Pequeno Saltamontes
Written by Master Whang
This article by Master Whang (Sr. and/or Jr.) was originally written for and posted on www.CarbonEcho.com, a martial arts website dedicated to educating the public about all martial arts. While the site enjoyed tremendous popularity, it ceased operations several years ago.
Pequeño Saltamontes
Do you remember the 1970’s series, “Kung Fu”? It’s gotten a bad rap for many things, and in a lot of ways deservedly so. For fact that it stole Bruce Lee’s idea. For the fact that it was a watered down version of what Bruce Lee envisioned, both in terms of the authenticity of the martial arts, and in terms of refusing to use a “real” Asian leading man in television - too radical a thought back then in Hollywood. For its stereotyping of the Asian man and the martial arts master as inscrutable, ever-mysterious, and completely uninterested in women (I guess that’s why they conveniently made him a monk, so that he wouldn’t pose any sort of “yellow peril”. I don’t remember him ever getting even close to having a girlfriend, let alone trying!!!) For the fact that they used someone with NO real martial arts experience … I mean, I know that David Carradine’s name and identity forever became synonymous with the martial arts after the series, and that to this day he continues tocapitalize on his role in the series by endorsing various instructional home videos and through his reincarnation as his OWN GRANDSON in the new, even worse “Kung Fu” series. But seriously folks, who can’t look good in slow motion shots from behind and down low, waving your arms around in slow circular movements and kicking knee-high at best? My guess is that they probably used stunt men even for those shots.
I have to admit, though, that I absolutely LOVED the series when I was young. I used to watch the program religiously. I can still remember the hauntingly beautiful, Chinese (well, at least it sounded Chinese to me), opening melody in flute, every nuance to which my brother and I would whistle along (and which, by the way, I can’t rid of while writing this piece).
Anyways, back in the early ’70’s when the series came out my brother and I lived in Argentina. So the person you may remember as “Little Grasshopper” was for me “Pequeño Saltamontes”. Kwai Chang Cain spoke halting Spanish, not English, in what I assume was a Chinese accent. Imagine: impressionable 9 year old Korean blue belt Taekwondo boys living in Argentina, dreaming of being just like half-Chinese Shaolin monk played by the White American, fighting for justice against the bad guys (usually White) played to perfection by our older brother (also Korean). My twin brother and I spent countless hours trying to snatch the pebble out of the hand of blind “Maestro” (whom my brother and I took turns playing by rolling our eyes up so only the whites of our eyes showed), so that we could be worthy of leaving the monastery to fulfill our destiny - finding our American birth father in California. Well, we did end up in America, but talk about setting yourself up for an identity crisis!
I haven’t watched the series in a long time, and I cringe when I think how awful I would probably think it was if I saw it now. But you know what? Having been a big fan of the show didn’t inflict any permanent identity crisis damage to my brother or myself. To the contrary, as much as I hate admitting to it on some vague intellectual level, Kwai Chang Cain was actually an early inspiration in my life-long training in the martial arts. I guess there is a greater lesson to be learned from all this, even though I had to think long and hard for anything I could say with a straight face: you can draw positive inspiration from the strangest sources, no matter misguided they may be.
