In the January 1, 1978 issue of Taiwan’s 《時報週刊》China Times Weekly, wuxia author Dongfang Yu 東方玉 began serializing his new novel《金笛玉芙蓉》Gold Flute, Jade Lotus. To coincide with this release, Dongfang Yu wrote an autobiographical introduction called “Wuxia Fiction and Me”. I have translated that introduction below. The original article, as it was posted by another wuxia fan online in Chinese, is structured in a few very long paragraphs. I have broken these up somewhat to make it a bit easier to read (though they are still a bit long). Aside from that, I have interpolated a few illustrations that accompanied the weekly installments during the novel’s 47-week run.

Wuxia Fiction and Me

Author Introduction

Dongfang Yu, real name Chen Yu, courtesy name Hanshan, from Yuyao, Zhejiang province. Graduated from Shanghai’s Chengming College of Liberal Arts Department of Chinese, served in the military administration office for a number of years. Skilled in calligraphy, proficient in poetry, wrote several collections of poetry including Hanshan Poetry Anthology, Embracing Splendor, Southern Thunder, Sharp Peak Lodge, and Green Scented Studio Lyric Manuscripts, and he wrote wuxia novels under the pen name Dongfang Yu with such works as Release the Crane, Capture the Dragon, Seven Swords of Lanling, etc., about 30 or so works totaling tens of thousands of words. Now he is a contracted writer for the eight major newspapers inside and outside of the country.

I am a Wuxia Enthusiast

Some people say: You can not read wuxia fiction, but if you do you will be captivated. I am a genuine wuxia fiction enthusiast. I remember when I was ten I was in third grade at Shanghai Private West District Elementary School and someone lent me the book Seven Swords, Thirteen Xia which really piqued my interest and I couldn’t put it down. This was my first dissoluble bond with wuxia fiction. Henceforth, I read everything, from Gu Mingdao’s Lady Xia of Desolate River, Lu Shi’e’s Seven Sword, Eight Xia, Unworthy Scholar of Pingjiang’s Marvelous Xia of the Jianghu, and The Yang Family Generals, Western Campaign, Eastern Campaign, Three Gate Street, Water Margin, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Wuxia fiction in those days was divided into two schools, Northern and Southern. The Southern School was based out of Nanjing and Shanghai, and its writers all followed the model of Tang dynasty literary sketches and wrote about flying transcendents1 and chivalrous swordsmen, where a ray of white light could take off someone’s head from a hundred miles away. The Northern School was styled martial arts fiction. It was based out of Beijing and Tianjin and they wrote about fist and palm kungfu, the real thing, real sabres and spears, authors like Wang Dulu, Zhu Zhenmu, Bai Yu, etc., with works like Eagle Talon Wang, Madame Raksha, Twelve Coin Darts, etc., more realistic than the imaginary sword transcendents. But I was from the south, and I was more into the Southern School of wuxia fiction. Later on, Huanzhu Louzhu’s Sword Xia of the Shu Mountains and Nineteen Xia of Qingcheng became really popular. In those books, in addition to flying swords, there were also all sorts of magic treasures, and the stories were mystical and weird, not only comparable to *Investiture of the Gods” but even surpassing it and invariably truly could get readers so engrossed they forgot to eat or sleep.

It made a clean sweep of the original regional distinctions, where the south venerated sword transcendent fiction and the north venerated martial arts fiction, and there became no divide between north and south, and everyone young and old swarmed to them captivated. Unworthy Scholar of Pingjiang’s Marvelous Xia of the Jianghu was made into a movie called The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple, and it became a household name. But Huanzhu Louzhu’s Sword Xia of the Shu Mountains was said to be available to rent anywhere in the world where there were Chinese people, so you can see how popular it was.

My Wuxia Writing Journey

Above I said that I have been captivated by wuxia fiction since I was a child. When I came to Taiwan I served in a military office, and in our bachelor quarters there were several of us with the same hobby. Every day we couldn’t get enough of reading wuxia in the newspapers and would go rent entire sets of wuxia novels to read. Later, the bachelor quarters moved to Dazhi, and there was a book rental shop there called Spring River Book Rentals. After work I would run over there. The owner’s surname was Jiang (river), and he was a lieutenant colonel. We got along well and sometimes Mr. Jiang would recommend me new books. I didn’t care if the writing was bad or not, as long as the plot made sense, and there really weren’t many like that out of all the novels they had. Mr. Jiang advised me: Your writing is good, and you’ve read a lot of novels, why not try writing your own? When he said that I was eager to do it.

Back then our office was on Emei Street, right in the busy Ximen district. During lunch break I really hated taking a nap, and my single comrades had nowhere to go, so they just slept in their rattan chairs, so I just strolled around Ximending by myself. As luck would have it, one day at the entrance to Watermelon King I ran into Yan Boqin. He was the vice president and director of advertising at Shin Sheng Daily News. While we ate watermelon at Watermelon King, he told me that he was planning to start a “commercial fiction column” at the paper and he needed wuxia and detective fiction. Because this was a new venture, he hoped I could write something for him. I said: I’ve read a lot of wuxia fiction, but not many are well-written. He said: Then how about writing one for me? This was an opportunity and it evoked a long desire of mine, as I had been thinking of trying it, so I agreed. That day just happened to be the day of Lantern Festival, 1960. That evening I went back to the dorm and mobilized my forces and wrote 3,000 words and titled it Release the Crane, Capture the Dragon. The hardest thing was coming up with a pen name. I had to turn the draft in the next day, what would I do? I thought about it all night but still couldn’t think of a good name. The next day at work a coworker said: Chen Yu is writing the article, just use your real name Chen Yu. That suddenly gave me inspiration If I took the constituent parts of Chen (陳), on one side was dong (東), and the other side was an ear (阝). The ear looked like the character fang (方), so I had Dongfang (東方). Then I thought, Yu (瑜) sounds the same as yu (玉), and so Dongfang Yu (東方玉) was born. No more than a few days later the paper came out and unexpectedly, my piece of fiction was an overnight success. Many of my friends read it and liked it. Back then I was just writing, but I had no idea what I was doing. My success can be contributed to my old friend Liu Zhonghe.

