Wuxia Novelist: A Writer's Blog

Wuxia at Boston University - continued

2011-10-15T17:29:00.005-04:00

A few blogs back, I wrote about my Boston University Writing Program course, “Paradox of the Hero/Heroine in East Asian Cinema and Fiction.” At that time, the movie list was in the process of being finalized for this Fall, 2011 semester and I wrote that I would reveal it in this blog once the semester was underway. Well we’ve been underway since the first week in September and I’ve had few chances to come up for air! But now I have a moment or two and would enjoy discussing my choices. However, I must first preface any discussion with an explanation of my criteria for choosing these films.

My course is in the Writing Program, thus it is first a writing course. We teach students how to write academic articles. We use an array of primary and secondary sources for them to construct academic essays. These are not opinion pieces, blogs, or movie reviews. In my course, the primary sources are the movies. We treat them as historical artifacts, statements of particular viewpoints, understandings, and interpretations of the heroic fiction tradition in East Asia. Since everything must be limited by the length of one semester, East Asia is represented in the course by Chinese and Japanese cinema; though I hope in the future to expand into Korean cinema. Further, given the time constrictions and the nature of the course – as a writing course – the number of films I can show as primary source materials is also extremely limited. The students are required to write three formal papers. The first paper has one draft and the other two have two drafts each. Thus there is a lot of time spend on writing, as it should be in a writing course. Over the years, I’ve found that seven is the maximum number of films I can fit into that one semester time slot. The greatest difficulty for me is choosing ONLY seven movies that can represent the cinema tradition of the East Asian hero. On the Chinese side, I focus on the indigenous wuxia tradition to furnish the heroes/heroines. And on the Japanese side, the samurai tradition.

The films are not primarily chosen for their cinematic qualities – this is not a film course – or for their spectacular fighting scenes - naturally, if those aspects exist along with my more immediate criteria, all the better. My main selection criterion is simple: the films must represent some aspect of the heroic tradition, as they are being presented as primary source statements of this genre, and it should have some appeal to an audience that might for the first time be seeing this film genre. With all of that in mind, here are my selections for this semester in order of viewing (I juggle the list every semester):

1. Hero/Yingxiong (2002) Zhang Yimou. Not only is Hero a visually gorgeous film, but it is also the director’s attempt to redirect the genre away from its often simple revenge theme toward a higher ideal – nonviolence. This makes it an interesting source in that we must first understand the traditional wuxia genre before we can consider Zhang’s attempt to redefine it. Most students fall in love with both the visuals and the ideals put forth. Further, in the classroom and in their essays, they never cease to debate the heroic characteristics of its various characters.

2. Swordsman/Xiaoaojianghu (1990). I like this film because it deals with a number of wuxia themes: the carefree “Daoist” swordsman, the relationships between male and female, between master and disciple, between the Han Chinese and the Miao minorities, and the nature of friendship among a number of themes. My students, however, tend not to like the movie, complaining that it is hard to follow and thus confusing. This is the second time I’ve tried it and since I’m getting the same thumbs down on it, probably the last time.

3. 36^th Chamber of Shaolin (1978). This choice was the result of a friend’s urging. His point was that the movie does a fine job of showing how a xia (hero) is actually developed. It has proved popular with my students.

4. Zu Warriors/Legend of Zu (2001). This represents the idea of the xia taken to the height of the Chinese fantasy tradition. I was very uneasy about using this as it is really all over the place when it comes to the plot. But it has held up well among my students and has made for some interesting comparisons between mortal and “immortal” heroes in the East Asian tradition.

5. Seven Samurai (1954). For me, this is the top of the East Asian heroic film genre. I can’t say enough about this film. Kurosawa was a genius and the film is a product of that genius. It is also a favorite among my students, many of whom have never seen it before. I consider it one of the greatest expressions of heroism ever filmed!

6. Bride with White Hair (1993). Even though most classes don’t like this movie – all over the place plot-wise and poor film editing – I find it remains the best expression of a type of wuxia heroine that is rarely, if ever, filmed – I call her the Tang dynasty swordswoman as opposed to the Confucian swordswoman, who is the norm for the genre. During the Tang dynasty (specifically the 9^th century), there arose a literature that prefigures the wuxia literary tradition. The Tang chuanqi (“tales of wonder”) literature presented fantastic (as in fantasy) swordswomen who could fly, had magical powers, and had no need or dependence on men. Later in this literary tradition, the Confucian swordswoman arose – (think Mulan) and became the norm. She did her heroics and then returned to the proper Confucian mold for a woman – a wife or other form of dependency on or subservience to men. In this movie, however, the “white-haired demoness” needs no man!

7. Princess Mononoke (1997). This film continues our consideration of the female side of this East Asian heroic tradition. The movie is usually a big hit with my students for both its beauty and its complexity of characterization.

In addition to these seven movies, the students also have a number of secondary source readings (316 pages to be exact). Not all of the readings deal with the movies or themes in this genre, as some also deal with writing skills and techniques – remember, this is a writing course! The students are being taught how to weave a secondary-source supported argument/thesis/claim about one or more of the primary sources (the films).

Naturally, I am open to further suggestions on movie titles to include in future editions of the course. But to be considered, the films have to follow the criteria that I laid out above. At this point, I will replace Swordsman and maybe another one, but at the end of the course, we have our “academy awards” celebration where the students (there are fifty-five students divided among three sections) vote on their favorite movies. This voting also figures in my considerations. Look forward to your suggestions.

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Wu Xia (2011) Film Review

2011-08-19T15:49:00.004-04:00

How “Wuxia” is Wu Xia (2011)?

Director Peter Chan’s new movie, Wu Xia, was invited to this year’s Cannes Film Festival and has been touted by some reviewers as the revival of the wuxia film genre. Brad Brevet, in his “Cannes Movie Review,” however, is one of the few reviewers to question the genre of this genre titled movie:

Wuxia is actually a genre of Chinese fiction centered on martial arts with a hero at the center of its story that "fights for righteousness and seeks to remove an oppressor, redress wrongs, or to bring retribution for past misdeeds." You'd never guess that based on the detective story that makes up the first half of this film.

He goes on to point out that the, “The foundations of wuxia, however, are set in the early goings with references to such skills as Qinggong, Neijin and Dianxue…” But Brevet doesn’t look any deeper. And why should he, as he doesn’t have a background in the genre, citing Wikipedia as the source for his understanding. I would like to look at that issue in my consideration of Chan’s movie.

If you title your movie with the name of a film genre, then you would seem to be making a statement about the content of your movie. Does Wu Xia live up to its title? Not really.

While Wikipedia’s definition is fine for causal browsing – I don’t allow Wikipedia for formal references in my university course on this genre – we can drill down a little further. Most of my readers know that the genre name wuxia is broken down into two Chinese characters: wu, which relates to martial activities and xia, which is generally recognized to represent “chivalry.” But let’s be more specific, as in the West, “chivalry” brings to mind medieval European knighthood, damsels in distress, Christianity, and “courtly love” – none of which was present in the ancient Chinese concept of xia.

Note that I write “ancient,” for modern Chinese filmmakers have changed that – but that’s a rant for another blog. So what would work better than “chivalry” as a tentative translation forxia in the compound wuxia? I would offer “altruism,” which I understand in this context to be the opposite of “selfishness,” in the sense of “thinking first of the self.” Thus, a possible translation of wuxia could be “martial altruism.” Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it! But it is easy to understand in a global cultural context if we think of heroes like Robin Hood and, perhaps, today’s “superheroes” who use their powers in defense of justice, etc. They are all altruistic heroes who “fight” for the “good” of humankind. With this little linguistic exercise in hand, let’s turn back to the movie Wu Xia.

There is little question that the hero, Liu Jinxi (Donnie Yen’s character), is “martial,” but is he altruistic? I would suggest that besides protecting his family (which we could understand as “selfish”) there are, at most, only two instances in the movie where he places himself in harm’s way for others: 1. In the paper shop robbery (and even here, some reviewers claim that Liu is only acting out of self-defense); 2. In the village square when it is being attacked by some of the “72 Demons” gang (which was brought on by his presence in the village). So the question for me is whether the Liu Jinxi character lives up to the appellation of xia – same character as inwuxia, but used as a proper noun to describe a “hero.” If he is not a xia, then where’s the wuxia in Wu Xia?

I’m not completely trying to be silly here, but am serious about how we define this genre. In the Chinese historical origins of this class of heroes, they were understood as personalities who “seeing an injustice on the road, pulls out his sword to help.” Further, early Confucian philosophers disdained them for valuing “personal freedom above family solidarity.” In other words, in the early xia tradition altruism was an equal opportunity value – you would help anyone regardless of family ties, and sometimes, in spite of those ties. How far we’ve come story-wise where the xia are frequently involved in love affairs and family matters – sells more tickets, and keeps those Confucian values of social stability well entrenched. There was a time in the 20^th century when both the Republican and Communist governments banded wuxia movies as being dangerous for the country’s morals – but in those days the film industry was partly to blame for introducing blatant sexuality into the wuxia genre – to sell more tickets.

Back to our movie. I don’t find much wuxia in Wu Xia. The character with the most appeal – storytelling-wise – is not the main character, Liu, who is rather flat, but Takeshi Kaneshiro’s intriguing constable/detective, Xu Baijiu. And he is not a xia in the sense that he uses martial techniques to help others. Rather, he uses his brains to solve crimes and sort out his own life. In this, he actually has a character arc – rare in most “wuxia” movies that tend to obsess with the martial aspect. Detective Xu, rightfully so, is the most interesting character in this noir mystery tale.

As for the plot, a number of reviewers have pointed to David Cronenberg’s brilliant, A History of Violence as the template for the Wu Xia screenwriters. I made the “mistake” of following that clue and watching the movies back to back. It is clear that Wu Xia has A History of Violence as a model, but it is equally clear that in terms of storytelling the former can’t hold a candle to the latter. Cronenberg gives us a man and his family torn apart and stitched back together by a terrible “history of violence.” Wu Xia attempts and fails to give us the same. It fails at the storytelling level because the main character has little character, he is easily upstaged by the supporting character (detective Xu), the Lu family only gives us a shallow sense of the horror they are going through (compared to the family in A History of Violence), and the plot is so poorly conceived as to end, as reviewer James Marsh writes, “in one of the most staggeringly unnecessary examples of deus ex machina in recent memory.” Usually, when a writer has to resort to the deus ex machina “device,” it signals a lack of imagination. And that is what is so sad about such a beautifully shot movie.

The camera work and genuine Yunnan settings are fresh, new, and vibrant. The idea of introducing traditional Chinese medical understandings via detective Xu (who is miles beyond Tsui Hark’s Detective Dee) is innovative, but not original – see Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes(2009), which is probably not the first to use this interior body view technique. Donnie Yen’s fight choreography is great, especially the amazing scene with Kara Hui! The use of Jimmy Wang Yu as the villain (here’s where Wu Xia has one up on A History of Violence) is brilliant – he’s also far beyond the “hero” as a vibrant character. But once again, wuxia cinema is unable to sustain an overall coherent story – the villain seems to prove too much for the writer’s imagination. Wu Xia is not a wuxia genre movie. Rather, I see it as a stylish noir mystery.

