Wing Chun City

Also of note is the existence of a city called Wing Chun (Yongchun) in Fujian Province, China. In Mandarin, the pronunciation of the martial art and the pronunciation of the town are identical: Yongchun.

Several other Chinese martial arts come from Yongchun and the surrounding area, most notably the Fujianese style of White Crane, one branch of which is even called Wing Chun Bak Hok Kuen, or Wing Chun White Crane boxing. Li Wenmao, a historically verifiable opera performer and leader in the 1854-1855 Red Turban Rebellion in Foshan, is said to have been a Wing Chun White Crane practitioner.

There is a story that White Crane was created by Ng Mui after she was inspired by a fight between a snake and a crane, as in the Yip Man oral history of Wing Chun.

Another White Crane legend states that the art was created by a young woman who combined her observation of cranes with the martial arts she learned from her father - in some versions a refugee from the destruction of the Fujian Shaolin Temple - and later taught her art to her husband, as in the Yiu Kai oral history of Wing Chun.

Most stories name this young woman as Fong Chut-Neung, to use the Cantonese pronunciation, but other stories name her Fong Wing-Chun and the Shaolin disciple she marries as Hung Hei-Gun, to whom she teaches her Crane style which he combines with his Tiger style to create the famous Hung Family Tiger Crane style.

Oral history aside, the technical similarities of Wing Chun and Fujian White Crane suggest that the two are related. As Yip Man's student Leung Ting put it:

"Wing Tsun System is derived from the Fukien System of kung-fu, which is related to the Hakka System. Their common features are that during fights, pugilists of these systems prefer short steps and close fighting, with their arms placed close to the chest, their elbows lowered and kept close to the flanks to offer it protection. Another characteristic of these two systems of kung-fu is, unlike those of Kwangtung Province and Northern China, their boxing forms are rather simple".

Fujian White Crane and Okinawan Karate are indisputably related and Guangdong is much closer to Fujian than Okinawa.