Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain by Jin Yong
Fox Volant
of the Snowy Mountain
by JIN YONG
translated by Olivia Mok
Copyright information
Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain
By Jin Yong
Translated by Olivia Mok
© The Chinese University of Hong Kong 1993, 1996
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
ISBN 978-962-201-733-7
First edition 1993
Second edition 1996
Second printing 2004
Third printing 2010
THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
SHA TIN, N.T., HONG KONG
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Title of Book : Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain
Author: Jin Yong
Edition: V1.0
Date Last Updated: Day (10) Month (01) Year (2012)
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Directory
Title Page
Copyright Information
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
Illustrations
Introduction
Main Characters
Dragon Lodge
The Four Families
Chapter 1 Casket
Chapter 2 Summit
Chapter 3 Myrmidons
Chapter 4 Tryst
Chapter 5 Message
Chapter 6 Encounter
Chapter 7 Death
Chapter 8 Treasure
Chapter 9 Snare
Chapter 10 Duel
List Of Martial Arts Novels By Jin Yong
Commentary
More Books
Foreword
Chinese martial arts must be as old as Chinese written history, may be even older, perhaps a lot older. Through the ages, martial arts and their practitioners have inspired many classical Chinese novels, notably The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin and Sanxia Wuyi. In more recent times, this great literary tradition has informed and inspired the works of Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng in Hong Kong and those of other wuxia fiction writers in Taiwan. Some of these contemporary works have been adapted for the cinema and television screens where they have come to be known as kung fu movies.
One of Jin Yong's most famous novels is Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain. First written in serialized form for the Ming Pao newspaper in 1959, Fox Volant has since gone through twelve editions and has been made into a television series as well as a feature film. This book is an attempt to translate and make accessible to the English reader this important work in Chinese wuxia fiction.
There are almost as many schools in Chinese martial arts as there are schools which teach the Chinese classics. But four major ones stand out in people's imagination because they have been romanticized by popular fiction. These are Shaolin, Omei, Kunlun and Wudang. Three of them feature in Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain.
In the martial arts tradition, when a young man decides to join a particular school of martial arts, he has to find a Master who will take him on as pupil. When he has found one, there will be an elaborate initiation ceremony. As a part of the ritual, he will need to swear unswerving allegiance to the school, kowtow to his Master, and pay his respects to his seniors, the so-called Uncles-at-arms and Brothers-at-arms who, together, constitute the martial brotherhood. The school has its own code of chivalry, its own jargons and gestures peculiar to the brotherhood and no one else. This facilitates recognition if the school is a particularly large one with many pupils scattered all over the country.
Once a pupil is admitted, he will be taught, in stages, to fight with his hands and feet, with knives and swords, and with some of the more esoteric weapons (See Fig. 2.1-2.2 for an illustration of these). Some schools may be famous for one or two specialties or feats in the art of combat. If so, these will be taught and handed down from generation to generation. Some schools may have a canon on pugilism and blade techniques. Such a canon is regarded as the heirloom of the school and is normally kept by the heir of the Grand Master or his star protégé.
Martial arts fiction often departs from the practice of martial arts in the extraordinary claims that are sometimes made about the prowess of the practitioners and what they do to achieve such extraordinary feats. It is generally believed, for instance, that martial arts Masters can fly or float through the air by virtue of their levitational skills. In Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, the group that call themselves the Southern Branch of the Dragon Lodge are supposed to be Masters at this. They are supposed to be able to lift themselves and float in the air or fly in the air with great ease and facility, just like the main characters do in Peter Pan. The difference here is that many cognoscenti of the wuxia genre really believe this is physically possible whereas readers of Peter Pan know this to be never never land.
The second taken-for-granted and oft-repeated feat of martial arts Masters is their ability to stop a person in mid flight or in mid action by pressing a finger or poking a blade on that person's paralytic point. There are supposed to be 360 paralytic points in the human body. These are the points through which pneuma (or chi) circulates. Thirty six of these points are considered vital and if pneuma is prevented from circulating at one of these points by pique (the act of applying heavy pressure on a point), the body will feel sore, limp, numb or paralyzed. A person who is piqued will be unable to move; it is as if he had been stunned, although he can still breathe and his life is not in danger. However, if he is not revived within a short period of time, he may suffer permanent damage and may even die. Needless to say, this has never been demonstrated as being possible in real life.
In teaching a pupil the art of combat, the Master of a school will also teach him the vital points to attack on another person's body. Such areas of weakness are clearly marked in the illustration (Fig. 3.1-3.2). A pupil will be taught certain moves which dovetail into each other and follow logically one another. Many of these moves are given descriptive names such as
Dancing Dragon and Leaping Phoenix
Seagull Skimming the Lake
Worshipping Buddha cum Learning Sutra
Phoenix Facing the Sun
Stretching Claws in the Cloud
As might be surmised from such descriptions, many moves resemble the actions of animals or they are so attributed to facilitate learning and retention.
