36 replies to this topic

[Dave Tatchell]

It sucks to not know Chinese,

I'm really interested in learning more about general Yue Fei, I've read the overview about him on Wikipedia but I'm keen to learn more details his life, training about battles with the Jin.
Like the book "River Awashed in Red" but translated to English.

Thanks - Dave

[ghostexorcist]

It sucks to not know Chinese,

I'm really interested in learning more about general Yue Fei, I've read the overview about him on Wikipedia but I'm keen to learn more details his life, training about battles with the Jin.
Like the book "River Awashed in Red" but translated to English.

Thanks - Dave

This thread doesn't belong in the martial art forum. It belongs in the Song Dynasty forum. Anyway, I am the person who wrote the Yue Fei article on Wikipedia. You should consult some of the sources listed in the references section. Overall, the article is horrible, this is because I never really put too much time into it.

The River Awashed in Red is actually a wuxia fiction. It is an historical novel in form, but based mainly on legends popular among the common people and stuff the author made up in his head. It was written in either the 17th or 18th century during the Qing Dynasty, roughly 500 - 600 years after Yue Fei's political execution. The original Chinese version has lots of mythological elements, but some of it was weeded out when it was translated into English by Sir T.L. Yang. Here is the citation for the English translation:

Qian, Cai. General Yue Fei. Trans. Honorable Sir T.L. Yang. Joint Publishing (H.K.) Co., Ltd., 1995 (ISBN 978-962-04-1279-0)

Here is what the front cover looks like, you should remember it from reading the Yue Fei article:



This is the only place online that I've been able to find the book for sale. However it is 55 Euros, which would run you $80. If you would like to locate a copy at a library near you, try this library website. Just type in your zip code. If there is not one close to you, just ask your local library and they should be able to find it via an "inter-library loan". If you want a modern day scholarly edition of Yue's bio, I suggest you read the massive 600 plus page doctoral thesis by Dr. Edward Kaplan. Here are the book's details:

Kaplan, Edward Harold. Yueh Fei and the founding of the Southern Sung. Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Iowa, 1970. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1970.

You can't buy this from any online bookseller, but you can either find a copy of it in University libraries or get a copy via an inter-library loan. However, you can buy an authorized, "unbound" edition of the thesis through an internet site called UMI Dissertation Services. It cost me $44 dollars, but it's worth it. I know how to bind my own books anyway.

In addition, you can read the following:

Wright, Arthur F., and Denis Crispin Twitchett. Confucian Personalities. Stanford studies in the civilizations of eastern Asia. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1962 (ISBN 0804700443)

- See page 147 for a research paper by German Sinologist Helmut Willhelm called From Myth to Myth: The Case of Yueh Fei's Biography.

and

Liu, James T. C. "Yueh Fei (1103-41) and China's Heritage of Loyalty." The Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. 31, No. 2 (Feb., 1972), pp. 291-297

Edited by ghostexorcist, 26 August 2010 - 05:33 PM.

[shurite7]

I'm not sure if you are a student with a university or if you are close to a public university. If so, you can obtain a copy of Kaplan, Edward Harold. Yueh Fei and the founding of the Southern Sung. Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Iowa, 1970. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1970 via JSTOR and download it (PDF) at no cost to you. It is long, over 600 pages.

As far as I aware of Kaplan offers the most thorough info on Yue Fei in English.

C

[Dave Tatchell]

Thanks so much for your help,

I’m sorry about posting it in the wrong place, I’m a first timer = P. Those books look great, I’ll check them out. Another friend told me about some books called the romance of the 3 kingdoms. As well as this one below.
http://www.chinabook...productid=18712

Do you know how credible these are?

I know the 3 kingdoms is an absolute classic, and it’s probably a dumb question. I’ve really just begun getting into Chinese history – so excuse my ignorance.

By the way thanks for putting that article up in Wikipedia, I found it a great introduction to Yue Fei, you shouldn’t put it down. I would never of known about him if it weren’t for that.

[ghostexorcist]

Thanks so much for your help,

I’m sorry about posting it in the wrong place, I’m a first timer = P. Those books look great, I’ll check them out. Another friend told me about some books called the romance of the 3 kingdoms. As well as this one below.
http://www.chinabook...productid=18712

Do you know how credible these are?

I know the 3 kingdoms is an absolute classic, and it’s probably a dumb question. I’ve really just begun getting into Chinese history – so excuse my ignorance.

By the way thanks for putting that article up in Wikipedia, I found it a great introduction to Yue Fei, you shouldn’t put it down. I would never of known about him if it weren’t for that.

Three Kingdoms is a historical fiction like Yue Fei's bio, but it is a good introduction to Chinese history. Once you read that, you should be able to track down scholarly books and journals that reveal the true history. You can easily contact the authors of these works through their publisher. I have contacted many people this way. (I have even spoken with Sir. T.L. Yang, the translator of Yue Fei's fictional bio. After exchanging several emails, he actually called me. We have spoken several times since then. That is neat since he is the former Supreme court judge of Hong Kong and a knight of the British empire.) Or, you can look up random Chinese history professors and they can direct you to these scholarly works. I've taken this route as well. You never know until you try, that is my best advise.

I have the Yue Fei comic book you have linked above. It is just an illustrated version of Yue's fictional bio. I just recently purchased another English language Yue Fei comic book (the link just goes to a picture of the book I found online). I hope it is not crappy. It's probably based on Yue's fictional bio as well.

