Fly Over the Hawkeye's Nest

Chapter 1: My Personal Development

Part 1: “The Mystery of Destiny”

        In a life of a man, somehow what you do and face is destined and written by fate. For me to write a book published by Sing Tao News Corporation Limited seems to be heaven’s will as well. My father Klyster Yen had worked as an editor for the International Sing Tao Daily in Boston, USA for 30 years. With that in fact, it seems that my affinity with Sing Tao seems to have existed for a long time. Many people assume that since I grew up overseas, I would not be fluent in Chinese. Actually, when I was young, I would run over to my father’s workplace and read the Chinese newspaper published by the Sing Tao. In that way, I gradually acquired the language through such self-taught process. In recent years, I have a growing realization of the mystery of destiny. As if life has hidden the clue of who I am today, now the path unfolds and I must follow step-by-step to where destiny might lead.

 “A Family Splitting Apart”

          My father and mother met when they were both part of the Guangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra. My father was a violinist and my mother was a soprano. Life is however fickle. Later the family was forced to split apart during the turbulent times.

          At that time, it was hard for a Mainlander to migrate to Hong Kong. At the age of two, I was approved but only one of my parents was allowed to accompany me to live in Hong Kong. Finally, my father brought me here. However, the family of three was divided: one in Guangzhou and the other two in Hong Kong. Only heaven knew the day of our reunion with my mother.

 “My Favourite Show ‘Enjoy Yourself Tonight(EYT)’”

          When we first arrived, my family condition was rather poor. I still remember that I lived in a squatter’s residence at King’s Park in Kowloon (a region in HK). My father and uncle shared a bunk bed. Grandmother also lived with us. And I would just sleep on the floor. I also remember that we had to share with the neighbours.

          At that time, “EYT (1967-2002)”(a famous variety TV show in HK) just started broadcasting. Like many children of the time, I loved to crouch in front of the gate of my neighbour’s flats, peeking through the bars of the gate to watch the black-and-white television. Even though the signal of the TV was poor, it was the best entertainment for me as a kid. Later, my family condition was becoming better. After my uncle got married, together with my father and grandmother, we moved to a new flat in Yuet Wah Street in Kwuntong (a region in HK). Afterwards, when my father bought a flat near my uncle’s, we finally escaped the life of an over-crowded household.

 “Mother Practicing Martial Arts to Combat Loneliness”

          Very quickly, a few years passed. Although our living standards were improving, my mother was still staying in Guangzhou alone. I was too young to understand the bitterness of my separation from my mother. I could only remember I would receive a letter from her every few weeks. She wrote about how much she missed me, and she would use rhetoric words like “Ji Dan Chai (子丹仔)” and “Kiss you(吻您)”(*) to call me and express her love.

 (*Translator’s notes: After a discussion between me and beta Dream at 3:30am, we concluded that “Ji Dan Chai (子丹仔)” was probably a Cantonese pun for “egglet/egg puff*(雞蛋仔)”, a famous traditional snack in HK. Furthermore, 吻 means “kiss” and 您 means “you” which is usually used as a polite form but his mom used it because she wanted to insert hearts to express her love towards her son.)

          Can you imagine how a woman can withstand the loneliness of those long years separated from her husband and son? Due to this, she threw herself into practicing kung fu, strengthening her spirit through the movies to gain confidence and power, and also supporting herself and her mother’s family.

          Later my mother told me that in those nine years, she would apply for coming to HK every now and then, only failing each time. My father knew that my mother missed me very much. When I was nine, he asked his brother-in-law(姨丈) to bring me back to Guangzhou to visit my mother. At last, I met her. As early as I can remember, that was the first time I met my mother.

          My strongest memories of that one and a half weeks are of her hugging and kissing me every day. She also dragged me over to meet her master Fu Wing-fai (傳永輝) and her classmates. At that time, the mother of grand master Fu was a foot-bound lady (a cruel pedantic practice on women in old China). However, I could remember clearly that when she swung the spear, she looked very handsome and moved powerfully.