No doubt, my understanding of the genre is fairly idealistic as I feel that the fighting should express some sense of altruism, a sense of forgetting the self in the support of others – not just one’s family, which is natural to most people. And, no doubt, this is drawn from both my study and teaching in my Boston University Writing Program course, “Paradox of the Hero/Heroine in East Asian Cinema and Fiction.” Where’s the paradox? As I understand it, these wuxia heroes represent the values of selfless equality in cultures that place the family before a sense of social equality. Traditional xia values transcend the local and the familiar for the universal and the other. In this sense, the traditional xia are still relevant to our globalized world. Now all we need are writers who can give this ancient tradition a contemporary appeal – or at least, film companies that can properly title their films!

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Cowboys & Aliens - SEE IT!

2011-08-16T13:38:00.003-04:00

I've seen a lot of negative reviews on this movie, and there are a good number of positive ones. Don't bother reading either! JUST GO SEE IT! It is TOO much fun to miss. Can you imagine James Bond and Indiana Jones in the same movie! But I mean when they're really on their game. Daniel Craig brings his steely 007 persona to his cowboy role, as Harrison Ford does his Indiana Jones persona, but with a more potent weapon than his bullwhip - his curmudgeon-ness! They are great as cowboys!

Also don't think you know what happens in the movie based on reviewers and teasers - the film makers have done a good job of hiding all the nooks and crannies to this movie. So you're in for some nice surprises.

This movie is sheer entertainment and I don't find it necessary to intellectualize or pick it apart in terms of storytelling. It's too much fun to do that. But if I had to, I suppose that the aliens kind of leave you flat - certainly no sense of humor among that bunch. And I suppose I could say that the heroes are only as good as the villains...BUT it's Harrison Ford & Daniel Craig!!!! Who cares about the villains when you're having this much fun!

And if I have to be "serious," I do think that the SciFi aspect works with the Western side if you see the aliens as the "savages" vs. civilization - which in Cowboys & Aliens means both white and Native American defending a common home, which is kind of nice to see.

However, if you compare the movie to "pure" Westerns, then the Coen Brothers True Grit is way beyond it, as is the movie it is supposedly patterned after, The Searchers. But that wouldn't be a "fair" comparison since Cowboys & Aliens is a cross-genre movie, not a "pure" Western. And underscoring my main point here, the movie is sheer entertainment - go to see it for the fun of it and not to analyze it! You will not be disappointed!

I know I'm "cheer leading" here, but I just had so much fun with this movie, it's hard not to!

I hope to put up a review of the new Chinese movie, Wu Xia, in the next installment of this blog - I want to watch it one more time before I write.

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

And Up We Go! And a few Movie Comments

2011-07-13T16:54:00.003-04:00

It's a bumpy ride to the top (I hope). In May, the Chinese edition of Dream of the Dragon Pool fell to #29 on the publisher's best seller list. However, the great news for June is that it has risen to #17 on that same best seller list! Fingers crossed for the July number, which will appear at the beginning of August.

I've been going through movies for my upcoming Fall East Asian Heroes class at Boston University and am closing in on a final list of movies, which will be revealed on the first day of class. I enjoyed 13 Assassins, but will not be using it in class. I also enjoyed an oldie, The Fate of Lee Kuan, a King Hu classic - I won't be using that one either. Samurai Spy (1965) is amazing for its cinematography and story, but not for my class. And Reign of Assassins is cool, but also not for my class.

This might leave you wondering, "Well, what are his standards for his class?" Since the class is first and foremost a writing class and the movies are our primary source material to consider the nature of the East Asian hero, I'm picking movies that exemplify some aspect of that type of heroism. If I was giving a class in East Asian heroic cinema in a film department, then probably all the movies I mentioned above would be candidates. But I'm not.

I teach within the Boston University Writing Program and our objective is to teach well composed, intelligible forms of academic writing. So the movies I show are the primary source materials that my students use to investigate the nature of the East Asian hero/heroine. Along with each film, there are readings (our secondary sources) that the students will use to support their arguments/theories/claims regarding those primary sources (the movies). Thus when I pick a movie to use within the course it has to represent some aspect of the East Asian heroic tradition and be supported by secondary source materials to assist in the student analysis of the movie.

In early September, when the course starts, I will post my film list on this blog.

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Down We Go!!!

2011-05-06T20:09:00.003-04:00

I just checked again at the Taiwan Commercial Press website and Dream of the Dragon Pool, Chinese edition, has dropped to #21 on their Best Seller list for April. I don't know how that works, since the list is supposed to be April and when it first went up I was #2. Oh well - everything is subject to change - another life lesson! Who knows where it will be next week!

Zaijian

The Innkeeper

Dragon Pool Chinese Edition Hits Best Seller List!

2011-05-04T12:03:00.002-04:00

The Chinese edition of Dream of the Dragon Pool debuts at Number 2 on the publisher's April Best Seller List!

Taiwan Commercial Press has just put up its April Best Seller List and its Chinese translation of my wuxia novel: Dream of the Dragon Pool debuted at number 2. If you read Chinese, here is the link http://www.cptw.com.tw/default.aspx

If you can't read Chinese and are interested, then get Google to translate the page. The best seller list is on the lower left corner of the page and my novel title translates as: Longquan a dream.

And if you want to read it in English, we've dropped the prices on Amazon for all my books.

Fingers crossed for next month!!!

Zaijian

The Innkeeper

Hanna

2011-04-12T16:04:00.003-04:00

Movie Recommendation: Over the weekend, I saw Hanna a taunt action flick staring a 16-year old female assassin! Amazing action and even more amazing protagonist, the Irish actress Saoirse Ronan plays Hana. She is chilling, intense, and human – a very interesting combination given the usual action fare. The plot is the usual “modern” rogue CIA ops type story, but it’s really all about the character here. And Hanna is an amazing character, definitely worth the price of admission - click on the title above for an interesting review.

In thinking about wuxia stories, it’s too bad that such interesting characters can’t be found in our genre, at least on screen. But let’s look for a moment behind the scenes of this movie. The director, Joe Wright, has done Soloist, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice, a number of TV serials, and a few shorts – NO action movies. What did he have Saoirse watch to prepare her for the role of Hanna, an action character? The actress reports that she was asked only to watch the Peter Seller’s movie, Being There (1979)! Certainly NOT an action movie. Why? To ground her in Hanna’s quirky character. Wright did have Saoirse do a lot of physical training, which included martial arts, but no “schooling” in martial arts/action movies.

Wright is coming at the action genre from a fresh perspective. He’s drilling down into the character. And low and behold, the character is giving expression to the martial art. So we have a fully dimensional action character. Hanna is the heart and soul of the movie and what makes it so amazing.

For those of us engaged in working in this genre, there is a lesson here. We can tell stories set in our favorite settings, but should populate those stories with genuine characters by pushing the envelope when it comes to creating characters. As I’ve been advocating in this blog, the globalization of our genre allows us to create characters that appeal to a world-wide audience. It will be interesting to see how Hanna does in the international market.

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

2011-03-27T10:25:00.002-04:00

Some nice things are beginning to appear regarding the Chinese publication of my wuxia novel, Dream of the Dragon Pool. Here's one of the best from the Kunlun Journal:

http://kunlunjournal.blogspot.com/2011/03/dream-of-dragon-pool-now-in-chinese.html

Enjoy!

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Chinese Edition of Dream of the Dragon Pool

2011-03-18T15:36:00.006-04:00

The Chinese edition of my wuxia novel, Dream of the Dragon Pool is due to be published by the Taiwan Commercial Press on April 1, 2011!

The Taiwan Commercial Press has done a beautiful job of translating my novel, creating a Chinese cover, and providing a place for it on their website: http://www.cptw.com.tw/BookDetail.aspx?BOKNO=02140020

Here's the cover:

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

2010-09-05T10:17:00.004-04:00

It's out!!! My collection of short stories, Strange Tales from The Dragon Gate Inn has hit Amazon -

http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Tales-Dragon-Gate-Inn/dp/1452808481/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283696437&sr=8-1

This is a collection of the short stories that I wrote between time I recieved my doctorate in Chinese history and when I began the novel-length fiction writing that led to the publication of Dream of the Dragon Pool - A Daoist Quest. The stories are fantasy, ghost, horror tales dedicated to and inspired by the great 18th century Chinese fantasy writer, Pu Songling and his Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.

Perfect for late night reading!

Zaijian

The Innkeeper

Wuxia returns to Boston University, Taiwan, and Beyond!

2010-06-27T13:44:00.005-04:00

Things at the Dragon Gate Inn are moving right along – for once! My seminar in Taiwan, “Wandering the World: A Wuxia Writer’s Path,” seems to have been a big hit. I, once again, immensely enjoyed teaching in Taiwan. I presented a look at the western idea of the hero through several movies and showed some Chinese movies that had a great influence on the writing of my wuxia novel, Dream of the Dragon Pool.

Apparently, my writing seems to have impressed Taiwan’s largest and oldest publisher, Taiwan Commercial Press. They have bought the Chinese translation rights from my New York publisher to publish Dream of the Dragon Pool in traditional Chinese characters book and eBook format. We expect the Taiwan edition to be out sometime next year. The Press has also offered to help find a Mainland Chinese publisher for my novel. I had a wonderful time visiting Taiwan Commercial Press - as you can see in the accompanying photo - and look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with them.

Taiwan Commercial Press Building in Downtown Taipei

Mr. Lee, Managing Editor, the author, Dr. Fang, Editor-in-Chief

More good news! Boston University has invited me back to teach my East Asian heroes Cinema/Fiction course and this time they have opened two sections! I’m working on revising my film list based on my previous offering of the class – it is VERY hard when you are only limited to seven movies, since this is a writing course. Let’s hope if we “build it, they will come”!

AND…I have collected together eight of my published or accepted for publication short stories – basically, traditional style Chinese tales of the “strange”- and I’m publishing them through Amazon’s CreateSpace publishing service. Entitled, “Strange Tales from the Dragon Gate Inn,” I’m expecting to have book in hand in about two months. I’ll keep you updated as to its progress.

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Wuxia Class Flies to Taiwan!

2010-04-26T11:16:00.004-04:00

Hello! It has been awhile since I've posted, but things at the Inn have gotten really busy and with Spring breaking out all over up here, the roads are calling to us cyclists! The big news is that my wuxia class is literally flying to Taiwan for most of May!

Due to the generosity of Huafan University, I have been invited to give a two-week seminar/film festival on my wuxia writing. It won't be the Boston University course, as I certainly won't be teaching wuxia to the Chinese, who invited it! It seems that Huafan is interested in my interpretation of that tradition through my writing and my academic background in Chinese history. So for this version of the class, which I've entitled, “Wandering the World: A Wuxia Writer's Path”, I have thought to present the Western ideal of the hero/heroine and contrast it to the traditional East Asian ideal. The four-night film festival that will accompany the 18-hour seminar features : Seven Samurai, to represent the East Asian cinematic standard; Lord of the Rings - Return of the King, to illustrate the classic Western take on the heroic ideal; Unforgiven, to represent the classic American hero and idea of the anti-hero; and The Dark Knight, to show a Western interpretation of the hero, as civilization, verses chaos and all that opposes an ordered society. Of course, there are many more films to choose from, but the festival is limited to four films. I will be showing A Chinese Ghost Story and Princesss Mononoke in class to illustrate points about what cinema has influenced my writing and the role of women in this genre of cinema, respectively.

In my own writing, I've always considered the story-telling skill of Akira Kurosawa and Patrick O'Brian as my guiding lights. I used Seven Samurai in my Boston University course to good effect, though I remember on one Internet discussion board someone brought up the question as why I would use a Japanese samurai movie to discuss Chinese wuxia. I take a broader view on these things seeing the ideal of the hero/heroine rather than narrow genre typing.

