The enigmatic Ng Mui is used by a number of styles of Kung Fu besides Wing Chun to explain their origin, and she may be as much a legendary as a real figure. She figured extensively in the lore and performances of the Red Junk Opera Company, through which Wong Wa Bo, Leung Bok Cho and Jee Sin play a pivotal role in the art's development. It is perhaps prudent to remember that, as operatic artists, they were skilled in dramatic storytelling, and that many of the best stories have their basis in fact.

It may also be prudent to remember that the cultural basis of humanity's greatest endeavours is based on grand myths, fables and legends - often, based on real individuals and events - rather than on the smaller details of objective fact.

I write this assuming that the truth of history lies as much in each historian's interpretation as in the objective events.)

The Manchus invaded China in 1644, ending the Ming dynasty, and beginning the Ching (Qing) dynasty. The occupation force, as a minority of the population, introduced a number of repressive measures to control the indigenous Han population. These included forbidding the Hans to carry weapons, restricting their opportunities within the civil service, and the practice of binding the feet of women, rendering them totally dependent on their husbands and menfolk, who were thus also restricted in their actions and ability to undertake revolutionary activities.

The Shaolin Temple, which as a Buddhist institution was revered and regarded with religious awe by the invaders, became both a sanctuary for Ming rebels and a centre for revolutionary planning and training. Ming soldiers and sympathisers donned monk's robes and shaved their heads, but trained for war within the temple grounds and plotted the overthrow of the Manchus.

The combat systems then taught in the temple were based on animal movements and required the progressive mastery of tens and hundreds of long, intricate forms, taking fifteen to twenty years. The Shaolin grandmasters recognised that this approach was unsuitable for the rapid development of a fighting force. They began to develop a new system of Kung Fu based on human biomechanics rather than the movements of animals, distilling the enormous and disparate variety of techniques, some only marginally useful, of the animal systems into an essential core of techniques which would turn an average trainee into a skilled fighter in five years rather than twenty-five. As the Manchus had outlawed the carrying of weapons by the populace, the butterfly swords, which were easy to conceal in knee-length boots, were chosen as the system's only weapons.

The system was called Wing Chun, named after the Springtime (Wing Chun) training hall in the temple. Some accounts have it that the system was named after Yim Wing Chun, but it seems she may also have been given that name, after that of the training hall, by Ng Mui, the alternative meaning of the name being "Hope for the Future").

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