The Anti-Japanese Saber (Dai Do) and the Hung Sing Kwoon

Introduction

During the Second World War, Japan invaded China, seeking to revive its old ambition of placing a Japanese ruler on the throne of the Forbidden City. The invasion was carried out with extreme cruelty. In the West this chapter of the war is little discussed — our attention fixed on the atrocities in Europe — yet China was among the countries with the most dead and the most people tortured. The case of Nanjing, with more than 300,000 killed, is well known and terrible, but it was not the only one: massacres took place across the country, leaving more than 20 million dead.

To understand this, one must know the context: after years of plunder by foreign powers and the long, agonising reign of the last Qing rulers, China was drained of power and in the midst of civil war, which made it easy for Japan to enter and conquer much of the territory. Yet over the years the balance shifted; where the early battles were Japanese victories, a better-organised Chinese resistance eventually halted the advance and Japan’s ambition to conquer the rest of Asia.

Choy Li Fut in the War of Resistance

The masters of Futsan are still remembered today for having fought in the war against Japan — helping the army and the common people organise, and teaching them to use the «大刀» (dai do in Cantonese, literally «great saber»), also known since then as the «抗日大刀» (kong jat dai do), the great anti-Japanese saber. Within the temple itself, one of the sabers used in the war is preserved, and the art of this weapon is still taught so that an important inheritance of the ancestor masters is not lost.

The Saber in the Hung Sing Kwoon Museum

A report published in a national newspaper in 2015, during the 70th anniversary of the war’s end, told the story. In one of the halls of the Hung Sing Kwoon museum, a large saber in a display case caught the journalists’ eye. Its handle, about 30 cm long, ends in a red cloth; the blade measures some 60 cm and is around 5 mm thick — a very powerful weapon. Before it, a phrase reads: «used by a Chinese soldier to defend his country.»

«In war, the saber is a tool for fighting at close range,» explained Sifu Leung Yuk Yung. «This saber killed Japanese enemies,» said the Kwoon’s director, Sifu Wong Zan Gong. «We bought it in northeastern China and placed it here to remember how the disciples of the Hung Sing Kwoon taught the art of the saber to Chinese soldiers.» Master Ho Cheung, fourth-generation master, had recounted that during the war the Sifu of the Hung Sing Kwoon twice taught the anti-Japanese saber form to a group of Shanghai’s 19th Army. The first time, in 1932, they taught the saber and the spear to that army, whose mastery of the weapons did great damage to the Japanese. Later, Chan Ngai Lam, a third-generation disciple, was invited by the national martial-arts organisation to present «the form of the great saber», which was so admired that it was taught throughout the army.

«The Song of the Saber»

Speaking of the anti-Japanese saber brings to mind a song everyone knows, «The Song of the Great Saber», written by the famous composer Mai Xin and dedicated «to the saber unit». After its premiere in Shanghai it spread across all of China; decades later, in an online poll of favourite wartime songs published in 2015, it was voted one of the ten most popular.

The Saber in Guangdong

In the book for the 160th anniversary of the Hung Sing Kwoon, Master Ho Choek Wah wrote of his father Ho Cheung’s part in the war: «My late father’s «wude» was very high, as was his love for his country. During the resistance, as the Japanese used bayonets, all of China was eager to learn the great saber. The Futsan Hung Sing Kwoon’s method was especially effective, so ever-larger groups of Futsan society asked to study it. My young father, full of patriotic love, carried two baskets of sabers every night and accompanied his master Tong Sek to a closed school, where they taught the community how to use the great saber against the enemy. My father never asked for a single cent for his effort.»

Research also traced the saber’s story in Guangzhou: between 1931 and 1937, Sifu Wong Siu Ha (a student of Li En, himself a disciple of Jeong Yim) fought hard to save his country and summarised several saber forms he called «the anti-Japanese saber» to defeat the invaders. The form was widely learned and taught by several masters, among them Hu Yuen Chou, who — having been a student of Chan Ngau Sing — kept contact with other masters of the Hung Sing Kwoon. Today, students of the Hung Sing Kwoon still practise the anti-Japanese saber form so that this important part of the history of China and of Choy Li Fut is not lost.

«Sigung»: one’s master’s master. «Wude» (武德): martial virtue, as valued in China as martial skill itself.

Translated and adapted by Tin Sing Kwun (María Arias Antoranz), with thanks to Yim Bond for help with the translation.