WUXIA, 88 Tales of Chinese Chivalry and Martial Arts: translations from the classics.

By Hwong Seng

Here are 88 short stories selected from works by Chinese writers from the previous two millenium, tales of chivalry with an overtone of Chinese martial art. Intriguing
and fascinating,they weave a tapestry of life on the margin in old Cathay that speaks eloquently of the true meaning of chivalry as perceived by ancient Chinese. It is the first time a collection of Wuxia stories as a genre is translated into the English language. The book will certainly help the reader gain a better insight into the Chinese mind today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hwong Seng
• Release date: Aug 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463539408

Book preview

WUXIA,

an introduction

I

As a genre in literature, WUXIA is a very Chinese concept so inseparably enmeshed with the peculiarities of Chinese culture that it is difficult to find an exact equivalent in the west though in the world of the English language, the tales of Robin Hood, Rob Roy and Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Ivanhoe’ may come close. The term is a composite of two Chinese characters Wu and Xia. The former connotes things martial as in Wushu (Chinese martial art) and Wugong (martial art prowess) whilst the latter suggests a chivalrous and righteous spirit as in Xiayi (chivalry).

Wu: martial

Xia: chivalry, chivalrous

Thus combined, it refers to the rendition in written narrative form, or modern cinematography, of heroic exploits of the chivalrous ones or knights - errant (Xiake) who were accomplished martial art exponents as well as the embodiment of a chivalrous and righteous spirit of Xia.

Indeed beyond the pages of Wuxia literature, in the real world of old, where Wushu practitioners might be found in all walks of life from the lowliest to the most exalted, Xia was central to their highest ideal and their code of conduct, sometimes even more so than Wushu competency. Among the earliest mention of the spirit of Xia was one by Han Dynasty Grand Historian Sima Qian (145 — 86 BC?

The knights-errant today, even though they do not conform to the norms or the laws of society, are men of their word. What they have determined upon is put to resolute action, what they promise they honour; they have no love for their physical self, but will strive to relieve a man of his distress. Having rescued one from destruction and death, they do not boast of their ability or sing praises of their own merit.

Thus the chivalrous one or knight-errant concerned himself with upholding justice and righteousness which was the Dao or Way of Heaven. To uphold the Way on behalf of Heaven (ti tian xing dao) and to aid the weak, to bolster up the floundering (ji ruo fu qing) was the adage that defined his mission.

II

The chapter on Biographies of Assassins in Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian is generally considered the earliest progenitor of the Wuxia stories as a genre in literature. It contained tales of early roving knights or knights-errant (youxia) and assassins (cike), one of whom was Jingke who famously made an attempt on the life of King of Qing, shortly to become Shih Huangdi, first emperor of imperial China.

Nearly seven centuries lapsed before Sima Qian’s legacy blossomed into a new tradition known to posterity as the Tang Chuanqi (lit. Legendary tales of Tang). But as Lu Xun, icon of twentieth century Chinese literature wrote in A Brief History of Chinese Fiction:

… by this time (Tang dynasty) writers were consciously writing fiction… in fact Tang writers were consciously romancing … conventional (Tang) critics thought them a low form of literature and dubbed them Chuanqi (romances) to distinguish them from the work of Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan. But these stories became popular among the people.

** LUXUN: A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHINESE FICTION

University Press of the Pacific

Honolulu, Hawaii.

The Minerva Group P. 80

That this took nearly a millennium after the Grand Historian’s little experiment might be attributed to the fact that fiction, much less short stories about lowly common folks (tugoubei lit. butchers of dogs) with a bellicose inclination could not possibly be taken seriously in the world of Chinese literature where poetry and prose remained main streams. This in fact remained so till late nineteenth century.

But Man’s innate thirst for stories is irrepressible. The Tang Chuanqi heralded a new narrative tradition in Chinese literature though this only became apparent when modern Chinese historians looked back with the help of some hindsight.