 “First Experience of Real Martial Arts”

          When I was young, my father loved to bring me to Yue-Man Square in Kwuntong to watch movies during weekends when I didn’t have to go to school. We watched the films produced by Shaw Brothers (HK) Limited like “The One-Armed Swordsman (獨臂刀)” (1967), “The Bloody Fists (蕩寇灘)” (1972) and “The Heroic Ones(十三太保)” (1970), etc. Though I watched them on the big screen, they really were the first time I witnessed real martial arts in action.

          After those days of waiting and waiting, and then finally getting to meet my mother, everything seemed to fall back into normalcy again. My father was working behind the desk at a garment factory. Once, in the name of a business trip for the Chambers of Commerce and Industry, he went back to Guangzhou to visit his wife.  

          One day, the good news finally arrived after nine years of waiting. My father excitedly told us that mother’s approval of coming to HK was granted and there would be a new member of the family… It was because my father intentionally knocked my mother up during that trip, so that the first week my sister was born, she and our mother were permitted to enter and stay in Hong Kong. That’s also why my parents always regard my sister as the “lucky star”.

          In life, there are times when we are together with our loved ones, and times when we are apart. During our separation, my mother became a master of Tai Chi. After the reunion, I followed her to practice martial arts. Everything seemed to be according to heaven’s will.  

  Part 2: “I am ‘Fong Sai-yuk’(方世玉)”

          My mother had arrived in Hong Kong, so our family had reunited. During the time of waiting as she was waiting for her immigrant visa to the USA to be approved, she would go to the park located at the nearby Yuet Wah Street to teach students. In the beginning, she had only two to three students. Later, the number of students increased. At the age of ten, I was like the teaching assistant. Every early morning at 5 or 6, I would follow my mother and teach her students.

          Some days before, Madame Helena Law Lan (羅蘭)(a famous actress in HK who was born in 1934) told me that her master Lee Yuen-king (李婉瓊), from whom she learned Tai Chi, was one of my mother’s students from that class. She joked that, in terms of hierarchy, I am kind of her grand master(師公/師伯)! Chinese kung fu came from China. The art belongs to everyone. It truly connects people around the world!

 “The Heir of Kung Fu”

          My mother Bow Sim Mak (麥寶嬋) practices martial arts. She values it highly and thus is determined to pass down her skill and techniques. Of course, she has great expectation on her son. She was like the “Miu Chui-fa” (苗翠花) and I was “Fong Sai-yuk” (方世玉)(*). Every morning before school, she would drag me off my bed at 5 and asked me to do splits, stretches and go through the forms. If I whinedo r complained or made any mistakes, she would scold me with her wooden sword immediately.

 (*Translator’s note: Miu Chui-fa was a famous and highly skilled woman in martial arts in Qing Dynasty. Her son Fong Sai-yuk was also a talented kung fu master who was excelled in Shaolin boxing.)

          My path to learning martial arts began after the reunion of my mother. My road towards the show business also began at that time.

          My mother would teach Tai Chi in the morning and sing soprano at the Mira Hotel at night. Coincidently, people from the Yuen’s stunt team(袁家班) also performed Peking Opera there. Heroes are drawn to each other. Later, a few of them started taking lessons in kung fu from my mother. This had helped me to set the destiny of meeting my master Yuen Woo-ping in the future, getting into the show business through acting in his film “Drunken Tai Chi (笑太極)” (1984).

 “Boycott by Other Schools of Martial Arts”

          At the age of 11, our whole family migrated to Boston in USA. During the 60s and 70s, it was very common to open a school of martial arts in Chinatown. After settling down, my mother also opened one and named her school as “ Chinese Wushu Research Institute (中國功夫研究所)” because she took promoting Chinese martial arts to the world as her responsibility.

         Nevertheless, there were a few people who were narrow-minded. They thought the name of the school was intended to include all the types of Chinese martial arts. Thus, my mother was boycotted by other schools. They even nitpicked her logo – a figure holding swords, posing and stepping on the Bagua Diagram. They said, “Bao Sim Mak, are you really that ‘good’? Able to step on the Bagua School? ” Even some meddlers came here and tried to make a fuss by throwing stones at my mother’s school.

          However, it took some time, my mother’s hard work was not wasted. She proved her skills to other schools and earned their recognition. She was able to make the practice of martial arts become universal. Many Westerners came to her to learn. Her students included the undergraduates of the Universities of Boston and Harvard.