Further, it is this broader view that informs my style of wuxia where I place the emphasis more on the “xia” aspect, the “chivalry” or, “heroic” aspect than the martial or “wu” aspect of the wuxia genre. I think Kurosawa's movie is extremely successful in illustrating this heroic aspect - so much so, that if you look at lists of the top action/adventure movies ever made, Seven Samurai seems universally respected. And that's another aspect of wuxia storytelling that I'm interested in - how to make this genre accessible to a global English language audience.

Having taught in Taiwan for over a decade, it will be great getting back. Hopefully, I will once again be able to stimulate my Taiwanese students into reflecting on these global storytelling issues. If I have a chance, I might write here about the seminar as it progresses, but will definitely write a wrap-up of my experience after I get back to the Inn. There are some other exciting things going on with my writing, but I will wait until it all matures before I comment on it.

I'm also greatly looking forward to seeing how the writers conclude the great TV epic, LOST!!! I am a long-time fan of their storytelling skills.

Hope Spring is proving to be as fruitful for all of your writing!

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

2010-02-26T08:25:00.003-05:00

Hello! Hope your Year of the Tiger is going well. Up here the weather has been having a good time giving full expression to its wintery nature. But change is on the way as the days lengthen and every now and then it gets "warm" enough to sneak in a bike ride!

I had a pleasant surprise this morning with a very nice review of my novel, Dream of the Dragon Pool. Coupled with that review are reviews of the poetry translations of my good friend, Bill Porter (aka, Red Pine). Here's the link for you to enjoy:

http://www.telluridewatch.com/pages/full_story/push?article--UP+BEAR+CREEK-Learning+the+Tao+of+T’ang+Poetry%20&id=6464800&instance=opinion

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Historical Novel Society Interview

2010-01-18T21:30:00.006-05:00

Last year, I had an interesting online interview with Ms. Cindy Vallar of Solander magazine, which is the Historical Fiction Society's magazine. Cindy asked a number of intriguing questions regarding how I go about "world-building" medieval China. She regularly writes "The Red Pencil" column which looks at how writers do their thing, so to speak. So if you're interested in how I developed a particular aspect of the historical background to my novel, Dream of the Dragon Pool - A Daoist Quest, just go to http://www.aadalia.com/SolanderNov09.pdf

Enjoy!

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Wuxia at Boston University – An Assessment

2010-01-11T16:58:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year!

For my first 2010 blog, I want to relate my teaching experience at Boston University (BU). I mentioned in the previous blog that I taught a wuxia (Chinese heroic fiction) class in the BU Writing Program, in addition to an ESL writing course in that same program. The BU catalog description of the course was:

Paradox of the Hero/Heroine in East Asian Cinema and Fiction
Using the Chinese wuxia (“heroic”) fiction genre, we will explore individualism in a cultural region where none was assumed to exist, non-conformity where conformity was assumed to rule, and a sense of equality where Confucian hierarchy was assumed the norm. Tracing the genre’s development across a 2,000-year arc, we will read primary source materials in translation as we consider how heroes reflect their cultures. Secondary readings will help us understand how a culture creates and views its heroes. For the modern era, our primary source materials include selections from Chinese and Japanese martial arts films and Japanese Anime. In our writing, we will examine these “wandering heroes” and address the question of why after 2,000 years they attract a global following.

I selected seven films for the course:

Battle of the Warriors (formerly, Battle of Wits)
Bride with White Hair
Princess Mononoke
Swordsman (with Sam Hui)
Zatoichi, Festival of Fire
Seven Samurai
Ashes of Time

I had originally picked ten films, but since the course was essentially a writing course and not a film course, I had to cut back on the film showings to allow for more emphasis on the writing instruction. The Writing Program courses allow the instructors to use topics that they are familiar with as the materials to teaching college writing – essentially, academic research paper writing.

My students were great. They were very enthusiastic and very open minded – admittedly, a number of them were already fans of this genre, but few had any idea about the long held cultural traditions behind these films and its literary genre. Yet, once my students began to gain insight into the genre, they brought to it fresh thinking and an enthusiasm to learn more that would gladden the heart of any teacher. The primary and secondary written source materials that I supplied came from my background as an academic and as a historical fiction writer.

I had been initially hired to teach an ESL writing course because of my extensive overseas teaching experience in East Asia. However, twelve days before classes were to begin, I got a call from the program’s assistant director asking if I would be interested in also teaching the wuxia course that I had proposed in my initial application. While that “course” was outlined on paper, it had never been taught or even fleshed out with movies and reading materials. Nonetheless, realizing the opportunity this presented – to get wuxia into the curriculum of a major world-class university – I said yes. The rest, I guess, is history.

My students looked at the role of women in the East Asian heroic tradition, the role of the individual, the idea of heroism, the role of romantic love, the East Asian hero as a tragic hero, and other fascinating aspects of this heroic tradition. Most of the writing was very good and some of it was truly innovative and insightful. As a result, both teacher and student broadened their perspectives on the genre.

At the final class meeting, we held an “academy awards” ceremony in which the students voted a “best picture” award. And the best picture of the course went to…Princess Mononoke – a marvelous Hayao Miyazaki anime film that can easily put to shame James Cameron’s Avatar, which shares the same basic theme of humanity vs. nature, but which will, regrettably, never get the viewership of that corporate behemoth.

However, due to historically low enrollments at BU for the spring semester, none of the part time instructors were continued for the next semester. And while I will truly miss the interaction with students, I can now turn back to my own writing with renewed vigor and fresh perspectives. While many publishers in the West have yet to realize the interest and attractiveness of this genre, my interaction with both the students and faculty at BU have further confirmed my belief that there is a large, untapped audience for an English language wuxia genre.

I’m thinking of designing an anime course, but since this film genre has grown into such a broad field, I’ll have wrestle with which films to show. That was also a problem with designing the heroes course. The East Asian heroic tradition has a very broad range and although my seven films worked well in the course, I had constantly to remind my students and myself that we were being exposed to a very limited range of material. But we have to start somewhere and hopefully we will all continue enjoying and exploring this exciting realm of cinema and fiction.

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Wuxia at Boston University

2009-11-01T16:29:00.003-05:00

Wuxia has now made it to Boston University. I'm teaching a writing course there, "Paradox of the Hero/Heroine in East Asian Cinema and Fiction." Check out the details and the reaction from the world-wide wuxia community here on Wuxiahui:

www.wuxiasociety.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4557

Enjoy!

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

E-Booked!

2009-08-11T19:31:00.003-04:00

In addition to its paperback form, Dream of the Dragon Pool - A Daoist Quest is NOW available as a multi-format ebook at Smashwords, where you can sample the first 50% (!) of the book for FREE! So for all of you out there who thought wuxia, Chinese heroic fiction, might not be your...cup of tea ;-}, here's your chance to find out, for FREE!

Just imagine, now you can carry your wuxia in your iPhone (!) whenever, wherever you need it!

Here's the link: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/3311

ENJOY!

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Another Wuxia Book Review!

2009-07-10T15:48:00.002-04:00

Summer is more or less here and between the rain storms, the riding is faster than ever and longer - all aimed at the century ride in September! Don't miss the Tour de France - GO LANCE!!!!!!

Great review just in today - many thanks to Wuxiadaddy for this one!

>Dream of the Dragon Pool is a wuxia novel written by American China scholar Albert A. Dalia and it has all the hallmarks of great wuxia. Tragedy, action and humor combine as a cast of non-to predictable characters journey down the Yangtze river. Li Bo, an exiled poet is on a personal quest to find his lost inspiration that becomes a mission to save the ruling dynasty and maintain the spiritual balance of the great river. The cast includes swordsmen, ghosts, drunken ship captains, drunken monkeys, shamans, spirits and gods. Dalia has lots of wonderful little details that add up to a feeling of viewing a great Shaw film or reading a Louis Cha novel. If you have been missing Barry Hughart and are tired of waiting for the rest of the West to realize how great wuxia is and get with the translating or are looking for something fresh in the fantasy genre, check out Dream of the Dragon Pool.

http://wuxiadaddy.livejournal.com/

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Pleasant Surprises

2009-06-01T17:58:00.003-04:00

Summer is slowly beginning to creep over the mountains here at the Inn. Yet, I went out for bike ride this morning and “froze”! Hope some of you had a chance to catch the Giro d’Italia – 100^th anniversary of the classic Italian bicycle race that takes three weeks to cover over 2000 miles of always beautiful Italy! Lance was there getting in shape for the Tour de France – things should be getting very interesting once he’s back up to speed in a couple of months.

I had a pleasant surprise yesterday when I got a Publisher’s Weekly news email. The Book Expo of America has just wound up in New York City and there was actually mention of my publisher, Jack Estes, and his press – it is a very small literary press and to get mentioned among the “big boys” of publishing is great for all of us associated with Pleasure Boat Studio. So here’s the “mention” and please do visit their website at www.pleasureboatstudio.com for some of the very interesting books they publish.

Zaijian!

BookExpo America 2009: Indie Buzz Panel -- Big Range

By Michael Coffey -- Publishers Weekly, 5/30/2009 3:21:00 PM

Pleasure Boat Studio is a press that few have heard of, but Shaw, in her post at Foreword, has been extremely impressed by the list from this “tiny” New York press. Publisher Jack Estes was on hand to pitch a debut mystery, Swan Dive by Michael Burke. The mystery is based on the myth of Leda and the Swan—that is, Zeus transforming himself into a swan in order to seduce the beautiful Leda, generating several children—“loosely based,” Estes hastened to add, in this “extremely intelligent” mystery by the son of famed literary critic and philosopher Kenneth Burke. The detective at the heart of the story is one John “Blue” Heron—none too smart, innocent, naïve, with an eye for women and enough ambition to get the next month’s rent, barely. Estes said the narrative techniques are sophisticated but that he considers Swan Dive a “blue-collar mystery—earthy, thought-provoking and very, very smart.”

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6661805.html?industryid=49050

New Pricing & New Connection!

2009-03-25T17:32:00.001-04:00

Hello! Spring is finally here. I’ve been out on the bike a number of times even though there is still a chill in the air – I don’t have the proper cold weather gear, so I have to be “selective” about my riding temperatures; okay, I’m a wimp when it comes to the cold.

But there is some good news to warm everyone pocketbook - my wonderful publisher, Pleasure Boat Studio, has lowered the price on my novel, Dream of the Dragon Pool – A Daoist Quest. So now you can have more fun for less money! So far his site, www.pleasureboatstudio.com , and Amazon both reflect the new $13.95 US price. Hope this helps.

As for the new connection, Nan Hawthorne runs a REALLY beautiful website, Medieval-Novels, for fiction dealing with the medieval period of any country. She has kindly included Dream of the Dragon Pool on her China page, which you can find here: http://www.medieval-novels.com/locations/china.htm . Do check out the rest of the website and Nan’s blog. Good stuff! Thanks, Nan!

I’ll have some big news coming at the beginning of next month regarding future projects and my writing career, but announcements will have to wait till then.

And how about that Battlestar Galactica ending!!!! Amazing stuff! Can our wuxia genre match it and go beyond? There’s a lot in the medieval Chinese tradition that has yet to be explored - we’ll see.

Zaijian!

THE INNKEEPER

Slumdog, Zen, the Arts, and the OX

2009-01-25T20:28:00.002-05:00

The mountains around the Dragon Gate Inn are frozen white, but the fire is warm. It’s time for more updates on what’s going on in this writer’s life.