That which finally heralded the arrival of Wuxia in Chinese literature was The Water Margin by Shi Nai’an (1296 — 1371 AD), one of the Four Classic Novels of China. It told of the exploits of 108 valiant heroes and their band of outlaws, bound by a common code of honour and inspired by the call to uphold the Way on behalf of Heaven (ti tian xing dao). Once popularized among the masses, it gradually evolved to become the backbone of a Jianghu subculture that permeated the Chinese underworld even till today.

While The Water Margin began a new tradition in Wuxia, none of its many successors ever reached the literary height of Shi Nai’an though they were perennially in vogue among the masses. Full length Wuxia novels began to appear in the later years of the Qing Dynasty, the best among which must be The Romance of the Heroic Daughters and Sons.

The popularity of Wuxia stories among certain segments of society continued right into the republican era on mainland China (1911 - 1949). But the real boom that eventually let Wuxia spread like wildfire to every Chinese community in all five continents began in Hong Kong in the early 1950’s when the Communist ascendency in China caused an outflow of talents from capitalist Shanghai. In the five decades that followed, Wuxia would become a staple and then impact Chinese society everywhere outside mainland China, first in the printed form then in celluloid.

In this latest conquest of Wuxia, the name of Louis Cha who wrote under the pen name of Jin Yong figures like Jenghis Khan in the rise of the Mongol Empire — to stretch the simile a bit — for it was he, as a young writer in the 1950’s who first took Hong Kong by storm, then conquered the hearts of generations of Chinese readers from every stratum of society.

His ‘Legend of the Condor Heroes’ among others is still much read and no less popular today, (Chief architect for China’s Open Door policy and economic reforms that began in the 1980’s and eventually propelled the country to become second largest economy in the world, supreme leader Deng Xiaoping reputedly wouldn’t turn in each night before turning through a few pages of the Condor book!) six decades after it first appeared in serialized form in Hong Kong newspapers.

Since then it had also spawned countless TV series and movies, each generation of its readers attempting to put their own, sometimes revisionist version of the Condor Heroes on the screen.There were certainly other talented and successful Wuxia authors like Liang Yusheng and Gulong who also contributed to the advent of the New Wave, but Louis doubtlessly stands head and shoulders above his colleagues in popularity and the impact his works made.

In this latest New Wave of the genre, the use of technology namely cinematography means the conquest would surmount the barrier of word and language.

As a genre of popular literature that tells martial art tales, Wuxia had evolved from Sima Qian’s anecdotes to Tang Chuanqi fiction like The Biography of Red Thread, thence to The Water Margin and finally its Qing and Republican era successors. Then in that tiny British island colony that would ironically provide the setting for a Chinese renaissance of sorts particularly in the art of motion pictures, Louis Cha and company gave it a timely boost that was taken full advantage of by the Shaw Studio of Sir Run Run Shaw and a horde of competitors with whom he engineered a ground-breaking boom: Wuxia in glorious colour on the silver screen.

Wuxia and its offshoot Kungfu (pugilist) films eventually catapulted the genre onto a world stage. It was heralded by a groundbreaking work that caught the attention of critics and art connoisseurs: Dragon Inn (1967) and A Touch of Zen(1971) by Hong Kong director King Hu whose pioneering effort to transform Wuxia film into a respectable art form became a benchmark for succeeding aspirants.

Fast-forward to year 2000: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon directed by Ang Lee and combining talents from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia became a world acclaimed film, winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a first for a Wuxia movie. From Sima Qian to Ang Lee, the Wuxia genre has come one big cycle in a journey of two millennium.

III

The present collection of Wuxia short stories were written over a span of two thousand years before the 1911 Republican revolution. A closer study of their content reveals several common themes that collectively manifest the value system that governed the life of a martial art exponent in the Wulin (lit. martial forest, community of martial art practitioners) in classical China.

i) XIAQI

First and foremost, it is Xiaqi or the spirit of chivalry, as defined aptly by Sima Qian. While Xia largely functioned within the context of morals as defined by Confucianism, it also implied an individualistic and free spirit that sometimes empowered the Xiake to soar above and beyond the confines of Confucianist morals.

