MY KUNG FU STROKE

By Guy Le Claire

Have you or someone you know had a stroke? tough times in life? You / they may take solace in this hearty read by ex professional musician, Tai Chi Gold medallist "Guy Le Claire"

From music master to acknowledged tai chi master status, My kung fu stroke - a memoir of sorts, recounts Guys early life, musical career, progress and

• Language: English
• Publisher: my kung fu
• Release date: Sep 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9780645433678

Book preview

MY

KUNG FU

STROKE

A MEMOIR OF SORTS

GUY LE CLAIRE

Copyright © 2023 GUY LE CLAIRE

GUY LE CLAIRE WITH HELP FROM CHRIS FRAZIER

Second Edition 2023

ISBN: 978-0-6454336-6-1

Cover Artwork: Guy Le Claire, Chris Frazier & Michael Williams

Book layout and editing: Copyright © 2023 Guy Le Claire – [e-mail]

1st edition edited by Chris Frazier. 2nd edition by Guy Le Claire.

All Rights Reserved.

SPECIAL THANKS

Must be extended to wonderful people that have helped me on this journey.

Firstly the brilliant tireless work, care and commitment of Nurses, Doctors and related allied health professionals, Emergency service personnel,  my Mum Carolle Anne Boyce, my Dad Guy Mackay Le ClaireMr. Chris Frazier without whose collaboration the 1st edition would not have seen the light of day, Miss Li Yin Ma, Mr. Robbin Harris, Mr. Flynn Adams, Frazier family, Sifu Yim, Sifu Pang Hon Keung William, Buddha Shakyamuni Gautama, Paramhansa Yogananda. The Gaos from Yangshuo, my SZ teacher Zhang Guang Wen, Mr. Ron Ng, Bhante Somaloka, Ike Isaacs, The Calvos, Deidre Vlahos, Venerable Kovida, Rene and Jane Buhler, Bikkhu Somaloka, Peter Scherr, Miss Lucy Lung Feng, My second wife Mrs. Bellisa Gunadhi Evans Le Claire, Dikran Balian, John Prior, Lindsay Jehan, Michael Smith, Mary Haigh, Colleen Bleathman, Samantha &Olaf Vogee,Pete Watto, my kids Nastassja Le Claire & Julien Le Claire xx

The Australian Aborigines: the original custodians of this Gondwana. The Doctors and medical staff of the HK Hospitals, The Australian Medical doctors and nurses. The Maurici family, Anna Tardent, Steve Merta, Michael Williams, Jinny Ditwald, Peter Watson, Chris Proud.

My Dad - Guy Mackay Le Claire, My Mum - Carolle Boyce Le Claire, my former wife Sylvia Chan. HKSGI. John Mallig, the HK people...GOD.Ta.

I Love and thank you all deeply from my soul...XXX. Guy Julien Le Claire

CODES IN THIS BOOK

ABC = American born Chinese/ Australian born Chinese

adl/ado = Adelaide, capital of South Australia

Alien = thing from outer space/another world

Canto = Cantonese

Dai Lo = big brother

date = diary entry

Diu = Fuck in Cantonese

Dui = Yes in Mandarin

Face= An Asian concept of maintaining ‘face’, we could call it RESPECT, and acknowledgement of ‘being’. A loss of face is serious, a humiliation

FB = Flashback

Ga La / Ga La Wor = subject emphasis in Cantonese expletive

g/f = girlfriend

Glec = guy le claire the author

Gig = paid music performance

ham sup lo = dirty old man/possibly really meaning wet salty person, because the Tanka women of the boats and sea, were the only ones who would fuck a foreigner in the early days of HK.

HK/hkg = Hong Kong

Hypos = Hypotheticals

JKD = Jeet Kune Do Bruce Lee’s kung fu style of having no style. Founder of Mixed Martial Arts really.Combining Wing Chun drills with western boxing moves, core training and tai chi concepts.

Kung Fu = western slang for Chinese Martial Arts, a word  invented and propagated by the Cantonese really means a skill honed over time.

Ly, Lyz = Li Yin.

IuniQ = Li Yins home in Shaukeiwan, HK Island

Mando = Mandarin

MMA = Mixed Martial Arts

Muso, Musoz = Musician, Musicians

Oz = Australia

Poc guy = Wanker

PR = Permanent Residence

Sifu/Shifu = Master or teacher

Seelai = 40 year old plus Chinese woman that nags and exudes negativity – a Karen?