Movies seen: Slumdog Millionaire

Wow! Director Danny Boyle has done it again, created another marvelous movie, but this time he’s topped all his previous efforts. Slumdog Millionaire, filmed in Mumbai (Bombay), India in the exuberant “Bollywood” fashion, is an incredible experience. It’s what old time Hollywood movies used to be like before special effects took the place of solid storytelling. You can bet my heart is with the great screenplay writer, Simon Beaufoy, who adapted the movie from Vikas Swarup’s novel, Q and A. This is a movie that is what movies should be like, emotional experiences! Slumdog runs them all, from real horror – that is, from real life not something calculated merely for its gross out effect – to incredible joy and sorrow, from overwhelming sadness to overwhelming hope. Clearly, I was OVERWHELMED! It’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen and I hope to see it again, soon. See it!

Books Read: Zen Baggage: A Pilgrimage to China

Amazing! My old friend, Bill Porter, has done it again, written a wonderful book about China’s ancient religious tradition; this time its China’s Zen tradition. Previously, in case you didn’t know, Bill went wandering off into the hills outside of the old Tang capital at Xian and documented China’s ancient tradition of religious hermits – a tradition that many people thought was long gone – turning it into the fascinating book, Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits.

This time Bill went on a pilgrimage to the six monasteries of the first six patriarchs of the Chinese Zen (Chan) tradition. His trip took him from Beijing down through Hong Kong and he visited more than the six monasteries. Here’s the review I summated to the Amazon.com book site:

Bill Porter’s Zen Baggage is a remarkable work that’s satisfying at multiple levels. Bill knows the spiritual landscape of modern China better than any author alive today traversing its sacred mountains, valleys, and waterways. And that’s the special attraction of Bill’s book – he’s been there! And being there, he’s got a lot of friends in those monasteries and sacred sites and each time he travels, he not only renews those friendships but also makes a raft of new ones. As a result, you, the lucky reader, get to make new friends, visit new places, have new experiences, and gain new insights. Old “Zennist” or total neophyte, Bill’s trip will surprise you in the depth and extent of China’s Zen Renaissance. And while it is one thing to build a lot of buildings and call them “Buddhist monasteries,” it’s quite another to populate them with sincere, intelligent Buddhists. Bill’s book introduces us to a new generation of remarkable Chinese Buddhist monks and nuns. At another level, if you enjoy traveling, you’ll enjoy Bill’s extensive knowledge of Chinese history and geography combined with his love of good tea and gastronomical adventures. Most of all, Zen Baggage let’s you check “your baggage” at the opening of the cover and join a remarkable traveler in a great modern day adventure!

If you’re up for a remarkable journey through a China most people never see, read it!

Things Joined: Arts in America

In a recent interview, Quincy Jones put forth the idea for a Secretary of the Arts. He says he’s going to bring it up with President Obama. As a result, a petition for just such a cabinet post has also sprung up. I think it’s a great idea and urge all writers and fellow artists of all genres and medias to sign the petition. You can find it here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/esnyc/petition.html

Things Celebrated:

YEAR OF THE OX – May it bring prosperity, tranquility, and joy to the world!

Zaijian!

THE INNKEEPER

An Original Chinese Style Tale of the Supernatural

2008-11-25T10:46:00.001-05:00

The trees are bare and cold weather is with us up here at the Dragon Gate Inn. So are the mists that accompany the cold, rainy weather. Good time for visitors from other realms, strange music, and other “natural” phenomenon that might seem “strange” to visitors from the lowlands.

Very much in harmony with these autumn turnings, I thought it would be appropriate to put up another of my recently revised short stories. “Natural Harmony” considers nature and its harmonies – natural and human – in the context of my take on the wuxia genre.

In addition, once upon a time, when I was an active researcher in the lives of medieval Chinese Buddhist monks, I read through a 10^th century Buddhist collection of biographies of eminent monks. In those fascinating stories, there were recorded many strange incidents and phenomena. Those readings have happily influenced my storytelling.

Hope you enjoy the trip!

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

NATURAL HARMONY

Albert A. Dalia

It was probably the fishermen who first noticed the wind, if not the difference. Blowing low across the strait that separated the island from the mainland of China, it rushed toward the mountains that sheltered the northern part of the island. Caressing the mountain range, it came in off the sea, across the beaches, and scaled the once lush heights.

The mountain forests were more sensitive. One could see it in their leaves, the way they immediately turned over and upward entreating the dark night sky as the wind passed over them. Over the mountain ridges, it plunged down into the valleys. It was the Meditation master Hui-sheng who was first alerted. Up valley from the Flying Dragon Monastery, his meditation hut was shaken by the first draft of wind rushing down toward the lowlands.

No ordinary wind would have brought Hui-sheng out of his meditation. He had lived in the hut for over ten years, ever since the original monastery had been destroyed. Hui-sheng loved the higher regions of the mountain and soon left the relocated monastery farther down the valley. He had moved back up the mountain and built his hut. It was a compromise. There was no going back to the first Flying Dragon Monastery. The forces up there were too strong for its re-establishment. So Hui-sheng had found a place that was as close to his old home as the mountain would permit.

Farther down the mountain, the abbot of the current Flying Dragon Monastery was the next human being to sense the change in the wind. When it blew through the monastery flapping altar hangings, swaying bells, flickering candles and lamps, and swirling dry dust up from the ground, the abbot Ming-jing stood up from his meditation cushion and beat the assembly gong. The wind left the waking monastery behind and continued downward to the farmlands below.

A young stranger, who was on the way up the mountain, caught scent of the wind as it reached the lowlands. He stopped and stared up at the mountain range that rose before him in the moonlight. So, he thought, this is the place of my dreams. Then he felt the wind on his face. It was warm and moist. He closed his eyes. Dried bamboo leaves, tossed up from the ground, gently patted his face. He smiled and continued up the road that led into the mountains.

No doubt it was again the fisherman who first noticed the frosty white mist that was soon borne along by the wind. They hauled up their sails and headed for the nearest landfall. The mist, however, did not cloak the sea but made straight for the mountains. The mountain peaks disappeared in frosty film. As the mist grew denser, it seemed less and less interested in leaving the mountain top. It didn't proceed any further down the mountain than the ruins of the old Flying Dragon Monastery.

In the morning, everyone on the leeward side of the mountain would say that the sky had lowered itself and began just below the old monastery. The farmer folk down in the villages would rejoice believing that the prayers being said at the monastery had succeeded in entreating the spirits to break the drought, which had gripped the island for several months. The monks Hui-sheng and Ming-jing knew better.

"We must redouble our efforts my brothers in the Dharma, for a new situation has arisen that will require all our fortitude," said the abbot. The thirty monks below the abbot's lecture chair remained attentive. Light danced wildly over the large assembly room as the wind played with the candles and oil lamps.

"Soon there will be rain," continued the abbot. There was a stir amongst the monks.

"But, this is not the rain we have been praying for. Our prayers have attracted something that we must be cautious about." The murmuring from the monks grew more audible.

"Please. This is not the time for ignorant speculation. We must begin right now to ask for the Buddha's protection of this whole island. There is little time to lose." These words had barely cleared the abbot's lips when a tremendous clap of thunder let loose from the mountain peak. A brilliant lightning flash illuminated thirty faces peering up from below the abbot's seat.

From the peak, rain crashed down the valley. Hui-sheng felt the rush of air pushed by the impending torrent and ran for the cave behind his hut. The hut had little chance; the tremendous force of the gathering rain reduced it to broken thatch and bamboo. Perhaps, thought Hui-sheng as he watched the water sweep away his home, this time it would get what it wanted. He lit a small fire and took up a meditation position. Around him the earth shook from the roar of the rain and the morning gloom was torn by lightning flashes and peals of thunder.

The early morning light appeared to have worked a great transformation on the mountain. The peak had disappeared into the thick mist that clung to upper regions of the mountain. Here and there, the white, frosty vapor made forays down the mountain along the valleys that spread out from the top. The withered browns that once formed a patchy network over the mountain flanks were now shining with new rain. Even the great pine forests, which were the mountain's prime color and immune to seasonal change, had become pale ghostly shadows haunting the upland regions.

A gray figure wafted out of the mists and approached the main gate of the Flying Dragon Monastery. There were no attendants at the open gate so the young man walked through it to the main Buddha hall, which lay straight ahead. The rising and falling cadences of the monks chant filled the courtyard in front of the hall. The monastery was small and, by Chinese standards, young. As he approached the main hall, just for a moment, the young man heard another melody. Higher up above the chant, there was something. But when he noticed it and tried to discern its rhythm he found only the sound of the wind.

The abbot left his raised seat and stood outside the hall watching the young man.

"Have you heard something, young layman?"

The young man turned to the abbot. "Old monk," the young man bowed. "So the tune has also touched your ears!"

He shifted his blue shoulder bag, walked across the courtyard, and up the wooden steps to the raised platform that the hall stood upon. The abbot saluted him with a Buddhist greeting: placing the palms of the hands together chest high while chanting "Namo-o-mi-tuo-Fo" and bowing. The young man returned the greeting.

"I am the abbot Ming-jing. What brings you to our small community?" asked the abbot.

"Nothing in particular. I'm a wandering musician seeking the inspiration of Nature."

"A musician?" the abbot reflected aloud as he stroked his wispy white beard. "What is your honorable name, sir?"

"I have many names, old monk. Some know me as Wu Fei, others as ‘Red Flute.’"

"Red Flute!" The abbot's moth white eye brows hovered over his soft brown eyes, which darted to the long slim cloth bag slung over the young man's shoulder.

"In the courtyard a moment ago, did you hear anything?"

"Yes, of course, the chanting of your monks."

"Beyond that? If you are truly the one known as Red Flute, then you heard something else."

The young man smiled and drew the dizi (bamboo transverse flute) out of its bag. It was a long slender piece of bamboo, polished to a warm dark hue; around the far end hung a red tassel. He placed it to his lips and blew lightly across the mouth hole. A faint tune issued forth.

"Yes! Yes! That's it. We are honored to have you amongst us, Master Red Flute."

The monks who had taken a break from their chanting were listening to the conversation between their abbot and the young musician. The abbot invited Red Flute to the midday meal and had some of his disciples escort the young man to the guest quarters. The monastery's supervisor approached the abbot.

"Old master, my hearing is not what it used to be, as I am advancing in years, but neither I nor my fellow younger monks heard any sound issue from that fellow's flute. Yet, it seemed as if you and he heard something. We are puzzled by this."

The old abbot laughed and then turned his kindly countenance to his eldest disciple.

"I heard very little. We must all work harder to first become more attuned to the Way before we can hear clearly what he plays."

"Master?" the supervisor asked as the group of monks who were listening grew larger and closer to the abbot.

"Let us continue our meditation practice and seek from within ourselves the source of all sound, and you will gradually begin to hear the music of Master Red Flute," responded the abbot.

Higher up the mountain, there were flood barriers of pounded earth and bamboo that, given the fate of the former Flying Dragon Monastery, had been built to protect the new monastery. But the rain had worked furiously overnight to undermine the barrier's foundation. When the materials from Hui-sheng's former hut finally slid into the protective earthen walls they completely collapsed.

