GGM Cia Fun Tjao was a member of the secret societies and this is why it is so hard to get informations about his story. What is known is that he escaped from China, from the regiment of black flags he was part of in the revolt of B0xer, to emigrate to Indonesia.
GGM Cia Fun Tjao practiced the 18 Lohan Fists and turned it into the 18 Lohan Hands.
He had only two pupils in Indonesia, Kwe King Yan and Ong Tik Guan, who was a landholder and boxer.
The latter had good fighting skills, he was tall and he had beaten many Sifus who taught Kung Fu in Surabaya, and for this reason he believed he was much better than any Kung Fu fighter.
One day he asked his friends to find a good Kung Fu Sifu to fight him, offering his friends money for this.
One day one of his friends went to his house and told him that there was a very special Kung Fu Master in Malang (Java) and that there was a tale going that Cia Fun Tjao had beaten in a restaurant numerous people who wanted to kill him, and that he neutralized all of them without killing anybody.
As a matter of fact the story says that Cia Fun Tjao went to Malang, where his brother had opened a Kung Fu gym.
He went to the address were the gym was supposed to be, but instead he found a restaurant, and he asked a waiter where his brother was.
The waiter called his boss and asked him. The boss had changed the gym into a restaurant and killed Cia Fun Tjao’s brother for belonging to a different political organization.
The boss invited Cia Fun Tjao into the restaurant, and once he was inside all the doors and windows were closed and many people attacked him, but Cia Fun Tjao managed to beat them all.
Ong Tik Guan, curious about all this, went to Malang and asked everybody in the restaurant if that story was true, and everyone confirmed it, though he wasn’t able to find Cia Fun Tjao for some days.
Then a person went to him and told him that Cia Fun Tjao had been seen shaking on the ground, being very ill.
Ong Tik Kuan wanted to measure himself with Cia Fun Tjao anyhow, and for this reason he brought him home with himself, in Surabaya; he took care of him, and after a while Cia Fun Tjao was back in shape.
Ong Tin Kuan wanted to measure his skills, and invited his friend Kwe King Yang to his house to see the fight.
While Ong and Kwe were practicing Kung Fu downstairs in the house, Cia Fun Tjao came down from upstairs and told them that what they were doing didn’t work and was a waste of time.
He said he would show them the real abilities of Kung Fu, and fought Ong Tik Kuan.
Ong started the fight throwing weak punches because Cia Fun Tjao was a lot smaller than him.
But Cia Fun Tjao dared him to use all of his strength, and so he did, just to find himself on the ground under Cia Fun Tjao’s punches.
Ong Tik Kuan wanted to try again, but he couldn’t even touch Cia Fun Tjao’s clothes.
Ong Tik Kuan realized that Cia Fun Tjao was a true Kung Fu master, and wanted to be his student, and Kwe King Yang too.
Cia Fun Tjao told him that he had to follow this rules, his rules :
- To respect his superiors. Elder people as well as elder Kung Fu brothers.
- To practice all of his life with no breaks.
- To be responsible for all of his actions, whether had he been beaten in a fight (he should not call other people to defend him) or had he hit someone during a fight.
After some years of this training in Ong Tik Guan’s house, Cia Fun Tjao passed away. It was around 1940.
At the time of the Japanese invasion in Indonesia, Ong Tik Guan went to Holland with his family and we have no informations about him eversince.
Kwe King Yang worked at first with a dutch company, then he taught Kung Fu for a living. He taught until 1987, year of his death, in his house of Sourabaya.
GGM Kwe King Yang with GM Tio Tek Kwi and two other students
GM Tio Tek Kwi with some students
GM Tio Tek Kwi
è stato allievo diretto di GGM Kwe King Yang dal 1961 al 1984 ed ha aperto la sua prima scuola per diffondere il sistema a lui insegnato dal suo Sifu nel lontano 1969.
