---
title: Cheung Lai-chuen (張禮泉, 1882–1964) — the maker of modern Bak Mei
---

**Cheung Lai-chuen** (**張禮泉 / Zhāng Lǐquán**, 1882–1964) is the **documented founder of modern **[**Bak Mei**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/bak-mei) — the real historical figure standing where the legendary "White Eyebrow" monk stands in folklore. In a corner of the martial world thick with mythical patriarchs, Cheung is the rare Hakka master whose life is actually on the record, which makes him the anchor for the whole art.

## Life

Cheung was born in **1882** into the **Hakka (客家)** community of the **Huizhou / East River (東江)** region of Guangdong — the heartland of the [short-bridge arts](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/hakka-arts). By tradition he trained under a succession of Hakka boxing teachers, finally receiving the **White Eyebrow** material from a monk of that lineage, and from these sources he **synthesized and systematized the art now known as Bak Mei**.

He earned a formidable fighting reputation in the East River region, then made his name as a teacher in **Guangzhou** in the Republican decades — by various accounts instructing **military and police** — before settling in **Hong Kong**, where he died in **1964**. Essentially all Bak Mei practised today descends from him and his sons and students.

<Callout type="warning">
  **Where the record stops.** Cheung Lai-chuen's life is documented; **the lineage behind him is not.** The monk who supposedly taught him, and the descent of that art from the legendary White-Eyebrow elder of the [Southern Shaolin](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/southern-shaolin) myth, belong to tradition rather than to history. The honest position is that **Bak Mei as a coherent, transmitted system begins, for the historian, with Cheung.**
</Callout>

## Why he matters

Cheung is a model of how to read Southern martial history honestly. Strip away the White-Eyebrow legend and there remains a perfectly real and impressive figure: a Hakka fighter of the East River who built a distinctive close-range system and spread it across Guangdong and Hong Kong within living memory. The legend gives the art a mythic monk; the record gives it Cheung Lai-chuen — and it is the record that we can actually stand on.

## See also

<PageRef space="notes" slug="bak-mei" text="Bak Mei (白眉) — the art he made" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="hakka-arts" text="The Hakka Short-Bridge Arts — the family it belongs to" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="southern-shaolin" text="Southern Shaolin &amp; the Five Elders — the legend behind the name" />

## Sources

**[1]** Benjamin Judkins, *"Cheung Lai Chuen: Creator of Pak Mei (White Eyebrow),"* Kung Fu Tea / Chinese Martial Studies ([chinesemartialstudies.com](https://chinesemartialstudies.com/2014/04/17/cheung-lai-chuen-creator-of-pak-mei-white-eyebrow/)) — the documented biography and the critical reading of the lineage.

**[2]** *Jeung Lai-chuen / Bak Mei*, English Wikipedia ([en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeung\_Lai-chuen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeung_Lai-chuen)) — dates, region, and the spread of the art to Hong Kong.