ZHOU ZIHE FICTION NOVEL:
“Paving the Hero’s Road” by Sun Chongxiong
Hello Everyone,
Translating, editing, and revising the folk novel about the life and training of Zhou Zihe, “Paving the Hero’s Road”, is finally finished. Sun Jingwei did the translation and interpretation, we worked together on cultural meanings and the story atmosphere, and I finalized editing for English-speaking readers.
It is my privilege to present here my Forward. This week I will paginate the book and arrange the Table of Contents. I hope to press the “publish” button sometime before the weekend. Royalties will be forwarded as a contribution to the building of the Zhou Zihe Research Institute and Chuan’fa Center in Zhitian.
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Forward by the Editor
“Paving the Hero’s Road” is mostly fantasy, beginning with a fictional account of the youth and early training of a man known as Zihe, of the Family Zhou, in Zhitian Village near the city of Fuzhou.
The translator for this work, Sun Jingwei (no relation to Professor Sun Chongxiong, the author), writes:
“The gist of the story arc is as follows: Zhou Zihe learns Tiger Boxing. He fights random people, villains, bandits, and bullies, and obtains strange kung fu manuals from the Yongchun County Buddhist Temple. For a while, he gains a Japanese disciple. He fights crooked government officials and the corrupt Christian Church. Zhou Zihe’s house is raided. He joins a temple, and finally discovers who betrayed him, his friends, and his students. He goes to deal out justice, and the novel ends.”
Intriguingly, the novel’s ending is abrupt, uncertain, and in the thick of a swift fight in the dark; a true “cliffhanger”. When asked about a possible Part 2, author Professor Sun simply smiles cryptically.
While some events resonate with fragmented bits of historical information, the connections to Zhou Zihe and the surrounding details are mostly fiction. Zihe did not take part in the more sensationalized proceedings. He did of course visit temple abbots and monks, but did not engage in any battles with them. He did actually fight local bullies on the docks, but nothing on the scale of fighting depicted in the novel. However local legends, folklore, street tales, and plain gossip persist in making him out to be the people’s hero – breaking up dangerous gangs of thieves and killers, ousting corrupt government officials, fighting immoral religious figures, revenging the innocent, and much more.
In the early 1980’s, Professor Sun Chongxiong was assigned two enormous tasks. One was the excavation, rescue, and cataloguing of traditional wushu systems. Professor Sun did essential work in the Fujian and Fuzhou vicinity, researching and preserving a number of local Fuzhou styles for the Fujian Provincial Wushu Association and the Fuzhou City Wushu Association (chiefly Fuzhou crane styles, and Ziranmen style).
Another major task, at the behest of the Fuzhou Wushu Association, was to research the life of Zhou Zihe and lead the efforts to find and record the historical roots of the Japanese system known as UechiRyu KarateDo. This was per request of the UechiRyu KarateDo Association, which sent an international delegation to Fuzhou for research purposes in 1983.
But beginning years prior to this, and continuing during his research for verifiable information, Prof. Sun encountered many fantastic tales of the martial prowess of Zhou Zihe, a true-life martial arts master and one of the most famous chuan’fa masters of the late Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the New Republic Era (late 1890’s to his death in 1926). The new UechiRyu assignment fit well with his previous research.
Prof. Sun, a master storyteller and already a famous author of factual martial arts and cultural texts, saw potential in the disjointed tales and decided to weave them into a single, exciting martial arts fantasy novel of justice and revenge.
Collecting and correlating these stories took years, beginning in the 1970’s and culminating in the first publication of this popular novel in 1992. It particularly caught the attention of thrill-seeking Chinese teens and young adults, who were attracted by the cover art depicting a young and righteous Zhou Zihe fighting the murderous renegade and fraudulent monk, Zhitong. The book contains no illustrations, but Prof. Sun’s eloquent writing style and descriptions of persons, places, and especially fight scenes, are quite vivid, more than making up for the absence of visual artwork.
Probably the only real name used throughout the novel is that of Zhou Zihe himself. Zihe’s father’s name “Hanfu”, and those of other heroes in the tales, are all fictionalized. Most characters were created by Prof. Sun. He explained in a recent interview that the purpose for changing names was to emphasize that the novel is fictitious, and that no such person as described actually existed except the character of Zhou Zihe. Even the name Shangdi Wanwen (Uechi Kanbun) was changed to Shangdi Gongyu. Prof. Sun explained that if real names were used, readers would believe the novel represented true historical fact. However, names can be researched, and when they are found to be non-existent, the tale remains what it was intended to be – a fictional story for entertainment purposes.
