Red Boat Opera Company
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Red Boat Opera Company
The Red Boat Opera Company () was a group of traveling Cantonese opera singers who toured China in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Cantonese opera was popularized in the 18th century, primarily by the Red Boat Troupes who traveled the Pearl River Estuary during the late Qing dynasty until WWII. The Red Boats carried performers throughout the Guangzhou region and served as sleeping quarters and training grounds for the legendary kung fu style of Wing Chun. It is said that the actors originally used a purple cave boat as a theater boat, and later added sails to paint dragon scales and chrysanthemums on the hull. The pattern, the bow is painted red, so it is called the red boat. They were used to transport carry members of theatrical troupe and theater boxes, and also serves as a place for boarding and lodging of theatrical troupe members. Such troupes are called Red Boat troupes. Some of the earliest practitioners of Cantonese opera were members of the Red Boat Troupes in Guangzhou, ...
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Cantonese Opera
Cantonese opera is one of the major categories in Chinese opera, originating in southern China's Guangdong Province. It is popular in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, Macau and among Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. Like all versions of Chinese opera, it is a traditional Chinese art form, involving music, singing, martial arts, acrobatics, and acting. History There is debate about the origins of Cantonese opera, but it is generally accepted that opera was brought from the northern part of China and slowly migrated to the southern province of Guangdong in the late 13th century, during the late Southern Song dynasty. In the 12th century, there was a theatrical form called the Nanxi or "Southern drama", which was performed in public theatres of Hangzhou, then capital of the Southern Song. With the invasion of the Mongol army, Emperor Gong of the Song dynasty fled with hundreds of thousands of Song people into Guangdong in 1276. Among them were Nanxi performers from Zhejiang ...
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Leung Jan
Leung Jan (born Leung Tak-wing; 1826–1901) was a Chinese martial artist and Wing Chun practitioner from Heshan, Guangdong. He was known in Foshan as ''Mr. Jan of Foshan'' and ''King of Wing Chun Kuen''. Leung Jan is one of the earliest well-documented practitioners of Wing Chun, which was mainly passed down verbally from teacher to student prior to Leung Jan. Background Born Leung Tak-wing in 1826 in Heshan, Guangdong, he had a elder brother, Leung Tak-nam, who would later become a successful businessman. His father later moved to Kuai Zi, Foshan and Leung helped ran a traditional Chinese medicine Dit Da clinic there. At the age of 18, he was trained by Leung Yee-tai in Southern Shaolin skills. Yee-tai later introduced Jan to his partner Wong Wah-bo. Wong was also a Gulao (古勞) resident like Jan, and he taught Jan the whole Wing Chun skill set. From 1870 onwards, under the nickname Leung Jan, he succeed his father medical business and work within the Wing Sang Tong (榮 ...
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Leung Yee-tai
Leung Yee-tai was a Wing Chun master of the late Qing Dynasty. Background Leung Yee-tai had become associated with Tiandihui and anti-Qing Dynasty resistance. He was a strong boatman who steered a riverboat by pushing a long pole against the river bottom. A Shaolin monk Chi Sin (至善禪師) saw that he was a natural successor to the Southern Shaolin pole fighting skill called ''six and a half point long pole''. He taught Wong Wah-bo his pole fighting skill in exchange for the Wing Chun fist-fighting skill. Though he was a student of Wong in Wing Chun, he was actually Wong's sifu in the pole fighting skill. Wong modified the pole fighting skills using Wing Chun principles. The modified pole skill had since part of Wing Chun skills set. He met Leung Jan of Foshan, a young herbal doctor, when he was sick. He then trained Leung Jan when he was already an old man at over sixty years of age. He went on to introduce Jan to Wong. Because both of Wong and Jan were from Gulao (古 ...
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Tiandihui
The Tiandihui, the Heaven and Earth Society, also called Hongmen (the Vast Family), is a Chinese fraternal organization and historically a secretive folk religious sect in the vein of the Ming loyalist White Lotus Sect, the Tiandihui's ancestral organization. As the Tiandihui spread through different counties and provinces, it branched off into many groups and became known by many names, including the ''Sanhehui''. The ''Hongmen'' grouping is today more or less synonymous with the whole ''Tiandihui'' concept, although the title "Hongmen" is also claimed by some criminal groups. Its current iteration is purely secular. Under British rule in Hong Kong, all Chinese secret societies were collectively seen as criminal threats and were bundled together and defined as "Triads", although the Hongmen might be said to have differed in its nature from others. The name of the "Three Harmonies Society" (the "Sanhehui" grouping of the Tiandihui) is in fact the source of the term "Tri ...
