Grandmaster Ark Yuey Wong (January 11, 1900 – January 11, 1987)
I had the great pleasure of meeting Grandmaster Ark Yuey Wong as a grade schooler when my father was doing research on an article he was writing on the Chinese-American experience. I remember attentively sitting on his weathered hardwood floor listening to his early stories of kung fu battles in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Historically renowned for his expertise in the legendary Shaolin Five Animal Kung Fu System (Tiger, Dragon, Leopard, Snake, Crane), Grandmaster Wong is considered to be the Father of American Kung Fu.
I got choked up when on my first television project (Nasty Boys), I realized that our location was at Grandmaster Wong’s Chinatown studio. He had already passed by then and I had not returned since meeting him there as a child. It was a magical day for me and I couldn’t have asked for a better venue to shoot in.
I hope I still have the Inside Kung Fu magazine cover that he signed for me as a boy…have to seriously check my parent’s basement for that one.
BIO. Grandmaster Ark Wong was born in the large village of Toysun Tien Sum Chienin Canton, China in the year 1900. His family was moderately wealthy and early in his childhood he was exposed to the ancient fighting arts.
Wong’s great grandfather was attacked by a younger jealous brother in order to weaken the older man and obtain his wealth. Upon recovering from the attack, the old man decreed that all his male descendants must learn Kung Fu beginning at the seven years of age which is when they started school. It was at the age that Ark Wong began his training.
Wong’s first Shifu was the well-respected master, Lam Ark Fun. Master Lam was rather old at this time but still highly revered as a great teacher of the art. At the age of twelve, Ark Wong was taught the art of Chinese Herbal Medicine by Master Lama and Wong would employ this skill extensively later in life.
Ark Wong studied Mawk Gar Kung Fu under another well-respected master, Ho Ark Yeng. Wong’s great grandfather had hired both Master Lam and Master Ho to teach the Wong family exclusively.
In his late teens, Ark Wong went to school in Canton. It was during this time that he met Pung, the chief monk of the Canton area. He studied under this master for a year and a half. Previously, all of Wong’s training was of the external aspects of Kung Fu. It was from Pung that he began to learn the internal aspects.
Civil unrest occurred in Canton and Wong went back to his village, Lin Chuan Yuan in Putien County and he opened a Kung Fu school for his family and the younger children of the area. One New Years, as was the custom for New Years, all the Kung Fu schools gathered to put on the “Lion Dancing” demonstrations. On the basis of these demonstrations by the different schools the masters were chosen. Only the best demonstrators would receive the title “Master.” At the remarkably young age of nineteen, Wong Ark Yuey was made Master.
In 1921 Wong came to the United States and opened up a school in San Francisco and later in Oakland. This was the birth of Ng Ga Kin and Ng Ying Ga in the United States.
