#the mountebank

A Chinatown Butterfly Swordsman For All Seasons 

Arnold Genthe’s photograph, variably titled “The Mountebank,” “The Pekin Two Knife Man,” or “The Sword Dancer,” captures Sung Chi Liang, a renowned martial artist nicknamed 大牛 (canto: “daai6 ngau4”) or “Big Ox” for his great strength and impressive martial arts performances on the streets.  As historian Jack Tchen wrote in his book Genthe’s Photographs of San Francisco's Old Chinatown -- Photographs by Arnold Genthe, “he also sold an herbal medicinal rub after performing a martial arts routine in the street.”  The medicine called 铁打雁酒 (canto: “tit3 daai6 ngo2 zau2”; mando: “tiedayanjiu”) or “Iron Big Goose Wine,” was commonly used to heal bruises from fights or falls. 

“The Sword Dancer,” c. 1896-1906.  Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress).

The complete, wider angle of Genthe’s Sword Dancer photo, places the martial artist in front of 32, 34, and 36 Waverly Place, San Francisco, between Clay and Washington streets. Next to two onlookers on the right is a wooden stand advertising a Chinese barber shop, with an adjacent basement stairwell leading to an inexpensive Chinese restaurant specializing in 粥 (mando: “zhou”; canto: “zuk1”) or rice porridge.

Butterfly swords, i.e., 蝴蝶刀 (mando: “hudiedao”; canto: wu4dip2 dou1), as seen Genthe’s photo of Liang, are short, single-edged swords, the use by pioneer Chinese Americans can be traced to southern China of the early 19th century. Butterfly swords were, and remain, integral to several Chinese martial arts, including Wing Chun, Hung Ga, and Choy Li Fut. In Wing Chun, these swords epitomize the principles that apply to all other weapons, extending the movements of empty-handed combat. Hung Ga, a Southern Shaolin style, is characterized by strong stances like the horse stance (四平馬; canto: “sei3 ping4maa5;” lit. “four flat horses”) and powerful hand techniques such as the bridge hand and tiger claw. Choy Li Fut, established in 1836 by Chan Heung, honors its Shaolin roots and its founders, integrating elements from Choy Gar, Li Gar, and Hung Kuen styles.  

Descriptions from the 1840s recount the use of butterfly swords by local militia in Guangdong province. The fighters who comprised the various protective societies for political and business (legitimate and criminal) enterprises in the early Chinatowns of the US would undoubtedly have been familiar with the bladed weaponry of southern China.   

Tong members brandish swords in this overly-dramatic illustration by artist Maynard Dixon for The Sunday Call of January 9, 1898 (from the collection of the University of California Riverside).  In this well-known feature story, a white reporter (standing in center) supposedly underwent an initiation ceremony for the induction of members into the Chee Kung Tong (致公堂; Jyutping: “zi3 gung1 tong4”), what would later be named the “Chinese Freemasons.”  The first tong in the US was dedicated to the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and restoration of prior Ming rule.  

Beginning in the 19th century, the imagery of butterfly sword variants became indelibly associated with often lurid accounts of tong operations and crimes in Chinatowns across North America and weapons seizures by North American police departments.

Weapons seized and/or collected by H. H. North, U. S. Commission of Immigration, and deposited with the Bureau of Immigration, Washington D. C.,  c. 1900. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the Bancroft Library).

With increased Chinese settlements across the American West and in eastern cities such as New York, particularly after completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, US law enforcement agencies began seizing the swords, along with other weaponry, used by tong soldiers or enforcers.

Chinese weaponry seized by the New York Police Department included butterfly swords.

As a full discussion of weaponry is beyond the scope of this article, a fine social history of butterfly swords by Professor Benjamin N. Judkins, Ph.D, may be read here:   https://chinesemartialstudies.com/2021/01/24/an-updated-and-revised-social-history-of-the-hudiedao-butterfly-swords-2/

“Sword Dancer,” c. 1896-1906.  Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collections of the California Historical Society and the Bancroft Library).

When you’re supposed to be blending and acting natural but you can’t help being sexy AF.

You know, I was just chuckling to myself as I read this and thinking ‘ha ha, imagine exclusively dating LARPers’ and my brain just hit me with a terrible flashback to the time I did, for a hot minute, date a LARPer. He was the ‘cool’ one in his group, because he had social skills and a working washing machine.