There are spoilers for Jin Yong’s novels in this Q&A.
Cha Leung-yung was born on March 10, 1924 in Haining.
On February 8, 1955 in Hong Kong, The Book and the Sword began serializing in the “Arabian Nights” supplement of the The New Evening Post under the author name “Jin Yong”. Jin Yong was “born”.
Since then, people around the world have often only known Jin Yong, but did not know Cha Leung-yung.
In October of 1994, Jin Yong sat for an interview at Peking University, where he was also awarded the title of honorary professor. Jin Yong has had a close relationship with Peking University since then. In Huang Ziping’s edited collection of half a century of Jin Yong’s prose writings titled Searching for Him a Thousand Times there is included this transcript of the lecture on wuxia novels Jin Yong gave at Peking University on October 27, 1994, which was recorded by Lin Cuifen.
To mark the 60th anniversary of Jin Yong and his wuxia novels, The Paper has excerpted the Q&A session between Jin Yong and Peking University students from that transcript.
Q: The protagonists in your work all value righteousness. Do you think righteousness is the most important thing in life?
A: Morality is comprised of many aspects of one’s conduct. “Righteousness”1 is one part of that. Mencius described righteousness as doing what is reasonable and appropriate. Chivalric novels emphasized righteousness because people who roamed the jianghu had no family support and no fixed source of income. There’s that saying, “At home, rely on your parents, away from home rely on your friends”. Their principal support was their friends. In dealing with abuse from other cliques or oppression from corrupt officials, you needed to rally your friends to resist. If you want to unite, you have to value righteousness and support each other, working hard toward a common goal, even to the point of sacrificing your life. So in chivalric novels, “righteousness” was elevated to a very important position. In traditional Chinese morality, “righteousness” has always been important. It’s been an important force that has allowed us Chinese to continuously grow and develop.
Q: The protagonists in your work often receive the affections of many women. I want to ask what your view is on romantic fidelity? (audience laughs)
A: I believe this is a question on a lot of young people’s minds. My novels depict ancient society. In the old days there was no stipulation that one had to be monogamous, so Wei Xiaobao has seven wives. (audience laughs) Some young female readers, even my wife, don’t really like The Deer and the Cauldron. But during the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty it was not at all uncommon for a high official to have six or seven wives! If they only had one wife it would actually be unrealistic. Contemporary wuxia novels have a lot of modern thinking incorporated into them, so in my novels, aside from Wei Xiaobao, every hero has only one wife. (audience laughs and applauds) Like Yang Guo, a lot of girls like him, but he stays locked on one only. This is an ideal. Whether a given person can really do it I don’t know, but this has always been my feeling. Like in Smiling Proud Wanderer, I wrote how Linghu Chong originally really liked his junior sister, but she didn’t like him, so what to do? His junior sister gets married, then dies, and he marries a different girl. I hope it encourages other to be faithful unto death. (audience applauds)
Q: Sima Qian extolled the xia. Why in the later novel, The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants, did they become agents of the government?2
A: I feel the same way. Changes occur in every era. A xia who becomes a hatchet man for the government is not a “xia”. Xia ought to uphold justice and help the less fortunate. But those novels do strive to make it plausible. One can often still uphold justice when working as a government goon, like in The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants, The Justice Shi Files, The Justice Peng Files,3 where they oppose local tyrants and corrupt officials, though other parts of the novels are not necessarily about upholding justice.
Q: In Return of the Condor Heroes, the protagonist’s fate is driven toward tragedy. What are your thoughts on tragedy in novels?
A: I wrote my novels as serial installments in newspapers. Every day I would write a 1,000-character installment that would be published the next day. Even if I went traveling abroad I would still have to write and mail the installment back to be published. In the beginning, I only wrote a few general characters, then slowly developed them naturally based on the character’s personality. Some of them had a happy ending, some tragic, but the happy endings outnumber the tragic ones. I didn’t plan to write a tragedy, that was just the result of the development of the character’s personality.
Q: How did you come up with the character for the head of the Sun Moon Cult. Was it based on a real-life person? (audience laughs, applauds)
A: To be frank, I was writing that novel at a time when the Cultural Revolution was going on, and I was really against the Revolution’s personality cult and really opposed to using violence to persecute decent people. At the time I was running a newspaper in Hong Kong, and the stories and commentaries being run then were all in opposition to the ruling ideology of the Gang of Four and the senseless personality cult. Every day I had to write an editorial and a novel installment, and so that unconsciously influenced my writing at the time. (audience applauds)
Q: Do the heroes you write reflect your own way of thinking?
