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Jan 22 • 3 tweets • 2 min read
Novel I'm reading right now: Past Affairs of the Martial World 武林舊事 by Lai Meike 賴魅客 (apparently supposed to be read Make Laugh). B/W pic is with the jacket off, cardboard cover made to look like a stele inscription. Text is swordplay instructions from the novel.
#wuxia ImageImage
This is volume 1 of 4. First wuxia published in 2022 (in Taiwan), but it's not "new". Originally was a webnovel published I think in 2019. Plot focuses on a big sword competition to determine the ranking of the martial world. Will have more on vol. 1 on my site later.
Correction: Seen an earlier date online for this novel (or at least part of it) from 2014.

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More from @WuxiaWanderings

Wuxia Wanderings Profile picture
Nov 5, 2021
So about this, I asked Lin Baochun, a wuxia scholar, if he knew exactly when Rusty Sword was published. Turns out it was May 11, 1961, making it definitely later than Jin Yong's ROCH. Funny thing is, the 1959 date I had for Rusty Sword came from his book lol...
#wuxia #武俠
That's how it is with wuxia research though. The few resources out there are not quite reliable enough, and it's very hard to find first editions of wuxia novels now to find out the exact dates of things (which is why I asked Lin Baochun)....
Dunno why the dating was wrong to start with, but I'm glad I asked first before I made a blog post about it. So turns out Gao Yong just copied Jin Yong, which makes sense since many authors did.
Read 4 tweets
Wuxia Wanderings Profile picture
Oct 4, 2021
Just finished the first iteration of a romanization system designed to help people who don't know Chinese learn how to pronounce it. Basically a crib for how to pronounce pinyin.
Ex. wuxia: ooh-shyah (NOT woo-shuh)
xianxia: shyen-shyah
Xiao Yan: Shyow-Yen
....
Will be looking to test this soon, see how easy/difficult it is for people to pick up. The idea is you pronounce it exactly as it's spelled. So "Lai" is L(eye)...in other words, L + the word "eye". Dunno how it will work out, but hopefully it can be honed into something useful.
Wanted something as a pronunciation aid for my wuxia/xianxia encyclopedic dictionary I'm working on, that's why I made this. The goal is to allow readers to feel confident they have a basic gist of how to say the names/terms in Chinese novels (or other lit).
Read 4 tweets
Wuxia Wanderings Profile picture
Jul 8, 2021
Birthday presents I got for myself: (1) A Survey of Chinese Wuxia Fiction Classics 中國武俠小說名著大觀 (2) 刀劍風雲 by Situ Yu (3) 沉劍飛龍記 by Zhang Menghuan (4) Six Harmonies Spear 六合槍 by Yan Pingle
#wuxia #武俠 #ChineseLit #Chinese
This one, by Zhang Menghuan, apparently once competed with Legend of the Condor Heroes for popularity back in 1957 when they were each initially serialized. I'm reading it now. #wuxia
Six Harmonies Spear by Yan Pingle is pretty new published Oct. 2020. Only in ebook format. Great artwork by the renowned artist Ye Yutong 葉羽桐
You can get it on Google Play Books: play.google.com/store/books/de…
#wuxia
Read 4 tweets
Wuxia Wanderings Profile picture
May 10, 2021
Ugh this kind of low-effort laziness makes me mad. Imagine a book about "understanding Chinese fantasy genres: a primer for wuxia..." where the author can't be bothered to discuss the most important concept of the genre (xia). And thinking such concept is "boring".
#wuxia #武俠 Image
While in the same book discussing the etymology & meaning of 修 cultivation (and becuz of over-reliance on Chinese-English dictionaries, getting part of the explanation wrong in the process; the 3 stripes in the character mean feathers, not stripes [see Shuowen Jiezi])
And BTW, xia does not necessarily mean heroes. Historically they certainly were not regarded as heroes. It's a unique concept that ought to be explained at least a little bit in an intro to wuxia. ffs....
Read 7 tweets
Wuxia Wanderings Profile picture
Mar 20, 2021
The 602nd installment of Smiling, Proud Wanderer. 1092 characters. So again, only ~1/3 of a modern webnovel chapter.
#wuxia #jinyong #webnovel #武俠 #金庸 Image
The 1st installment of The Deer and the Cauldron, Oct. 24, 1969. 813 Chinese characters. Image
1st installment of Legend of the Condor Heroes, Jan. 1, 1957. 902 characters. Image
Read 4 tweets
Wuxia Wanderings Profile picture
Feb 16, 2021
TIL that a lot of the common tropes of cultivation novels, like nascent souls and the process of transcending and becoming an immortal, tribulations, etc. were popularized by Huanzhu Louzhu in Sword Immortals of the Shu Mountains (Legend of Zu) (1932)
#wuxia #xianxia #webnovel
Also he had martial arts called "Eight Dragon Subduing Palms" (Jin Yong must have taken this to make his Eighteen), and the main character has a divine eagle companion (Jin Yong borrowed this for ROCH)
AND the primary protagonist, Li Yingqiong, is a woman! Didn't realize just how influential it was; pretty much every wuxia author who came after it was influenced by it in some way.
Read 5 tweets

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