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.