What is martial arts in the eyes of foreigners?

Westerners read Chinese history from Jin Yong's Novels
-- Unique perspective, rather funny

Author: artier from Netease

Mr. Jin Yong's novels have always been famous for their rich historical and cultural heritage. Will the best-selling American novel critic Al? Thiel's Excerpt from the English version of the collection of Jin Yong is translated as follows. The translator's level is limited, and the translation is hard and original.

Excerpt

Mr. Jin Yong is a scholar. He should be called Professor Cha, but he has been famous for more than a dozen of Popular Novels in China and other places. His novels specifically reflect the history of world-famous fighting in China. Like in the west, Chinese giants use a variety of weapons, although different from the weapons used by Westerners. However, Professor Cha's novel shows an important difference: when no weapons are used, the Chinese big fighters mainly use the palm of their hands instead of the fist. Do not think that this is only a difference in detail. In fact, it is a profound difference. Understanding this is a prerequisite for us to appreciate these best-selling novels.

According to modern Westerners, the harder and more acute things are, the more harmful they are. Therefore, in combat, the fist is better than the palm of your hand. Using weapons means that the harder the texture, the sharper the surface, and the better. Professor Cha described not only using the palm of his hand while using his hands, but also the more advanced he seemed to be, the less he paid attention to whether the weapons he was using were sharp and strong, and even gave up using them. Western readers who have never read such novels before are hard to understand. As a matter of fact, Chinese giants do not focus on hurting their opponents through physical damages in the general sense. This involves a concept exclusive to China that runs through such novels: Internal Force. Translating this word literally is not helpful for Western readers. If you need to find an analogy that westerners think is easy to understand, with the same magical effect and a similar long history, it is magic. But they are actually completely different. Internal Forces have the following characteristics:

1. Internal Force exercises usually have certain physiological conditions for the practitioners. This does not mean that the weak people cannot practice, but generally they are not easy to succeed. This is easy to understand, because it is a fight after all. On the other hand, higher IQ often helps internal forces in exercises, but not always. Sometimes the IQ is lower but better, such as the hero in the legend of the condor heroes and the chivalrous man. Physiological conditions are sometimes challenging, such as the need for a castrated procedure or two-hemisphere contact disorder (mutual hands ).

2. It is very difficult to grasp the internal force through self-repair, if not impossible. There is usually a teacher, but we often find that it is better to learn the ancient scriptures than to ask contemporary teachers. Sorry, it is difficult to get such a scriptures, and it is usually not circulating for a long time. This is a well-known Sutra in the past. It was clearly lost when no one mentioned it in another era. However, there are also exceptions. For example, when the "solitary nine swords" of the Song Dynasty were mentioned again in the Ming Dynasty, it seems to be different from that of the Song Dynasty.

3. To make the internal force reach a high level, there must be some special auxiliary means. It is usually through taking special food (there are too many such examples), or using some auxiliary equipment (for example, the function is similar to the refrigerator bed, but it never consumes power ). These measures are generally considered to be highly risky, but there are very few failure examples in the actual results.

4. Internal Forces can be transmitted as material or heat, and sometimes even non-contact transfer is allowed. This transfer can be roughly divided into three categories, the first is aggressive, that is, by releasing internal force to hurt the opponent. This explains why the Giants prefer to use the palm instead of the fist: because it seems that the palm is more efficient than the fist to release internal force. The second type is gifted, which is usually used for teaching, cooperative attack behavior, or treatment. Therefore, we can understand a strange phenomenon seen in these novels. Killing and saving people are done with the palm of your hand. The third category is theft or seizure, and the internal forces of others are taken as their own. In view of the importance of internal forces to the Titans, such an approach is more serious than a vampire, so it is often the behavior of a negative character. If a positive character does it occasionally, it must be emphasized that it is not intentional, although sometimes the heart secretly proud.

Therefore, the history we see in the novels is actually the history of internal forces. As a Chinese saying goes: Soldiers flow to the water, but barracks are made of iron (suspected to be the misuse of the "attach-flow troops"-translator ), the description of the internal force runs through Professor Cha's novels. Next we can make a brief review of this history.

Professor Cha's earliest novel (in the original article, it actually reflected the earliest novel in the historical age-the translator). It reflected the times more than two thousand years ago and was named "Spring and Autumn" by Confucius ". At this time, China already has a highly developed civilization, but Professor Cha still deliberately depicts a white ape in the book to imply that internal forces have existed since human evolution. However, from the perspective of the novel, the peak of internal force development was in the Song Dynasty, which combined practice methods from India, Persian, Southeast Asia and other places to become a complicated system. However, in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it gradually declined. It seems that this is true, because after all, I don't know who else is famous. In the early Song dynasty, a not-very-famous big doujia (youtanzhi, similar to dazhongma's Iron Man) was able to master the "Yi Jinjing" of Shaolin Temple. in the Ming Dynasty, Shaolin Temple monk leaders regarded it as a treasure because they were not willing to use this book to save lives and were considered stingy. In the Qing Dynasty, it may be the last man in history who was famous for his inner power (home tree) who was killed by a group of far-mediocre fighters, implying the decline of internal forces.