Among the earliest exemplification of Xiaqi was the protagonist in JING KE ATTEMPTS TO ASSASSINATE KING OF QIN. Committed to a higher cause which was to assassinate a king, cruel tyrant and aggressor to his patron and benefactor Prince of Yan, Jing Ke was dauntless in the face of overwhelming odds and apparently had no regards for his own life. He would present himself to the king and at close-quarters, would force a treaty upon him on behalf of the prince or, failing which to take the tyrant’s life. He certainly understood from the very start that it would be a mission of no return. For supreme courage befitting a valiant hero and self-sacrifice Jing Ke was among the earliest role models for later Xiake and knights-errant. In INTREPID the hero personified another side of Xiaqi. The young Wei was told stories of Yakshas which preyed on the human kind. No sooner had the message sunk in than Wei was boiling with righteous indignation. Without considering the odds or his own inadequacy, he rather hot-headedly determined to venture forth and hunt down the monsters. It was di tian xing dao for him and justice could not wait. Even his host quietly commented:

Mr Wei invites scourge upon himself.

Another impetuous Xiake who could not wait to enforce justice was Guo in THE BLACK GENERAL. Upon hearing the story of damsel in distress who had been forsaken by her folks as sacrificial lambs to the Evil one, this is what Guo said:

I may be an unworthy Man, but I shall try my utmost to rescue you. Should I fail, I shall sacrifice my life and follow you to the next world. Whatever happens, I will not let you die an unjust death in the hands of this lecherous devil of a ghost."

ii) GRATITUDE and REPAYMENT OF DEBT

To repay a debt of gratitude was another value that qualified Xiayi, it is called zi en tubao (to bear in mind one’s debt of gratitude and strive to repay it). In BIOGRAPHY OF RED THREAD, a servant girl who was in reality a past master of the most sublime form of Wushu took a dare -devil mission into the heartland of her master’s arch enemy. In BLACK KUNLUN, the motivation for the protagonist to risk life and limb for a young king under duress was little more than the recognition he received from the ruler while still a child many years before. The man in a jacket hemp secretly escorted his benefactor on a perilous journey to return a favour he received earlier which took the form of a hot meal.

iii) PATRIOTISM

The loftiest ideal of Xiayi was service for people and duty to country (Xia zhi da zhe, wei guo wei min). In its extended and sublime form, the spirit of Xia implied a chivalrous act on behalf of a people and a nation. In the final chapter of Louis Cha’s The Legend of the Condo Heroes", Guo Jing and Huang Rong, greatest of knights-errant in the novel, gave their lives in the defence of the city of Xiangyang against Mongol invaders.

In BIG BROADSWORD WANG WU and YELLOW-FACE TIGER both heroes were contemporaries in the late Qing dynasty (1644. - 1911), a time when the fate and the continual survival of a Chinese nation actually hung in the balance. Wang Wu put his life on the line when he associated himself closely with the reformist movement, eventually paying the supreme price of a patriot during the foreign invasion subsequent to the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Huo Yuanjia on his part is today remembered for his role in establishing the Chin Woo movements in an effort to instill a martial spirit in the Sick Man of the Orient.

iv) THE NOTION OF DEATH

In the pursuit of a worthy cause, true Xiaqi required that the chivalrous one regarded Death as the path home (shi si ru gui) Death was the final test of a Xiake’s true mettle. In ZHUANGZI ON SWORDPLAY, three thousand swordsmen took their own lives en masse when it became apparent that their king had withdrawn his patronage. Today the grand gesture might seem bizarre and misguided, even preposterous, but the disregard for lives even their own was part and parcel of Xiaqi. In A SWORD-MAKER’S DEATH, swordsmith Gan Jiang proceeded with his meeting with the king of Chu fully aware that death awaited him. His son Red promptly cut his own throat when a stranger gave him the assurance that the deaths of father and son would be duly avenged. Finally the stranger himself threw himself into a boiling cauldron after fulfilling his part of the promise. When a chivalrous act required death as a collateral, a true Xiake would generously oblige. Sentimentalism was to be a serious chink in any Xiake’s armor. In BIOGRAPHY OF LADY NIE YIN the knight Lady Nie was reprimanded early in her career by her master the Nun for dithering in the face of a target who was spending quality time with his baby son. This the Nun said, " Next time you encounter such a kind, make sure you first get rid of the object of his deep affection, then proceed to execute him."