A: There are many different kinds of heroes in my books. I can’t embody that many kinds, I just strived to write different kinds of people and not repeat myself. However, it would be impossible to say that I completely let go of my own personality and views when writing, they might unconsciously be reflected here and there in my writing. I’m not saying I’m so great, it’s just what I aspire to. For example, Guo Jing and Qiao Feng are quite admirable; Linghu Chong is natural and unrestrained; Duan Yu is amiable. I can’t be all these things, but it’s enough to think one could be, and my ideals are reflected in my books.
Q: Is the mentality of ethnic minorities in your novels related to culture?
A: The day before yesterday I talked here a bit about my thoughts on Chinese history. I think the “foreign rule” in history should be looked at in a different way. Han Chinese and other ethnic minorities are all part of the Chinese people. Han are the majority, and the majority control the central government and rule over the minority. Sometimes the majority becomes corrupt and the minority rises to hold power. That doesn’t mean China has been “subjugated”.4 You could say that the Chinese ethnic minorities became the “dealer” and then a few hundred years later a different group came and took over until finally several ethnic groups melded together. I thought that way early on, so in my first novel, The Book and the Sword, Chen Jialuo’s two sweethearts were both of the Hui minority group. In my last novel, The Deer and the Cauldron, Wei Xiaobao’s ethnicity is unknown (audience laughs). His mother associated with many different men: Han, Manchu, Mongol, Hui, Tibetan, everyone. And in between there were some novels, like White Horse Neighs in the Western Wind, where a Han girl falls in love with a Kazakh man. In Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, Qiao Feng is a Khitan, and the girl who loved him was Han. Whether in history or in novels, I think ethnic groups should be united and assimilate together.
Q: Why don’t you write wuxia novels anymore?
A: Everything must one day come to an end. I can’t go on writing forever. I’ve written enough wuxia novels and have said more or less all I wanted to say. As for whether I might write historical novels, that’s hard to say at present. It would be nice to write one if I have the energy for it.
Q: Are there a lot of unauthorized editions of your works out there?
A: There have been some novels published unauthorized under my name, but I can’t do anything about it. (audience laughs) There’s also a “Quan Yong”, (audience laughs) and a “Jin Yongju”5, after which they put a “work” tag after it so it reads “Jin Yong Monumental Work” (big laugh from audience). That gentleman is really clever. Joint Publishing has my authorization to publish my work, and a few years ago Tianjin Baihua Literature put out an authorized edition of The Book and the Sword, and aside from that everything else out on the market is pirated. I’m not really angry about it. I’m happy that more mainland readers can read my work, though of course I’m not happy about not receiving any royalties for it.
Q: What do you think about the future of wuxia novels?
A: That’s really hard to say at present. Hong Kong and Taiwan used to have a lot of wuxia authors, but now there’s almost no one. In the future I hope some good mainland writers will be willing to take the time to write wuxia and there will be some good works to come out of it. But wuxia novels must have an historical background. If young people aren’t familiar with ancient Chinese society and life, it will be much harder to write it.
Q: What happens at the end of Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain?
A: That I can’t say! (audience laughs) I just ask everyone to think for themselves. It wouldn’t be satisfying to write an explanation. One reader wrote me a letter and said he had lost a lot of sleep over this question (audience laughs). I wanted to apologize, but at the same time it will leave a deeper impression on him. (audience laughs)
Q: Which of your novels is your favorite?
A: I really couldn’t tell you which one I like the most. I put my all into each one as I was writing it. By the time I finished one it was like one of my children. Some are better than others, some are a bit worse, but to tell the truth I can’t decide which I particularly like more. I think all of you students have read a lot of novels and you all have different favorites. That’s the best way. One man’s meat is another man’s poison. If every woman loved the same man, that would be awful. (audience laughs)
Q: What were you trying to express when you wrote Smiling Proud Wanderer?
A: With Smiling Proud Wanderer I wanted to show a view of life that deemphasized the scramble for wealth and power and a somewhat disgusted opinion of power struggles. In China, since ancient times the educated literati have held such a view, though the majority are not necessarily capable of living to that standard. Everyone worked hard to pass the examinations to become an official, hoping to rise in the ranks and amass wealth, but when they wrote essays or poetry they would present a diluted frame of mind and say they wanted to become a hermit. That’s another aspect of traditional Chinese culture. To renounce fame and wealth and power is a very difficult thing to do. Smiling Proud Wanderer conveys that traditional way of thinking.
Q: Your novels feature some eccentric characters like similar to Ji Kang or Ruan Ji. Were you influenced by the romanticism of the Wei-Jin period?
A: I think I was influenced by it. The Wei-Jin period was influenced by Daoism and Buddhism. Wuxia novels often depict unrestrained people who do not adhere to tradition. Wuxia novels love featuring those kinds of characters.
Q: Beijing Normal University has a few professor scholars who have ranked you highly in their critiques of contemporary literature. What are your thoughts on this?
A: I saw a report in the paper and my first reaction was: “No matter what, I am unworthy; those professors are overpraising me.” I felt they shouldn’t place me that high. They might have been looking at it from a different perspective, due to my large readership. On the other hand, I’m a contemporary person, I understand the mentalities of people of today. Some famous authors have passed away so even though their work is good, they have less influence and fewer readers. I’m not underestimating myself or looking down on wuxia novels, but I’ve never been one to be conceited. I’ve always respected my contemporaries and predecessors. Besides, those Beijing Normal University professors maybe weren’t really “ranking” and were just making a convenient list. As for artistic evaluation, that’s always a subjective thing based on individual tastes.
Q: The protagonist of Ode to Gallantry is completely uneducated but is able to comprehend the highest level of martial arts. He can’t read and is a slow person by nature, desires nothing, strives for nothing. What’s the point of all this diligent studying we’re doing here? (audience laughs)
A: Not to worry, you’re not studying martial arts. Studying literature requires diligent study. (audience laughs) When I wrote Ode to Gallantry, there is a Buddhist concept contained in there: worldly learning can potentially hinder one’s ability to comprehend the highest realms. The goal of Chinese Zen meditation is to try to cast off established concepts, especially logic and notions of naming. Buddhist theory states that if you can get rid of worldly concepts you might be able to reach a higher state of conception. Of course, we’re pursuing real world knowledge and learning, completely different from Ode to Gallantry. If you can’t read, Beijing Normal University would never accept you. (audience laughs)
Q: Will you ever write a new wuxia novel?
A: I don’t want to write a new wuxia novel, but I might be interested in writing historical novels. I just retired from the newspaper business and there are two road before me: one is to loaf about in universities (audience laughs). I really like making friends with young people, chatting with everyone. Like this event today makes me really happy. I’m not young anymore, but I still feel that increasing one knowledge is the most joyful thing. If I can spend some time at an institute of higher learning, that would be great. The second road is to write one or two more novels. Writing novels is hard work, but I have my own views on history that I would like to express. If I can settle down and write one or two historical novels, that’s a possibility.
Q: Was tragedy Qiao Feng’s only option?
A: It couldn’t be helped. It was innate. He was born a Khitan (at the time Khitan was a very large country north of China; many foreigners didn’t know of China but only knew Khitan; Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways’ “Cathay” means Khitan, so it’s really Khitan Pacific Airways), and at the time, the Han and the Khitans were engaged in a fierce conflict, the Song dynasty and the Liao dynasty were having a fight to the death, so there was a strong contradictory conflict among ethnic groups. It would be difficult for him not to die, and if he didn’t die, then his final outcome wouldn’t be much better.
Modern fiction writes tragedy as a natural development of one’s character. Western Greek tragedy is between man and the gods; tragedy occurs because the gods willed it, which is different from modern notions.
Q: I heard that part of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils was written by Ni Kuang?
A: Because I was going to be traveling for over a month, I asked my good friend Ni Kuang to take over writing for me. I asked him to write a standalone story within the novel, explaining that when the book was published in the future that section would be removed. He agreed, so when it was serialized in the paper there is a section that he wrote. When the print book was published, the part that he wrote was not included.
Q: Are the characters in your novels modeled on ideal characters?
