Who is a reputable Kung Fu master in Taiwan?

Sup guys, Im going to come to Taiwan to teach English pretty soon in a couple of months. Is there any good Martial Arts school in Taipei? Who’s the most reputable SiFu around? What style? etc.

Of course you know Mandarin’s the lingua franca here, not Cantonese, right? I think you’ll be looking for a shifu:stuck_out_tongue:

Where can I find a good martial arts school in Taiwan?

http://www.chinakongfu.org/

Chi Kuan-Chun (Qi Guangun) Hong-boxing Martial Art School
7F-1, No. 155, Sec. 4, Zhongxiao E. Rd., Taipei
(Zhongxiao Dunhua Station, No.7 exit )
886-2-2778-0722 Fax:886-2-2752-1256

Of course you know Mandarin’s the lingua franca here, not Cantonese, right? I think you’ll be looking for a shifu… :p[/quote]

Yeah, unless you study Wing Chun with Lo Man Kam, who, being Cantonese, is referred to as SiFu, or any of the other Cantonese masters teaching in Taiwan…

Of course you know Mandarin’s the lingua franca here, not Cantonese, right? I think you’ll be looking for a shifu… :p[/quote]
Yeah, unless you study Wing Chun with Lo Man Kam, who, being Cantonese, is referred to as Sifu[/quote]
Dammit, I thought of that as I was typing, but I was hoping nobody would call me on it! :notworthy:

Of course you know Mandarin’s the lingua franca here, not Cantonese, right? I think you’ll be looking for a shifu… :p[/quote]
Yeah, unless you study Wing Chun with Lo Man Kam, who, being Cantonese, is referred to as Sifu[/quote]
Dammit, I thought of that as I was typing, but I was hoping nobody would call me on it! :notworthy:[/quote]

Sorry, playing Guantong’s Advocate here…

I heard there was some great master who was supposed to teach on bade Rd, anyone know anything abou that?

taiwanbjj.org/ is where I be training, but it might not be what you’re looking for. What exactly is it you’re looking for? I know of a Kungfu guy I can get you in touch with.

There will be an article come out in the next edition of Maple Leaf magazine (which is the Canadians in Taiwan magazine) that will list 6 of the top “english friendly” martial arts places in Taipei. There will be 3 traditional and 3 modern schools.

(and yes Miltown, Taiwan BJJ club is one of the 3 modern schools mentioned

[quote=“brianlkennedy”]
p.s. do not refer to a Taiwanese martial arts teacher as sifu or shufu—it is far, far, more polite to call them laoshi. The Canto-Hong Kong folks is a different story.[/quote]

Huh? I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around…

[quote=“lupillus”][quote=“brianlkennedy”]
p.s. do not refer to a Taiwanese martial arts teacher as sifu or shufu—it is far, far, more polite to call them laoshi. The Canto-Hong Kong folks is a different story.[/quote]

Huh? I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around…[/quote]
From the Taichi and Kunfu dudes I’ve met it’s been true. Always X老師. I thought it would have be 師父 too, maybe that’s too old school.

I think it’s because the Taiwanese reserve the term “shifu” for religious leaders.

I think all foreigners should call their martial arts teacher sifu. It shows what a cybergenius you are.

lao shi and jiao lien can be used for a teacher of anything. You can have a ballet jiaolien, piano laoshi, but not a cello shifu.

MTK I think you’re right. I looked around on the web a little and few Chinese martial arts instructors seem to be referred to as shifu now. I think it may be due to the change of instruction moethods.

Shifu is teacher/father. Their students(徒弟) would live with them and train. So they were both instructor and father to the student.

But now people who teach martial arts run, essentially, martial arts buxibans so they’re just laoshis like in any other sort of buxiban.

If the shifu takes you in as an actual 徒弟 then he will probably want you to call him shifu. Like the kind of shifu who still has a ceremony when he accepts you as a student.

老師 is to 學生 as 師父 is to 徒弟
學生 is just student. But 徒弟 is more like a family member.

I think a lot of people nowadays, in order not to sound pretentious, choose to refer to themselves as laoshi. This is definitely a new thing.

Anyway. I do not think that anyone who teaches martial arts would feel disrespected at you calling them shifu. As shifu is an equally(and probably more) respectful term than just laoshi.

