In modern Macao, traditional arts still thrive

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The 2017 Macao Wushu Master Challenge kicked off on Thursday, attracting hundreds of Wushu masters from across the world to join in various competitions, as well as displays of Chinese martial arts and traditional lion dances.

Behind the shopping malls, casinos, hotels, and tourists spots, martial arts and lion dancing are well-protected in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), with many Macao residents continuing with their tradition of practicing martial arts.

Each night, on the rooftop of a 14-story building on the Rua Dos Pescadores Street, dozens of youngsters practice martial arts. They are apprentices of the Loleong Sports Federation, which was established in 1938.

"Those young men have work to do during the daytime. They can only practice martial arts after work," said the director-general of Loleong Sports Federation, Pan Jingwen, whose father is a master of Choy Lay Fut, a form of traditional Chinese southern style boxing, popular in Macao and Hong Kong SARs, Guangdong and Fujian provinces.

"It contains a wide variety of techniques, including long and short range punches, kicks, sweeps, joint locks and grappling," Pan said, adding that Choy Lay Fut is an effective self-defense system, particularly for defense against multiple attackers.

Under the guidance of a master, a dozen of primary school students were performing "waist horse," the basis of learning any Wushu styles.

To the powerful drumbeat, another group of players in their 20s were practicing lion dances on piles as high as three meters, and others were practicing dragon dances on the ground floor.

"Sometimes it can be quite tiresome for young people to only practice the basic techniques of martial arts, therefore, we combined the lion dance and dragon dance to make the practices more interesting," Pan said.

The martial arts circle in Macao cherishes the principle of helping vulnerable people and fighting against evil forces, he said.

They staged performances for free and solicited donations every time the Chinese mainland was hit by natural disasters. They also helped the poor and vulnerable groups in Macao, Pan added.

Loleong Sports Federation is one of 96 members under the Wushu General Association of Macao (WGAM), which has more than 7,200 registered players, plus 20 certified world-class referees recognized by the International Wushu Federation and 20 local referees.

With Macao's fast urbanization process, there is less room for people to practice martial arts without disturbing their neighbors.

About 10 minutes' walk away from the renowned Ruins of St. Paul is Shishan Brotherhood Palace, the oldest Wushu house in Macao. Founded in 1921, the white bungalow, which covers 100 square meters, is surrounded by high residential buildings.

A trident which belonged to one of the Shishan founders is enshrined in the center of the bungalow. The bungalow is surrounded by wooden lion heads, champion flags, trophies, and photos to remind young people of its past glories.

Lee Rihong, a senior Shishan member, and also an old friend of Pan Jingwen, lamented how the bungalow had been surrounded by high buildings. "Pan has persuaded me to move out and buy new rooms in high buildings, yet it is too late to make decisions," he sighed.

Many young practitioners have a strong passion for the bungalow though, as they have been trained there from their childhood. Many of them were actually introduced here by their parents or grandparents.

In such a small and concentrated room, martial artists still enjoy their practice. The rooftop of the bungalow, fenced with steel wire, provides a small place for them to practice lion dances and dragon dances, along with performances such as Three Lions Piling Up, in which three people use a lion's head to pick a silk ball hung about seven meters high.

"Our neighbors don't like the sound of drumbeats, so we use fingers to drum paper boxes instead, to make a similar sound that is less noisy," Lee said.

The older generations in Macao's martial arts circle seldom worry about carrying on the tradition of martial arts to the youth, as there are quite a lot young people in their Wushu associations.

Moreover, 22 out of 70 middle and primary schools in Macao have opened extra curricular courses on martial arts. During the winter and summer vacations, the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau of the Macao SAR government and WGAM will co-organize courses on the fundamentals of various martial arts, including long boxing, southern style boxing, and dragon and lion dances.

"I am not worried about the problem of having few successors at all," Pan Jingwen said. "Look! Those young people are having great fun with dragon dances and lion dances," he smiled.

(Header image credit to @aTravelCompanio)

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency