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Jin Yong—On the Critical Standards of Wuxia Fiction

On the Critical Standards of Wuxia Fiction

by Jin Yong

This article by Mr. Jin Yong was published in 1957 in Hong Kong’s New Evening Post and was later lost. In 2015, Jin Yong Jianghu Forum1 poster “Emulating Lei Feng” found and copied the text of the article so that it could once again see the light of day. As everyone knows, although Mr. Jin Yong is a grandmaster of wuxia, he rarely wrote about his theories of wuxia literature. This article may be called a rare find and is extremely precious.

Recently someone published and article in the paper that was critical of wuxia fiction which led to a lot of debate. For the seventh anniversary of The New Evening Post, the editor asked me to write an article about wuxia fiction, so I am going to express my views on the subject.

If you take wuxia fiction as unadulterated entertainment to pass the time, then there is only one standard that has to be met: “does it interest the reader or not?” But clearly, the recent discussions have been treating wuxia fiction as a part of the national literature. For my part, I too hope wuxia fiction can be qualified to be considered “literature” and have been striving to write wuxia with that in mind, though I have not been successful at it so far.

When it comes to critiquing the good and bad of wuxia fiction, I think there are four main standards:

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Martial Arts Manuals — A Discussion of Wuxia Fiction Tropes

The jianghu world in wuxia novels is a “martial” world. Martial arts is not only what heroes and lady xia rely on (for protection) as they roam the jianghu, the requirement for chivalrous deeds (acting as a xia), is the final standard for settling disputes and getting satisfaction through seeking vengeance. In fact, the “wu” in wuxia, referring to martial arts, supports the entire framework. Liang Yusheng once said, “‘Xia’ is the soul, ‘wu’ is the body; ‘xia’ is the goal, and ‘wu’ is the means.”1 Even so, as for the characteristics of the wuxia genre, “wu” is the key therein.2 It’s hard for us to imagine a major character in a wuxia novel with little or no martial arts ability, even though Jin Yong wrote a character in The Deer and the Cauldron, Wei Xiaobao, who relied entirely on his eloquence, quick wit, and ability to adapt to circumstances in order to freely navigate the imperial court and the jianghu, “creating a marvelous, unprecedented wuxia novel”.3 However, we’ll leave aside discussions of the desire to “subvert”,4 as that is not a conventional practice in wuxia fiction. And Jin Yong still could not escape conferring a modicum of martial arts on Wei Xiaobao, from the “Art of the Hundred Flights” and “Art of Escape” to his dagger and precious vest, all are aimed at keeping this distinguishing wuxia quality in mind. It could be said that Jin Yong is acknowledging martial arts.

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A Q&A with Jin Yong

Test

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.

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