Martial art is a technique to learn physical combat for various purposes such as defeating the opponent in a fight or defending oneself. The various forms of martial arts inspire individuals every day to become as skillful as their founders. One such form of martial art is Bak Mei. Bak Mei literally in Chinese means “white eyebrows”. Bak Mei has often been known by various different names such as the Pei Mei, Pai Mei, Bei Mei and Pak Mei.
Bak Mei is one of the few styles that have not been modified or tampered with over the long period of time, for which it has been known. Bak Mei is known to have maintained its reputation of being a lethal style and has not been adopted for other purposes. It is believed that Bak Mei is one of the very few styles that combine both the Shaolin and the Taoist ways of fighting in a single style. Bak Mei lays great stress on the combination of the Shaolin method of combat and the Taoist principles of breathing to maximize the power generated from within the body. It is a fast, as well as an aggressive style, which can rarely be found in any of the recent Chinese styles of martial arts. Bak Mei has deep and firm roots and its followers respect its heritage. This martial arts style often seems to appear as the use of brutal force to a person watching it.
The founder – Bak Mei
The name of the style is the same as the name of the founder of the style – Bak Mei. There are different and varied accounts of the beginning of the style. According to the Nam Anh ancestry theory, Bak Mei had a vital part in decline of the Shaolin temples. According to one story, the Ming dynasty had become corrupt. The leader of the Shaolin temples passed away, leaving his designation for becoming one among the five revered Kung Fu grandmasters. The five grandmasters survived the attack on the first Shaolin temple, but other monks had been killed. Bak Mei declined to divulge his true identity and was given the name – Bak Mei. According to the same story, Bak Mei deceived Ming during this time, leading to the destruction of the Shaolin temples. Bak Mei formed a force, but it was captured by the royals and to save them from death, he had to kill the Shaolin leader – Chi Thien Su. Bak Mei is frequently depicted as a betrayer, but his followers claimed that he did things to save the followers, who might have been tormented to death otherwise.
According to other theory, the ancestry of Jie Kon Sieuw, 128 monks from the Shaolin temple of the South, defeated Xilu’s army without suffering any casualty. The rulers of the state were embarrassed as to how easily they had defeated the Xilu warriors, which the rulers of the state could never dream of. The rulers of the state became wary of the power of the monks and ordered the destruction of the Shaolin temple. The first 110 monks among the 128 had been killed on that day and only five of the monks survived the surprise attack. The monks decided to go to temples where they could hide as clerics. However, after two years of absconding from one place to other they decided that they would send a spy to the Qing court. Bak Mei was selected for this purpose but, more he learnt, more he knew that they could not defeat their enemy. Bak Mei decided to leave the rebellions, who mistook this to be betrayal and Bak Mei had to run for his life from the rebellions as well as the rulers. All the members of the rebellion groups, who wished to revenge Bak Mei, were killed by him.
The different stories and theories all come from followers to Bak Mei, but they are quite different from one another. There are many accounts of Bak Mei, the 5 grandmasters and the Shaolin temples each differing from the other very much. In other versions of the stories, the traitor was some other person and not Bak Mei, but no proof has been found of this. In yet another version of a story, Bak Mei along with another person betrayed the Shaolin temples. Yet, different version of story says Bak Mei could be a nick name for one of the two persons – Fung Do-Duk or Ma Ning-Yee, who betrayed the Shaolin temples. It says that there is no person as Bak Mei and there are no facts as to if this person actually existed. The facts and proofs are incomplete because temples were destroyed and records deleted again and again.
The martial arts legend, Bak Mei has recently been taken into modern cinema and has unfortunately been fictionalized in movies such as 'Executioners from Shaolin' and 'Clan of the White Lotus'.