Notice:

An English translation of the complaint letter (Chinese) sent to the "The World Kung Fu Master Magazine"

Mr. Lau Wang

Editorial director of The World Kung Fu Master Magazine

Dear Mr. Lau,

I am writing to complain about the article entitled ”The Ving Tsun Athletic Association Certification Incident” posted by your magazine (1^st periodical 2007). The article questioned and criticized our Association’s procedure in issuing the Instructor Certificate without careful verification. The Association's chairman and the Board of Directors are very disappointed towards this, and are here to clarify the procedure in issuing the Instructor Certificate.

First, our Association guaranteed that since our operation in 1985, the requirement of qualified instructors and the procedure laid down for issuing the Instructor Certificate have been determined by Board of Directors and been followed by the new Board of Directors every year. Such a procedure has been carrying out very well. The requirements for issuing Instructor Certificate of our Association are as follows:

1. For any Practitioners under the Ip Man Ving Tsun  linage aged 21 or above and wants to apply the Instructor Certificate, he or she has to be a certified member of the Association, has to practice Ving Tsun for five years or above, has to finish learning the three sets of Ving  Tsun Kufu practice, wooden dummy practice and sticking hands practice, and has the recommendation from applicant’s own instructor (Sifu);
2. The applicant’s instructor (Sifu) has to be a certified member of Association, and holds a valid Instructor Certificate issued by the Association;
3. If the applicant’s instructor (Sifu) has deceased, the applicant has to receive the recommendations of at least any two students of the deceased Sifu who are also certified members of the Association and are holding Instructor Certificates issued by the Association;
4. If the Board of Directors has any inquiries towards any application, the Board reserves the right to interview the applicant for further assessment.
5. If there is any special circumstance that deviates from the above criteria, the concerned application shall be determined by the Board of Directors of the Association.

Besides the article has also mentioned about the unreasonable rejection of the application of Mr. Henry Araneda Rayes. From the record of our Association, Mr. Henry Araneda has applied for the Association’s membership and the Instructor Certificate( Application Receipts No. 0109) , and the application forms have been given to another member of our Association for submission on 17^th December 2006. However, it is written on Mr. Henry Araneda’s application form that he receives training from a Mr. Duncan’X’, instead of a Mr. Lee Hong Kee as mentioned in the article, and the form bears the signature of Mr. Duncan ‘X’. After the verification of our Association, Mr. Duncan ‘X’ is not a certified member of our Association and therefore he does not have the authority to recommend his student to apply for our Association’s Instructor Certificate. This well explains the reason for rejecting Mr. Henry Araneda’s application, and I believe it is the most common way of handling applications, which is as well fair and reasonable. Lastly, the Association has informed the member who helped submit Mr. Henry Araneda’s application the reason for rejection, and that member has collected the returned application form and cheque by himself. As you can see, the procedure of handling such an application is undoubtedly reasonable and without a flaw.

From the above, I believe you have understood the unreality of your magazine’s report. As part of the media, your magazine should have the professional spirit and attitude. As a result, our Association reserves all ground to pursue your responsibility towards the misreported article, and hopes your magazine can immediately clarify the unjust report. If there is any other report about our Association in the future, please first inquire our Association’s Board of Directors for verification to avoid misleading the mass audience.

Yours sincerely,

Siu Yuk Men

Chairman, the Board of Directors,

Ving Tsun Athletic Association Ltd.