A Tale of Two Sifu
Rene Ritchie, February 6th, 2008
“Sifu” is an oft-used, but also oft-misused term in Chinese martial arts. Actually, it’s two terms that sound the same but are composed of different characters, the first (1st) of which is usually reserved for religious or martial masters, the second (2nd) of which is applied to anyone skilled in any trade what-so-ever. Both can also apply to the same person, which can get confusing.
In China, a restaurant cook, mechanic, chess expert, even a taxi driver (since it was considered an uncommon skill) is referred to as sifu (2nd). Note, while the term itself does imply skill, it gives no absolute indication of the amount of skill.
Likewise, anyone who teaches (anyone who can find someone who wants to learn what they know — regardless of how much or how little that may be) is a sifu (1st). However, they are only called sifu (1st) by the person they are teaching.
So, let’s look at this a little:
If Albert is teaching Bob, then Albert is sifu (1st) to Bob, and Bob can refer to him as such. However, if Charlie isn’t learning from Albert (could be learning from someone else, or no one at all), than Charlie could not refer to Albert as sifu (1st), because Albert is not Charlie’s sifu (Albert is not teaching Charlie).
However, if Charlie recognized Albert as someone skilled in something (anything), wanted to be polite, and were so culturally inclined, he could refer to Albert as Albert sifu (2nd meaning). (Though if really culturally savvy, Charlie would use Albert’s family name, followed by sifu).
We could draw a Western semi-parallel to an Anglican priest named David Elroy with biological children. To David’s children, he would be father. To people within his culture, he would be Father Elroy (ignoring familiar Father Dave for the moment).
From the above, it should be fairly easy to infer that:
- The proper usage of sifu is after, not before a person’s (family) name. (Sifu Frank should not appear outside really tacky flyers).
- No one should ever refer to him or herself as sifu (it would be like a judge named Gerald introducing him or herself as “My Honor Gerald”.)
- A female sifu is still sifu (2nd meaning), though a female sifu’s husband is not simo (as the “mo” means wife). There’s some debate on what the proper Cantonese term for sifu’s husband would be.
To wrap up, and paraphrase a great old series from the now-defunct Inside Karate magazine days:
“When Ian James came to give a seminar, the attendees called him Mr. James. He asked them to call him Sifu James. Since he didn’t want to be called Mr., and he wasn’t their sifu, the attendees called him Ian.”
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