Opinion | Forget Instagram spots. What’s Hong Kong doing to nurture the next Jin Yong?
- As the government continues to promote the city as an arts and cultural hub in the region, it has much to learn about what truly constitutes art
- Jin Yong’s wuxia novels, with their wide appeal, manage to be both escapist entertainment and a vast cultural phenomenon
Standing tall against the cityscape, the vividly rendered metallic statues by sculptor Ren Zhe have created quite a buzz among Hong Kong residents, and fans of Cha from far and wide.
Some of these characters are household names in their own right, and the many stories by Cha, better known as Jin Yong, are well known not only in Hong Kong and mainland China, but throughout the Chinese diaspora.
My first introduction to Cha’s extraordinary world of wuxia was the TVB version of The Return of the Condor Heroes, with Andy Lau Tak-wah as Yang Guo. Although I was too young to understand the plot, much less appreciate the sweep of Cha’s storytelling and the cultural significance of his works, that TV show is etched in my early childhood memories.
My family would be glued to the television, and for many of my generation, the show’s portrayal of swordswomen holding their own in the pugilistic world opened our eyes and minds to so many possibilities. Only later did I learn that when Cha was a child, his father cut and saved a page of Gu Mingdao’s serialised novel, Heroine of the Wild River, for him to read every day.
