| Jianghu | |||||||||||
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| Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Chinese | 江湖 | ||||||||||
| Literal meaning | lakes and rivers | ||||||||||
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| Vietnamese name | |||||||||||
| Quốc ngữ | Giang Hồ | ||||||||||
The jianghu is the milieu, environment, or sub-community, often fictional, in which many Chinese wuxia stories are set.
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. Each wuxia novel has its own jianghu setting, although in Louis Cha's Condor Trilogy it will be one with continuity; whereas Gu Long's jianghu would be distinct in every novel.
The concept of jianghu can be traced to the 14th century novel Water Margin, in which a band of noble outlaws, who mounted regular sorties in an attempt to right the wrongs of corrupt officials, retreated to their hideout. These bandits were called the Chivalrous men of the Green Forests (simplified Chinese: 绿林好汉; traditional Chinese: 綠林好漢; pinyin: lǜlín hǎohàn). The "green forest" was the antecedent to jianghu.
One of the earliest coinage of jianghu was by a dejected poet Fan Zhongyan (989—1052) in the Song Dynasty in his poem Yueyang Lou Ji (岳阳楼记),[1] in which the context of jianghu was set out as distant to the courts and temples, meaning a world in its own right.
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It is a tacit assumption in many wuxia novels that the law and order in the actual historical setting were dysfunctional or poor, like the change of dynastic China from Song Dynasty to Yuan Dynasty, to Ming Dynasty and to Qing Dynasty, periods in time correlating to tremendous upheavals and turmoil in the society. In Louis Cha's novels the dysfunctionality can come in two levels: firstly, law and order broken down locally within China and secondly, the sovereignty of China came to be challenged by invaders. Localised disorder is the predicate where the chivalry and the code of xia will be much needed to mend the ills of the world. The second layer of dysfunctionality in Cha's works would then become setting to showcase the patriotism and loyalty of the protagonists to their epoch or their emperors.
Integral to jianghu is the smaller circle of martial arts practitioners usually including the protagonists called wulin.
A strong element in the structure of jianghu, is the line between good and evil, right and wrong, is crystal clear; it is absolute. With some exceptions in Gu Long's works, protagonist in wuxia novels usually represent the right side of the law and ethos, their nemesis the opposite. It is here that theories abound on Star Wars's philosophy of the Jedi were based on that of xia and the setting of jianghu in this genre. The absolute definition of morality in wuxia is understandably a reaction to the real world where it is not quite so clear what or who is purely good or otherwise, consider the context and the historicity of Hong Kong at the time of Louis Cha's works.
Code of xia is absolute, and sometimes with no regard to the law or authority. It is righteousness taken to the extreme, in that the xia-adherents when righting a wrong would only be answerable only to his/her morality. The modus operandi, and the benchmark morality of all xia adherents in jianghu is on en (恩; good-deed or gracious deeds) and yuan (怨; feuds or misgiving).
There is one profession within jianghu where code of xia might become situational, which is the security-bodyguard equivalent biaohang (鏢行), who are for-hire xia for delivery of goods or escort services. This is the closest equivalent to the bushido samurai or the soldier of fortune in the jianghu world.
Wulin (武林) is a term referring to the smaller microcosm within jianghu. Inhabitants of wulin are clearly differentiated from those within jianghu, in that they all know some form of wushu or martial arts. And the way to differentiate the good from the bad within wulin is the code of xia, those who adhere to it are good, those who do not are bad.
The standard of morality within wulin is less vigorous than that in jianghu or in the historical setting. It is common to split wulin into black and white "ways", denoting the criminous and virtuous. Killers, murderers and those less scruplous belong to the "black way" would live in wulin with a bad reputation, until someone would right their wrongs. The virtuous "white way" adherents are commonly represented by the major schools including Shaolin, Wudang, Emei to name a few, who are the benchmark "good guys" of wulin.
The different schools are looked up to, and usually act as the elder advisors to the smaller elite circle within wulin. Every now and again wulin needs to have a champion, a general or a commander to lead the collective resources of wulin participants for China. A wulin mengzhu (武林盟主; alliance leader of the wulin) will sometimes be nominated and voted for this role. Typically but not always, the protagonist of a wuxia novel will become this leader and command the actions of wulin.
In many wuxia novels, many seemingly uprighteous masters harbour seedy ambitions eventually turning them into dark personalities. These characters are reflections of politicians and lobbyists.
In modern times, the term "jianghu" can take on two generic meanings, one for different professional circles and a second used to refer to the triads and the secret societies of gangsters.