In ONE DAY WITH AN IRON HEAD MONK incensed by the ways of an incorrigible son intent on doing evil, a father invited his Xiake guest to take the life of his offspring. Then in LADY AVENGER a female knight, having finally accomplished her mission of revenge, decided to leave her family for good. So that the severance with the past was complete and irreversible, she quietly strangulated her own baby.

IV

Collectively the stories also paint a panorama of Wulin that provides a graphic guide to the nuances of the colourful world of martial artists.

i) WUSHU PROWESS

Story tellers tirelessly feed on the insatiable appetite of the reading public for fascinating intricacies of Wushu and often there was only a fine thin line between imagination and reality. How far can a mortal earthling go? Could the master of Qinggong — craft of making the body light — really defy gravity, leap over high city walls and sail over tall roofs? Could pressure applied onto an acupuncture point demobilize, maim, even kill? Where does reality begin and end? The monk in ONE DAY WITH AN IRON HEAD MONK was hit by copper slingshots several times on the back of his head but was none the worse for it as the balls got embedded in his flesh.

In THE MALICIOUS FAREWELL BANQUET, an exponent of the External School of Wushu shook a jujube tree to cause all its fruits to fall. An aged onlooker who happened to be a master of the Internal School or Neijia Quan (refer Glossary) then took it to the next level. He gave the tree a bear hug, apparently injecting lethal Qi energy into the trunk in the process, and caused the leaves to wilt and the tree to suffer a sudden death.Then we have monks who glided on water in a demonstration of Float on Water (Shui Shang Piao) martial technique as in TANGBAO AND YUNNA and a Dimmak master who killed with a soft touch of a pair of chopsticks (LETHAL TOUCH).

In BIOGRAPHY OF BIG IRON AWL, soon after the Big Iron Awl dismounted and blew a reed pipe, "… from four directions approached more than a score of bandits riding on horseback. A hundred more followed them on foot, bearing bows and arrows."

That made it a hundred and twenty, a handful for any one. Big Iron Awl hardly bat an eye lash as he took care of their leader?

… the bandits encircled the guest and set upon him. The guest was calm and unruffled, wielding the awl he felled men and horses at the four corners. This way he killed over thirty men.

Feats reported in other stories pale in comparison though they appear rather plausible.

ii) THE SWORD

The sword (jian) had a hallowed place in ancient Chinese culture, was even hailed the Lord of a hundred weapons (bai qi zhi jun). In earlier times before the era of imperial China, accomplished sword-makers were famous names, such as Mo Xie and Gan Jiang as were legendary swords crafted by the masters. As a branch of Wushu, thus swordplay or jianshu figured prominently in martial art literature where it was not unusual for a sword to possess a life of its own and even mystic powers.

Among the earliest mention of sword in Chinese literature was found in a tale where great Daoist thinker Zhuangzi (also famous for the story Zhuangzhou Dreamed of a Butterfly ) philosophied to the king of Zhao state about benevolent governance using the sword as a subject in his metaphor. Subsequently repentant king gave up his indulgence in swordplay, causing the forsaken three thousand swordsmen in his patronage to put themselves to the sword en masse. (ZHUANGZI ON SWORDPLAY). With the emergence of the Tang Chuanqi the sword came onto centre stage. The Jian and Jianshu became important players in many a tale of Wuxia.

Biography of Lady Nie was the story of a lady swordsman with mystic powers. When still an apprentice, her master the Nun gave her a sword:

… two (Chinese) feet long, which was so sharp one could cut a strand of hair by blowing it at the edge of the blade… In time my sword was shortened to a mere five (Chinese) inches. Indeed, be it on land or in the air, when a creature meets my sword, little does he know what hits him.

When Nie engaged an enemy swordsman in the climatic match, the swords of the combatants took the form of two flying banners,

… one red and the other white … hovering over the four edges of the bed to strike at each other. A long while later a body was seen falling from above, its head severed.

