Wing Chun Kuen: A Revised Historical Perspective (Part 2: Red Junks, Pirates and Secret Societies)

In the previous article, the Wing Chun ‘myth’ was dismissed due to the lack of supporting evidence for the existence of the Southern Shaolin Monastery. It would appear that the Southern Shaolin Monastery and the subsequent account of its destruction was based on the verified Northern Shaolin Monastery.

In this article, an alternate historical account for the development of Wing Chun is provided, where fiction becomes fact. This is achieved through analysing how and why Wing Chun developed within a travelling Cantonese Opera Company during a turbulent time of China’s history, where piracy and political violence were prevalent.