"Where there are Chinese speakers, there are his readers."
That sentence highlights the tremendous influence of Louis Cha Leungyung, better known by his penname Jin Yong, one of the most influential Chinese novelists. Over 300 million copies of his books have been sold in the Chinese-speaking world alone.
Cha died on Tuesday afternoon, at the age of 94, in Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital surrounded by family members, according to sources close to him. That news recorded 1.27 billion views, slightly less than China's population, on Sina Weibo.
China's most famous wuxia, or martial arts novel, writer
In 1955, Cha published his first wuxia novel The Book and the Sword in the then New Evening Post using the penname Jin Yong. He wrote 15 popular wuxia novels, his last, The Deer and the Cauldron, was published in 1972.
His novels have been made into films, TV and radio series, and deeply influenced the cultural development of Chinese-speaking communities around the world.
Co-founder and editorial writer of Ming Pao
Cha also co-founded Hong Kong's major Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao in 1959, and served as its editor-in-chief until retiring in 1989.
During those 30 years, he wrote more than 7,000 editorials, covering a variety of global and domestic topics.
In May, 1967, when there were violent clashes between the local police and some striking workers in Hong Kong, Cha wrote editorials all week calling for an end to the violence and for society to unite. In a most influential of them, he wrote:
"We come from all regions and now we are one community. Hong Kong is home to us all."
In 1978, as China and Japan were concluding their negotiations on their peace and friendship treaty, Cha pointed out in his editorials the importance of Diaoyu Islands, stressing that China's territory must be protected, but the problem should be solved via peaceful means and ought to be left for future generations, echoing the wisdom of the central leadership of China.
In February 1981, even before China and the United Kingdom started negotiations on the return of Hong Kong to the motherland, Cha wrote an editorial, which predicted that the best time point for Hong Kong's return is 1997. History proved he was right.
Cha also served on the Basic Law Drafting Committee before Hong Kong's return to China in 1997.
In their condolences to his family, many people called Cha a "hero" even though he considered himself a writer of hero stories.
That's because of the humanistic concerns in both his novels and his newspaper articles. In all his martial arts stories, he shows a strong anti-war tendency. In The Legend of the Condor Heroes, one of his most influential novels, he wrote how Genghis Khan was moved by the hero's words and regretted his killings before his death.
"He has mercy for everybody in this mortal world," Wang Xiaolei, owner of a WeChat public account that specializes in analysis of Cha's works, wrote in his condolences.
Cha's editorials and commentary articles share the same values. To quote Cha's own words:
"Our comments might not be the best, but from them one can feel our sincere wishes for the Chinese people to live happy lives."
Tributes pour in after the literary giant's passing
Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, on behalf of the Hong Kong SAR government, expressed deep condolences to his family.
Lam said Cha made some of the greatest contributions to Chinese culture and Hong Kong's media development.
Hong Kong science fiction novelist Ni Kuang called Cha's novels "the best in the world and of all time" and said Cha's legacy would live on forever.
Hong Kong Screenwriters' Guild President John Chong Ching said Cha was "China's Shakespeare" and the "grandmaster" of Chinese screenwriters.
Chinese actors and actresses known for playing leading roles in TV series adapted from Cha's novels also posted online tributes to the late novelist on Tuesday night.
Here are some of Cha's most famous stories:
The Legend of the Condor Heroes
This is the first chapter of Jin Yong's famous trilogy which also includes Return of the Condor Heroes (Shen Diao Xia Lyv) and Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre (Yi Tian Tu Long Ji). The Legend of the Condor Heroes is a story that deals with a lot of issues but mostly concerned with the adventure of Guo Jing and Huang Rong, the couple who ended up creating the Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre which would become the major issue in Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre.
The Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre
Set in the late Yuan dynasty, the story revolves around a pair of priceless and extremely powerful weapons, the Heaven Reliant Sword (倚天劍) and Dragon Slaying Sabre (屠龍刀). Either or both of them are thought to allow their wielder to rule the wulin (martial artists' community), according to a widely circulated mantra which goes, "Honored by the wulin, the precious Saber slays the Dragon. It commands the world. Who dares to disobey? If the Heaven Reliant does not appear, who can challenge it?" (武林至尊，寶刀屠龍，號令天下，莫敢不從！倚天不出，誰與爭鋒？)
The Return of the Condor Heroes
The story revolves around the protagonist, Yang Guo, and his lover and martial arts master, Little Dragon Maiden, in their adventures in the jianghu, where love between master and apprentice is seen as taboo.
Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils
The major characters are based on eight races of demi-gods and semi-devils described in Buddhist cosmology. In Buddhism, these demi-gods and semi-devils are markedly different from the human race but are still bound to Saṃsāra by their own desires.
The plot is made up of several separate yet intertwining story lines, revolving around the protagonists Xiao Feng, Duan Yu and Xu Zhu and also the tragic story of You Tanzhi.
The Smiling, Proud Wanderer
The plot's initial development revolves around a coveted martial arts manual known as the Bixie Swordplay Manual. The manual is an heirloom of the Lin family, who run the Fuwei Escort Agency, a private security service, in Fuzhou. Yu Canghai, the leader of the Qingcheng Sect, leads his followers to massacre the Lins and attempts to seize the manual for himself, but does not find it. Lin Pingzhi, the sole survivor from the Lin family, is saved by Yue Buqun, the head of the Mount Hua Sect, which is a member of the Five Mountains Sword Sects Alliance. Yue Buqun accepts Lin Pingzhi as an apprentice and trains him in swordplay.
In the afterword, Jin Yong mentions that The Smiling, Proud Wanderer can be read as a political allegory disguised as a wuxia novel. As an allegory, it can happen in "any dynasty or organization". Jin Yong also stated in the afterword that after the novel was published, Vietnamese politicians had once used the names of Yue Buqun and Zuo Lengchan as derogatory terms against one another in parliamentary sessions.
The Deer and the Cauldron
The novel's title is explained in the first chapter, in which the historical poet Lyv Liuliang discusses two concepts with his son. The "cauldron" is a reference to the story from the Zuozhuan in which King Zhuang of Chu enquires about the Nine Tripod Cauldrons of the Zhou dynasty, symbolizing his desire to seize the imperial Mandate of Heaven (楚子問鼎之大小輕重焉). The "deer" is a reference to a remark made by Kuai Tong reported in the Records of the Grand Historian, "the Qin emperor lost his deer, and all under heaven chased after it" (秦失其鹿，天下共逐之). The deer symbolizes the common people of China, who are at the mercy of ruthless warlords vying succeed the fallen Qin dynasty.
The title indicates one of the major themes of the novel, the struggle of Han supporters of the fallen Ming dynasty to free lands from the rule of the invading Manchu people.
The Deer and the Cauldron, even among fans of Jin Yong's novels, has divided critical opinion mainly due to the character of Wei Xiaobao. Ni Kuang argued that the story was "the best novel of all time, Chinese or foreign". But Laurence Wong Wang Chi of the Chinese University of Hong Kong felt that it was an inferior work compared to the "masterpieces" of the Condor Trilogy and expressed surprise that John Minford chose to translate it.
Reporters: Luis Liu, He Shusi and Zhang Zhouxiang
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