He may feel there is no need for you to call him shifu and ask you to call him laoshi instead, but I do not think he would be offended. Unless he feels you are worthless scum and feels insulted by you referring to him as father. :smiley:

If an instructor wants to be called sifu, he will say so. Likewise for calling him laoshi. My friend called his shifu laoshi at first, but his shifu’s wife asked him to refer to his teacher as shifu. Some people like being call shifu, some don’t. But it’s definitely not an insult.

[rant]

[quote=“brianlkennedy”]One of the things that maybe confusing you all is that the teacher will not correct the students who mislabel them as sifu. That causes a double loss of face. Also too, just because you hear some local refer to their martial arts teacher as sifu does not mean that is either right or polite. Let me give a modern day example, some American kid says to me (a 48 year old attorney) “yo homie, I am really down with your kung fu”.

I am not going to correct the kid by saying;
“one. son, I aint your fucking homie
two: what we are doing aint kung fu
three: I do not give a rats ass if you are down with it”

What I will do however is, in my mind categorize the kid as a clown, take his money and show him nothing by way of returning the disrespect he has shown me. [/quote]
Then you’d just be a swindler. What would that prove?

“Just because you hear some local refer to their martial arts teacher as sifu does not mean that is either right or polite.” Well, aren’t locals the people who speak the language? What do you think they are actually calling their martial arts teacher then?

Anyway, if you are just part of a money making business, I suppose, when faced with attitudes like this:

He’d just go, “Fuck it, just call me laoshi. I don’t really care if you bow or not anyhow.”

But hey, my personal favourite from that thread you gave (shenwu.com/discus/messages/431/1774.html) is:

[quote]By Mont F. Cessna Jr. on Monday, October 25, 2004 - 03:17 pm: Edit Post
Chinese is too hard to pronounce. With all their tone inflections and yowling they might as well be cats howling at the moon to me. Get a real alphabet people can read. Heck, the Egyptians moved from glyphs to a script sytem thousands of years ago because glyphs were too hard to write and use properly for serious writing. And how to chinese people use computers? Type? Huh? Japan has 3 alphabet systems. One is phonetic like our alphabet and is used for new words taken from other languages and stuff. Makes sense. I’ve given up on learning oriental languages. I’ll stick to spanish and ancient greek. At least I didn’t have to totally learn a new alphabet for them.

p.s. the entire calling your teacher a turtle and him giggling sounds kinda…ok…really gay.[/quote]

I think I’ll go back to my howling like a cat now. [/rant]

Back home I ccalled all of my instructors Shifu and I have one (Taiwanese) teacher I call Shigong 師公 (grand master/teacher.)

Calling someone Shifu I think should mean that you’re their disciple. Being a disciple is a lot more hardcore (are should be I guess) than just being a regular student. Being a disciple would sometimes mean that you’re not suppose to train anywhere else, that you’re suppose be mastering all the techniques from your “Master.”

I think the Shifu/Tudi (Master/disciple) combo would be more like Daniel Son and Mr. Miyagi, or Luke and Yoda, or Goku and Master Roshi… I’m pretty sure the same people I’ve met here that have me call them Laoshi might have a few students that call them Shifu, but those students are WAY more commited and might have even gone through some Master/disciple style ritual.

With MMA and the new style of mixing styles, it’s not so regular to just commit to one kungfu dude. Even the guy I call Shigong knows I (and wants me to) practice with other teachers.

Grandmaster miltownkid

I’m a JCS master.

From my experience, most martial arts teachers here are called “laoshi.” Even the old very respected ones. Most (feng shuei) geomancers??, numerologists, mediums, and Taoist or Buddhists teachers are referred to as “shifu”. Even well respected “masters” of Chinese medicine are called “laoshi.” In fact my old martial arts teacher told me not to refer to him as shifu (as I did to my teacher in the US) because of the reasons stated above. It sounded too pretentious to him I suppose. Taiwanese people are pretty easy going about such things in general. Just listen to what his students refer to him as.

If your looking to study with an Chinese religious teacher keep in mind the word master has two meanings in English. At first it’s strange to go to a place where the students refer to their “teacher” as “master.” It’s from the “master-slave” relationship we have with that word in English. Alot of Westerners have a problem with this translation when they take on an Eastern religious teacher. No one really wants to refer to someone as “their master.” You get over it once you realize there is a problem with the translation.

My san-da coach likes to be called “coach”.

You probably don’t want to start your CV with ‘Sup guys’ if you’re looking for a job as an English teacher.