Just as the abbot had finished his admonition a great mud slide struck the monastery's back bamboo wall. The woven bamboo snapped and burst as the mud rushed through the rear courtyard racing for the front wall. Several wooden structures were washed away as the mass of debris smashed into the front wall. The wall held but the mud began to pile up as the water flowed over and around the gooey mess. The main gate and wall were being undermined by the constant work of the water. The rain was increasing. Soon, the whole monastery would be swept from the face of the mountain.

Monks were running here and there within the monastery trying to divert the water's flow. The abbot left the flood control work to his monastery supervisor and sought out Red Flute.

Red Flute was standing outside the guest rooms looking up at the mist hidden mountain peak. The abbot stopped and watched from across the courtyard to see what the young man would do. After studying the mountain peak for a while, Red Flute took up his flute and began to play. The abbot could barely make out the tune, but he could immediately see the reaction on the mountain top - the storm’s intensity relaxed. The mist that was boiling around the summit became tranquil. The thunder and lightning grew to a faint whisper. It was, thought the abbot, as if the mountain peak was trying to listen to Red Flute's tune.

By the time the abbot had crossed the courtyard, Red Flute had already packed away his flute.

"Ah, old monk, no need to see about me, I won't be here long."

"Please, I must have a word with you, our monastery is in grave danger and we need your help."

"I know. I'm preparing to climb the mountain and deal with your problem."

"Sir, I can't presume upon your goodness without giving you a complete explanation of what is going on here."

The musician smiled. "Just tell me when and how all this started."

The abbot and the flute player sat inside the guest quarters. The pause in the rain gave the monks a chance to repair part of the damage and prepare for a further onslaught.

"Ten years ago," the abbot began. "I was the monastery supervisor at the original Flying Dragon Monastery higher up on this mountain. At that time, our abbot enjoyed meditating outside next to a natural pool behind the main hall. The monastery was built up against the mountain side near a pool that was fed by a beautiful waterfall."

Red Flute sipped the tea that had been served. A faint smile drew across his lips when the waterfall was mentioned.

"One night something happened between the abbot and that pool," continued Ming-jing. "To this day we don't know what it was. The abbot would never tell us. But he ordered us to abandon the monastery and build another one down below at this location." The abbot was very downcast as he recounted those moments.

"The day after we left a great storm arose. The original monastery was destroyed by the ensuing floods." The abbot paused for a moment and gazed up at the dark black clouds that were continuing to gather around the mountain peak. He moved closer to Red Flute and in a low voice said, "The source of these storms is the same – and it remains unrequited."

"And the abbot?" asked Red Flute.

"He still lives up on the mountain. Not at the old site but below it in a meditation hut as a hermit. He is practicing asceticism and seems to be atoning for some sort of wrong."

"Has anyone tried to find out from him what he is doing?"

"I was his chief disciple and at first approached him everyday. But alas he has taken a solemn vow of silence and does not respond to our supplications," the old monk sighed. "I fear he will not survive this storm."

"Fear not," smiled Red Flute, "he is still alive, and I will see him tonight."

"You must not venture up there. Whatever spirit dwells there is evil and delights in the destruction of humankind."

"Do not worry. It is not evil."

The abbot's eyebrows took flight again. "How do you know this!?"

Red Flute smiled. "Evil does not respond to music."

After taking a few supplies, Red Flute began the long climb toward the summit. Ten years ago, there had been a trail up the mountain that serviced the original Flying Dragon Monastery. But time, the disaster at the original monastery, and this new storm had obliterated the track. Red Flute made his own path, following the natural inclinations of the mountain. Sometimes, he walked along the banks of the raging torrents created by the storm. At other times, he followed the high ground along ridge lines. By evening, he had reached Hui-sheng's cave.

The fire was still burning, and Hui-sheng was still in a meditative state. Red Flute needed to speak with him as soon as possible, but he knew it was dangerous to wake someone from deep samadhi. He sat down with his flute. A soft melody that sounded much like the nightingale's call drifted from the instrument toward the cave. Hui-sheng began to stir. When he had fully returned to the state of mundane consciousness, he saw Red Flute sitting outside the cave entrance.

"So you are the one who soothed the spirit's temper."

Red Flute smiled and bowed giving a Buddhist salute which Hui-sheng returned. The old monk bid the young musician enter and the two sat around the fire. Red Flute laid out the supplies he had brought and told Hui-sheng about the damage to the monastery.

"Then no one was injured?" asked the old monk.

Red Flute assured him that the only physical damage was to the monastery. The storm's darkness seemed to cross the monk's weathered face. "I fear she is out to wipe every trace of human spirituality off the face of this mountain. I have offered my life in exchange for allowing my brother's to live in peace with her, but each time she refuses."

"Old monk, I can help you, but I must know what happened ten years ago between you and her."

"I have already ended a ten year vow of silence by talking to you." Red Flute nodded. "I have done so because I heard a little of the tune you played for her. You are no ordinary flute player."

"Old monk, tell me what happened."

For a moment, the old monk sat watching the fire. "I used to meditate near the pool that was behind the main hall of the original Flying Dragon Monastery. It received that name because of the legend that a dragon lived at the bottom of the pool. No one, in my generation at least, had ever seen the fabulous beast. At least, until I began my meditation practice there. One night, as I was meditating a stray thought entered my mind. That thought, I later realized, was one of my former lives. I had once served an eminent master of the Way of Lao-ze, and he had taught me a spell for making dragons rise to the sky. Once this thought entered my mind, I could not prevent the spell from rising into consciousness. Unfortunately, the spell was genuine. The dragon was suddenly expelled from the pool. It rose on high and mounted a cloud passing the mountain peak that night."

The old monk stopped for a moment and took the cup of tea that Red Flute had brewed. After a sip he continued. "The dragon transformed into the form of a beautiful maiden. She was furious that I had forced her from the pond where she had abided peacefully for a thousand years. She vowed to destroy the monastery and any attempts by humans to live on the mountain. Her weapon further startled me," the old monk paused.

"Yes, please go on – this is crucial if I am to deal with her."

"Her weapon was the erh-hu (the two stringed bowed fretless Chinese fiddle). When she played of her sorrow at being disturbed after a millennia, none of us could hold back our tears. She made us experience her suffering. Several of my disciples went mad at the depth of her sorrow. Then she vented her rage and turned Nature against us. The monastery was swept away by a massive storm. Of course none of my disciples understood what happened for I was the only one who could see her. They unwittingly suffered for my inability to control my wandering mind. So for these ten years I have stayed here to discipline my mind." He laughed and said, "And even with all this practice, look how easy it was for you to distract me."

"Old monk you are too hard on yourself. There are few men on this earth who would not be ‘distracted,’ as you put it, by my flute. This is no ordinary instrument, and I am no ordinary player. I will deal with the erh-hu maiden."

Suddenly the cave was empty, only the old monk and the fire remained.

Near the mountain peak, the ruins of the original Flying Dragon Monastery were deeply bounded by the mist. Red Flute appeared by the pool. The area was grown wild with weeds, but he found it by following the roar of the waterfalls that plunged into it.

As Red Flute moved toward it in the dark, the moon suddenly filtered down through the mist and bathed the whole area in a ghostly pale light. It was then, for the first time clearly, that he heard the erh-hu music – a lonely, thin sound that perfectly complimented the moonlight. He reached the side of the pond and gazed upon the splendor of the waterfalls. It looked like a white silk robe tossed by the wind as its pearly froth flew every which way. But it was the sound that attracted him the most – the waterfalls was the source of the erh-hu music. The flow of the water matched the flow of the music.

Red Flute raised his flute and began to play. At first he followed the lead of the waterfalls, gently laying his notes along her melody line. Then he began developing his own line and intertwined it with hers. Sometimes he would follow her, and sometimes, only briefly at first, she would follow him.

The music suddenly stopped. A beautiful maiden appeared on the other side of the pool from Red Flute. She was tall with long silken hair as black as the deepest night and eyes that burnt like the very stars in the heavens. Her gown was opalescent as if she was cloaked in a rainbow with the moon as its source.

"Who are you?" she called to him.

"I am who ever you would like me to be."

"Don't toy with me. I could destroy you with one pluck of my string that is how insignificant you are to me."

"Yes that could be, but then where could you ever find anyone who could accompany you?"

"I need no one to accompany me. Have you no ears! My playing is superb."

"It is, and I am in awe of it. But think for a moment the music that could be made were two superb instruments such as the dizi and the erh-hu joined by two such superb players as ourselves? Are the instruments not made for each other?"

"Yes, but are the players?"

"Well, then we must have a match!"

"You are good, but don't presume you are my equal."

"My dear rain maiden, so far I've merely followed and that has been rather simple."

"How dare you!" She picked up her instrument and drew the bow across its two strings. Lightning struck near Red Flute. He then took up his flute and blew just one note. The very ground that held the pool quaked. The maiden stopped.

"You are no mere mortal. Then it is possible we could have an interesting match. What do you propose musician?"

"We accompany each other until one cannot match the other. At that point, the leader is declared winner."

"Yes, but what does the winner win and the loser lose?" the maiden said, a smile played across her lips.

"If I lose I will destroy my flute and leave the mountain to you. You can destroy the humans as is your present inclination. But if you lose then you must marry me, and become my dutiful wife."

Lightning flashed and thunder roared at the word "wife."

"If it were not for your flute playing, this would be a test of martial ability instead!" blazed the rain maiden. "I agree to your terms and look forward to sweeping the humans off this mountain." With that she took up her instrument and began to play.

Her playing was intense. The waterfalls raged on and on. So forceful was the water that it split some of the boulders below. But the dizi managed to hang on and stayed with the roller coaster ride that she provided.

The pace, however, proved too fast for the rain maiden, and she had to slow down. When this happen Red Flute, who had been conserving his strength, took command and played out a bright rippling melody that danced merrily along. She had to struggle to keep up with him but soon became lost in the merriment of his melody. To her surprise she found she could not only stay with him, but was quickly weaving a bright air of her own within his.

Back and forth the playing went. At one moment, he led, at another she. The music picked up pace and then relaxed, gathering strength. Then another surge took them higher and again, exhausted, they fell back down into the valleys – the music mellowed and touched the sweetness of their exhaustion. Up and down the mountain and all across the island the music ranged. For a week the islanders enjoyed the most heavenly music ever to dance in mortal ears.

Then it stopped. The storm dissipated and the weather resumed its normal patterns over the island. Hui-sheng climbed to the ruins and the pool with his fellow monks. Master Red Flute was no where to be found.

In time, the original monastery was rebuilt and named the Upper Flying Dragon Monastery, while the one below had "Lower" added to its name. Near the pool they dedicated a shrine to Red Flute and one to the rain maiden.

However, there was one curious discovery. Near the edge of the pool a new stand of bamboos flourished – they were red bamboos, a type never native to the island. The local people claim that on misty moonlit nights, if one listens very carefully, erh-hu music can be heard coming from the waterfalls, and, as the wind blows through the stand of red bamboos, the sound of dizi music is also heard. The music of the two instruments is always in perfect, natural harmony.

THE END

Writing Updates & "The Man From Earth" & "Mongol"

2008-10-30T16:06:00.016-04:00

Writing Update

Hello. I’ve been busy with my Hong Kong screenplay writing partner on that TV pilot that I wrote about in the September 17th blog. We’ve finished it – titled, “The Silver River” – and entered it in two TV screenplay writing contests; one in the US and one in the UK. Stay tuned and I’ll let you know how it turns out.