Stroker = Stroke Survivor

Sorlo – idiot

Tai Ji = Tai Chi Chuan = Tai Ji Quan- way of the ultimate boxing, tai chi is yin yang, chuan or quan is boxing/combat.

Totes = totally

U Don noodle = You don't know

YS = Yangshuo: a village in South West China, Guangxi province

ZG = Zhong Guo – centre country= China

FOREWORD

Welcome to my 2nd revised edition of this book, first released in 2020 with the help of my brother/friend Chris Frazier during the COVID crisis lock-down, coming up to a decade of having been back in my country Australia and losing my Hong Kong citizen status, I have altered my language to keep up with modern day respects and slang to return as a good little boy(punctually) in this edition. Time granted to me by God to re-evaluate and revise this important book, especially to review and calm this work. A work is always in a state of progress. As a jazz musician we are always honing our craft, with opportunities to solidify creations on the fly as essentially we improvise in front of the world by performance. With this backbone a bad gig, can always be a good gig Tomorrow. Writing is restrictive in this way, historically a bad book remained a bad book? An unsuccessful book can become a good one as we now have a very different world, & in publishing too.

You may be holding this book because you are curious about kung fu or kung fu chops or k. fu strokes. This manuscript is about medical strokes – brain injury and kung fu, how I used a kung fu attitude &  Chinese martial arts to get through a permanent disability from a STROKE.

This is my story, a little story & one of many, as a survivor of both 2 strokes, heart attack & COVID. I have the blessing to write & convey my experience/ story. I know we all have stories – I wish for you all to be happy, then I can fly away in the alien spaceship. Are we there yet? Are you with me... I used to think I was something special, do you? However after a time I realized I am just one of many – a demographic, I do feel as a stroke survivor I can instill some positivity in your life, even as a non qualified academic individual. Sharing some insight, understanding & awareness of stroke surviving, plain old survival is my goal. I am not a medical Doctor! I am Kung Fu Master!

Welcome to the 2nd Edition.

I am an Australian born Caucasian, half English & half Mauritian French (I look very white however) and an ex Hong Konger  -ex due to racial barriers and the inability to maintain my hk citizen status, the inhumane scoundrels! – unable to meet my 3 year requirement to return to hong kong to keep my pr – covid etc fucked up travel ability- I unfortunately, lost my hk right, & although I left oz for 30 years, I retained my rights:).I gave HK the most productive years of my life.

I also, am an Ex professional musician, Stroker and Kung Fu enthusiast. My wish is to encourage you all to a higher plane, we all have our specific Kung Fu (a passionate skill honed over time)... each and every one of you has some special thing, you are totes awesome! Sometimes we need someone to tell us.. below is a tale of my life/ one of many…

EARLY DAYS

Duality: Mum and Dad split up when I was five. Finally going to court to claim custody of me when I was seven in 1967. In those interim years I was dragged between both of them, beginning while I was attending Neutral Bay Primary School and then Paddington Primary School, creating quite a traumatised and insecure little boy. I suffer multiple personality disorder I am Octo Polar with Traumas. The uneasiness of dual-two had arisen at a young age. Deafness from a measles medicine meant, a terrible hearing loss...while Dad was on his Sunday morning paper read in the park and me playing about, I established my inability to hear the birds chirping, after measles, whereas previously I would hear & point in confirmation of hearing them. This hearing debacle was confirmed by the gov Australian hearing services in York St. We could have gone at big pharma and the Dr but in those days that wasn’t done. Consequently my career/employment prospects were very highly compromised, due to such hearing loss, I would not qualify for many positions, additionally I appeared a bit thick to some insensitive people, but amazingly I had a 40 year professional career in music. I could never ever understand lyrics in songs -  people often thought of me as ‘thick’ as I couldn’t understand much of what they were saying. Vocals on records weren't clear enough for me to distinguish words thus forcing me I believe, to attach to instrumental music. At the age of 13, I pursued the guitar intensively after a year or so on a tennis racket (true air guitar).

Parents split. I loved both of them equally.

The subsequent custody court case of who would own me, freaked me out. With friends on both sides suggesting that I tell the judge who I wanna live with... I didn’t fucking know!!! In 1967 the judge awarded Dad custody of me. Mum was devastated. I freaked a bit too, but it was not like I was going to an unknown. I loved Dad immensely and Mum was totes creampied! She had me every second weekend thereafter and this became my pattern in life. Then in 1976 I lived with Mum for a year in North America.

