(pt. 4)
Life in Exile: Educational and Economic Limitation in Hong Kong, 1949-1972.
Ever since it was formally established by the British in the middle of the 19th century, Hong Kong had acted as a gateway that regulated economic flows between the East and the West. In cultural terms it had always been part of the Chinese sphere, yet it also stood apart from it. Life in Hong Kong prior to 1949 often had a very liminal and impermanent feel. Everyone was there for a reason, but ultimately going somewhere else. It was a city of wanderers with little interest in building a unique or permanent identity.
That sense of “otherness” was deeply intensified by the 1949 border closure with the mainland. Hong Kong’s economy (which had largely revolved around mediating international trade with mainland China) was decimated by western economic sanctions, and it would be years before the city would fully succeed in switching itself over to a light manufacturing economic model. Further, the people of Hong Kong suddenly discovered that they were literal exiles. Once the border was sealed they were cut off from their home villages and families.
It is hard to convey how much of a shock the events of 1949 really were. Refugee shanty towns sprung up in the streets of Kowloon, unemployment rose and new dialects were heard in the parks and tea houses of the city. Increasingly the concerns of the local Cantonese people were pushed aside by “elite” refugees from the Central Plains who saw the south as devoid of any real culture or value.
It is not hard to imagine why so many people felt frustrated or depressed. Eventually the situation was normalized, and the economy was reconfigured in a way that it could better support the people. But the feeling of frustration never entirely disappeared.
In fact, when you look at Ip Man’s teenage students from the late 1950s and early 1960s this seems to be a recurring theme. Even though a number of these students came from comfortable backgrounds, they felt hemmed in by Hong Kong’s limited economic and social horizons.
Worse yet, the city’s university system was not designed to accommodate the vast numbers of students that were graduating from secondary schools in the late 1950s. The college admissions process was brutally competitive, and even more so for the top programs and departments. Education was seen as the key to economic success, but increasingly those opportunities seemed out of reach for many high school students. I have never seen any formal studies on it, but I suspect that this general frustration and lack of faith in the future was one of the things that was driving the high degree of youth delinquency in Hong Kong at that point in time.
Still, for a small number of students there was a third way. Between the elites who monopolized the local educational opportunities, and the poor who were trapped in the working class, there was a small affluent middle class that could afford to have social aspirations. Students from these families often had the resources to attend Universities in Europe, Japan or North America.
One of the interesting things about Wing Chun as a social tradition is its long running relationship with the more bourgeois sectors of society. By the late 1950s and 1960s Ip Man had many young students who fell into this category. These teens had anywhere from two to five years of experience in Wing Chun, and when they graduated from high school they were sent to cities like San Francisco, London or Melbourne for college. As a matter of fact, Bruce Lee falls into this category.
A large number of these students had already put together informal networks or study groups so that they could continue to study Wing Chun while in school or working in the west. A few had even opened more permanent clubs. So when the “Bruce Lee Phenomenon” hit, there was already a network of Ip Man’s students spread across the West that could accommodate some of this enthusiasm.
I suspect a very similar thing happened with the Wong Fei Hong films. By the time they became popular in the West, there were already a fair number of potential teachers in place that could absorb and direct some of this interest.
-BY BENJUDKINS
