SEUI JEUHNG MOU
蔡厝圍村瑞象舞
Choi Chheu Wai Seui Jeuhng Mou
Among the traditional cultural practices of the Hailufeng region 海陸豐 (Hoi Luk Fung), one of the most unusual is the Auspicious Elephant Dance 瑞象舞, Cantonese Seui Jeuhng Mou. Unlike the better-known Lion Dance 舞獅 (Mou Si), Dragon Dance 舞龍 (Mou Lung), and Qilin Dance 舞麒麟 (Mou Kei Lun), the elephant tradition survives in only a small number of villages in Haifeng.
One of those villages is particularly important to the history of southern Chinese martial arts: Cai Cuowei Village 蔡厝圍村, Cantonese Choi Chheu Wai Chyun, in Ketang 可塘, Haifeng 海豐.
This brief statement is historically significant because the 蔡清玩 Choi Cing Wun named here is associated with the martial tradition of Cai Cuowei Village that also preserved Cat Fist 貓形拳 and other village boxing practices.
The record therefore places Cai Qingwan not only within the martial culture of the village, but also within its traditional ceremonial and community performance culture.
The word 瑞 seui is important. It does not simply mean that the performers are imitating an elephant. 瑞 refers to an auspicious sign or favorable omen. The elephant is therefore presented as a creature associated with prosperity, peace, abundance, and good fortune.
The Hailufeng tradition explains the elephant dance through the ancient history of Lingnan 嶺南, Cantonese Ling Naam, the broad cultural region covering Guangdong and Guangxi.
Elephants once inhabited southern China. The Hailufeng account connects the custom with an older period when elephants were present in Lingnan and traditions involving elephants in agricultural work and ceremonial performances were remembered.
Over time, wild elephants disappeared from Guangdong, but the cultural image of the elephant survived.
The animal consequently moved from the natural environment into ritual and folk culture.
The elephant became not simply 象 Jeuhng, an elephant, but 瑞象 Seui Jeuhng, an auspicious elephant.
By the Tang period, elephants could also represent auspiciousness, political stability, peace and prosperity. The Hailufeng tradition therefore belongs to a much larger Chinese symbolic vocabulary in which the appearance of an extraordinary or auspicious animal could be interpreted as a favorable omen.
Even after elephants had disappeared from Guangdong, communities could continue to reproduce the animal ceremonially through dance.
This helps explain why an elephant could remain culturally alive in Hailufeng long after actual elephants had vanished from the region.
There is also a remarkable oral legend explaining the creation of one important Haifeng elephant tradition.
However, this story must be distinguished from the history of Cai Cuowei 蔡厝圍.
The legend is associated with Hukou Village 笏口村, where the martial artist and physician Chen Xuelong 陳雪隆, remembered by the nickname Hongxia 紅蝦, established an Auspicious Elephant troupe during the late Qing and early Republican period.
According to the tradition, Chen dreamed of a child tending animals on a mountainside. Suddenly, a huge white creature emerged from the forest.
The frightened child ran away, but when an elderly man came to investigate, he discovered a white elephant 白象, Cantonese Baak Jeuhng, peacefully protecting the animals.
Rather than appearing violent, the elephant displayed dignity, confidence, gentleness and intelligence.
The old man recognized it as a:
神象
San Jeuhng
“Divine Elephant” or “Sacred Elephant.”
When the old man asked whether the child might ride the elephant, the animal lowered itself and used its trunk to lift the child onto its back.
Chen Xuelong then awoke.
According to the legend, the movements and personality of the divine elephant remained vividly in his mind. Its combination of tremendous physical power with restraint and kindness inspired the character later expressed through the Auspicious Elephant Dance.
This story is important for understanding the symbolism of 瑞象 Seui Jeuhng, but current evidence does not establish that Cai Qingwan claimed the same dream or creation story for the Cai Cuowei troupe.
The safer historical interpretation is that the legend belongs to the Hukou lineage of the dance, while Cai Qingwan
organized a separate 瑞象班 Seui Jeuhng Baan in Cai Cuowei Village within the broader Haifeng tradition.
For the history of Cai Cuowei, the most interesting statement is that Cai Qingwan 蔡清玩 personally organized the village's:
瑞象班
Cantonese: Seui Jeuhng Baan
“Auspicious Elephant Troupe”
This suggests that Cai Qingwan's role in his community extended beyond boxing.
The troupe would have been a village organization responsible for maintaining performers, musicians, equipment, ceremonial knowledge and the performance itself.
This is particularly interesting when Cai Qingwan is considered within the martial environment of Cai Cuowei.
Traditional southern Chinese village culture did not necessarily separate martial arts, festival performance, religious observance and community organization into the distinct categories that we often use today.
Lion, Qilin, tiger and elephant performances could share personnel and training culture with village martial arts associations.
The available description of the Haifeng elephant tradition explicitly characterizes it as combining:
武、舞、樂
Mou, Mou, Ngok
Martial arts, dance and music.
For Cai Cuowei, therefore, Cai Qingwan's involvement with the 瑞象班 should be understood within this broader village martial-cultural environment.
