
Jin Yong, the 'Tolkien of Chinese literature', has died - YeGoblynQueenne
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-46040266
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girzel
"The Tolkien of Chinese literature" is a marketing phrase produced by the
English publisher, and while I totally understand the impetus, I don't think
it's quite accurate. Tolkien melded multiple cultural traditions (the
Icelandic Eddas, Anglo-Saxon literature, and rural English life) to create an
original world that was at once strange and familiar to his readers. Jin Yong
wrote stories based in Chinese history, with an extra layer of magic,
spirituality, and kick-ass martial arts.

By analogy, it would be like he'd produced a really, really good retelling of
the Arthurian legends. It's an impressive achievement, but not quite on the
same creative level as Tolkien.

Full disclosure: I agented the English translation to a US publisher (from the
UK publisher).

~~~
victoriasun
As a Chinese person who grew up with the works of Jin Yong and Tolkien, I
bristle a little bit at this comment.

For one, I think the marketing term is really used to explain Jin Yong's scope
and impact, rather than a flat comparison of genre. In this sense, Jin Yong
is, to Chinese literature, as impactful Tolkein is to Western literature.

It is a tradition within Chinese literature to prefer setting your work within
our history. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is perhaps the most well-known in
this vein. So to be critical of "creativity" here, is, I think a little bit
short-sighted. It's like saying a Ken Burns documentary lacks the creativity
of The Avengers, because magic powers and superheroes don't exist in the
prior. Or trying to compare a book about the personal relationships of a
cancer patient (I'm thinking "The Fault In Our Stars" specifically here) to
the Harry Potter series. They are just fundamentally different things where
creativity is executed in different ways. Who is to say that it is not equally
powerful or creative to create characters that are deeply relatable, like Jin
Yong's? In my opinion, his characters tended to ask morally difficult
questions more often than Tolkein's.

Jin Yong wrote stories that were rooted in Chinese tradition, but his impact
among young Chinese minds is greater than what even I can describe in a Hacker
News comment. He wrote books that were about strength of self, moral
character, freedom, and defiance in a time when the Chinese government
strictly punished all of these things. I confess that I know nothing about
Tolkein's backstory or history, but I can plainly see his impact. I think it
is reasonable to say that Jin Yong's impact is as important and wide spread as
Tolkein's.

~~~
wirrbel
I don't know jin Yong (what would I read from him first as european? Any
recommendations?)

But I tend to dislike the overarching glorification of Tolkien. Surely an
impressive writer and world-builder but surely not the only one and not
necessarily the best.

~~~
twright0
Out of curiosity, which writers would you put above Tolkien for world-building
(in the Western canon)?

~~~
akvadrako
George Orwell is the most influential one I can think of.

~~~
arethuza
Things like 1984 don't really count as fantasy though (unfortunately) as they
were an extrapolation of things that were already happening in the 1930s and
1940s.

~~~
watwut
In the same sense, high fantasy is just extrapolation of national wars and
myths.

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undefinedblog
As a native Chinese speaker, I don't quite identify the genre of his work as
"martial arts", it just should be "Wu Xia", which can not be translated
flawlessly into English, like "Zen" or "Tao".

~~~
girzel
Try translating 江湖! That's what really stumps us.

~~~
xarope
It's like a programming community, but with martial arts exponents. And
instead of hackfests, they beat each other up.

Do I win a prize? :-P

~~~
choonway
人在江湖身不由己

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jhowell
Tolkien is the Tolkien of Chinese literature. His books are translated into
multiple languages and his ideas travel well.

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majia
I think Jin's novels are somewhat more sophisticated than those of Tolkien.
Beyond telling stories of good vs evil, Jin used historical settings to
explore deeper subjects, such as the twist of fate in Demi-Gods and Semi-
Devils, and the insanity of Chinese Cultural Revolution in the Smiling, Proud
Wanderer.

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devy
Jin Yong is Louis Cha's pen name, which is most famous name amoung his
readers. It's also a split of words in Chinese of the last character of his
real name 镛. He was born in a famous Cha clan in Zhejiang province of China.
SCMP's article[1] has richer information about Louis Cha if he's unknown to
you.

Essentially, he is the biggest influencer in modern Chinese martial artist
literature, pop culture, entertainment, TV shows, movies and online games in
the last half century. Gen X and Millennials in China almost all have
read/watched at least one book/movies/shows originated from Louis's 14-novel
creations.

His novels has deep connections with Chinese history from Song Dynasty to Qing
Dynasty as well Chinese traditions, this is probably why he doesn't have many
western readers even though his works have been sold 300 million copies
worldwide (mostly to oversea Chinese).

[1]: [https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-
kong/society/article/2170910/...](https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-
kong/society/article/2170910/hong-kongs-most-famous-martial-arts-writer-louis-
cha-dies)

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jackjeff
The BBC article and wikipedia entry hint to Jin Yong going to Hong Kong (was
this exile?) and some of his publications were initially banned in mainland
China and Taiwan. So it seems he was not well liked by the elite/party at
first.

Question: When did attitudes toward him change in mainland China? Immediately
at the end of the cultural revolution? Am I getting this all wrong?

~~~
forkLding
Jin Yong fled to Hong Kong likely to escape the Chinese Civil War, WW2 or the
Communists. No enough info here.

Censorship was there in mainland China but books were still easy to carry
around and read.

From the wikia: "Despite Jinyong's popularity, some of his novels were banned
outside Hong Kong due to political reasons. A number of them were outlawed in
the People's Republic of China in the 1970s as they were thought to be satires
of Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution; others were banned in the Republic
of China on Taiwan as they were thought to be in support of the Communist
Party of China. None of these bans exists today, and Jinyong's complete
collection has been published multiple times in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and
Mainland China. Many politicians on both sides of the Straits are known to be
readers of his works; Deng Xiaoping, for example, was himself an avowed fan."

~~~
bfung
To tack on to the parent explanation -

A joke in passing these days is "how many remakes of [Legend of Condor
Heroes|Insert other JY works here] have you watched?"

Both mainland, hk, and taiwan have remade multiple of his works since the 70s.
The latest is 笑傲江湖 2018, filmed in mainland.. I think this is the 2nd remake
of this title mainland has done - and they've definitely run through most of
the popular titles already once.

So, it's wildly popular throughout.

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learningcn
飞雪连天射白鹿，笑书神侠倚碧鸳！

I have read all his books about 13 years ago, and now, R.I.P