We were so satisfied with the results of that project that we decided to work on a feature-length movie screenplay based on the TV pilot’s material. The material was much refined from when I last wrote. Still no spaceships – perhaps, as we’re not sure what the submarine in “The Silver River” will turn out to be – but the story is definitely a cross-genre work where we have combined science fiction with wuxia. The movie idea uses the same cross-genre approach and, like the TV pilot, is also set the 22nd century and the 8th century. Right now it would be too early to say any more about it…

Recently Seen

I’ve recently seen two movies that really impressed me. I subscribe to Stephen Hunt’s British science fiction/fantasy e-zine: www.SFcrowsnest.com. In a movie review (http://www.sfcrowsnest.com/features/arc/2008/nz13093.php) one of their reviewers raved about “The Man From Earth,” writing that “The Man From Earth very probably will be one of the best science fiction films of this decade.”

Well, I couldn’t help but adding it to my Netflix list. With no special effects and set mostly in a professor’s living room, I must agree this is a most amazing movie. It is a movie of ideas not action, so don’t expect anything remotely similar to Hollywood. But the ideas and the way they are expressed kept me glued to the story and at times finding my jaw dangling.

The screenplay writer was Jerome Bixby who contributed stories to both The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. The Star Trek connection is continued here with some of the actors having appeared in the TV series. I don’t want to say any more as not to give away what’s going on here. You can read the review, but really – you have to see it!

Another recently enjoyed movie was “Mongol.” And here’s where the action does come to the forefront, but the ideas are also fascinating. This is the first part of a trilogy on the life of the great Mongol conqueror, Genghis Khan. It was filmed by the prominent Russian director, Sergei Bodrov, in the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan and nominated for an Oscar. The scenery is breathtaking, the international cast is wonderful, and the idea of the story is quite innovative – it is basically a love story! How could that be with Genghis Khan as the main character??? See it!

I hope to have another one of my short stories up on the next blog.

As for the world’s economic mess, here’s some advice from the “other” Roosevelt,

Yesterday is the past,
Tomorrow is a mystery,
Today is a gift,
that’s why it’s called the present.

Eleanor Roosevelt

She would have made a great Zen master.

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Up Dates! Hao jiu bu jian!

2008-09-17T16:36:00.004-04:00

Lots of working going on at the Dragon Gate Inn and I thought you might like to hear about it. Thanks to a new friend, I’ve learned about the HarperCollins (England) new website, http://authonomy.com. It is an interesting site for writers and book lovers. Authors get to put up new work and have it commented on by the site members. Further, and here’s a big plus for us struggling writers, every month, the HarperCollins editors will pick the manuscripts that are top rated by the members and read them with an eye to publication! Very nice idea!

So, I have a contemporary murder mystery, The China Virus, that I’ve been polishing up for the agent rounds and thought to give it a whirl at Authonomy and see what turns up. So, if your interested here’s where you can find me on that site:

http://www.authonomy.com/Profile.aspx?userid=7bd5fa9a-fbb3-4ac8-9243-2afae49e944e

And here’s where you can read the first seven chapters of The China Virus:

http://www.authonomy.com/ReadBook.aspx?bookid=2111#chapter

The China Virus is set in 1986, Beijing when I worked there as a “foreign expert” for the Chinese government. It wasn’t anything like that! I was advising an English language publishing company on subject matter that would appeal to the Western reader. Naturally, they ignored my advice! But it was cold and interesting and led to this novel, a pre-wuxia effort on my behalf.

I’m also working away at a TV pilot screenplay. I’ve teamed up with a very talented former BBC-TV screen writer and we are trying to create something I’d characterize as, “LOST meets BSG and Crouching Tiger” HA! Go figure that one out! We’ll see. Naturally, the “Crouching Tiger” part involves my beloved Tang dynasty and wuxia. As far as we know, there are no space ships in it.

I’ll keep you updated here!

Zaijian!!

The Innkeeper

The Tang: Back to the Future

2008-08-19T11:41:00.005-04:00

I just read some fascinating news from my friend, Mark Pollard’s excellent wuxia movie site, Kungfu Cinema (www.kungfucinema.com). The Taiwanese government provided a $2.6 million grant to the great Taiwanese director, Hou Hsiao-hsien to make his first wuxia movie. Ho is famous – notorious according to some critics – for his slow moving art house films like The Puppet Master (1989), A City of Sadness (1989), Flowers of Shanghai (1998), and The Voyage of the Red Balloon (2007). So it should be very interesting to see what he does with the wuxia genre. The Taiwan government is looking to this project to help revive its ailing film industry. And while I find this very exciting to see that they are looking to the wuxia genre to spark this revival, what is even more satisfying is the material they are investing in – a Tang dynasty chuanqi (tales of wonder) story from 9^th century China.

Now, if you guys have done your reading in my website blog, The Wandering Blades Blog, you know all about the Tang, the rise of the short story form, and the subjects of those short stories! I’m further delighted about the actual story that Hou has picked to use in his film, “Nieh Yin-niang,” is one such short story from the brush of Pei Xing (825-880 A.D.), a Tang writer. A Taoist nun kidnaps ten year-old Nieh Yin-niang, the daughter of a general. Trained for five years in sword fighting and magic arts, Nieh was sent to assassinate some evil-doers. She returns home, ends up marrying, and continuing to use her wuxia skills to help others. You can read a full synopsis in the hard to find, The Chinese Knight-Errant by James J.Y. Liu, pp.89-90; it’s a book I often referred to in writing about the history of wuxia literature in my Wandering Blades Blog.

It should be very interesting to see what a modern art house director makes of this magical, mystical wuxia story from the Tang. I’m reminded most of the great Wong Kar wai (Wang Jiawei)’s Ashes of Time, which if you’ve been reading my blogs, you know I have a great fondness for that movie even though it didn’t go over well amongst wuxia cinema fans.

Interestingly enough, Jiang Yimou’s last two works (House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower) were also set in the Tang. I’m not at all impressed with Jiang’s wuxia storytelling abilities. And like Hou, Jiang was an art house director and very good at it producing some of his best work in that mode – seems that the opening to the Beijing Olympics that were directed by Jiang combined both his art house skills and his interests in wuxia.

And for those of you who have been kind enough to ask, I am continuing my wuxia fiction based on Tang history with a trilogy about a Shaolin monk who is recorded as being one of the thirteen Shaolin monks who saved Li Shimin, the son of the founder of the Tang dynasty and eventually one of East Asia’s greatest emperors. It should be epic stuff that takes the reader the length and breadth of the 7^th century Chinese empire.

There is also a screenplay in the works for Dream of the Dragon Pool, which, of course, doesn’t mean there’s a movie – not yet.

In the end, for the folks that publish books and produce movies it’s all market driven. If wuxia and fantasy fans want to see such works in the bookstores and on the silver screen then the more support you give those of us working in the genre, the more chance of seeing us there. And I appreciate your support that has taken me to this point! Xiexie! Thanks!

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

What's that in his hand?

2008-06-04T06:22:00.004-04:00

Hello everyone, I've been in Taiwan for the last two weeks or so and having a great time visiting my "home" after three years of absence. I made an interesting side trip over the last two days and came back with this memento:

You meet the strangest people when you're wandering the streets of Hong Kong! To check out this "guy" go here for some of the best insights into the world of kungfu films and check out some of the other people he hangs his arm over! I'm in GREAT company!

www.dragondynasty.com/blog

Zaijian

The Innkeeper

Wuxia: A Question of Balance

2008-05-12T23:32:00.004-04:00

The qi of springtime is on the move up here in the mountains around the Dragon Gate Inn. Stand anywhere on the ground, especially in your bare feet, and you can feel the earth’s urge to grow flow through you. It’s a great time to be doing taichi outside – energy is everywhere!

I’ve been to the movies and had a great time watching Iron Man ride his energy to a great height - way above all those other “super heroes.” There might have been some qi involved, but to my eyes, it was mostly the energy of good characterization – the critics are right on, Robert Downey Jr. IS Iron Man, great job! If I could afford it, I would have turned around and gone right back in and seen it again. I’ll contain myself till the DVD is released – definitely one I’ll add to my collection.

So once again, good characters and good storytelling trumps a lot of money spent on special effects. Don’t get me wrong, the special effects were fantastic, but it was Downey who made it work. And let us not forget Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts and Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane – more spot on characterization.

But is it “wuxia”? Look at it: wu for martial, certainly. And xia for chivalry – however you define it, Tony Stark’s character arc attains it once he realizes how naïve he’s been about his weapons industry. Good stuff! This is not mindless gunfire and explosions, not an excessive emphasis on the martial side – there is a balance here and that, for me makes the best kind of wuxia.

Once upon at time, even East Asian wuxia had this balance. It wasn’t just revenge driven martial arts. I still return to the altar of Seven Samurai to be reminded of what heights this genre can attain. And apparently even Western movie makers can still reach that level. Mark Pollard (www.kungfucinema.com) has a great review of the David Mamet movie Redbelt. I haven’t seen this one, yet, but Mark writes,

REDBELT is the American FEARLESS, THROWDOWN, and TWILIGHT SAMURAI all rolled into one. It is the American martial arts movie that finally hits the mark dead center in action and philosophy and at the right time and place. For anyone with an interest in a great dramatic story, MMA [mixed martial arts] fighting or any martial arts regardless of technique, this is a must-see film.

I think it’s great that a screenplay writer of Mamet’s stature has decided to work in this genre. This is a good thing and another example of balance.

As for your humble Innkeeper’s projects, I’ve got my fingers crossed for the possible publication of a murder mystery I wrote a number of years ago. Naturally, it’s set in China, but Beijing of the 1980s, when I worked there, when China was just making the decision to leave Mao’s communism and turn to Deng’s capitalism. Yes, there are martial arts involved, but it’s not a martial arts novel. Rather it’s about the partnership of a young Chinese skilled in the “old ways” and a young American skilled in the “new ways” - a balance of East and West to oppose an ideological extreme. I’ll write more about it, when the publishing prospects are more certain.

At the same time, there is a long, long, on going project – a trilogy sent in my beloved Tang dynasty. First volume is complete with the second volume in progress – slow progress, I’m too distracted with all this other stuff! But this trilogy is epic stuff that will take the reader the length and breadth of 7^th century China. And yes, it does involve a Shaolin monk - along with an assortment of historical types: would you believe Chinese pirates, Taoist shamans, aborigine shamanesses, swordsman and women, headhunters and cannibals, Turkish horsemen, and the various natural spirits of that broad land- and seascape that defined the 7th century Chinese empire. And, if I do say so myself, its pretty fantastic stuff. Can you tell, I'm having a good time with this!

There’s more going on, but let’s have some sense of balance here! Enough, for now!

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

A Chinese Ghost Story & A Question

2008-04-07T11:07:00.006-04:00

I thought it would be fun to put up one of my previously published short stories. "The Jia-sha" was published in 1997. You can find the publishing details on my website www.thedragongateinn.com under my publications listings; this version is recently revised so it differs from the original publication. I will eventually get around to putting it up on the website. I look forward to your comments on it. And if enough people leave comments, I could be encouraged to put up more of my previously published short stories - I'm in the process of revising them all.

When I began fiction writing, I started with Chinese style ghost stories. This one has an interesting history, as the basic tale was told to my by one of my Buddhist nun students when I lived in a Buddhist monastery and taught English to a group of nuns. You can see a picture of a very young author and his class on my website.

In addition, since I'm giving you something, I'd like to ask for your comments on this question: If HBO was to do a wuxia series - at their "This isn't TV" level - what would you like to see? I'll elaborate in a following blog IF I get enough comments!

