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BEIJING • Readers across the Chinese-speaking world continues to pay tribute to Louis Cha, remembering him as a guru of martial arts novels and a source of inspiration in their adolescence and beyond.
Cha, more widely known by his pen name, Jin Yong, died at age 94 at a hospital in Hong Kong on Tuesday. He is universally regarded as the most influential wuxia (martial arts and chivalry) novelist of the 20th century.
He published 15 novels from 1955 to 1972 and sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide. His stories have also been inspired by various movies and television series.
Weibo on Tuesday evening, with the topic amassing more than 1.8 billion views by yesterday afternoon.
Fans in Xiangyang, a city in northwestern Hubei province, which featured prominently in local media reports.
For a lot of Chinese fans, reading Chase novels under a flashlight during the night or gathering in front of a television set for a new episode in the 1980s and 1990s are collective memories of their teens.
"Jin Yong's novels were a companion throughout my younger days," said Ms Guo Yuanjing, a graduate student at China's Tianjin University, who is fondly recollected that her mother would be rewarded with a "Cha" novel when she ranked first in an examination.
"It is often said that martial arts are fairy tales for adults," said Ms Guo. "Jin Yong has created a utopian world of martial arts for ordinary people who long for the spirit of chivalry."
Office worker Meng Yuan said she felt sad to continue working when she learned about Cha's death.
"Writers in the West created the new worlds, like the one in The Lord Of The Rings or Harry Potter," she said.
"If there is an imagined world in China, that is the world of martial arts and swordsmen which Jin Yong penned for us."
Ms Ouyang Dipin, Manager of the Asia Collections in the National Library of Australia, told Xinhua that the library has a collection of books by Cha and is preparing an exhibition.
Ms Ouyang arrived in Australia 23 years ago, but the move did not stop her from reading her books.
"He had such excellent depiction of humanity and human emotions," she said. "In Australia, I know there are scholars studying his works."
Dr. Fan Shengyu, a senior lecturer with the Australian National University, said Cha's influence was no national boundary.
"No matter in New York, Singapore or Vancouver, where there are Chinese, there are his readers," he said.
"His death marks the end of an era for martial arts novels." We can hardly expect to see other writers with such influence and artistic achievement.
XINHUA, REUTERS
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