The Highest Pledge: I Swore Lifelong Loyalty to My Kung Fu Master
I went through a Bai Si disciple ceremony because it felt like the correct thing to do on my martial arts journey
I decided to go through an oath-giving ceremony for my hung gar kung fu teacher in 2017. It was in no way an act of fashion or old Shaolin movie enthusiasm. I thought this through and I understood the consequences it will have. For me as my teacher’s student, the foreigner, and the woman. As for me, who devoted my entire life to martial arts.
- How I got there and what is the Bai Si Disciple Ceremony
- The importance of the student-master relationship
- About the ceremony
- What are the consequences
How I got there
Bai Si ceremony or Bai Shi ceremony (depending if you are a fan of Cantonese Chinese or Putonghua) is usually translated as a bow to the teacher or a disciple acceptance ceremony.
I came to Hong Kong to live in 2015, after studying Hung Gar Kung Fu for some 8 years in Czechia. I picked Hong Kong because when it comes to traditional Chinese kung fu, it is one of the main places to go. I have been there before — for competitions, and for my half a year exchange student program — which I have also chosen because of kung fu. And then in 2015, I came back, this time for real.
Master—student relationships are very complex and important. Sifu (shifu) is often used just as a polite way to address someone, for example, a taxi driver. But for martial arts practitioners, sifu is also a teacher. Unlike in modern combat sports, in kung fu loyalty goes to a different level. Sifus and their lineages and schools are protective of their students, and training with another teacher without the permission of your own one is rude. However, once someone goes through the bai si ceremony, the rules are even way stricter.
The importance of the student-master relationship
Wong Chung Man sifu was the reason why I moved alone across the globe. I remember sitting across the table from him, sipping oily broth from small plastic bowls. We often had dinner together after training, when everyone else left. Mostly, we went to a canteen, which means a local cheap restaurant. English menus were rare. Sifu would order a few things, such as fried noodles or cashew with pork, and then state he actually doesn’t like it, so I should go ahead and eat the whole meal (spoiler: he did like it, but he knew it was my favorite). We were sitting there, and I asked: “Sifu, can I be your student?”
He said: “It is not important if you call me sifu or not. Important is if it is from the heart to heart.” From that day, he was my sifu officially. But that wasn’t it, yet.
Several years later, the situation kind of repeated: “Sifu, can I bai si to you?”
Sifu thought about it and then said yes. And got to call his elderly kung fu master friends to find out how, because none of his students, including the Chinese ones, had bai si to him yet, and this ceremony was slowly dying out.
The relationships in kung fu, just like in most traditional martial arts, are hierarchical. Turning up at a gym to learn a “class” is not a thing. Students are committed to a school and a sifu, and the level/length of their commitment often decides the depth of the learning.
A kneeled oath
The Chinese restaurant was filled with a few hundred of guests because that day was another sifu’s birthday celebration. I spent one week learning by heart how to say something like “I am honored to be your student and I promise I will…” in Cantonese, but when the time came and I had to kneel on the ground in front of my sifu, he did not hear me. Everything seemed blurred. Sifu said something very long in Cantonese, from which somebody translated maybe one sentence for me. He said he is happy, and seemed touched. I handed him a cup of tea, the main symbol of the whole ceremony. It felt very intense, kneeling in front of somebody else. After the tea, I gave him a red pocket with money inside. Then everyone started to congratulate him for getting a new daughter and I was just confused. Shouldn’t they also congratulate me…? In kung fu, the hierarchy is always very visible.
For most of the guests, martial arts practitioners for most decades of their lives, it was the first time to see a bai si ceremony.
Since then, things have changed. Sifu really treats me like a daughter. In 2018, I came back from a training camp in Thailand with hurt ribs and could not afford the daily Chinese medicine I needed. He paid the bill. The community of kung fu masters also treated me very differently. It feels like I have leveled up in their eyes.
What it really meant aka the consequences
The bai si ceremony is a discipleship promise, and it goes both ways. The student promises loyalty to the teacher and/or teaching kung fu further. The master takes care of the student and basically welcomes them into the family. In case the student decides to leave the teacher, there is an unwritten embargo on the student, no matter if that is a 17yo practitioner or a 40yo teacher themselves. No other master of the same style would teach the runaway. By bai si, you become not only the official member of the lineage but a disciple, a very close student. Some even say that only disciples will learn the entire system, and normal students will not. I think it depends on how much is your sifu into bai si. I know masters who are very open and don’t have secrets, and then those who pick very carefully what and who they teach.
I am quite proud that I am that foreign kung fu woman, because of who the Hong Kong martial arts community had to dig deep into their collective memory. To find someone, who could still remember how to do the bai si. I imagine them witnessing this at different times, with masters who don’t live anymore. Then suddenly, recreating this memory again in a totally different society. And so there is hope that bai si will not die out just yet.