If a pupil is conscientious and has the right disposition towards the martial arts, he will soon make a name for himself in the world of convoys, bodyguards, and underground societies. In time he will become a Master or a Grand Master. If he is revered and respected, he will probably have acquired a sobriquet like Valour Ruan the Seven Stars Hand. The two protagonists in this book are popularly known as Phoenix Miao the Gilt-faced Buddha and Fox Hu the Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain.
T. L. Tsim
Preface
Jin Yong was a prolific writer possibly driven by economic need more than by creative impulse. His twelve major works and three short works in the wuxia fiction genre were completed within the short span of 15 years from 1959 to about 1974. This more or less coincided with the period when he founded and struggled to establish the Ming Pao Daily News, without doubt one of the most important newspapers, culturally and politically, in Hong Kong's history. These works were first published in serial form everyday, and from the start drew numerous readers whose loyalty to the Ming Pao and the ideals it stood for have remained.
For, in spite of their fanciful and escapist nature, in addition to their pot-boiler intent, these works contained more than a modicum of ideal. Jin Yong has always been a man of large visions, even from the early days. His intellectual playing field is the unfolding of the Chinese culture in all its splendour through history, reaching out from the mystic past, far into the unknown future. His "kung fu novels", as the superficial often regard them, may appear to tell improbable tales of adventure and love between unbelievably lovely maidens and pure-minded knights. In reality, they are exhibition cases fashioned in homage of everything that the Chinese in diaspora (so to speak) are most proud of: China's history, literature, art, thought, social order, traditions and moral values. They are what is dearest to the Chinese identity, what they would preserve in a golden Ark in the tabernacle of their souls, until China comes to her rightful place in the world again.
That Jin Yong took these works seriously can be seen in the infinite pains he took over their revision: a task which occupied nearly ten years, resulting in an extensively and meticulously revised, and beautifully printed 36-volume edition. Each volume is lavishly illustrated with colour plates showing not only Chinese paintings, calligraphy, objet d'art, but also China's fabulous mountains and landscape, and scenes of historical interest.
It is impossible to over-estimate the influence of these works on an entire generation of Chinese, particularly in Hong Kong, but now spread to all corners of the world. It matters not their job or profession, sex or interest; they grew up avidly devouring Jin Yong, and in this pleasurable process, imbued themselves with the cultural pride and identity which breathe through every line of these works.
Moreover, for those who love the Chinese language, Jin Yong's language is intoxicating. It is a style all created by him to suit both the historical background of his tales, and what his modern readers can comprehend without too much effort. He is a past master of language, and the mastery that shows powerfully in these works, also shows in his editorials, commentaries—indeed anything he cares to write.
He is also a great transposer. Avid reader that he has always been, from the History of Twenty-four [Chinese] Dynasties to the complete works of Shakespeare, of Freud, of every major English and French writer, he has skilfully used elements of foreign culture—including Greek mythology and the great Greek tragedies—and blended them into his vast canvas of heroes and goddesses, where they miraculously take on a Chinese look. Unravelling the strands and strains and tracing them to their origin is always an instructive experience, and always ends in increasing one's respect for this unique writer.
For, in Jin Yong's readiness to take from the vast outside world and convert to its own use, is demonstrated the inner strength of Chinese culture at its most lively and fertile. The greatness of the Tang Dynasty, for example, was characterized by its open-mindedness and easy acceptance of the culture of India and the Near East—to the Chinese, of course, this meant the "Near West."
All this makes Jin Yong nearly impossible to translate. The longer works are so complex that they would represent a challenge no smaller than The Dream of the Red Chamber. The shorter works are more manageable. To the devout Jin Yong reader, they do not give the satisfaction of the full-length works, but hopefully translations such as the present would whet the appetite of English readers enough to induce them to ask for more.
Margaret Ng
Hong Kong
5 February 1996
Acknowledgements
The translator wishes to thank all her friends for the support rendered throughout the years, especially those in Hong Kong, San Francisco, Toronto, Auckland, and New York City.
Among the numerous people that have helped in the production of this volume, I wish to thank the editorial staff of The Chinese University Press for their incredible patience with my clumsy attempts at turning a draft into a manuscript.