He was deputy chief of the culture and education section of the China Youth Corps and was an old colleague of mine from back in Shanghai. He lived across the street from the bachelor quarters, and I would go over there often to chat. This dear friend not only an expert in new literature and art, he was also a wuxia enthusiast. We called each other “friend of the way”2, and once I began writing wuxia fiction, every night after work I would run over to his house and he would make me tea and we would start “conversing on the way”3, and I would tell him the story ideas I had come up with. He was really enthusiastic about writing wuxia and we exchanged many story ideas, and we would go on like that until around ten o’clock, and then I would go back to the dorm and start writing. Nearly every night went like this. My debut novel Release the Crane, Capture the Dragon’s success really has a lot to do with my dear friend’s contributions.

How to Write Wuxia Fiction

I once heard someone say: There was once a well-known wuxia author who commissioned an artist to draw the characters in his book, everything from the face, to the clothes, the weapons, and he would hang these portraits up in his study. So his novels were very successful. This is an exaggeration, how could writing wuxia fiction be so troublesome? Some say that to write a novel you need an outline, plan the whole story out, where to put in foreshadowing, where to add suspense, you need lay it all out clearly and think it through thoroughly before you start writing. I think pretty much only Shi Nai’an when he wrote Water Margin, Cao Xueqin in writing Dream of the Red Chamber, and Luo Guanzhong in writing *Romance of the Three Kingdoms” would spend that much time at it, right? Because they only wrote one novel their whole life, so they must have planned it that carefully. As for my wuxia author friends, most of them have multiple stories going in multiple papers at home and abroad at least, and they have to write at least 3,000-5,000 words a day. You just write as it comes to you, and if nothing comes to you you just have to force something out anyway. Every day like this, every day without stop. Each day you finish one piece and then write the next one, writing without rest, writing nonstop, and once you finish you quickly mail it off, not really even having the time to look it over once. Completing three or four novels a year. Shi Nai’an, Cao Xueqin, and Luo Guanzhong wrote only one book their whole life, simply far behind. When you look at it that way, aren’t wuxia writers pretty grand?

Getting back to the original topic, my first time writing wuxia, I really did go to great pains, the structure, the suspense, all that planned out in advance. But doing it that way is like an old saying from my hometown: “wearing a stone mortar to act in a play, a lot of effort for little gain”. Because the readers of wuxia fiction serialized in newspapers have been have been reading for ten or twenty years, you could say they are very experienced; they’ve read if not hundreds, at least dozens of novels. Their bellies are full of wuxia stories, an astonishing amount. An author though, there’s a limit to what one person can think of. The story you planned out in advance must have threads to follow, paths to find, and when today your installment comes out in the paper, the reader already can guess what’s going to happen in tomorrow’s installment. Just think, is he likely to keep on reading? So the write who plans his story out in advance and drafts a big outline is weeded out by the reader. Then, how should one go about writing wuxia fiction?

The method is very simple. You write today’s installment, and whatever’s going to happen in tomorrow’s installment the write himself doesn’t even know. If not even the author himself knows, then how is the experienced reader going to be able to guess what’s going to happen next from what happened previously?

The Good and Bad of Wuxia Fiction

Wuxia fiction, from the past till now has pretty much been target that has received the most reproach and the fiercest attack. First, of course are students’ parents. Their kids being engrossed in fiction all day will certainly lead to them neglecting their studies. Second, is friends of the literary world, who feel that wuxia fiction is written in passing, the stories fantastic and weird and absurd, not worth anything at all, not worthy of ascending to the Hall of Refined Taste. You can often find in the papers strong denunciations and vehement excoriations, but you will never see wuxia authors writing an article in retort. Many friends have spoken up for wuxia authors on their behalf, and some even say to me: You all are condemned so much, why don’t you fight back and go after them? Actually, first of all, wuxia authors are busy writing, they simply don’t have time to start writing polemics. Secondly, wuxia novels aren’t obscene, they aren’t sinister, and some of the articles those who condemn wuxia write are so obscene you can’t bear to look, so sinister they specialize in revealing the seedy underbelly of society (revealing the seedy underbelly of society was originally an old trick of those who associated with bandits) that readers can judge for themselves what is what, why argue about it? Third, wuxia fiction itself contains the traditional virtues of classical Chinese literature, it teaches about loyalty, filiality, and it emphasizes being true to one’s word, being resolute in one’s deeds, that justice will prevail and that evil will be defeated. For now let’s leave aside these principles. Whatever kind of fiction it is, as long as it is received well by the reading public, then it has value. The good and bad of wuxia fiction is a matter of opinion. Let’s leave it to someone of knowledge and experience to comment on it and appraise it!

The first installment, January 1, 1978

Notes

  1. 仙, often translated as “immortal” but that’s a bit misleading.
  2. 道友, refers to friends who share the same hobby.
  3. i.e. chatting about their shared hobby