A: Some of my protagonists are ideals, but some are not and are instead more realistic. Like Wei Xiaobao, he’s neither an ideal person nor a Chinese person’s ideal, (audience laughs) but is modeled after a real type of person in Chinese society, especially during the Qing dynasty. In those days when the social system was not at its most reasonable, a person could undergo a meteoric rise similar to Wei Xiaobao.
Chinese emigrated abroad, mostly under different difficult circumstances, then settled down and established and developed a career. And like Wei Xiaobao, many Chinese who emigrated were not necessarily the most highly ethical, but they loved making friends and were very capable of adapting to their environment. (audience applauds)
Q; What is your opinion of Lin Pingzhi’s (a character in Smiling Proud Wanderer) personality?
A: Lin Pingzhi bears an intense grudge in his heart. His whole family was killed when he was young, so according to Chinese wuxia novel norms, it’s expected that he should want to get revenge. But to let his entire humanity be consumed by hatred, I think it’s not worth it. This isn’t a Chinese person’s normal disposition. Chinese can reconcile enmity at the proper time.
Q: What do you think of Gu Long and Liu Canyang’s novels?
A: Gu Long’s novels don’t have any explicit historical background. He used a Western, modern way of thinking to depict his wuxia world and walked his own path. Several of his novels are very well-written. Liu Canyang’s novels are more simplistic with very fierce fighting which seems to be very satisfying, but it’s unavoidably too monotonous. Gu Long’s novels have more depth and a wider scope and new ideas. He was a friend and I knew him rather well. He’s passed away now. He had a flaw which is that he lacked persistence. Most of his novels he only wrote half, then stopped and had someone else ghostwrite the rest, so the quality is uneven. If he had written all of it himself the quality would have been much higher.
Q: Are your works based on real events?
A: Except for official historical facts, my novels are all fiction. Nothing is based on a true story. A Deadly Secret contains some real content, but only a very small amount.
Q: Your works have been adapted into many movies and TV series. what do you think of your works being adapted?
A: If the director feels the story is too long and omits some of it, that’s no problem, but I hope they won’t add too many things. (audience laughs) Just don’t add anything and I will be satisfied.
Q: What’s the main theme of Demi-Gods and Semi Devils?
A: Part of Demi-Gods and Semi Devils deals with the Buddhist philosophy that the majority of life is misfortune. Buddhism has a pessimistic view of life. People have to suffer; no matter how well you live, in the end you will die and there’s nothing to be done about that. Buddhist ideology has a deep understanding of the true meaning of human life.
Demi-Gods and Semi Devils depicts a part of Buddhist ideology: Life is full of suffering, that’s unavoidable. But from another perspective, when tragedy strikes you must calmly bring about reconciliation. You can strive too hard for fame, wealth, or power, and in the face of the many misfortunes of the world one must have sympathy, compassion, and be well-disposed to others. The essence of Buddhist philosophy isn’t pessimistic or negative, but to strive to be a good person and do one’s best to reduce one’s unhealthy desires.
Q: Your novels are depicted much differently on the big screen.
A: I’m also not too pleased with it. But shooting film and TV is hard. Probably every novel adapted is met with such difficulties. I just hope they change as little as possible.
Q: What do you think about the style of writing of Chinese fiction?
A: China has a lot of authors whose writing is refined, like Lao She and Shen Congwen. But nowadays some authors don’t pay much attention to language, so many writers are formulaic and kinda sound the same with no distinct voice. The writing style is very Western and the structure is Western syntax, no traditional Chinese writing techniques. I think that traditional Chinese literary form and beautiful language must continue to develop. Some works we read over and over, like Dream of the Red Chamber or Water Margin we read not for the story but for the hidden meaning and that affects how highly we rate the writing. If you write fiction and only tell a story, or talk about some idea or theme, but the writing is not beautiful, then people will gradually place less value on refined, distinctive, beautiful styles of writing, and that would be a shame. Of course I’m not saying my writing is great, I just worked hard to absorb some nourishment from the treasure house of Chinese literature.
Q: What do you think of Wang Shuo’s writing?
A: Wang Shuo’s writing is colloquial, with witty sentences written in a Chinese style. It’s very interesting reading. I don’t agree with all of his views, I’m just saying his way of writing is very good at attracting readers. Chen Zhongshi’s White Deer Plain, Deng Youmei’s Snuff Bottles, and recently the book The Last Xiongnu, as well as the historical novels Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang all written in a Chinese style that readers can easily accept.
