[right, Pingjiang Buxiaosheng, photo undated]
In the 2008 hit animated movie “Kung Fu Panda,” the slacker title character is redeemed through martial arts. The same could be said of the author of the literary source of “Burning of the Red Lotus Temple,” the silent movie series we have been discussing this week. An earlier post related how Mingxing’s chief director Zhang Shichuan discovered the book that he and his frequent collaborator Zheng Zhengqiu turned into Part I of the classic series of wuxia films, “Burning of the Red Lotus Temple.” In this article we look at the life and career of Pingjiang Buxiaosheng 平江不肖生 , the pen name of Xiang Kairan 向恺然, prolific 1920s author of wuxia fiction. Among his works was a novel (originally a newspaper serial) titled Strange Swordsman Story (Jianghu Qi Xia Zhuan 江湖奇侠传), which was the plot basis for Part I of the film series. “Jianghu,” literally “rivers and lakes,” is a Chinese idiom meaning “everywhere in the country.” “Zhuan” the last word in the title, can be translated as “story,” as I have done here, or alternatively, “legend.”
The author who eventually became known throughout China as Pingjiang Buxiaosheng was born in 1889 (one source says 1890) in Pingjiang, Hunan province. He was fond of writing and martial arts from childhood, and by his 20s was proficient in both. He studied engineering in his native Hunan, and after getting his degree he went to Japan for advanced study. Actually twice: the first time was a failure, as he got on the wrong path in his personal life, neglecting his studies to frequent brothels, especially low-class brothels, and hanging out with some of the lowest elements of Japanese society. The details are sketchy, but after returning to China for a time, he somehow got a second chance and went back to Japan, this time to study law. He renewed his passion for the martial arts, expanding this interest to such Japanese forms as jujitsu and swordsmanship. He also took up writing again, and perhaps as a catharis for the earlier wasted years, he wrote a confessional novel based on his earlier experiences titled Secret History of Studying in Tokyo (留东外史).
After successfully completing his studies he returned to China to participate in the anti-Yuan Shikai revolution, after which he found work in Shanghai and began writing seriously. Xiang Kairan is described as being reclusive and somewhat unsociable during those years, living in a small, very narrow building with his mistress and two pets, a dog and a monkey. He wrote during the middle of the night, disciplining himself to write 1,000 characters at every session, and in 1922 completed and under his pen name published his first novel, Strange Swordsman Story. Roughly translated, “Pingjiang Buxiaosheng” could mean “an unworthy (or unfilial) son of Pingjiang,” which may have reflected the author’s regrets over his libertine early youth. He followed this initial best-seller with a second, Story of a Modern Hero, which gave him the financial freedom to give up his day job and devote himself to writing full time.
By 1932, the author now known throughout China as Pingjiang Buxiaosheng had earned enough to enable him to return to his native Hunan and establish a martial arts training institute, as well as a national chain of clubs for enthusiasts of China’s “national art.” As part of this new activity, he turned to writing theoretical and instructional works on his specialty. These activities made him one of the most famous practitioners and teachers of martial arts of his time. But in the early 1950s, Xiang Kairan left his family and became a Buddhist monk, an interesting choice given the setting (and villains) of that landmark first action novel. In 1957 as he was preparing to resume writing with a work to be titled “Historical Talks on Chinese Martial Arts”《中国武术史话》he died of a cerebral hemorrage, age 68.
Literary critics have had mixed reactions to his novels. Typical is this one: “Buxiaosheng’s works are heavily influenced by Hunan folklore. He writes realistically about gods and spirits, and his stories are well-plotted, making them worth reading. But they are flawed by his lack of attention to structure, seeming to be writing with his fingers instead of his brain, the words pouring out in an often repetitive and at times incoherent torrent. But he laid the foundation for modern martial arts fiction, especially by his creation of a strange and fantastic martial world, one considerably different from our ancient swordsman legends. From this, his status is unshakeable.”
