Recently my interest in wuxia has ebbed somewhat, though I am still reading it. I’ve been jumping around a lot between other things, though, reading about Daoism, especially its terminology, reading a lot of sinology papers, especially those by Edward H. Schafer. His papers and books are treasure stores of information, and he contributed a lot of both precisely defining words and advocating for precision in translating, which I have also been thinking about a lot lately. With his writing, the footnotes are invariably more interesting than the main text (though the main text is interesting too). I’m the type who always wants more info about whatever I’m looking into.

I’ve also been reading up on Medieval Chinese, the Chinese spoken during the Northern & Southern Dynasties and the Tang dynasty. Trying to learn how to pronounce it. Been reading dictionaries every day, but that’s not new. Not too long ago I bought Paul W. Kroll’s A Student’s Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese, which I got for Pleco. This is really the best Chinese-English dictionary available right now, hands down. Consider this an endorsement. What I like most about it is the precision and detail of the definitions given. Take a look at this entry for 芙 (fu):

A lot of information packed in there. There are entries much longer than that. But look what it has: Medieval Chinese pronunciation (the MC bju part in the top left), and it gives the taxonomic classification for the plants so you know exactly what plant is being referenced. And the note at the bottom is handy, pointing out the difference in when to translate as “lotus” vs “hibiscus” (personally I would translate the latter as cottonrose to be more specific, since hibiscus is a huge genus and there are other Chinese words for hibiscus). There are many entries like this that clear up thorny issues. It’s often not easy to tell which of several definitions one should use. I know some translators who even erroneously claim that translating 芙蓉 (furong) as lotus is “wrong”. This despite the fact that literally every Chinese dictionary lists it as lotus as the first entry. Check your dictionaries often, folks!

Anyway, so yeah I really like this dictionary and recommend it to everyone. Though it’s not perfect, and there are still times when it gives you multiple translations of a term without explaining the differences in when to use it. But it contains a lot of up-to-date definitions and some really detailed explanations of terms. And don’t let the title fool you. Even though it focuses on Classical and Medieval Chinese and gives definitions only relevant to those periods (words change their meaning over time; for example, the “orchid” 蘭 (lan), did not mean “orchid” until the Song dynasty. Before that, it referred to thoroughwort (Eupatorium fortunei, Eupatorium japonicum). So if you’re translating Tang poetry, don’t write orchid!), it is still very useful for all Chinese users. Learning about early meanings of terms gives you a more intuitive understanding of the word, and the explanations the dictionary gives are so detailed, there’s really no other Chinese-English dictionary that even comes close. Chinese-Chinese dictionaries are famously terrible at definitions (though great for quotations as examples of usage, which Kroll’s dictionary lacks), so yeah, this one is the best for just finding out what a word means. Also the grammar explanations are a godsend for anyone learning Classical/Literary Chinese.

Speaking of dictionaries, that brings me to the main project I am (slowly) working on. I’m working on compiling an encyclopedic dictionary of wuxia and xianxia terminology, common terms that you will encounter in these genres. It will also include other information you will encounter in wuxia/xianxia, or really any work set in premodern China, like clothing terms, the calendrical system, telling time, geography, etc. I also plan to have a biographical section on wuxia authors. It will be an eclectic, sometimes digressive work, aimed at being thorough and containing as much information as I can put in it. Hopefully eventually it will include quotations from wuxia novels as examples. Etc. Etc. Obviously this is a huge project, but I’d like to start first with narrowing down a selection of terms that are most important, especially ones that often are misunderstood and/or mistranslated. Such as Daoist terminology. The translations of Daoist terms in xianxia webnovels often do not feel or sound very Daoist, the imagery and symbolism so important to Daoism whitewashed over with bland paraphrases (nascent soul, for example; a more accurate translation would be primordial infant; the “infant” imagery/symbolism is quite integral to Daoist belief, practice, and visualization).

This work will be aimed at readers, translators, and anyone trying to write their own wuxia/xianxia novel, or any other genre set in premodern China. So I want it to include everything that someone engaged in one of these activities would need to know. As much as I can anyway. That’s a long-term project.

On the topic of Daoist terminology, I’d also like to recommend another book: Taoism: Growth of a Religion by Isabelle Robinet, translated by Phyllis Brooks. It is an overview of the history of Daoism, covering all the major schools of Daoism throughout China’s history and explaining the differences and similarities of their beliefs and practices. The introduction chapter in which Robinet defines and explains many key concepts like qi, yin-yang, the five agents, the Daoist view of the beginning of the universe, etc., is just unmatched in clarity and detail. If you ever were confused about these concepts, Robinet explains it all very well. Highly recommended.

I’m also working on a book of poetry translations, focusing on the Tang poets Li He, Han Yu, Li Shangyin, and Meng Jiao. Because I like them the best. This is just an excuse to geek out on defining and explaining terminology in the footnotes. I’ve realized over the past year that I really love words and should have been a philologist. So this and the dictionary project will scratch that itch.

I also plan to start a series of essays here on this blog that are just my random notes on translation, talking about various translation topics that interest me, either new things I’ve learned or misconceptions I’d like to correct. I’m almost finished with an essay thoroughly addressing the baseless claim that the translator, Deathblade, made some years ago that the “have eyes but can’t recognize Mount Tai” idiom is actually referring to a man named Taishan and not the mountain. Not a shred of evidence was put forth in support of his claim in that video, and his only source apparently was a wiki article which doesn’t cite any sources for the stories. So I want to provide some evidence of Mount Tai used as a symbol of importance and largeness in classic Chinese texts. Of which there is plenty.

So the “wanderings” part of Wuxia Wanderings is the focus as of late, and will be getting much more attention here on this blog. But I am still reading wuxia. Right now I am reading Sword Immortals of the Shu Mountains, a xianxia novel that began in 1932 and was one of the early examples of a modern xianxia novel, during a time when xianxia was still a subgenre of wuxia and the “xia” aspect had not disappeared as it mostly has now in xianxia webnovels. I will post some excerpts because this was a very influential novel on the development of wuxia. Pretty much all of the major early writers of the “new school” of wuxia in Taiwan and Hong Kong, including Jin Yong, were influenced by this novel. Some common tropes began with this novel, or at least were popularized by it, including magical giant birds, fighting yao 妖 spirits, magical pils/fruit to increase strength, etc. I know it didn’t sword kinesis (flying swords), but it does feature them prominently. Also literal face slapping. I will definitely translate that scene.

There’s a lot of other wuxia stuff I want to read and write about. but I’ve just recently gotten up the mental energy to do the work of looking up references, quoting excerpts, etc. Putting my thoughts together. It’s a struggle sometimes. Of course all of the above is the plan. We’ll wait and see how much of it gets done. I feel there was something else I wanted to touch on, but I can’t think of it now. Till next time, then.

~GZ