The character Shangdi Gongyu (Shangdi Wanwen – Uechi Kanbun) depicted in this novel is as unlike the real-life Uechi Kanbun as could be. To fit the milieu of the story, Gongyu is portrayed as a highly-cultured, well-read scholar (even stating to Zhou Zihe that he was a scholar), trained well enough in Chinese classical art to be able to discern a copy of a painting from a true masterpiece, fluent in whatever Chinese dialect was being used, and sensitive to all the subtle social and political nuances of Chinese upper-class life. He could possibly have been an Okinawan aristocrat.
Not to disparage him, but the real Uechi Kanbun was largely uneducated, could neither read nor write, and spoke little if any Chinese (and probably not very well as later evinced by his poor pronunciation of Chinese terminology). Though fulfilling Zhou Zihe’s prerequisites regarding politeness and manners, Kanbun was not trained in upper-class etiquette or speech. What he had going for him were his outstanding physique, impressive willpower, and unwavering loyalty and dedication to his teacher.
For the original publication, Prof. Sun used a pseudonym himself – Nan Gongzhu – because his real name was already well-known as the author of many factual, historical, and technical manuals and textbooks involving Chinese martial arts and culture. The use of his true name would have lent itself to the belief that the book was a factual representation of the life and times of Zhou Zihe.
A large part of the true value – and charm – of this novel is that Chinese government, social structure and prejudices, business dealings, personal and martial arts relationships, and many other facets of Chinese life during the Qing Dynasty and after, are faithfully represented. Though the characters and many of the situations are fictionalized, the description of Chinese society of that time is quite accurate. This indeed is the China of the times during which Zhou Zihe and Uechi Kanbun lived.
At the time of this publication, Professor Sun Chongxiong is in his late 70’s, and is as excited with his continuing cultural work as he was over 40 years ago. He actively participates in research, writing, teaching, assisting in cultural restoration, and guiding the future of Fujian chuan’fa as the Senior Consultant of the Fujian Tiger Boxing Club.
G. Seizan Breyette
Okinawa, January 2025
Fiction Novel about Zhou Zihe
Moderator: gmattson
Re: Fiction Novel about Zhou Zihe
UPDATE:
"Paving the Hero's Road" is now available on Amazon at
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DTKSCL55
The front cover is undergoing review for minor corrections -- the name of the author was caught by spellcheck, and the cover image was a bit fuzzy, so these will be corrected within a few hours of this post. All else went through the publishing process smoothly. The detailed interview regarding this book and Professor Sun's research will be found later this year in Bunburyodo Vol. 4.
Enjoy -- it's a fascinating read!
"Paving the Hero's Road" is now available on Amazon at
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DTKSCL55
The front cover is undergoing review for minor corrections -- the name of the author was caught by spellcheck, and the cover image was a bit fuzzy, so these will be corrected within a few hours of this post. All else went through the publishing process smoothly. The detailed interview regarding this book and Professor Sun's research will be found later this year in Bunburyodo Vol. 4.
Enjoy -- it's a fascinating read!
Re: Fiction Novel about Zhou Zihe
"He fights random people, villains, bandits, and bullies..."
Bullies are universally despised, whether in the Christian America or countries in the other side of the world. National Library of Medicine has a great page describing the harmful effect on the mental and physical health of the victims. "It has a big mental and emotional impact—you feel unaccepted, isolated, angry, and withdrawn. You're always wondering how you can do better and how you can escape a bully's notice. You're also stunted because of the constant tension and because maybe you forego making certain friendships or miss out on taking certain chances that could actually help your development."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK390414/
American movies has some great superhero beating up bullies action scenes. See "Top 25 Moments When Superheroes Dealt With Bullies" in YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhgYs7T9WeE
Bullies are universally despised, whether in the Christian America or countries in the other side of the world. National Library of Medicine has a great page describing the harmful effect on the mental and physical health of the victims. "It has a big mental and emotional impact—you feel unaccepted, isolated, angry, and withdrawn. You're always wondering how you can do better and how you can escape a bully's notice. You're also stunted because of the constant tension and because maybe you forego making certain friendships or miss out on taking certain chances that could actually help your development."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK390414/
American movies has some great superhero beating up bullies action scenes. See "Top 25 Moments When Superheroes Dealt With Bullies" in YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhgYs7T9WeE
Erik
“Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.”
- John Adams
“Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.”
- John Adams