Lu Acai / Luk Ah Choi

        He was a Manchu, whose father was stationed in Guangdong. He was orphaned at an early age, and raised by an uncle, who mistreated him so frequently that he ran away to work as a servant at the age of 12. His live was lonely and hard until a chance meeting with a monk (believed to be the Shaolin disciple Li Baifu) at a Cantonese opera performance that marked a religious festival. He became the monk's disciple, and studied martial arts under him for seven years. With his sifu's recommendation, he went on to study at the Julianshan Shaolin Monastery (in Fujian)* under Zhi Shan (Venerable Chee Seen).

After de destruction of the monastery, he fled to Guangzhou (=Canton), where he adopted Huang Qijing (Huang Fei-Hong's father) as his pupil. He soon withdraw from the martial arts and from society as a whole to study medicine. He died at the age of 68 in his home, known as Leshan Lodge. Huang Qijing was his only student. He was especially adept at the Hua Quan (Flower Fist), and was sometimes referred to as Hua Quan Lu Acai.

 

*Actually this must have been the Linquanyuan or the South Shaolin Monastery, 18 km. north of Putian, Putian County in Fujian (=Fukien). This temple was build 627 - 649 during the reign of Emperor Zhen Guan. It was destroyed in the 58th year of the Emperor Kang Xi (1662 - 1722), thus in 1720. In the eighties relics have been found there associated with the Hong Men (Cant. Hung Moon) Society, a secret Anti Qing (Cant. Ching) organization, closely associated with the Shaolin Monastery (Martial Arts of China, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1990, page 32).

This monastery should then be located in the Hsiang Mountains, with his highest peak Lo Han Shan (969 m.) on the river Chin-Lu. Linquanyuan translates: Garden Overlooking the River.

It is known that in Putian County the Buddhist Monasteries outnumbered the Taoist Temples with 14 against 3 in the early 16th century. By 1647 the resistance against Qing Dynatie and the authorities had spread widely in Fujian. The uprising in Putian County even lasted longer (E.B. Vermeer, Development and decline of Fukien Province in the 17th and 18th Centuries, Sinica Leidensia, Vol. XXII, Leiden/New York 1990)