In OLD MAN FROM FRAGRANT HILL the swordplay of the old master is described as follows:

Wielding seven long and short swords, he began to perform a dance in the centre courtyard. He leapt and somersaulted, his swords like swift flashes of lightning, at times swiping across like splitting silk, at times cutting the air in perfect circular motions. Time and again his short blade which was exceeding two (Chinese) feet long nearly touched Li’s garment. Li kowtowed and shivered with fear.

In AN UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF EMPEROR YONGZHENG the supernatural prowess of a swordsman was described as follows:

…. a certain monk whose superior prowess was unfathomed and whose courage peerless, who could smelt a sword till it took the form of a pellet to be kept in the brain. When in use, it was spat out through the mouth whence it flew making a trail like a gigantic arc of the rainbow, to make a kill a hundred li away. Thus was he also styled Match for Ten Thousand.

Thus did the sword-immortal (jian xian) join his anthropoid colleagues the swordsman (jianke) as an important player in Wuxia literature especially in the last years of Qing (1644 - 1911).

iii) XIAKE HUMILITY

For a variety of reasons knights-errant were inclined to take a low profile, even stay nameless. To begin with humility was a Confucianist virtue and the culture of Wulin was among other things an exemplification of certain core values of Confucianism and Daoism. An often quoted Chinese proverb proclaims: One who is truly accomplished never reveals himself (zhen ren bu lou xiang). Another reason may be more practical in nature. For one intent on upholding justice, it was inevitable that he would make enemies and get embroiled in feuds. In Wulin where an eye for an eye was one important rule of the dangerous game and debts were often repaid in blood, it was good sense and prudent not to court too much attention and to lie low, if possible to remain incognito, if anything at least to cover one’s track.

The young lass in GENERAL PAN who helped an aged official to solve the case of a mysterious theft; the young servant who helped his master to land the thief who dared to steal from the Emperor (TO CATCH A PALACE THIEF); the mysterious old master of Wushu and sorcery who could command also thunder and lightning (OLD MAN OF WESTSIDE INN) and many others would appear inconspicuous though they had great means at their disposal. In EPITAPH OF A GRAND MASTER, Wang the grand master of Neijia Wushu insisted that he did not know pugilism in the face of repeated taunts by a haughty Wushu master.

Humility for a Wushu exponent was also pertinent, founded on the knowledge that in the vast world of martial arts, the depth of talents hidden in every nook and corner of Wulin was indeed unfathomable. For every mountain there is one higher, for every strong one there is one even stronger thus proclaims a popular Chinese saying.

In LIU DONG SHANG’S LESSON IN HUMILITY and again in HOW INTREPID LEARNT HIS MOST IMPORTANT LESSON the protagonist was castigated by fellow Wulin citizens, even suffered a career ruined, all for swaggering and bragging about his prowess in a tavern.

In A PAINFUL LESSON FROM A NUN, young man flushed with new-found success in his wushu apprenticeship threw humility to the wind, provoked a fight with a roving nun that ended with a fracture for the green horn. For him convalescence in bed for a year, indeed a costly lesson in humility.

iv) RIGHTEOUSNESS OF A LAWMAN

In upholding The Way on behalf of Heaven (di tian xing dao), knights-errant inevitably were guided by their own perception of what The Dao was. By and large this reflected the Confucianist weltanschauung, of fairness and justice, and of moral uprightness. But when judge and lawman were one and the same, excesses tended to occur that tarnished what might otherwise be a noble act.

Certain tales of supposed acts of chivalry ought to make the modern reader raise an eyebrow. In SCHOLAR FROM HONGZHOU, young scholar probably considered himself the chivalrous kind as he intervened on behalf of a hapless child being roughly treated by a ruffian of sorts. His noble act subsequently included the beheading of the perpetrator who made the unforgivable mistake of also insulting him.