         At that time, the largest and most popular martial arts school in Chinatown was opened by Master Kwong Tit-fu (鄺鐵夫) who taught Hung-styled boxing (洪拳). Every festival or celebration like the Chinese New Year, his most senior student, John Tsang (曾俊華), aka the current Financial Secretary of HKSAR, would carry a lion head and lead the kids from different martial arts schools to perform the lion dance on streets. I was about 12 or 13 at that time and I often followed the lion dancers led by this “big brother” around. I joined for fun and sometimes I would perform Chinese boxing to liven things up.

         After many years, when I met the Financial Secretary again, he revealed to me that he already noticed me at that time. He said I was skilled in martial arts in a certain level with such a young age. To have received such high praise from someone like him, this Donnie really don’t deserve it!

  Part 3: “Imitating Bruce Lee”

          Overseas Chinese growing up in the foreign countries are often more aware of their racial and national identity than local Hong Kongers or Mainlanders. I, as a Chinese American citizen, was often belittled by others who called me names like “chink”. I thus strived to search for my identity of nationality.

 “Learning Kung Fu through Watching Movies”

          There were only two cinemas in Chinatown and they were smelly and filthy. There were always drunkards wandering around and they were stinky and dirty. Despite all that, I would still escape school and buy a ticket to watch the same movie again and again. After I finished watching the “Drunken Master (醉拳)”(1978) and “Snakes in the Eagle’s Shadow (蛇形刁手)” (1978), I would immediately rush back home to practice the drunken and snake moves. After watching “36th Chamber of Shaolin (少林三十六房)” (1978), I would practice the three-section cudgel immediately. I had watched the “Way of the Dragon (猛龍過江)” (1972) and “Enter the Dragon (龍爭虎鬥)” (1973) thousands of times. As a kid with some talent, my moves looked like those from the movies even though all I did was watch!

         At around that time, I remember that my mother still had not found an official place for her school and so she rented the buildings of other martial arts schools to teach her classes. They had all kinds of tools and weapons. I loved to pick them up and practice.

         Once, before my mother arrived, I naughtily picked up a nunchakus l to imitate the Bruce Lee’s moves. I was using it powerful enough that my every move made whirring sounds. Unexpectedly, the screw of the connecting joint of the nunchakus was loosened and one part of the pair flew across the room and hit one my mother’s female students. The girl wailed and a bruise appeared obviously on her head. I immediately knew that I was in huge trouble. Of course, my mother scolded and punished me so terribly.

 “Carrying Nunchakus Everywhere”

          In the 70s, Bruce Lee was very popular. I would wear his outfit – an orange sweatpants with sunglasses or black Chinese traditional clothes with kung fu shoes– to school every day. I would saw off the staff of a broomstick into two parts and connect the two with a rope to make my own nunchakus. I put it into my long socks along with me so that I could whip them out anytime, anywhere. At that time, no matter the Chinese or Western classmates, they loved to call me “Bruce”. I would sometimes perform nunchakus and show off footwork to entertain myself and others.

         At that time, there was a black substitute teacher who got along with the students very well. He always asked me to show off, “Hey, Bruce, show me the kick!” Once, I joked that I could kick his face thrice and he would not be able to dodge. I hadn’t waited for the teacher’s reply, “Really?” and I kicked him. Ping! Ping! Ping! I had already left three footprints on his face. The black substitute teacher was tall and bulky. Having kicked on the face three times without warningmust have made him felt a little bit of embarrassment and anger. He threw and hanged me, who was small, onto a wall to warn me.

         With regards to my relationships with the other students, I occasionally received letters daring to challenge me. Even though I was not the strongest, and both wins and losses were common in fighting, the swiftness of my body and movements meant that any opponents would have to endure my heavy punches and kicks.

         My obsession towards kung fu grew to its peak as I worshipped and idolized Bruce Lee. I always focused on my footwork, wishing my movements to be as quick, fierce and precise. I would escape from school with my friends, hiding in the park practicing “sticking hands” of Wing Chun in the afternoon. Honestly, we were just messing around.

         I was really obsessed with martial arts when I was younger. Looking back now, was I laughably naïve or cutely innocently?