How the Elephant Moves
The Auspicious Elephant does not behave like a lion.
Its personality is deliberately slower and heavier.
Descriptions of the Haifeng tradition emphasize qualities such as:
威嚴 Wai Yim
Majesty and dignity
穩重 Wan Chung
Steadiness and composure
自信 Ji Seun
Confidence
憨厚 Ham Hau
Honest, simple-hearted and good-natured
善良 Sin Leung
Kindness or benevolence
These characteristics are expressed through the physical performance.
The traditional sequence includes the elephant entering and giving its respects, searching in the four directions for food, eating, resting after eating, returning after being satisfied, and finally giving its closing respects.
The movements include manipulation of the trunk, shaking the ears, stamping the feet and raising the head.
The movements are deliberately slower than those of many lion performances because the dancers are attempting to communicate the weight, stability and temperament of a real elephant.
Interestingly, the traditional Haifeng description says that the basic sequence and etiquette of the elephant performance follow elements comparable to the White-Forehead Green-Faced Lion:
白額青面獅
Cantonese: Baak Ngaak Ching Min Si
The ceremonial etiquette and musical accompaniment are also described as broadly similar to those used in tiger and lion performances.
Yet the body language is completely different.
The lion can be explosive, alert, playful and aggressive. The elephant must communicate mass and controlled power.
This is one reason the 瑞象 is culturally fascinating. The performers are not simply moving inside a costume. They must create the illusion that the audience is observing the personality of an elephant.
raditional Haifeng elephant heads were constructed primarily from:
竹篾 Juk Mit thin bamboo strips and 紙 Ji paper.
The bamboo strips were bound together to establish the shape of the elephant's head. Paper was then applied over the framework. The trunk, eyes, ears and mouth were formed, with plant fibers also used in parts of the construction.
After drying, the elephant was traditionally painted white and finished with a protective coating.
The white appearance is particularly interesting when compared with the oral legend of the 白象 Baak Jeuhng, the White Elephant.
This is where the surviving documentation becomes frustratingly limited.
The source specifically identifies Cai Qingwan 蔡清玩 as the organizer of the Cai Cuowei 瑞象班, but the currently accessible published material does not provide a complete roster of the troupe's performers.
Therefore, we should not invent names or automatically assume that Cai Qingwan's known Cat Fist students were also elephant performers.
What we can establish is:
蔡清玩 Choi Cing Wun
Organizer of the Cai Cuowei Village Auspicious Elephant troupe.
蔡厝圍村 Choi Chheu Wai Chyun
The village in Ketang where his troupe operated.
瑞象班 Seui Jeuhng Baan
The organized Auspicious Elephant performance group.
瑞象舞 Seui Jeuhng Mou
The Auspicious Elephant Dance performed within this cultural tradition.
This also means that further investigation inside Cai Cuowei itself could be extremely valuable. Descendants of older village families may preserve oral information concerning who carried the elephant, who played the percussion, where the elephant was stored, during which festivals it appeared, and whether members of Cai Qingwan's boxing group participated in the troupe.
The connection with Cai Qingwan gives the elephant tradition an additional importance.
Cai Cuowei was not merely a place where people practiced boxing. Its martial culture existed within a broader network of village customs, ancestral traditions, festivals and communal performances.
Haifeng itself remains culturally distinctive. The Haifeng County Government describes the region as a meeting point of Hoklo, Hakka, Cantonese and older local cultural influences, producing a particularly diverse collection of folk customs. The government also notes the continuing importance of ancestral worship, village festivals and traditional ceremonial activities in Haifeng culture.
Ketang likewise retains traditional martial and folk practices. A local-government publication identifies traditional lion activity and martial traditions among Ketang's cultural heritage and notes locally recognized martial and Qilin-related traditions.
Against this background, Cai Qingwan's organization of an elephant troupe makes considerably more cultural sense.
He was participating in a world in which 武 Mou, martial practice, 舞 Mou, ceremonial dance, village identity, music, festivals and community organization could coexist.
The 瑞象 Seui Jeuhng of Cai Cuowei deserves to be remembered alongside the martial traditions of the village.
The elephant represented strength, but not uncontrolled aggression.
It represented power combined with composure.
Its ideal character was majestic but not threatening, confident without bullying, powerful but gentle.
That symbolism provides an interesting parallel with the ideals traditionally associated with Chinese martial culture.
Most importantly for the history of 蔡清玩 Choi Cing Wun, the historical reference to his 瑞象班 Seui Jeuhng Baan reveals another side of the man.
He should not be studied only in connection with 貓形拳 Maau Ying Kuen, Cat Fist.
The evidence places him within the broader traditional culture of 蔡厝圍 Choi Chheu Wai, as an organizer helping preserve one of Hailufeng's rarest folk-performance traditions.
The elephant therefore belongs to the story of Cai Cuowei just as much as its boxing does.
It represents a village culture in which martial arts, music, ritual, celebration and community identity were interconnected, and in which the memory of an animal that had disappeared from Guangdong centuries earlier could continue to walk through the village in the form of the 瑞象, the Auspicious Elephant.