Mum an extravagant, attractive lady, a hippy of the 60’s. I always looked forward to her picking me up from the house (where I lived with Dad) in Irrawong Rd. Mona Vale. By this time I was going to Mona Vale Primary.

Relativity of simultaneity ~ Two events, simultaneous for one observer, may not be simultaneous for another observer if the observers are in relative motion.

Two of Everything ~ Diu. Two kids, Two parents, Two nationalities & abodes. Belonging to two places, always aching for the other then when you're there, wishing you were back at the first place! Fuck!!
Love my Mum and Dad, I cannot choose one over the other. The duality of things began to drive me nuts.

Mum a British lady born Carolle Anne Boyce on the 24th January 1938 at 12 Clarence Rd, Teddington, Wimbledon, Kingston, London growing up during the war and London bombings, A War Baby. Migrating to OZ at age 14, she didn’t know where she was when put in a migrant camp in Ipswich QLD. After Grandpa relocated the family to Adelaide (1950’s), life improved. She has a strong nature, one you wouldn’t want to double-cross. She tells me I am not in line to inherit her assets. She is getting on and I worry. I help her. However, Carolle achieved an admirable career in Fashion, beginning in HK with successful fashion shows, her original georgettes gobbled up and copied (dianne freis etc.), she pushed ahead to open Carolle Boyce Designs in the Strand Arcade, Sydney CBD from humble beginnings in the 60s at Paddy’s Market (where her creations flowed out the door to both locals and viet war rnrs).

Her fashion creations attracted clients wherever she based, & her knowledge of fabrics (among other things) is superb. Often purchasing garments and fabric from far-flung corners of the world she visited and recreating designs with the exotic fabrics cut up. Mum left Australia on a ship where I saw her off at Circular Quay on my 11th birthday. I freaked!

Early Family History ~ England

The Boyces (mums family) sailed out from Southhampton for Australia via the Suez and Sri Lanka on the SS Ormonde in 1952 (which incidentally looks ancient in pictures)settling in Qld. Grandpa moved the family to Adelaide (good move gramps). Mum blossomed there/ with gramps inviting new immigrants Russians/Polish/ Italians etc. to their crib. Mum experienced eye opening cultures & ways, I think that would down the line influence her perception of the world and work/art. Which in her 30s would amount to a lot of success & travel.

Mum’s Dad, born Reginald John Jack Boyce in London in 1913. Grandpa Jack as he was known is someone I adored and remember fondly. I would visit him once a year from Sydney and enjoyed staying with him in Adelaide, Sth Australia where he had settled with his family after arriving from England via QLD. Grandpa was like a big loveable bear and was Ex-British Merchant Navy. I am half British and a crazy mix of French Mauritian/African – Indian  - French Brittany. Mum’s mum Grace Bizzell (I think grandma was sad & upset that her husband had dumped her & the family in Oz). She reminded me at times of the witch in the Disney cartoon Sleeping Beauty.  Grandpa was affectionate, where as grandma wasn’t so. Both grandparents have a rather complex family history, probably like a lot of migrants… names Freitag, German British interbreeding and Music talent gets bandied around but there is no clear atlas. Mum, I think has both the compassionate and aggressive traits of her parents with a good dose of Hippiedom, she truly is a 60’s flower child. There is even a mountain up here in the Blue Mountains named with Grandpa... Mt Boyce. When I was about 9, Mum met and moved in with Shanghainese born, HK & Oz bred Eddy Shen. She maintained a very successful clothes stall at Paddy’s Market making shitloads of money. However with a lost custody and nagging sense to get the fuck out of Oz, those two departed Sydney on my 11th birthday for Panama (van halen!), mum believes this created a distance in our relationship, & I reckon it did. Wouldn’t it for any 11 year old!!!? derr.

They never moved back home.

I reenacted this scenario with my kids in China, we went through long periods of no communication. Sadly I’ve heard this scenario with quite a few lonlely older people. Let’s Forgive! I love my kids Julien & Nastassja deeply, our kids are our and the planets future.

Julien is in cadetship with Cathay Pacific & hopes to fly those big birds that took me all around the planet in awe! Nastassja has been blessed with a mercedes benz & has a stable life. They have turned out really well!

