Kung Fu Trivia #1
October 17th, 2011
Imagine you have just finished a very intensive kung fu practise session. Feeling completely exhausted after hours and hours of heavy training, you hope to re-energize yourself by having dinner with your kung fu brothers and sisters. What type of food would you like to have? Would you like to go for beer and wings in a nearby sports bar? Or would you prefer to have something else that is not only nutritious, but also will distinguish yourself as a martial artist at the same time?
In the ancient days, when kung fu practitioners have finished training, congee is the food that they would customarily have together. As this tradition continued, the Chinese idiom 吃夜粥, which literally means eating congee late at night, was developed. The figurative meaning of this phrase is having previously taken up kung fu training. If a person is said that to have previously eaten congee late at night, it usually implies he or she is a well trained martial artist.
The most common explanation of why kung fu practitioners would have congee after training is because many years ago, most SIFU’s would ask their best students to help out at the kung fu schools. These students put in long hours of work to not only teach classes and ensure the day to day operations were running smoothly, but also they needed to train hard themselves. By the time they were ready to leave the school for the day, it would be very late at night. To show their appreciation for the students who had been helping out, the SIFUs’ would ask their family to help prepare large pots of congee and treat them to dinner at the end of the day.
There are other explanations as well. For example, congee is rich in carbohydrate and high in water content. When martial artists have been sweating and exerting high amount of energy through long hours of intensive training, congee is a type of food that can help them re-hydrate and refuel them with energy. Also, the price of congee is not expensive. As a result, another explanation of why kung fu practitioners would like to have congee after training is because back in the old days, martial artists were generally not rich. Congee would fit their budgets if they were to have late night snacks on a consistent basis after training.
The next time you have finished an intensive training session, have a bowl of congee afterwards. You too can proudly claim that you have previously “had congee late at night” and share the same experience that our kung fu ancestors went through.
*Written by Edwin Lau (First Level Technician), based on the ideas contributed by Stanley Lee, Simon Lo, and Roger Lam