Q: Is Smiling Proud Wanderer set between the Zhengde and Chongzhen reign period of the Ming dynasty?
A: It’s more or less the Ming dynasty, though there’s no specific time period. Because I thought that kind of power struggle and cunning treachery occurs in every dynasty. If it were set in a specific time period then it wouldn’t be universal. The student who guessed it was in the Ming dynasty between the Zhengde and Chongzhen periods I think must be well-read in history. That’s more or less right.
Q: Which female character are you most partial to?
A: To the best of my ability I wrote every kind of character, including some women who are very bad, like Madame Ma in Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. (audience laughs) Some are very good at poisoning and are very dangerous, (audience laughs) while others are good at poisoning but are good people, like Cheng Lingsu from Other Tales of Flying Fox. As for which one do I like? That’s really hard to say, and I feel everyone likes someone different. I wanted to make these women characters somewhat likable so that you will feel that having a girlfriend like that would be nice, would be a joy. (audience applauds)
Q: Can wuxia novels be set in a non-feudal society?
A: I think they can, they can be set in modern times. The main principle of the “xia” is being willing to sacrifice oneself, helping others, that’s the conduct of a xia. Xia doesn’t necessarily mean wuxia. Literati can also embody the xia spirit. Li Bai wrote “Ode to Gallantry”, but he didn’t know martial arts, but he had the xia spirit, so xia can be written in any setting, and it can go in a different direction from the norm. A person of that kind of moral quality does not need to know martial arts, and martial arts is not that useful in modern times.
Q: What are the differences in personality between the three protagonists of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils: Duan Yu, Qiao Feng, and Xu Zhu?
A: They represent different personalities. Even though Duan Yu is a Dali person, not considered a Han Chinese, he still embodies traditional Chinese culture. He’s gentle and refined and has a good temper and makes friends easily. Qiao Feng has a manly side, a good quality character for traditional Chinese culture. Xu Zhu is a Buddhist monk; his personality is somewhat removed from Han culture. He is stubborn and has a very strong religious outlook.
Q: Please talk a bit about polygamy and monogamy in your novels.
A: Polygamy is historical. Every ethnic group evolved from polygamy. The earliest matriarchal society was polyandrous and then step by step developed from there. We write wuxia novels set in an ancient society, but I do my best to write about romantic fidelity. I believe readers also want to read about lovers who are faithful. Chinese literature has some really moving works that include faithful lovers, like the poems “Beside Mt. Hua” and “The Peacock Flies Southeast”.
Q: Your novels contain a lot of Chinese historical knowledge. How did you learn all that? (laughs)
A: I regret that I can’t study in Peking University’s history department. But I’ve always loved reading history books, and I slowly learned some history.
Q: Are wuxia novels a big part of your life?
A: Actually, they weren’t at first. My main job was running a newspaper, but now they have become a bigger and bigger part of my life. I don’t run the paper anymore, but I keep getting more and more readers for my novels, on the mainland, in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Chinese living in Europe and America. I have a lot of readers, which was a fortuitous outcome. I originally wrote novels to support the newspaper in hopes it would help the paper succeed. Now the newspaper part seems to have passed, while the influence of my novels has lasted longer. I’m very happy about that. (long, sustained applause)
I translated this article. You can find the original Chinese text here.
Notes
- I don’t want to add biased commentary to this interview, but I do think an explanation of this term is in order. What they’re talking about here I have translated as “righteousness” but they are really speaking about a code of brotherhood or personal loyalty. But those things are also tied up in “righteousness”. The word used, 義 (yì), is sometimes translated as “altruism” as well. The definition can shift a bit depending on time period and context, so it’s a bit thorny to translate efficiently.
- Xia=俠, aka knights-errant, people who uphold their own code of chivalry and altruism. The xia in wuxia. In the novel in question, these xia help Justice Bao defeat evildoers and suppress a rebellion. Traditionally, xia did not work for the government but were outside the government, outlaws, or at least didn’t get involved in politics.
- See here for information on gong’an, or “court case”, fiction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gong%27an_fiction
- He’s referring here to the foreign rule of China by the Mongols in the Yuan dynasty and Manchus in the Qing dynasty, for example.
- 金庸巨, which means literally, Jin Yong Giant