Eddy became like my Chinese stepfather, in the old days they would pick me up for the 2nd weekend as they lived in Maroubra, we would eat in Chinatown at Canton Palace, I used to love that! Yummy. My love of Asian cuisine blossomed.

When Grandpa Jack passed on, Dad wept. Mum held a service for him where she was based at the time, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where I would eventually live during 1976 with Mum & Eddy. I didn’t think about Eddy’s racial background, except he seemed to be occupied with money, had very creative looking hands & knew how to yummy cook. When they left Oz I felt very alone, withdrawing to the quite boring routine life with Dad in Warriewood. Mosman living was a saviour, other kids at school in a similar predicament & always something going on. Guitar became my thing, constant companion & with it I found a kungfu plus surfing & skiing. Mosman High was loaded with good guitarists. Mum is progressive. 

In memoramdum of Robert Ypes, Guy Casanova, Ron Graham, Barry Stern.

France, Mauritius to Australia

The Le Claire’s thought of themselves as French. The truth however was that they had been banished from Brittany, France in the early 17th Century and sent to the Island of Mauritius where they eventually became sugar cane professionals.

My Great, Great Grandfather Victor Le Claire and Great Grandfather Jean Baptiste Georges Kerdale Le Claire were both born in Port Louis, Mauritius. Jean Baptiste was a Sugar Boiler by trade and it was this occupation that enticed him initially to Australia’s sugar cane belt in Queensland. Upon arrival they mostly discarded their French/Mauritian ancestry and went with the Frenchee vibe as that was more of an acceptable nationality status considering the White Australia policy at the time.

After moving to Mackay in Queensland, Jean Baptiste then married his Mauritian born partner Marie Noemie Collet on the 3rd January 1885. They had eight children, the second of which was my grandpa Guy Georges Le Claire who was born on the 1st July 1887.

By 1915 however, both Jean Baptiste and Marie Noemie Le Claire had resettled to the lower North Shore suburb of Chatswood in Sydney.

In Sydney Jean Baptiste became a Boot Maker until his passing on the 2nd of December 1933. The young Guy Georges Le Claire(grandpa) grew up in Mackay becoming a Tailor by trade. He married Florence Beatrice (Le Claire) and had two girls after settling in the town of Goondiwindi. This marriage dissolved around 1922, which according to a North Sydney Police Gazzette, he was charged with Wife Desertion and upon arrest he was duly charged and ordered to pay his wife the amount of 2 pounds support per week. He remained a Tailor till his death in Gladstone QLD on the 15th May 1955.

My father was born Guy Mackay Le Claire in Carlton, Melbourne on the 31st of May 1929 out of wedlock. His father Guy Georges had met and courted the Melbourne born Elizabeth Margaret Mackay who became his De facto wife. Though no official records or marriage certificate have been located, she was also known as Le Claire officially in subsequent Electoral Rolls records throughout Qld and NSW from 1930 onwards till her death in about 1968.

Shortly after the birth of my dad, they settled in Bundaberg QLD, later Gladstone became their home. Dad always mentioned that with the glaring Queensland sun, he himself looked like a "Boong Aboriginal. He endured this racial slur his whole life and to some degree it dictated the stereotypical roles he was cast in and played throughout his acting career. (As a favoured Baddie" Dad got to play in Homicide, Hunter, Riptide, Division Four, Poor Man’s Orange, Matlock Police & A Country Practice). After I travelled the world, especially in India and Chungking Mansions, I could see by observation and witness that the original Le Claire’s had indeed interbred with the Mauritian locals (African and Indian being the major populace last century). Upon settling in Sydney (late 50’s), he made contact with both of his parents sides to learn more of his family history. Again it seemed to be foggy and in mystery & secrecy.  Nothing is clear on both sides of my family WHO AM I? :):):)

Dad was a 1950’s crooner, loved Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire, totes encompassed by the glamour, romance and style of Hollywood circa 1940’s and 50’s, fine women & fashion, good manners, booze, no drugs or blatant self expression. Aussie old school.

Incredibly, during the late 1950’s, my parents both arrive in Sydney as young adults, Mum from Adelaide, and Dad from Brisbane to pursue careers in the field of Drama. They are actors and were booked on the same theatre tour of the countryside beginning before Australia had television, meaning long arduous tours to country towns performing for the town folk. Mum and Dad met on one of these tours and fall in love, and here