But the finest example, indeed the epitome of this specie must be Zhang Yong, a historic figure of the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279 AD) who might be an interesting specimen for a post-modern psychoanalyst. At once a callous executioner and a magnanimous humanitarian, Zhang was known to be a very individualistic, even idiosyncratic character not exactly in tune with his times. As regards the harsher face of his nature, he was put on record as having beheaded a subordinate officer who pilfered from the state treasury - the amount in question was a copper coin — the punishment he promptly meted out personally on the spot. A rogue servant who blackmailed a colleague of his, he took to a forest through trickery then slew him there. But what tops the list must be the case where as a young scholar, he slaughtered a whole family who purportedly operated a joint that preyed on travellers like him, before he torched the place. Summary justice ala Zhang Yong it was.

v) XIAKE AND HIS CAREER IN OFFICIALDOM

While knights-errant were by definition men of Jianghu (see Glossary) who operated on the fringe of the law and essentially lived outside the realm of officialdom, there were chivalrous individuals, Xiake by temperament, who were closely associated at one point in their life with the imperial officialdom, some bearers of office themselves while others were at some time aspirants to a high office.

Duke Guo the hero who led an assault on the beast Black General was Guo Yuanzhen (656 — 713 AD), historically a prominent military leader and later Prime Minister in the early years of the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907 AD) described in Chinese records as ‘…seven (Chinese) feet in height, with handsome and well-trimmed beard and moustache, a man of high aspirations since a young age…’.

Another case is that of the afore-mentioned Zhang Yong whose exploits were the subject in several anecdotes included here. His official place in the history of Northern Song dynasty (960 - 1127 AD) was the lofty one of a celebrated high official (min chen), who was considered to be in the same league as Kou Zhun (961 - 1023 AD) prime minister, statesman and soldier famously credited with the salvation of the empire at the critical time of a Khitan invasion.

While both were scholars highly successful in their official careers and could even be considered antitypes to men of Jianghu, they nevertheless manifested strong traits of a knight-errant, a certain Xiaqi. Zhang would set free peasant rebels turned in for summary execution for the reason that these were common folks forced astray. When confronted by his superior officer, this was his reply:

Before this Li Shun (rebel chief) coerced the common folks to become rebels. Today you and I, we transformed rebels back to common folks. Why not?

Once when several hundred salt smugglers were caught and brought to trial, Zhang the presiding official only reprimanded them lightly and set them free. His answer to those who counselled strongly against it:

… eight to nine out of every ten are starving; if they do not make a living selling salt, and turn to banditry, it will cause great turbulence. After autumn harvest when food shortages abate, then shall we enforce the traditional anti-salt smuggling laws.

There were also chivalrous ones who, despite their free spirit, were subservient to a life-long dream of a successful career in officialdom. A point in case is the peerless warrior from the distant northwest in CHRONICLE OF MAN FROM QIN for whom to achieve meritorious services and make a name at the border region (lixun wanli wai) was his unquenchable ambition. He died a broken man, his dream unfulfilled. In another instant a knight-errant wielding an iron umbrella came to the rescue of a group of scholars on their way to the examination centre just in the nick of time. The warrior subsequently also re-emerged to sit the civil service examination. (SCHOLAR MAO)

Nevertheless there were those who were emancipated from that bondage of the civil service examination system that had ruled the life of the scholar-gentry class since its inception in the Sui Dynasty (581 - 619 AD). These were truly free spirits of the Wulin for whom high positions, social status and wealth counted for nothing as described in the Chinese saying Be indifferent to fame and profit (dan bo ming li). Zhang Er Lang declined the offer of position and reward after helping the army to win the day.

… he only wanted to resume his life of a beggar, sleeping at night in a temple in the mountain, gay and cheerful and without a worry…. offered wine and meat, he gladly accepted and having said thanks departed.

The Neijia grandmaster Wang Zhengnan retired to stay at home after the resistance movement against Manchu invaders of which he was a part collapsed. The thought of pursuing a career in officialdom, much less in the government of the Manchus never crossed his mind and he was content to lead a life "… hoeing the land and carrying night soil."

vi) FEMININITY IN WUXIA

In the Wuxia tradition, femininity perhaps had a face more prominent compared to its actual position in society. If in the Confucianist male-dominant, androcentric society, the female gender was assigned the role of the passive and the subservient, where concubines and maids were part of the family inventory in the category of land, fixed assets and property, in the world of Wuxia the female was in more than a few cases accorded the position of honour.

