Yam Wing-Chun 严咏春
Yam Wing-Chun (嚴詠春, Yan Yongchun) is the heroine of the legend about the birth of Wing Chun, the southern Chinese kung fu style named after her. According to tradition, she was a simple tofu seller, a beauty who had to defend herself against a local bully — and for this purpose a fugitive Shaolin nun taught her a new art. Yam Wing-Chun's historicity has never been proven, but she is considered the first master of the style.
Legend places Yam Wing-Chun's life in the eighteenth century, giving approximate dates of around 1735–1795, but historians regard the story as legend, and versions of it differ considerably. The name itself is interpreted as "eternal spring" or "spring song." Her teacher is said to have been Ng Mui, a Buddhist nun and abbess who fled after the destruction of Shaolin during the Qing dynasty. According to one version, Ng Mui devised new techniques while watching a crane fight a snake.
Yam Wing-Chun sold tofu and was renowned for her beauty. When a local bully tried to force her into marriage, the girl defeated him in a duel; in some versions, Ng Mui had trained her precisely so that she could defend herself. Later Yam married a salt merchant, Leung Bok-Chau, who, according to legend, gave the style her name — "Wing Chun kung fu." In 1972 James Imm Lee even credited her with inventing chi-sao, the famous "sticky hands" exercise.
She became a cinematic heroine in the 1970s: in 1977 Cecilia Wong played her in The Stranger from Shaolin. The best-known adaptation is Wing Chun (1994) by Yuen Wo-Ping, starring Michelle Yeoh in the title role and Donnie Yen as Leung Bok-Chau. That same year saw the release of the series Kung Fu Master with Erica Choi, and in 2010 the film Wing Chun Kung Fu with Bai Jing. As a supporting character, Yam Wing-Chun also appeared in series about other southern wushu heroes — for example, in The Young Hero Hong Wen Ding (2001) and Gai Shi Ying Xiong Fang Shi Yu (2011).
Yam Wing-Chun's story is a rare example, for the martial arts, of a legend in which the founders of a style are two women: a nun and a tofu seller. That is why cinema sees her not only as a master but also as a heroine who stood up for herself against a forced marriage.