Enjoy the story as my thanks for your comments to my question.

THE JIA-SHA

Albert A. Dalia

Last week, I returned to the monastery for the first time in twenty years. The deeply wooded region where the monastery was originally built had vanished. So were the old stone walking paths. In place of the rough-hewn stone structure where I had the most terrifying experience of my life, new buildings with shiny tile surfaces and bigger more impressive Buddha figures stood. All that remained were those strange flowers and their peculiar sweet scent.

Twenty years ago today, I was cycling around the base of a Taiwanese mountain. Beautiful weather had lured me out farther than I should have gone. I was following a single lane blacktop strip that seemed to wind aimlessly up the mountain. A distant rumbling disturbed my meandering and reminded me that spring thunderstorms were the norm in Taiwan. Even so, I felt a twinge of alarm shoot up the back of my neck. There was no way I could make it home to Taipei before dark and now I might be drenched in a spring storm.

The climb had taken over an hour. I was tired but noticed a stone path, almost hidden by overgrowth. The path seemed to beckon with its mysteries.

As I moved over the rough hewed, mottled gray stones the sky darkened and the wind picked up. I came to a stone gate. Drops of water began to burst all around me. I glanced at the characters across the top of the gate, Ice Cloud Monastery, and hurried on.

The monastery was simple: three buildings with a main gatehouse and a stone courtyard in the center. Outside the central courtyard, a portico connected all the buildings. The gatehouse was home for the standard guardian statues that served as spirit protectors for the monastery. I was to find out, however, that there were times when they went off duty.

Walking through the guardian hall, I entered the portico. Laid out on a north to south axis, the main hall of the temple was in front of me as I faced north. To the east and west were two other smaller buildings. To my left, a nun carrying some dried tea walked toward me. Water was running swiftly over the tiled eaves and splashing on the ground.

"Omitofo," she intoned as she greeted and blessed me with a Buddhist salute, palms pressed against each other raised chest high.

"Omitofo," I answered.

"Ah, you are a follower of the Buddha's teachings?"

"Well, not exactly, but I have an interest."

"Good. You also must need shelter because of this storm."

"Yes, that's why I came up here..."

She smiled at my response and said, "Most of us are also here because of a need for shelter."

I wondered if it was my Chinese. Maybe she misunderstood me. But her smile said she understood more than just my Chinese.

"You'll have to stay the night, as the storm won't break off until morning. A room is prepared for you. Dinner is at six and in the evening we request that you remain in your room."

"Stay the night? But why do I have to stay in the room?"

"You are the only male here and should not be given a room."

She paused to remove some twigs from the dried tea leaves and continued,

"But you're a foreigner and seem to respect our teachings. The storm will pick up in intensity. It's dangerous to be outside. So for your safety, you should stay in tonight."

A flash of lightning sizzled through the cooling, wet air, followed by a loud clap of thunder. The chanting of human voices poured through the sudden calm and filled the damp air. I looked across the rain-drenched courtyard to the main hall. There was a ceremony under way.

"Wait here and someone will show you to your room." She bowed and moved off. I moved to a nearby stool and watched the ceremony.

Several lightning flashes later, a fully robed Buddhist nun seemed to float from the eastern building into the main hall. She wore a crown-like hat, signifying that she was the leader of the ceremony. Before I could stand, another nun came up to me.

"Omitofo, I am Miao-fa and will show you to your room."

I moved quickly to keep up with her. She led me into the western building and down a corridor to a small comfortable room. There was a wash basin on a table, a small window, and a wooden bed with a quilt on it.

"Dinner is at six, you will hear the bell. Omitofo."

"Excuse me, could you tell me what ceremony is going on in the main hall?"

"We are feeding the hungry ghosts tonight. The ceremony is quite long, so please forgive us if we don't take dinner with you." She bowed and left.

I heard of such ceremonies. The Buddhist tradition had long ministered to suffering in both this and other worlds.

Dinner was peaceful. I shared it with lightning, thunder, and the chanting from the main hall. After eating, I wasn't tired enough to sleep so I wandered outside. What could be dangerous about a thunderstorm? I had grown up with them in New York’s Hudson Valley. As I walked to the main hall a flash of lightning startled me. The air pressure of the next thunderclap hit my ears with painful force.

At the hall, I peered in. Tables had been stacked upon each other so that the three leading celebrants were elevated above the other nuns. The leader of the ceremony was sitting cross-legged in a chair that elevated her above the other two. She was going through a series of mudras, mystic hand symbols that endow the practitioner with extraordinary powers. The head nun appeared to be in some sort of trance. Her fingers moved with great speed, making intricate patterns in the dim light.

A lightning bolt hit the monastery.

The lights glowed brilliantly just before they extinguished. However, the candlelight, the smoldering incense embers, and the drone of the chanting gave the impression that the whole scene had transported back through time. We had entered another realm - this could be somewhere in ancient China.

The ceremony continued unabated. The head nun flicked individual grains of rice out into the air. At this point, the hungry ghosts were to rise from hell, or wherever they happened to be, and partake of the feast. The thought amused me. An eerie glow from within the hall, however, cleared the amusement from my mind.

The head nun stretched out her arm. The sleeve of her jia-sha, the red patched cloak of authority that Buddhist clergy wore over their robes for formal ceremonies, opened as it hung down over her arm. She slowly moved in a circle so all could see. Wherever the jia-sha passed there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of squirming figures piled on top of each other, going after the rice and candies that were being thrown into the hall.

Startled, I moved closer to get a better look. In the darkness no one noticed me. The hall must be filled with those anguished beings, but they were invisible unless viewed directly through the jia-sha. It was a window into another dimension, another realm.

The beings had human faces floating on long thin necks over bloated bodies. They could not get enough food, even the single grains of rice, down their pencil-thin gullets to fill those bellies. These were the hungry ghosts, cast into those grotesque forms for their transgressions in previous lives. The Buddhist Hells brimmed with them.

Whether it was the weight of those tormented beings or just the appointed moment of cause and effect, a leg on one of the tables cracked and broke loose. The whole structure crumbled like a house of cards. The head nun landed on the ground and must have struck her head.

She lay unconscious, her jia-sha open along her outstretched arm. The hungry ghosts, who were back on the other side of that garment, broke through. The jia-sha was no longer a barrier. It was now an open gate. Some nuns panicked and screamed, others fainted.

The ghosts ran amok, madly devouring all the rice and food in the hall. One group of nuns tried to revive their leader. Another group tried to concentrate on the chanting and the mudras. The ghosts attacked this group when the food ran out. Their sharp nails and teeth drew blood from the defenseless nuns, whose chanting began to waver. The ghosts grew in size and ferocity as one by one the nuns fell blood streaming over the smooth concrete floor. Soon there would be none left...

I had no idea what was to come next. I could only think to fling myself out into the storm and run. I turned, and another strange sight appeared out of the darkness.

Striding across the courtyard through the driving rain and illuminated by flashes of lightning, was a large figure in black robes. Bearded, with a wild mound of hair on his head, he carried a long wooden staff. As he rushed past me, I noticed the rain had not dampened him. He moved swiftly to the middle of the hall. The ghosts quickly parted and drew away from him. He was a monk, but his features were more Western, probably Indian.

He sat on a meditation cushion below the hall's main Buddha figure, his hands formed a mudra, and his voice boomed out some sort of mantra. The language was neither Chinese nor Tibetan, possibly ancient Sanskrit.

The depth of his voice shook the hall. His chant calmed the storm and the ghosts. The panicked nuns regained their composure and returned to their chanting. Others still lying on the floor, bleeding from their wounds, attempted to return to their positions and take up the chant in Chinese.

The lead nun, revived, rose and resumed her chant. She held up her jia-sha and the ghosts poured back into it. Hell's gate closed.

The large monk got up, intoned, "Omitofo," as he bowed toward the nuns and walked out of the hall. When he passed me, I smelled an unusual fragrance, the scent of sweet lotus blossoms. It was the last thing I remembered before I blacked out.

The next morning I awoke in the room assigned to me. I don't know how I got there. I hurried outside to see what was left of the monastery.

The bright sunlight blinded me for a moment. I ran across the courtyard to the main hall and entered it. Everything was in order. I looked at my watch; nine o'clock in the morning. How could they have cleaned up so fast?

I was startled when a voice from behind said, "Omitofo, excuse me. How are you this morning? We rang for breakfast, but you didn't answer. You must have been very tired from your ride."

It was Miao-fa, one of the chanting nuns who was attacked first by the hungry ghosts.

"You're okay!?"

"Of course, why shouldn't I be?"

"Last night, the hungry ghosts....."

"Yes, we had the ceremony last night, but there is no need for concern."

"But I saw you attacked and bleeding..."

"Oh! No, how could I have been attacked? Does it look like an attack took place here?"

"But I saw it," I said, although I wasn't sure anymore. What did I see last night? For a moment, I wasn’t even sure how I got there.

"Your bike is outside and we have packed a nice lunch for your ride back to the city."

"Yes, yes, my bike.” I felt rather foolish. “Thank you, and the others for your kindness."

"Omitofo," she said bowing. She turned and walked off toward the main altar.

On the way down the mountain, I remembered the strange monk's sweet lotus fragrance. It permeated the air. Then I noticed that the path was filled with unusual looking white flowers. They were star shaped with seven petals and were the source of the fragrance, but they were not lotus flowers. I hadn’t noticed them in the rain when I climbed the path to the monastery.

Back at the main road I got on my bike and headed down the mountain. I came to a village where I stopped for a drink.

"I'll take a bottle of mango juice."

"Your Chinese is good," said the store owner.

"Thanks."

"Traveling far?"

"No, just back to Taipei."

"Carry your own food?" he said gesturing to the wooden lunch box on my bike carrier.

"No, the nuns up at Ice Cloud Monastery made it for me."

His face turned white. He sat down and took a deep draw on his Long Life cigarette. He looked at me, studying my eyes for a moment, as if he was not sure whether to go on with the conversation.

"Did you meet nuns up there?"

"Yes. I stayed overnight. Why?"

He fell silent again, puffed on his cigarette, and said in a low voice,

"The Ice Cloud Monastery has been abandoned for thirty years."

"But...."

I knew how to prove it and ran outside to my bike. I opened the lunch box. No lunch. There was only a white star-shaped flower with seven petals, and scent of sweet lotus blossoms.

THE END

Lance Armstrong and the Writer

2008-03-21T21:09:00.003-04:00

Story writing has its own hurtles, what with developing a story, its characters, plotting, pacing, dialogue, setting, and on and on. Publishing is a whole other set of hurtles. And, of course, there are various levels of “being published.” The whole storytelling process, from formulating a story to finding a publisher (if you feel that’s necessary), demands one basic quality: persistence.

I was reminded of that today when I saw an ad for cycling glasses that featured Lance Armstrong. As a wuxia novelist, I write stories about heroes and Lance is one of my heroes.

Well, the ad featured a quote from Lance. I don’t know what the quote has to do with cycling equipment, but it sure has a lot to do with writing. So I’ll pass it on here with the hope that you’ll also find it inspiring:

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.
Lance Armstrong

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Mountain Home: Nature & the Writer

2008-03-15T19:24:00.004-04:00

Next week, I will be speaking about my novel, Dream of the Dragon Pool – A Daoist Quest, at a local library. Many writers like to talk about how they came to write their novels or how they managed to get it published as there is a strong interest in writing and publishing among the general public. Since my background and my genre, wuxia, are a bit unusual, I tend to talk about how I came to this genre and usually end up just outlining the novel in order to give the audience time for questions.

