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Demi-Gods And Semi-Devils
''Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils'' is a wuxia novel by Jin Yong (Louis Cha). It was first serialised concurrently from 3 September 1963 to 27 May 1966 in the newspapers ''Ming Pao'' in Hong Kong and ''Nanyang Siang Pau'' in Singapore. It has been adapted into films and television series in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China numerous times since the 1970s. Set in 11th-century China, the plot is made up of separate yet intertwining storylines revolving around three protagonists – Qiao Feng, Duan Yu and Xuzhu – and other characters from various empires (Song, Liao, Dali, Western Xia and Tibet) and martial arts sects. The novel examines the cause and effect that form and break the inherent bonds underlying each major character's struggles on five uniquely corresponding levels: self, family, society, ethnic group, and country (dominion). The novel's Chinese title is a reference to the eight races of demi-gods and semi-devils described in Buddhist cosmology as the major characte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jin Yong
Louis Cha Leung-yung (; 10 March 1924 – 30 October 2018), better known by his pen name Jin Yong (), pronounced "Gum Yoong" in Cantonese, was a Chinese wuxia ("martial arts and chivalry") novelist and essayist who co-founded the Hong Kong daily newspaper '' Ming Pao'' in 1959 and served as its first editor-in-chief. He was Hong Kong's most famous writer, and is named along with Gu Long and Liang Yusheng as the "Three Legs of the Tripod of Wuxia". His wuxia novels have a widespread following in Chinese communities worldwide. His 15 works written between 1955 and 1972 earned him a reputation as one of the greatest and most popular wuxia writers ever. By the time of his death he was the best-selling Chinese author, and over 100 million copies of his works have been sold worldwide (not including an unknown number of pirated copies). According to ''The Oxford Guide to Contemporary World Literature'', Jin Yong's novels are considered to be of very high quality and are able to app ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Causality
Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cause is partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause. In general, a process has many causes, which are also said to be ''causal factors'' for it, and all lie in its past. An effect can in turn be a cause of, or causal factor for, many other effects, which all lie in its future. Some writers have held that causality is metaphysically prior to notions of time and space. Causality is an abstraction that indicates how the world progresses. As such a basic concept, it is more apt as an explanation of other concepts of progression than as something to be explained by others more basic. The concept is like those of agency and efficacy. For this reason, a leap of intuition may be needed to grasp it. Acc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yanmen Pass
Yanmen Pass, also known by its Chinese name Yanmenguan and as Xixingguan, is a mountain pass which includes three fortified gatehouses along the Great Wall of China. The area was a strategic choke point in ancient and medieval China, controlling access between the valleys of central Shanxi and the Eurasian Steppe. This made it the scene of various important battles, extending into World War II, and the area around the gatehouses and this stretch of the Great Wall is now a AAAAA-rated tourist attraction. The scenic area is located just outside YanmenguanVillage in YanmenguanTownship in Dai County, Xinzhou City, Shanxi Province, China. Name Yanmen Pass, sometimes translated in English to Wild Goose Pass or Wildgoose Gate, is named after the wild geese who migrate through the area. ''Yànménguān'' is the pinyin romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of the Chinese placename written as or in traditional characters and as in the simplified characters now used in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shaolin Monastery
Shaolin Monastery (少林寺 ''Shàolínsì''), also known as Shaolin Temple, is a renowned monastic institution recognized as the birthplace of Chan Buddhism and the cradle of Shaolin Kung Fu. It is located at the foot of Wuru Peak of the Songshan mountain range in Dengfeng County, Henan Province, China. The name reflects its location in the ancient grove (林 lín) of Mount Shaoshi, in the hinterland of the Songshan mountains. Mount Song occupied a prominent position among Chinese sacred mountains as early as the 1st century BC, when it was proclaimed one of the Five Holy Peaks (五岳 wǔyuè). It is located some thirty miles (about forty-eight kilometers) southeast of Luoyang, the former capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386–534), and forty-five miles (about seventy-two kilometers) southwest of Zhengzhou, the modern capital of Henan Province.Shahar 2008 As the first Shaolin abbot, Batuo devoted himself to translating Buddhist scriptures and to preaching doctrines to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emperor Daozong Of Liao
Emperor Daozong of Liao (14 September 1032 – 12 February 1101), personal name Chala, sinicised name Yelü Hongji, was the eighth emperor of the Khitan-led Liao dynasty of China. Life Emperor Daozong succeeded his father, Emperor Xingzong, in 1055. He was notable for reviving the official dynastic name "Great Liao" in 1066, a designation first given the empire by the Emperor Taizong in 947. Other noteworthy achievements made during his reign include the completion of a Liao edition of the Buddhist '' Tripitaka'' and the construction of the Sakyamuni Pagoda in 1056. Emperor Daozong faced a number of assassination attempts throughout his life. In 1063, a group of Khitans, angry that their system of tribal justice had been put under local administration by ethnic Han, ambushed the emperor while he was on a hunting trip. Emperor Daozong survived the attack and the rebels were executed. However, in order to reassert his legitimacy as emperor, he was forced to perform a traditio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jurchen People
