Master Kuo was born in a “blacksmith family”, which means his parents and ancestors were all taking the blacksmith as their occupation throughout their life, and now he was the third master in his family. In the early stages, he mainly cast the agricultural tools and made the Sung-Chiang Parade’s weapons for his living. At first, earning adequate money to survive was all he wanted in his life, yet soon after that, he started to possess a different idea, thinking about that it’s high time for him to reach to the outside world and improve his skills. He knew that the limited resources here could not make him a skillful master; therefore, he started to learn from different masters about the technique of casting at any place in Taiwan. Now, his footprints are all over Taiwan, he named his footprints as “yao-yo”. He said “Yoa-yo means to secretly learn from other’s kung-fu, and we only keep the good ones instead of the bad ones.” Master Kuo refined his original prototype by intaking other master’s technique and brining the innovative idea into action, inventing his own products.
As the time advanced, the agricultural tools and the traditional culture are on the verge of extinction; therefore, Master Kuo turned his direction and began to aim at knives for industrial purposes.
At the time, Master Kuo decided to purchase a stove for heating the steels from Japan, yet the stove didn’t have the instructions with Chinese subscription, therefore Master Kuo realized that only by visiting Japan on his own could he eventually learnt how to instruct the machine. He was also surprised that the level of Taiwan’s technique in this field was far from Japan’s.
Master Kuo not only learnt while journeying in Japan, but because the unique fantasy in Chinese historical novel, he even cast the “Green Destiny Sword” in order to reappear the sword that could only be seen in the novel called” Crouching Tigers and Hidden Dragons”. He also discovered the technique of how to cast the ancient swords by collecting the ancient books and studying them. Master Kuo claimed that the decoration design (Damascus Design on sword) that the international press focus on was not even practical at all, thus he refined the sword by using the Chinese heating method and Japanese casting technique, creating the one that is both artistic and practical.
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