Where did wing chun come from?

Answer 1

China. Around the early decades of 1600 A.D. from Pro-Ming loyalist that were rebelling against the Qing (Ching)/Manchurian collective governing powers. The Shaolin/Siu Lum Temple in the Hunan Province became a refuge for many revolutionaries and eventually when the Shaolin temples were threatened they took an effort to produce a new system that could be easily learned and would be able to overcome the Shaolin methods that were taught the Manchus by Shaolin traitors. There was a funding from pro-Ming sympathizers that helped a council supposedly made up of some of the legenday characters known as the Five Elders (Jee Shim, Bak Mei, Ng Mui, Fung Doh Dok, and Miu Hin) but was overseen by Yat Chum Dai Si and his pupil Cheung "Tan Sau" Ng. They developed much of the system, however they barely escaped from the burning of the temple by the Manchurian Army. They took upon themselves reclusive identities and continued to develop and spread the system through Pro-Ming groups. This resulted in different styles or family systems of Wing Chun.

I suggest reading up on Benny Meng's historical research (also read "Complete Wing Chun by Robert Chu, Rene Ritchie, and Y. Wu) and the general overturning that the system was developed primarily by Ng Mui (Buddhist nun) and passed on to her female student Yim Wing Chun supposedly from which the name Wing Chun derived. The fact is the training area in the Hunan Temple was named Wing Chun "Eternal Spring" and hence the system was named for that reason.