Jim Roselando - Official PinSun Boxing Ambassador
Old Fung Asks Roselando to Make Formal Ceremony in China
Kulo Fishing Village, December 2010 --
Late last month noted Boston PinSun Wing Chun teacher, Jim Roselando, and students, met up with me in Hong Kong. We travelled the same day by train and then private car from Hong Kong to arrive just before midnight in Shaping Town, Guangdong, Province. They got a taste of late night bumper to bumper traffic on China's new expressways!
Shaping Town is just a stone's throw from the King of Wing Chun, Leung Jan's, ancestral home in Kulo fishing village. The next morning after breakfast in the Shaping hotel, we were chauffeured to the Kulo home of Fung Jiapei. Jiapei is Jim's Wing Chun uncle and the son of Fung Gen Chiu, Jim's grandteacher. Although, Jiapei has a beautiful new home in Shaping Town, we all appreciated the gated traditional home with courtyard and quaint village lifestyle of his late father's Kulo home.
That morning we were met by Wing Chun boxer, Lo Zhen To, a local government official, and other Kulo Wing Chun members. After considerable discussion, wooden dummy, staff play and boxing demonstrations by all around, Lo Zhen To asked me aside and commented that people often come from the world over to Kulo to visit and demonstrate Wing Chun, but that in truth, Jim moves like one of us! (I don't think he was being polite. He didn't say that to Jim. In fact, Jim is a direct 6th generation descendent of Kulo Village boxing).
(There was one southern mantis in the crowd {RDH} - Jim doesn't consider himself a mantis man although he has a keen interest. I taught him a secret shadowboxing form from the Chu Gar Hakka Mantis during his stay! Although asked, I declined to demonstrate Hakka Mantis at Jim's request).
After everyone was satisfied about the morning boxing, we proceeded in two cars full of Wing Chun folks up a famous Kulo mountain, literally in the clouds, to an outdoor restaurant overlooking steeply down the valleys below. After detailed Wing Chun discussion over a giant fish, a cantonese chicken and numerous other local delicacies, we took the winding road back down for an afternoon siesta.
Although Jim had been corresponding with Kulo folks for years, over the next few days of Wing Chun wine, dining and hand to hand boxing exchanges the "Boston boys" became "personal brother-friends" of many of the key Wing Chun players in Kulo fishing village and Shaping Town. And to our great surprise the gatekeeper, old Fung Chun, now aged 91, after watching Jim's boxing, asked Jim to make formal ceremony to him and the Kulo Clan. And so, Jim became an official emissary and ambassador of PinSun Boxing directly from the source in Leung Jan's ancestral home.
On the day of departure we had quite an ordeal with a local taxi driver who was either drunk or mentally impaired or both! After going to and fro thru red lights, around cars at break neck speeds, and in the wrong lanes, we finally arrived right back where we started. We were at the right place to begin with! Anyway, we made our way to Zhongsan City and took the hydrofoil down the west river and back to Hong Kong, about a two hour ride.
Upon arrival back in Hong Kong, Jim, ever the PinSun Boxing Ambassador, made sure to stop by the late Fung Sang Sifu's PinSun Wing Chun bone setting dit da clinic to pay respect to Fung Sang's wife and son, Tim. Mrs. Fung and son carry on the Kulo Wing Chun tradition with their street billboards still calling today "Side Body Boxing Medical Clinic". And the clinic is always very busy with patients.
One of Jim's students with an ailing back got a treatment on the spot! 10 minutes of acupressure and a large herbal plaster that couldn't be removed for 24 hours cost Hong Kong Dollars 160 or about $20 USD for 10 minutes! The next day Dave said the treatment was worth the price - he felt better! The two brothers, Rob and Dave, Jim's students, will no doubt carry forward the tradition of Side Body Wing Chun. Rob is an acupuncturist in Boston and Dave is a Phd student at MIT. They are fourth generation opthamologists, MD. Everyone in their family for four generations has been an eye doctor!
The next day, I said goodbye to Jim and returned to my home in Pingshan, China. He and the boys stayed on for another few days of Hong Kong sightseeing.
Some 15 years before, Jim travelled more than 2,000 miles to train Hakka Mantis with me and I gave open door Kwongsai Mantis seminars in his Boston area a few times in which Jim was host. The picture below was about 1999 I think. There were several dozen participants in the Boston seminars and the seminars were a success in promoting Southern Mantis boxing thanks to Jim and his interest in "duan shou" boxing.
It had been more than 10 years since I had seen Jim last and he hadn't changed a bit - except his Wing Chun was much better! And now he is accredited by ceremony to represent and advance the interests worldwide of old Fung Chun and Leung Jan's PinSun Wing Chun! As well, he is a disciple by ceremony of Sifu Henry Mui in the Boston area. And Jim teaches Qigong at MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
I look forward to Jim and his students visiting next year! I'm sure he wouldn't mind you joining them. Welcome to sunny south China and I'll greet you at the airport!
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