Jurchen (Manchu language, Manchu: ''Jušen'', ; zh, 女真, ''Nǚzhēn'', ) is a term used to collectively describe a number of East Asian people, East Asian Tungusic languages, Tungusic-speaking peoples, descended from the Donghu people. They lived in the northeast of China, later known as Manchuria, before the 18th century. The Jurchens were renamed Manchu people, Manchus in 1635 by Hong Taiji. Different Jurchen groups lived as hunter-gatherers, pastoralist semi-nomads, or sedentary agriculturists. Generally lacking a central authority, and having little communication with each other, many Jurchen groups fell under the influence of neighbouring dynasties, their chiefs paying tribute and holding nominal posts as effectively hereditary commanders of border guards. Chinese officials of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) classified them into three groups, reflecting relative proximity to China: #Jianzhou Jurchens, Jianzhou (Chinese: 建州) Jurchens, some of whom were mixed with Korea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northeast China
Northeast China or Northeastern China () is a geographical region of China, which is often referred to as "Manchuria" or "Inner Manchuria" by surrounding countries and the West. It usually corresponds specifically to the three provinces east of the Greater Khingan Range, namely Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang, but historically is meant to also encompass the four easternmost prefectures of Inner Mongolia west of the Greater Khingan. The heartland of the region is the Northeast China Plain, the largest plain in China, with an area over . It is separated from Russian Far East to the north by the Amur, Argun, and Ussuri rivers; from Korea to the south by the Yalu and Tumen Rivers; and from Inner Mongolia to the west by the Greater Khingan and parts of the Xiliao River. Due to the shrinking of its once-powerful industrial sector and decline of its economic growth and population, the region is often referred to as China's Rust Belt. As a result, a campaign named Nort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive varieties of the Chinese language. The estimated 1.4 billion Han Chinese people, worldwide, are primarily concentrated in the People's Republic of China (including Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau) where they make up about 92% of the total population. In the Republic of China (Taiwan), they make up about 97% of the population. People of Han Chinese descent also make up around 75% of the total population of Singapore. Originating from Northern China, the Han Chinese trace their cultural ancestry to the Huaxia, the confederation of agricultural tribes living along the Yellow River. This collective Neolithic confederation included agricultural tribes Hua and Xia, hence the name. They settled along the Central Plains around the middle a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jianghu
''Jianghu'' () is a term that generally refers to the milieu, environment, or sub-community in which many Chinese wuxia stories are set. The term is used flexibly, and can be used to describe a fictionalized version of Historical China (usually using loose influences from across the ~1000 BCE–280 AD period); a setting of feuding martial arts clans and the people of that community; a secret and possibly criminal underworld; a general sense of the "mythic world" where fantastical stories happen; or some combination thereof. Background In modern Chinese culture, ''jianghu'' is commonly accepted as an alternative universe coexisting with the actual historical one in which the context of the wuxia genre was set. Unlike the normal world, in the ''jianghu'' '' xia'' (wanderers, knight-errants) are free to act on their own initiative, including with violence, to punish evil and foes, and to reward goodness and allies. While the term literally means "rivers and lakes", it is br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khitan People
The Khitan people ( Khitan small script: ; ) were a historical nomadic people from Northeast Asia who, from the 4th century, inhabited an area corresponding to parts of modern Mongolia, Northeast China and the Russian Far East. As a people descended from the proto-Mongols through the Xianbei, Khitans spoke the Khitan language, a Para-Mongolic language related to the Mongolic languages. During the Liao dynasty, they dominated a vast area of Siberia and Northern China. After the fall of the Liao dynasty in 1125 following the Jurchen invasion, many Khitans followed Yelü Dashi's group westward to establish the Qara Khitai or Western Liao dynasty, in Central Asia, which lasted nearly a century before falling to the Mongol Empire in 1218. Other regimes founded by the Khitans included the Northern Liao, Eastern Liao and Later Liao in China, as well as the Qutlugh-Khanid dynasty in Persia. Etymology There is no consensus on the etymology of the name of Khitan. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beggars' Sect
The Beggars' Sect is a fictional martial arts sect featured prominently in works of ''wuxia'' fiction by writers such as Jin Yong, Gu Long and Wolong Sheng. The sect has also found its way into martial arts films such as ''King of Beggars''. The sect's members are mostly beggars as its name suggests, but some of them are from other walks of life. They are noticeable in public for their dress code and behaviour. The members adhere to a strict code of conduct and maintain the utmost respect for ranks and hierarchy. They uphold justice and help those in need through acts of chivalry. The Beggars' Sect is also one of the supporting pillars in the defence of Han Chinese society from foreign invaders. Cha, Louis. ''The Return of the Condor Heroes'' (神雕俠侶). ''Ming Pao'', 1959. The sect has a wide network of communications and the members are reputed for their excellent information gathering skills. This is due to the sect's large size and the nature of its members, which allows the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duan Zhengchun
Duan Zhengchun, also known by his temple name as the Emperor Zhongzong of Dali, was the 15thIf Gao Shengtai's reign is taken into consideration, Duan Zhengchun would have been the 16th emperor. Se emperor of the Dali Kingdom. He reigned from 1096 to 1108. He was the younger brother of Duan Zhengming, and the first ruler of the Later Dali Kingdom. In 1094, Duan Zhengming was forced by Gao Shengtai to abdicate and become a monk. Gao then crowned himself emperor. However, after two years of reign, Gao Shengtai died in 1096 and made a will to return the throne to the Duan family. Duan Zhengchun ascended to the throne in 1096. Duan Zhengchun abdicated and became a monk in 1108. He was succeeded by his son Duan Yu. In fiction Duan Zhengchun is fictionalised as one of the key supporting characters in the wuxia ''Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils'' by Louis Cha Louis Cha Leung-yung (; 10 March 1924 – 30 October 2018), better known by his pen name Jin Yong (), pronounced "Gum Yoong" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