Naturally, the best of all possible audiences would include a number of people who have already read the novel, and even better, have also familiarized themselves with my website and blogs. No doubt, that is very wishful “author-think.”

Yet, there is so much to say about the wuxia genre and its literary tradition – some of that is on my website’s Wandering Blades Blog. Add to that the fact that the protagonist of my novel is the great Chinese poet, Li Bo (701-762 A.D.). There’s a lot to talk about!

This week, David Hinton reminded me about that latter aspect as I read through his delightful collection of Chinese poetry translations. Hinton’s work, Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China (ISBN: 0811216241) puts forth the idea that there was a genre of Chinese poetry – “wilderness” or “rivers-and-mountains” poetry - that wrote about “Nature” in a unique way – where a sense of dichotomy between the observer and the object being observed was lacking. Hinton explains in his introduction:

Originating in the early 5^th century C.E. and stretching across two millennia, China’s tradition of rivers-and-mountains (shan-shui) poetry represents the earliest and most extensive literary engagement with wilderness in human history. Fundamentally different from writing that employs the “natural world” as the stage or materials for human concerns, this poetry articulates a profound and spiritual sense of belonging to a wilderness of truly awesome dimensions. This is not wilderness in the superficial sense of “nature” or “landscape,” terms the Western cultural lens has generally applied to this most fundamental aspect of Chinese poetry. “Nature” calls up a false dichotomy between human and nature, and “landscape” suggests a picturesque realm seen from spectator’s distance—but the Chinese wilderness is nothing less than a dynamic cosmology in which humans participate in the most fundamental way.

Hinton goes on to explain that the Chinese, influenced by both Taoism and Chan/Zen Buddhism, discovered a profound sense of enlightenment in their “observation” of Nature. They merged with Nature and found “self”-expression through the “10,000 things” - a classical Chinese expression for the natural world. He concludes that such poetry was at the same time both secular and religious. The rest of Hinton’s book collects his translations of 5^th century to 13^th century A.D. Chinese poets that represent “wilderness poetry.” Li Bo, my protagonist, is included.

There is no doubt that Li Bo had this aspect of his poetry, but, like any complex character, he also had other dimensions. Scholars of Chinese literature will tell you that Li Bo possessed a huge ego and was perhaps one of the first Chinese poets to appreciate the use of “public relations” in building his reputation. Chinese sources and Li Bo’s own poetry make much of his fondness for wine. Chinese poets were noted for their use of the fermented fruit to inspire their poetry by dissolving obstructions between watcher – watched / poet - Nature. Scholars are not sure how much of this Li Bo constructed in order to feed his audience the persona of a poetic genius who could dash off brilliant poetry under the most inebriated conditions. There is little doubt from the historical record that he was and remains a very popular figure in Chinese culture.

Thankfully, as a novelist, I do not get involved in such academic ponderings. Rather, I believe that when building characters, “dimensions fascinate.” So “my” Li Bo has both these aspects: he loves to drink and he knows how to be a clear headed realist when the situation calls for it. My goal is to make all the characters in my novels fascinating so that the story remains with the readers after the book is finished.

Yet there is little doubt that much of my writing is influenced by this “wilderness literature” approach. For years, I enjoyed cycling and traveling through the mountains, experiencing the mist, fog, spectacular rock formations, and scenery that are unique to southern Chinese geography. Reading this genre of poetry, I can hardly contain my sense of inspiration.

With these thoughts in mind, I would like to leave you today with a wonderful poem by Li Bo’s friend - the other poet the Chinese honor as their “greatest”- Tu Fu (712-770 A.D.) translated by my old friend, “Red Pine.” In this poem, Tu Fu wonders if being a writer was not a useless occupation.

Recording My Thoughts While Traveling at Night

A shore of thin reeds in light wind
a tall boat alone at night
stars hang over the barren land
the moon rises out of the Yangtze
how could writing ever lead to fame
I quit my post due to illness and age
drifting along what am I like
a solitary gull between Heaven and Earth

Poems of the Masters: China's Classic Anthology of T'ang and Sung Dynasty Verse (ISBN: 9781556591952)

In some later blog, I’ll come back to Hinton’s Introduction as he also raises interesting points on the relevance of this Chinese poetry genre to ecology and gender.

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Wuxia?

2008-03-12T19:13:00.003-04:00

I thought with this new blog title perhaps it's time to restate my definition of this storytelling genre known as wuxia. So I'm re-posting my definition here and hopefully will have time later this week to drop in again when I'd like to talk about an interesting wuxia movie that will be out in April, "The Forbidden Kingdom."

Here's my definition:

Wuxia xiaoshuo – Heroic Fiction Literature

The wuxia genre is a traditional Chinese storytelling form defined by two basic elements: wu and xia. Wu pertains to all things martial such as weapons (especially the sword as a symbol of nobility and valor), fighting techniques, and martial culture. Xia is usually translated as “chivalric hero.” Xia refers to those men and women who acted in a subjective, heroic manner to right injustice. Their sense/code/ethic of chivalry involved the following values: altruism, justice/appropriateness, individual freedom, personal loyalty, honor & fame, generosity & contempt for wealth, and reciprocity.

This genre normally focuses on action (especially the action of the human form) and adventure and takes place in an imaginary world of these heroes known as the jiang-hu (literally, “rivers and lakes” also “cultural-imaginary world”) which has been defined as, “the self-contained and historically sanctioned world of martial arts.” It is a world that accepts the fantastic as normal at certain levels of skillful physical and mental attainment.

An important motif of this genre is a sense of nostalgia for a lost home in a mythical past that lacked any confusion about moral values – good and evil were simple and clear.

This genre can further be developed as a subgenre of historical fiction. When treated as such, it should, “polish the past into a mirror of the present.”

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

2008-03-10T00:06:00.004-04:00

Hello! I guess I owe everyone an explanation - you can all see that the title of this blog has changed from my beloved Zhuangzi and his "attitude" toward "words" to, I guess you could call it a statement of fact - Wuxia Novelist.

There are two immediate reasons. 1. I am tired of getting visited by people who are looking for information on how to kill, trap, or otherwise injure rabbits and fish. Yes, I got a lot of inquiries - too many! And I don't have a clue on how to do trap or snare anything - after all, the idea is to let all of that go!

2. The new title is a statement of fact, that's what I do and perhaps it will make it easier for more fans of both the genre and writing to find us up here at The Dragon Gate Inn. I hope so.

Zhuangzi would probably have a good laugh at me for all this!

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

The Award Dragon is Flying, Again!

2008-03-05T23:41:00.004-05:00

Great news! Dream of the Dragon Pool has done it, AGAIN! We just got news that my novel as been selected as a Finalist in the Science Fiction (read: speculative fiction) category:

FOREWORD BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD FINALISTS ANNOUNCED

ForeWord Magazine announces the finalists in the tenth annual Book of the Year Awards. These books represent some of the best work coming from today's independent press community.

Nearly 1,600 books were entered in 61 categories. These were narrowed to 658 finalists, from 350 publishers.

The winners will be determined by a panel of librarians and booksellers, selected from our readership. ForeWord's Book of the Year Awards program was designed to discover distinctive books across a number of genres.

Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners, as well as Editor's Choice Prizes for Fiction and Nonfiction will be announced at a special program at BookExpo America at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles on May 29. The winners of the two Editor's Choice Prizes will be awarded $1,500 each. The ceremony is open to all BEA attendees.

Check out: www.forewordmagazine.com/botya , then do a search for my book or me and you can see the other 10 finalists in my category.

Fingers crossed – we’ll find out on May 29^th! WUXIA LIVES!

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Why I Write

2008-02-27T08:24:00.004-05:00

I enjoy corresponding with my readers and with those of you interested in the topics I cover in this blog and on my website. The other day, I received a very interesting e-mail from a reader who hopes to write wuxia novels – yeah! One more! In discussing these interests this reader asked me why I write and added remarks by Amy Tan, the great Chinese-American writer, about why she writes.

Basically, Ms. Tan says she writes, “because I have questions about life, not answers.” She goes on, “Writing to me is an act of faith, a hope that I will discover what I mean by truth. But I don’t know what that will be until I finish.”

I find her comments very interesting and would like to try my hand at understanding why I write.

When I was in college and graduate school, I wrote as part of the historical research process. No doubt, it is also a way of discovering the “truth.” But, as I’ve noted in previous blogs, I moved away from that type of writing into fiction. And I share with Amy Tan, and numerous other fiction writers, the belief, the faith that we can tell stories to both discover and state the “truth” as we find it. But such statements, for me, seem almost clichéd. So I tried looking deeper to see why I write, past my obvious love for the wuxia genre, for medieval China, for that whole geographical and cultural region.

No doubt like many writers, I write to discover myself. To dip into that magical zone where the writer seems to go trance-like and the words and images flow like a strong current through our minds – the so-called “automatic writing” or whatever – maybe the endorphins produced by exercising our writer muscles. No doubt, I am addicted to that. I’ve read some writers criticize such excess, such “lack of control” – probably because they’ve never experienced it!

But push as much as I might down into my psyche, what pushes back is a saying by the great Japanese Zen master, Eihei Dōgen (永平道元) (1200-1253 A.D.):

To study the Way is to study the self;
To study the self is to forget the self;
To forget the self is to be enlightened by the 10,000 things.

(sorry, I don’t know the translator)

In ancient Chinese, the “10,000 things” was “code” for the world (literally, “all the things in the world”). And the “Way” is, of course, the “Truth”, the “Path of Life.” So Dogen is advocating the study of life or “truth” through opening oneself - by forgetting the self - to all the things that make up the world, that make up life. Seems like great advice for a writer – and for everyone, in general.

I like to think that’s the basic reason I write. But I also have another reason.

One of my teachers in Taiwan told me that just writing to entertain or even for self-discovery is not enough. He said that to be a responsible writer, I should write to make the world a better place. I believe that by opening the culture of medieval China, specifically Tang dynasty China, to the world I might be able to offer alternate ways of understanding “the 10,000 things” and perhaps improve the human condition.

I have found much that is admirable and inspiring from medieval Chinese culture. Perhaps, others might likewise find some value in a glimpse of that long forgotten way of life. So it is interesting for me to take ideas and attitudes from that period of history and look at them under a contemporary lens – even though my stories might seem to be set in medieval China.

At the core of all our cultures is a common human nature. I believe we can all learn from each others experiences to better understand ourselves and eventually our common human condition. Storytelling is one way of sharing experiences that can function as a path to mutual understanding. And, as I’ve mentioned, in previous blogs, I think the globalization of storytelling is moving us in that direction.

I write to understand and to facilitate understanding among those who are curious.

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper

Year of the RAT!

2008-02-08T14:54:00.001-05:00

Xin Nien Kuai Le! Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Happy Year of the RAT!!! May it bring you peace and happiness!

On this turning of the New Year, The Dragon Gate Inn is the happy recipient of a My BackStory feature put up by the kind folks at Visual Thesaurus – check out, http://www.visualthesaurus.com/

Although you can’t see the whole article if you’re not a subscriber – and there are a LOT of subscribers - you can see it in its original location, M.J. Rose BackStory, Nov. 01, 2007 at, http://mjroseblog.typepad.com/backstory/2007/11/index.html

All of this attention has made our New Year’s Party very lively!

Best to all!

Zaijian!

The Innkeeper