Traditionally, the Chinese believed that there is no way a student can ever repay his or her Sifu for sharing a vital and precious art like Gongfu or Tai Chi with him or her, just as we can never repay our parents for giving us life. Traditionally the students considered it a matter of personal honor to take care of their Sifu just as they would care for their own parents. This noble principle is called Filial Piety. Each month the students would come to present their Sifu with little red envelopes that contained gifts of cash called Lie-si. A student whose Sifu was financially deprived, or could not cover his or her debts, considered it a personal loss of face.

No traditional Gongfu Kuan is a "for profit" organization. The tuition and fees that you, as a student, pay are merely a way of insuring that the Kuan will be sustained, that the arts which are taught at the Kuan can be preserved, and that you will continue to receive the highest quality instruction. In this way Sifu can afford to devote his full attention to training and sharing his Gongfu with you while meeting the expenses of teaching and operating a martial arts school.

Your relationship with your Sifu is a Master/Pupil relationship and not Merchant/Customer. It is too easy to lose sight of the true meaning of tuition in our modern commercial world. However, there are some things like Gongfu Instruction that have an intrinsic value that exceeds the sometimes superficial values of our modern society.