Dim Mak (Dim Hsueh) The Poison Hand Touch of Death

Distrubutor is McLisa Enterprises, P.O. Box 1755, Honolulu, Hawaii 96806.

Story of Hsieh and McLisa Enterprises-The www.Ryukyu.com site is down for maintenance. The maintenance man is on vacation in Mazatlan and hopefully will be back before the superbowl. The Gentleman, let me call him Mr. Cheng (I

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forget his name) who actually OWNED McLisa Books in Hawaii had a fascinating and colorful past. He and five other friends escaped the Chinese version of the Holocaust (Mao Tse Tung's massacre of Chinese from about September of 1945 thru somewhere in 1949) and escaped to Taiwan. It so happens these friends of his were ALL masters is some of the more obscure forms of Kung Fu. (They also brought with them the formula for the Iron Palm hand Unguent ... I used to kid Bill --my brother -- about it being a Chinese version of Cornhusker's Lotion. I found out that, to him, it was not a kidding matter, but what the hell do you expect of a guy with a law degree? A sense of humor? Get real....!!!). They needed something to do to raise cash. Now I'm not sure exactly HOW Mr. Cheng found his way to Hawaii, but he did. After getting established there, he sent for his friends and they all arrived, like most immigrants, dead broke, and needing some way to generate some cash. As I understand it, they got together and created an "Umbrella Person", named Doug Hsieh. They would then write these books about the forms of Kung Fu, Dim Mak, and Tai Chi with which they were very familiar. The books were published with Doug Hsieh as the author and.... they sold. Exactly where they came up with the money to found a printing/publishing company I don't know, buy my guess is that they did quite well, teaching Kung Fu to local residents for as much as the local market would bear. Why it was called McLisa Books befuddles me to this day. I DO know that Bill Wiswell started buying books from him clear the hell back in the late seventies. He had about forty-five or so different titles that he bought from Mr. Cheng for over twenty years. Mr. Cheng appears to have been the youngest group of the Chinese ex-patriates and, as happens over time, simply outlived all the others. In the mean time he had met a charming lady of chinese-american descent, gotten married, and had a number (three I think) children. All of his children appear to have inherited their father's drive, intelligence and determination. As I understand it from the letter I read so very long ago, they became an Airline Pilot (commercial), an Educational Administrator (think School District Superintendant), and the black sheep (a Lawyer). None however had any interest AT ALL in Daddy's publishing company. In a Nutshell, as Bill has his Belts in both Karate and Judo, he had more-than-passing respect from legitimate publishers of Books related to the martial arts, and as Mr. Cheng aged he wondered what would become of the company he had, for all practical purposes, devoted most of his life to. He first approached Bill with a offer that he would sell the "whole shootin' match" to Bill (Iron Palm Formula, all the Hsieh Book Copyrights, a number of Joseph Chan, and whatishisname Chua books' copyrights, and the entire stock of books in stock for a mere $500,000.00 (half-million bucks) which my brother Ebenezer did not have at the time. About three years later, Mr. Cheng wrote another letter in which he said (and here I paraphrase because I cannot remember the exact words, only the thought. ANd the thought is pretty universal for such men at such age...OUR MOTHER'S dAD HAD A VERY SIMILAR THOUGH and it is a good thing I didn't know of it, back in the very early sixties.....else I might have become a farmer instead of a computer programmer....) back on subject . Mr. Cheng said, "I am old. I would like to enjoy the fruits of my labors. My children are successful and happy in their lives and careers and have NO interest in all in publishing the books I have. But I cannot just walk out, and lock the doors someday and never come back. The books sell well. The company is WORTH something and my heirs will get little if anything for it if I pass on and the estate has to sell it. THerefore Mr. Wiswell, could you possibly scrape up $100,000.00 for everything?" Bills reply was that "Yes, I believe I can, once I have [physically] checked the inventory and met you in person". It so happened that a friend was flying to Honolulu in six weeks for a 30th-year-wedding Celebration/Vacation and Bill was able to get his round-trip flight for 80% off with a two-weeks stay in Hawaii (He says fresh Pineapple from Hawaii is fantastic and tastes NOTHING like what we get here!!). But He went to Honolulu, met with Mr. Cheng, and gave him a Chashier's Check for 100 grand. He then shipped the formula and the last two barrels of the Iron Palm Unguent to some damned Buddhist Monaster near Taos New Mexico AND the formula for the Unguent and was out only some $75,000.00. Mr. Cheng was delighted to have someone who really cared about what he did and what he sold; he tossed in the company name/trademark/whateverinthehellyoucallit for free and Bill/Ebenezer had his first acquisition that he could use. In the last decade and a half (it seems like only a couple of years but I know it has been at least ten) he has also assumed copyrights to a great number of books that he used to get from the "Hong Kong Connection". The HKC were three companies in Hong Kong who published still more obscure books on Kung Fu, Tai Chi, and What Have you in Martial arts: the Companies were: Yih Mei, Wan Li, and Peace Press. As I understand it, when the Red CHinese re-took-over the civil administration of Hong Kong, Wan li, Yih Mei, and whoever Peace Press were, quietly locked their front doors one night, picked up their baggage, families, and bank drafts, went down to the airport and flew away to who knows the hell where, where they are enjoying life NOT under the Red Chinese. Any and all attempts to find the copyright holders of these books has proven fruitless. Ya gotta remember here....the "Hong Kong Connection" published books no one else, not even Paul Crompton, ever heard of, that were well written (virtually ALL in Chinese/English), sparsely-but-beautifully illustrated, with striking book covers that caught the eye quite well AND, even after shipping costs (not inconsiderable half-way-'round-the-world ) could sell well at 1000% mark-up. As an example, a favorite of mine, Tsai Li Fo, Ching Cheng Chao Peng Chuan (we still sell a few every now and then to the dedicated Choy Lee Fut Practicioners; Tsai Li Fo, as I understand it, is a branch of Choy Lee Fut sorta like Austrian is to German on the Language tree), anyhow that book we sold for $7.95 when its unit cost was about 40 cents AND RYUKYU WAS THE ONLY PLACE YOU COULD GET 'EM. Anyhow, the copyrights' owners are either dead, or in hiding, and have been for over 30 years now. So McLisa now publishes the books. A local publishing house got into quite a trouble with IRS (Did I mention that BIll's Specialty is U. S. Tax law? He IS very very good. Ebenezer Scrooge would have been very proud of him, if Ebenezer had actually lived in person. His spirit lives on though. Scrooge would have made a superb TAX Lawyer. I can see it now "Scrooge and Wiswell, Accountants-at-law....." And I can hear our beloved Father turning over in his grave faster than even Elvis when Elvis found out his daughter had married Michael Jackson.... Sorry....I digress....family genetic defect; I get it from my now deceased Grandmother.. it skipped BIll.... back on track.... So now in addition to McLisa's books, we have a number of the HKC books....look over some of the write ups I've done for Yei Mei "....and wherever you are right now, Yei Meh, we here at McLisa Books wish you well ....".. So that's how Bill WIswell got the copyrights and trade rights to McLisa Books. Hope that answers the questions. Neil Wiswell

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