Brief Biography of Grand Master Nguyên Tế Công (1877–1959)

Translated from the original French text written by Grand Master Nam Anh in Montréal, 1999

During the Tang Dynasty in the ninth century of the Common Era, there lived the Venerable Monk Tế Công — also known as “Hoạt Phật” (the Living Buddha) — who often feigned madness as he wandered far and wide, saving lives and relieving suffering, helping the common people escape oppression and destitution.

Following in his footsteps more than a thousand years later, Nguyên Tế Vân chose the alias Nguyên Tế Công — as though to say “Tế Công reborn into the world.”

Born into a noble family, the two brothers Nguyễn Tế Vân and Nguyễn Kỳ Sơn were trained in the martial arts from a young age by Grand Master Phùng Tiểu Thanh — a martial official who had retired into seclusion.

Some years later, advanced in age and diminished in strength, Grand Master Phùng Tiểu Thanh decided to send his gifted disciple Tế Vân to Kim Cương Temple to continue his studies under Grand Master Giác Hải — a fellow brother of the same lineage. From that point on, alongside his two fellow disciples Nguyên Trung and Nguyên Minh (also known as Hoàng Tường Phong), Nguyên Tế Vân continued his rigorous training for seven more years at Kim Cương Temple, ultimately attaining a level of supreme mastery.

In 1930, Grand Master Nguyên Tế Công came to Vietnam at the invitation of the Chinese community associations there, to teach Wing Chun to the noble and wealthy families of the region. He soon became renowned for his extraordinary skill, demonstrated on numerous occasions through public displays of martial arts.

In 1937, he took up residence at the home of one of his trusted disciples, Cam Thúc Cường, on Hàng Buồm Street in Hanoi, and from there began transmitting his teachings to the Vietnamese upper class.

During the Second World War (1939–1945), under the banner of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” Japan invaded all the nations of Southeast Asia, igniting powerful anti-Japanese resistance movements in both Vietnam and China. Tế Công joined the resistance forces under a new identity — Lương Vũ Tế — and was later conferred the rank of general.

Constantly hunted by the Imperial Japanese Military Police, he left behind a trail of extraordinary legends along his escape routes — tales still recounted to this day — of his encounters with enemy forces, each step he took leaving fallen soldiers in his wake.

In 1954, he brought his family south following the partition of Vietnam, and practiced Traditional Eastern Medicine in Chợ Lớn until the final days of his life. He passed away at the age of eighty-four, with his beloved daughter Dung and a trusted disciple, Dr. Lê Bá Khả, by his side.