Dumb question but someone might know?

[Life long Student]

Dumb question but someone might know?

The titles used for teacher, uncle, training brother, in a martial arts organization. I recently was thumbing through my Chinese English dictionary and noticed that they weren't under the English translations that I assumed. Does any one know the history behind them?

For Shifu, I was told that it roughly translated to "Father teacher" The idea being that your paternal father bore you, but you martial art Shifu taught you skills to stay alive. Hence your martial father (Shifu) was almost, if not more important than your paternal parent. In addition your Shifu had a particularly important task to teach you as if you were his son/daughter. Bearing in mind you also had to respect your teacher with the same thoughts you would a real parent. I thought this explained the devotion many martial art stories depicted from student to teacher and vise versa.

[Serpent]

Your explanation of Shifu is correct.

Now, in Cantonese, the terms you are looking for are:

Teacher - Sifu
Uncle - Sisuk
Training brother - Sihing if he's been there longer than you and Sidai if you've been there longer than him.

If you need the Mandarin, then this is of no use at all.

[Life long Student]

does any one know the history, and why not use the standard language of the area I.e. father/teacher or uncle instead of a separate term.

[Starchaser107]

there should be a thread about tradition discussing this in the other related arts forum... started by vash, check it out and see if anything there applies.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Life long Student
does any one know the history, and why not use the standard language of the area I.e. father/teacher or uncle instead of a separate term.

Not sure what you mean. What area are you referring to? In Chinese the terms mean uncle, etc. It's used because the kung fu "family" was considered to be just as cohesive as a regular blood family with a similar structure.

Not really sure what you're asking.....

[Life long Student]

When I looked up Father in The Oxford Chinese/English Dictionary. Nothing even came close to sifu. I had been under the assumption that these were martial art school terms not common expressions.

[Serpent]

A lot of terms aren't directly translatable. What does it say in your dictionary under teacher?

Also, look up Sifu in the Chinese section and see what it suggests for the English translation.

[Life long Student]

actual it had all of the uses of "to teach" but not teacher. But all started with Jiaoxue

[Serpent]

You might find this interesting.

[Life long Student]

This forum rocks

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Life long Student
actual it had all of the uses of "to teach" but not teacher. But all started with Jiaoxue

So that's Mandarin anyway.

[Life long Student]

how about mandarin

[Serpent]

What?

[SevenStar]

Isn't sihing sishung in mandarin?

[Life long Student]

I posted to fast then got bumped off

Thanks