Illustrations
The Qing Empire (Fig. 1)
Chinese Weapons (Fig. 2.1)
Chinese Weapons (Fig. 2.2)
Paralytic Points (Fig. 3.1)
Paralytic Points (Fig. 3.2)
Introduction
Martial arts fiction, with a long history dating back to the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907), is one of the few surviving Chinese literary forms which can claim a direct link with traditional popular literature. These tales of knights-errant gradually emerged as popular fiction in the second half of the nineteenth century. After 1919 the genre expanded in an unprecedented scale as an increasing number of people could read and were dissatisfied at the limited social improvements accompanying political changes.
This literary genre, properly known to contemporary readers as wuxia xiaoshuo which literally means the martial-chivalric novel, is really popular literature verging on serious literature. This genre of literature is devoured by Chinese readers from all walks of life, finding great popularity not only in Hong Kong, but also in overseas Chinese communities around the world as readers can readily identify themselves with heroes who opt out of society and rely solely on their own strength to confront the society whose workings escape them.
Jin Yong's martial arts novels are set in traditional China. Most of the protagonists live outside the mainstream of society. These heroes are rebels who live in their own world, who have dedicated their lives to humanitarian ideals and who have pledged themselves to a chivalric code of justice, honour and righteousness, even to the point of sacrificing their lives for certain causes of their own making.
These stories, which go into detail in giving the reader feats of various schools of swordplay and pugilism, are written in a light literary style interspersed with Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist thinking. Besides the usual fighting and revenge, ingredients essential to martial arts fiction, Jin's stories also feature romance, adventure and intrigue.
There is also no lack of linguistic elegance in the dense, compressed and cryptic prose which Jin Yong employs in describing in a vivid filmlike manner the fierce fighting heightened by the protagonists' superhuman abilities. The pseudo-archaic language, that is to say, writing in the vernacular but including towards the classical, also serves as a convenient vehicle for conveying metaphysical truths and religious cults.
Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain first appeared as newspaper serials in 1959 and was later published as a single volume. This martial arts novel, containing ten chapters, features relatively little fighting compared to Jin Yong's other novels; and yet the excitement, intrigue and action are well dramatized in this beautifully written work, with one event firmly intertwining with other incidents in the story, which is essentially a vendetta involving the offspring of several families.
The story takes place in the Changbai Range in coldest Manchuria, one winter's morning in 1781. By that time the vast Chinese Empire had come under the imperial rule of the Manchus. The Manchus, a nomadic tribe from Manchuria who ushered in the Qing Dynasty in the mid-seventeenth century, held sway over the country from 1644 to 1911. The Manchus brought an end to the Ming Dynasty and the rule of the Chinese Empire by the Han Chinese.
Two historical figures, Li Zicheng and Wu Sangui, played crucial roles in the change from one dynasty to another, from the Hans to the Manchus and from the Ming to the Qing. Li Zicheng, a Han Chinese who got into trouble over land tax at an early age, later became a brigand. He headed a band of desperadoes in 1640 and overran many provinces. In 1644, he proclaime
d himself King of the Dashun Dynasty with Yongchang as the title of his reign. Then he marched to the capital, Peking. Meanwhile, Wu Sangui, a Han general, was dispatched by the Ming Emperor to fight in the East against the Manchus. Instead, Wu opened the gate to the invaders. The Ming Emperor was forced to take his own life. If Wu Sangui had not been a traitor to the Hans by shepherding in the Manchu army from beyond the Shanhai Pass, the entire Chinese Kingdom would certainly have come under the sway of Li Zicheng. Wu, having joined forces with the Manchus, met Li Zicheng's army head-on, Li retreated and his army melted away. A Manchu ascended the throne, proclaiming himself Emperor of the Qing Dynasty.
In the story, Li Zicheng, the Dashing King, had four myrmidons, all paragons in martial arts, courageous and daring, who would devote their last drop of blood to the defence of their Master. These four henchmen bore the surnames Hu, Miao, Fan and Tian. They were known to the soldiers by these last names.
Li Zicheng dispatched three of his myrmidons, Miao, Fan and Tian to bring in reinforcements when he was surrounded in Hubei Province. When the myrmidons returned, they found the Emperor was dead. They decided to find Hu, the fourth myrmidon, hoping that together they could avenge the death of the Dashing King.
Myrmidons Miao, Fan and Tian managed to find Hu many years later. By then Hu had become a man of rank in Yunnan Province. He was working for Wu Sangui, a traitor to the Hans; it was he who had let in the Manchu army. Myrmidons Miao, Fan and Tian suspected Hu, their sworn Brother, of plotting against the Dashing King. Before Hu could finish his story about the Dashing King he was killed by the three other myrmidons. Hu's son later told them the true story of how the Emperor died. They were so ashamed of themselves that they all look their lives. Since then, the descendants of these four families never ceased wreaking vengenance on each other.