![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
In Memoriam
Nov. 2nd, 2018 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adisgracetothescholarsAs some of you may have already heard, the much-beloved writer Jin Yong passed away in Hong Kong this week, on October 30. While he was most famous for his prolific and popular wuxia novels, Jin Yong was also deeply involved in Hong Kong politics for much of his life.
Jin Yong was born Zha Liangyong in Haining, Zhejiang, on March 24, 1924, to a prominent literati scholar family - his grandfather had passed imperial exams in the late Qing dynasty, and his father had been executed by the Communist government for being an intellectual counterrevolutionary. He was no stranger to political upheaval and the ever-changing court of public opinion. His incorporation of these elements into a fictional realm named the jianghu solidified the concept and strengthened wuxia as a genre. Along with Gu Long and Liang Yusheng, Jin Yong is commonly credited as the father of contemporary wuxia.
Even if you’ve never read a Jin Yong novel, the influence of his writing is pervasive in current Chinese pop culture, from the perennial remakes of Legend of the Condor Heroes and Smiling, Proud Wanderer (both in drama and movie forms), to video games, to dusty cracked-spined paperbacks lingering on bookshelves (that someone hauled across the world while praying to not exceed their luggage allowances).
The sheer volume and evocativeness of Jin Yong’s stories make it difficult in some ways to pinpoint, ah, yes, this is from whom this story element is drawn. His style was admittedly long-winded, as the stories all began as serialized fiction for newspapers, and yet it also immediately transported the readers to an entirely different time and place.
His writing encompassed a wide range of topics, while ostensibly focusing on the main themes of the jianghu, martial arts, and romance: Chinese medicine, music, calligraphy, poetry, art, food/tea, philosophy, and even regional differences in dialects were all incorporated with an eye to detail. Jin Yong both upheld and subverted traditional tropes in Chinese literature, such as the teacher-disciple relationship, Han Chinese patriotism, and even the mold of what a traditional hero could be. Through his skill with sketching characters within the conflict-ridden world of the jianghu, Jin Yong would pass commentary on modern life (and his books had in the past been banned on both sides of the strait for their political content).
The news of Jin Yong’s death was expectedly unexpected. While the author had been frail for long years following a stroke, it still rippled through the Chinese community and the diaspora as everyone in different time zones woke up or saw the obituaries trip past on their media feeds. If, through reading, we the readers get to know an author, then Jin Yong was everyone’s favorite beloved uncle with the best stories, taking on different nuances through re-reads and through the years. For all that Jin Yong once critiqued his own writing as not being that well done (and the novels have gone through rounds of revisions and re-releases), the layers of complexity of characterization and world-building have made them fascinating to reread and retell.
Even as we may fondly roll our eyes at yet another remake of Legend of the Condor Heroes, or decide to re-read a particular novel for the umpteenth time, the fact remains that Jin Yong crafted entire worlds and histories that the audience wants to return to again and again. So maybe it’s insufficient, but it’s all we have: thank you for the stories and the worlds you built and shared with us.
飛雪連天射白鹿
笑書神俠倚碧鴛
Jin Yong was born Zha Liangyong in Haining, Zhejiang, on March 24, 1924, to a prominent literati scholar family - his grandfather had passed imperial exams in the late Qing dynasty, and his father had been executed by the Communist government for being an intellectual counterrevolutionary. He was no stranger to political upheaval and the ever-changing court of public opinion. His incorporation of these elements into a fictional realm named the jianghu solidified the concept and strengthened wuxia as a genre. Along with Gu Long and Liang Yusheng, Jin Yong is commonly credited as the father of contemporary wuxia.
Even if you’ve never read a Jin Yong novel, the influence of his writing is pervasive in current Chinese pop culture, from the perennial remakes of Legend of the Condor Heroes and Smiling, Proud Wanderer (both in drama and movie forms), to video games, to dusty cracked-spined paperbacks lingering on bookshelves (that someone hauled across the world while praying to not exceed their luggage allowances).
The sheer volume and evocativeness of Jin Yong’s stories make it difficult in some ways to pinpoint, ah, yes, this is from whom this story element is drawn. His style was admittedly long-winded, as the stories all began as serialized fiction for newspapers, and yet it also immediately transported the readers to an entirely different time and place.
His writing encompassed a wide range of topics, while ostensibly focusing on the main themes of the jianghu, martial arts, and romance: Chinese medicine, music, calligraphy, poetry, art, food/tea, philosophy, and even regional differences in dialects were all incorporated with an eye to detail. Jin Yong both upheld and subverted traditional tropes in Chinese literature, such as the teacher-disciple relationship, Han Chinese patriotism, and even the mold of what a traditional hero could be. Through his skill with sketching characters within the conflict-ridden world of the jianghu, Jin Yong would pass commentary on modern life (and his books had in the past been banned on both sides of the strait for their political content).
The news of Jin Yong’s death was expectedly unexpected. While the author had been frail for long years following a stroke, it still rippled through the Chinese community and the diaspora as everyone in different time zones woke up or saw the obituaries trip past on their media feeds. If, through reading, we the readers get to know an author, then Jin Yong was everyone’s favorite beloved uncle with the best stories, taking on different nuances through re-reads and through the years. For all that Jin Yong once critiqued his own writing as not being that well done (and the novels have gone through rounds of revisions and re-releases), the layers of complexity of characterization and world-building have made them fascinating to reread and retell.
Even as we may fondly roll our eyes at yet another remake of Legend of the Condor Heroes, or decide to re-read a particular novel for the umpteenth time, the fact remains that Jin Yong crafted entire worlds and histories that the audience wants to return to again and again. So maybe it’s insufficient, but it’s all we have: thank you for the stories and the worlds you built and shared with us.
飛雪連天射白鹿
笑書神俠倚碧鴛
