Many warriors in the wuxia world considered it a great dishonor to lose a fight...so much so that if they were to lose a fight, they would commit suicide, unable to accept the fact that someone else is their superior in martial arts.
This is a very dubious attitude to hold towards competition.
Unless he happens to be the Janitor Monk, chances are that a martial artist will encounter a better martial artist at some point in his life. If one were to hold true that defeat means suicide, 90% of wulin's martial artists would die through suicide.
Take the example of Yau Tan Tze's father and uncle, for example. So they got their butts handed to them by Kiu Fung at their home in front of hundreds of wulin members. Considering whom they were up against, however, it isn't all that shameful. The very fact that they fought Kiu Fung and lived to tell about it was something to be proud of, in fact.