This trend began with the suspicion of Internal Force in the Ming Dynasty. At this time, some fighting companies think that internal forces are not as important as people always think. The combat techniques they practice do not require internal forces. As with all academic issues in history, the argument is a good thing. Unfortunately, one party who emphasizes internal forces is considered to be of low quality and eventually killed. The results of the struggle seem to prove that internal forces are not so important, but in fact they are because no one has practiced internal forces to a high level during this period. However, since the formation of this achievement, the future situation will become worse and worse. In the Qing Dynasty, although some people still want to practice internal force and reach a certain level, they are completely unable to compare with the Song dynasty.

In the Qing Dynasty, a boy with no internal force, but a high IQ and good escape skills became a national hero and made great contributions to the confrontation between China and Russia, and married many wives. This seems to be an unexpected achievement for those who have a lot of deep internal forces in history. After all, the world has entered the age of firearms and intelligence. Although China's development is slow, it is inevitable. The romantic legends and heroism of ancient and medieval times have disappeared and become outdated antiques. However, this trend is closer to the current trend. So it's no wonder that most Chinese readers like Lu Ding Kee, and Professor Cha thinks this is his best work.

However, in addition to fighting itself and the stories of the titans, these novels also contain more information about Chinese history and culture, such as religion. From these novels, we can see that for a long period of time, the techniques of internal force and combat are basically in the hands of some monks, including Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, and fire worship, many combat books are often mixed with religious scriptures. However, this situation has also changed. in the Ming Dynasty, three of the five main fencing schools had nothing to do with monks. Buddhist and Taoist monk leaders, although well-known, seldom came forward, they are very happy to plan behind the scenes, and the leaders of the Fire Worship school are also very simple, but at this time, the Fire Worship School has been degraded into a common group, because there is no religious-related ceremony.

I will give a brief introduction to the content of several main books to facilitate the selection of readers.

Tianlong Babu: discusses several views on men and women. This book seems to have three heroes who later became friends. Xiao seems to be an ascetic, while Duan is opposite to him. He is a good-looking man (but respectful of women). The other (imaginary bamboo) is between the two, and his heart has always wanted to quit, but when the beauty came to our eyes, she became a king's son-in-law and the leader of a female community. They eventually became heroes, reflecting the tolerance of the author on this issue. There are also many secondary roles, which can be seen as their variants. For example, Duan's father was a thoroughly good man and eventually suffered some hardships. Murong did not care about men and women for his career, it was even a shameful failure to make use of it. As a result of innate factors and the stimulation of the day after tomorrow, youtan became a masochochism. Shaolin's monk leaders were later found to have illegitimate children ,...... And so on.

Legend of the Condor Heroes: challenges the role of human intelligence. Five people with the strongest internal forces in the book are proud to seal themselves as virtual monarchy in five directions (as in the original article ). But at the end of the novel, they were surprised to find that they were not better than a slightly mentally retarded young man. A young man in the book seems to have a rare, beautiful, and smart woman. What's more subtle is that the western monarch among the five virtual kings seemed to have the most powerful internal force later, but his mental condition was worse-he became a serious amnesia patient.

Condor Heroes: reflects the situation of animal husbandry in Mongolia at the beginning. There is a lonely girl in the book, a beebot expert, but it seems that this industry was not taken seriously at the time, one of her only students, who later became her husband, did not learn this skill. Instead, she became a sculpture expert and became famous. In the end, this skill had to be passed on to an idle and childish hundred-year old man. Of course, they are all very advanced big fights. In particular, the carving experts can then use a roar to command many animals, but there is no bee. His wife once tried to send a message to him through a bee, but he turned a blind eye.

"Swordsman": reflects the miserable experiences of Ancient Chinese homosexuality. The first gay man was killed to protect her gay object. The other two are even more pitiful because no gay objects have been found, but the authors strongly suggest that they will eventually become the same person as the first gay man, that is, there is no doubt that they will eventually become gay. These three people share a common feature, that is, they voluntarily give up male features through surgery, but the East almost gave up his career after completion, yue and Lin thought this was the beginning of their career. In this novel, they were not the only one who performed this kind of surgery, but they were renamed as "not", but his situation was different, he was forced to complete his operation. He was so tolerant that he was not suffering from the bad luck of the other three people. However, it is unknown whether he will become a gay man in the future. In addition, Yue, who strongly advocates internal force in the book, became synonymous with a pseudo-gentleman. But in the book, apart from the assassination of two female Buddhist monk leaders, he did not have serious harm to others; and the assassination did not meet his goal, because in the next five-phase merger, if you must select a leader, the two women will definitely choose him rather than the other one.

The hero in the book is the last representative of internal forces before they fall. The decline of internal forces first shows mental decline. Yuan was originally a hero's son, but he could not see any trace of this. He grew up in an isolated environment, I don't know anything about reality. After leaving the mountainous area where he studied, he seemed at a loss. One obvious evidence is that he married the first girl he knew after going down the hill. At first, he imitated people around him like a child. For example, he dressed himself as a young student, although he had never formally attended school. His behavior was constrained by the moral education he received from an early age, but he was attracted by the story of a dead man. Later, he knew that he was just his father-in-law, this may balance the loss of his engagement. However, this kind of emotional swing made him unable to accomplish anything, and eventually went into exile overseas. Even in the Qing Dynasty, there was no message when his classmates were killed.