BIOGRAPHY OF LADY NIE YIN and BIOGRAPHY OF RED THREAD, specimens of the Tang Chuanqi were trail-blazers. Both protagonists Nie and Red Thread were swordswomen extraordinaire who were also clairvoyant and possessed mystic powers. After valiantly salvaging the fate of their masters in one final, supreme effort, in part as a repayment of a debt of gratitude, they rode into the sunset. The female leads here were prime-movers, manful, indeed intrepid and resolute in action as compared to their masters. Lady Nie even dictated who her spouse would be, something quite unheard of in Chinese society of the time. Unlike their male counterparts in other tales, Nie and Red Thread also demonstrated the humanity and sensitivity more often associated with the fairer gender.

Another memorable instant is found in MADEMOISELLE NO. 3 the tale of a lady of pleasure who displayed an outstanding capacity for crisis-management that put all the male players around her to shame.

V

Wuxia may be just a popular sub-culture that has today become a staple to readers and movie-goers throughout the Chinese world, but the lessons and values Wuxia tales imbued have long entered the Chinese psyche and are there to stay.

Admittedly in this, Wuxia like other media (opera, literature etc) are only vehicles through which the Chinese value system - product mainly of an interaction and fusion between Confucianist, Daoist and Buddhist precepts — is propagated and perpetuated, but the images evoked in the genre and planted in the Chinese mind have taken on a new life of their own. The life and valiant heroics of the men from The Water Margin like Wu Song the Tiger Slayer together with martial figures like Guan Gong from The Romance of The Three Kingdoms live on in the Chinese mind.

The guiding principles of Zhong (loyalty), Yi (righteousness), ji ruo fu qing (to aid the weak and bolster up the floundering) and a host of others are today part of the standard against which the Chinese mind measures human behavior at all levels, even affairs of the state and international relations. It may be stretching this a little, but a point in case is the diplomatic relationship between China and its immediate neighbours. Even though it is not something China would like to harp on publicly, we suspect in the deepest of heart, it (and especially its people) does consider the assistance given to some of its neighbours in challenging times, especially in wars, as a benevolent favour (en). They were bestowed at great sacrifices in lives and materials by a China that was still struggling very hard to stand on her own feet (early 1950s and 1960s). While China might not necessarily expect her beneficiaries to remember a good deed and to think of ways to repay the favour (as in zi en tu bao which remains today one of the most extolled virtues to the Chinese), a hostile stance internationally by its former allies inevitably invites one to recall a motto which had especial significance in the Wulin or community of martial people: wang en fu yi, which means ingratitude or kicking the benefactor in the teeth, considered among the more contemptible of human behaviors.

Then again international relations and realpolitik are of course immeasurably more complicated than squabbles in the Wulin!

ILLUSTRATIONS

Pen drawings by the translator based on paintings and photographs accessible on the Internet. Wherever possible the sources have been acknowledged.

PIC 01 ZHUANGZI (369 BC - 286 BC) Prominent Chinese philosopher of Daoism.

See Chapter 2: Zhuangzi On Swordplay.

Source: Ming dynasty woodcut, about two thousand years after Zhuangi"s times.

PIC 02 QIN SHI HUANGDI (260 BC - 210 BC)

First emperor of imperial China.

See Chapter 3: Jing Ke Attempts To Assassinate King Of Qin.

Source: history.people.com.cn

PIC 03 QIN TERRA-COTTA WARRIOR

Source: terra-cotta of Kneeling Archer in the Qin Mausoleum in Xi’an.

PIC 04 HAN FIGURINE OF MAID

For a story set in the Han dynasty see Chapter 5 Duke Of Rencheng.

Source: terra cotta of maid figurine found in a Han dynasty tomb; Museum collections online.

PIC 05 GARMENT FOR WOMEN, QIN AND HAN

Formal wear for women between 221 BC and 220 AD.

Source: Fashion Timeline of Chinese Clothing

http://iridescentdream.com

PIC 06 TANG FIGURINE OF FOREIGNER

For stories set in the Tang Dynasty (618 AD - 907 AD)

Source: Tang dynasty glazed terra cotta