For my Kung Fu Family: In 1935, at the age of 21, Chin Siu Dek left mainland China under the passport name Jimmy H. Woo and sailed for the United States. During the early years in this country, Jimmy lived in Chinatown, Los Angeles. Chin Siu Hung (Jimmy H. Woo’s uncle) was 73 years old when the Japanese invaded mainland China and took over his beloved province. In 1942 he was forced, against his will, to answer a challenge to fight to the death the regimental karate champion of the Japanese army. This was to be a public display of the power of the Japanese conquerors in front of the poor villagers of the surrounding area. Under the threat of death to his people if he did not comply, Hung fought and defeated the Japanese champion. In fact he killed the karate warrior in less than 20 seconds. He and most of his students were immediately killed by machine gun fire. This basically ended SAN SOO in mainland China. It was extremely fortunate that Jimmy had left mainland China when he did, for the Japanese would have awarded him with the same fate as his Great Uncle and the other SAN SOO practitioners rather than allow a possible resistance corps to remain. Jimmy carried the art to America and kept it alive while many of the other early Chinese fighting systems were destroyed by the Japanese. Mao Tse Tung later eradicated many of the martial arts styles, training books and monasteries when the communist Chinese took over power from the Japanese at the end of W.W.II.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 03:12:59 +0000
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