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Wong Wah-bo
Wong Wah-bo was a martial artist and an opera singer of the late Qing Dynasty. Wong Wah-bo is a notable figure in development of martial art Wing Chun, which is known for its poorly documented history, and is recognized as being part of various contemporary Wing Chun lineages' history. Background Not much was known about his childhood life except that he was born in Heshan, Guangdong, Qing Empire during the late Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty. From the Daoguang to Xianfeng period, Wong made a living as an opera singer of the Red Boat Opera Company, often played as Guan Yu, and was first trained by Leung Lan-kwai (梁蘭桂) in an unnamed martial arts boxing skill and later with Leung Yee-tai (梁二娣) in exchange for his Six-and-a-Half Point Pole skill. He retired at the age of 60 and moved to Qingyun Street, Kuai Zi, Foshan. At Foshan he trained his students, whom included Leung Jan, whom he was introduced by Yee-tai. Due to both of them were from Gulao (古勞) Village ...
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Cantonese Opera
Cantonese opera is one of the major categories in Chinese opera, originating in southern China's Guangdong Province. It is popular in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, Macau and among Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. Like all versions of Chinese opera, it is a traditional Chinese art form, involving music, singing, martial arts, acrobatics, and acting. History There is debate about the origins of Cantonese opera, but it is generally accepted that opera was brought from the northern part of China and slowly migrated to the southern province of Guangdong in the late 13th century, during the late Southern Song dynasty. In the 12th century, there was a theatrical form called the Nanxi or "Southern drama", which was performed in public theatres of Hangzhou, then capital of the Southern Song. With the invasion of the Mongol army, Emperor Gong of the Song dynasty fled with hundreds of thousands of Song people into Guangdong in 1276. Among them were Nanxi performers from Zhejiang ...
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Cantonese Opera Troupes
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding area in Southeastern China. It is the traditional prestige variety of the Yue Chinese dialect group, which has over 80 million native speakers. While the term ''Cantonese'' specifically refers to the prestige variety, it is often used to refer to the entire Yue subgroup of Chinese, including related but largely mutually unintelligible languages and dialects such as Taishanese. Cantonese is viewed as a vital and inseparable part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swaths of Southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as in overseas communities. In mainland China, it is the ''lingua franca'' of the province of Guangdong (being the majority language of the Pearl River Delta) and neighbouring areas such as Guangx ...
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Rebellions In The Qing Dynasty
Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority. A rebellion originates from a sentiment of indignation and disapproval of a situation and then manifests itself by the refusal to submit or to obey the authority responsible for this situation. Rebellion can be individual or collective, peaceful (civil disobedience, civil resistance, and nonviolent resistance) or violent (terrorism, sabotage and guerrilla warfare). In political terms, rebellion and revolt are often distinguished by their different aims. While rebellion generally seeks to evade and/or gain concessions from an oppressive power, a revolt seeks to overthrow and destroy that power, as well as its accompanying laws. The goal of rebellion is resistance while a revolt seeks a revolution. As power shifts relative to the external adversary, or power shifts within a mixed coalition, or positions harden or soften on eithe ...
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Wing Chun Practitioners
A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expressed as its lift-to-drag ratio. The lift a wing generates at a given speed and angle of attack can be one to two orders of magnitude greater than the total drag on the wing. A high lift-to-drag ratio requires a significantly smaller thrust to propel the wings through the air at sufficient lift. Lifting structures used in water include various foils, such as hydrofoils. Hydrodynamics is the governing science, rather than aerodynamics. Applications of underwater foils occur in hydroplanes, sailboats and submarines. Etymology and usage For many centuries, the word "wing", from the Old Norse ''vængr'', referred mainly to the foremost limbs of birds (in addition to the architectural aisle). But in recent centuries the word's meaning has exte ...
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