's work THE authoritative source and use it as THE reference, not realizing that it is quite limited by the information the authors had access to writing the book.
>>>I do not like to use the term "Authority" on a topic which so little conclusive information is available. Mr. Judkins does however take an academic approach to his writings states his conclusions and offers sources that the reader can (if so motivated) follow up on and either in doing so, agree, disagree or agree in part. While he does use more western sources had does source non westerns in his book on the creation of wing chun. Now that being said there are many stories/theories in China as well, and many no more accurate then their western counterparts. I am sure your aware of this living in Guandong. Many practitioners and lineages of WCK stayed hidden or fled prior to the cultural revolution or stayed under ground. So even so called Govt sources aren't always accurate, when things eased up athletic committees sought information on them which they often volunteered themselves and were incorporated into the record. So you will sometimes meet different sifu who say "ah we are very old lineage and this and that happened just look at the committee records (which their don't point out were submitted by themselves). This happens all the time so we must always examine and reexamine our sources...Look how many area's fought for government approval to be considered the home of the "Southern shaolin temple" and the tourist dollars it would draw to their region. SO what I am saying is just because it is a Chinese source it should not be accepted as gospel, but rather the same scrutiny.
So, if you really want to dig deeper into the history of Wing Chun and the oldtimers, you better not reject everything you hear out of hand because it doesn't match your conviction or the sources you know.
>>>I have never done so, I look at every possible source (and the "Old timers" don't always agree with each other BTW) I can find in writing or in person and come to my own conclusions and opinions.
Of course I am not saying one should believe everything one hears, and always employ a good measure of critical thinking and fact-checking - the more information one has, the easier it is to critically assess new information and new theories, such as an "Ngor Mei Bak Hok ancestral connection" etc.
>>>Naturally, otherwise I would be a devoted disciple of the one and only original shaolin Black flag ancient wing chun kuen! or what is the latest new ancient style to come out? LOL in this particular instance on the topic, I agree with Mr. Chu :
"WCK has some pieces of
Emei Shi Er Zhuang, as evidenced in their
Xiao Zi Zhuang set, and some Fujian White Crane, as evidenced in Lee Kong’s
Shi Er Jie Li Quan, but it is the fusion we are interested in, not these mother systems, as they are also “Wing Chun like”, but not WCK. These arts have an old history and have undergone revision, over generations. We cannot just “jump to conclusions” based on a paragraph here, a sentence there, as clues, as this is misleading. We cannot be arrogant enough for letting future historians judge, as there are enough contemporary historians which can judge right now, given the evidence."
https://tambulimedia.com/robert-chu-search-wing-chuns-truth/
Since you are more inclined to believe what Jim is saying over what I am sharing with you, I will ask him to post something here.