Most of the Yue Fei wikipedia article was run-off from my Zhou Tong research (for a brief research paper). Zhou's article was getting too big, so I moved clumps of it over to Yue's article. Then I noticed Yue's article was full of info from his fictional bio and it was being treated as historical fact. I guess it's a start for someone just learning about him. In my opinion, the page can be a bit confusing at times. But thank you for the compliments.

Edited by ghostexorcist, 18 November 2007 - 06:43 AM.

[Non-Han Nan Ban]

Then I noticed Yue's article was full of info from his fictional bio and it was being treated as historical fact.

God I hate those fan fiction tools; they do that a lot with wikipedia articles on Three Kingdoms subjects, and it is annoying.

[Yang Zongbao]

Let's not forget the bad martial arts lore, it's just as prevalent as historical-fiction-for-fact x.x

Too many subscribers to Magical Martial Arts that trace back thousands of years to famous generals and Wushu bendyswords...

[Mok]

Yang and Non-Han are right about lore being accepted as fact. Annoying, but it's up to us to dispel the lore.

[Mok]

I’ve really just begun getting into Chinese history – so excuse my ignorance.

No worries mate, we all have to start somewhere.

I was quite guilty of treating lore as fact, only it was the Yang warriors in my case.

But when you're in CHF, you can rest assured that our experts and enthusiasts will be more than happy to answer your queries.

Cheerio,

Mok

[ghostexorcist]

Too many subscribers to Magical Martial Arts that trace back thousands of years to famous generals and Wushu bendyswords...

What are you talking about? All of that is true. Yue Fei could fart lightning bolts, drink oceans, and eat entire planets! Yue taught Chuck Norris everything he knows.

Joking aside, people have a romantic view of what they think Yue "should" have looked like (LEFT). But the oldest portrait of him dating from the Song Dynasty portrays him as being chubby and clean shaven (RIGHT).



Instead of being a hulking monster of a man, he looks like the fat kid that people were reluctant to choose for their dodge ball team in gym class. But that does not detract from his accomplishments.

Edited by ghostexorcist, 19 November 2007 - 06:09 PM.

[ghostexorcist]

I have the Yue Fei comic book you have linked above. It is just an illustrated version of Yue's fictional bio. I just recently purchased another English language Yue Fei comic book (the link just goes to a picture of the book I found online). I hope it is not crappy. It's probably based on Yue's fictional bio as well.

The comic book I purchased arrived in the mail the other day. It is based on the fictional bio, but the illustrations are amazing! They remind of modern day Manhua comic books. Lots of bloody battles, kinetic action lines, and warriors with supreme fighting skills! It was drawn by Xu Silin and translated from Chinese by Koh Kok Kiang.

The quality of the other comic book you referred to is not nearly as good as the one from above. I think it was originally a Lianhuanhua leaflet-style comic. They basically squished a 100 plus volume lianhuanhua comic book series into three volumes. Since the books were bilingual and included both the Chinese and English translations, the pictures were far too small and not very detailed.

Edited by ghostexorcist, 23 November 2007 - 05:29 PM.

[ghostexorcist]

The River Awashed in Red is actually a wuxia fiction. It is an historical novel in form, but based mainly on legends popular among the common people and stuff the author made up in his head. It was written in either the 17th or 18th century during the Qing Dynasty, roughly 500 - 600 years after Yue Fei's political execution. The original Chinese version has lots of mythological elements, but some of it was weeded out when it was translated into English by Sir T.L. Yang. Here is the citation for the English translation:

Qian, Cai. General Yue Fei. Trans. Honorable Sir T.L. Yang. Joint Publishing (H.K.) Co., Ltd., 1995 (ISBN 978-962-04-1279-0)

There was a very detailed German doctoral thesis written about this book and other tales involving Yue Fei called Yue Fei und sein Mythos: Die Entwicklung der Yue-Fei-Saga bis zum "Shuo Yue Quan Zhuan" (Yue Fei and his myth: The development of the Yue Fei Saga up to the "Shuo Yue Quan Zhuan") by Jochen Degkwitz. I have a copy of this thesis. The only problem is that I can't read German.

Edited by ghostexorcist, 26 November 2007 - 05:54 PM.

[tung2sai]

What are you talking about? All of that is true. Yue Fei could fart lightning bolts, drink oceans, and eat entire planets! Yue taught Chuck Norris everything he knows.

Joking aside, people have a romantic view of what they think Yue "should" have looked like (LEFT). But the oldest portrait of him dating from the Song Dynasty portrays him as being chubby and clean shaven (RIGHT).



Instead of being a hulking monster of a man, he looks like the fat kid that people were reluctant to choose for their dodge ball team in gym class. But that does not detract from his accomplishments.

lol!
Yeah, judging from a lot of portraits I've seen so far, a lot of Chinese great men would have been the "fat kid".

[ghostexorcist]

There was a very detailed German doctoral thesis written about this book and other tales involving Yue Fei called Yue Fei und sein Mythos: Die Entwicklung der Yue-Fei-Saga bis zum "Shuo Yue Quan Zhuan" (Yue Fei and his myth: The development of the Yue Fei Saga up to the "Shuo Yue Quan Zhuan") by Jochen Degkwitz. I have a copy of this thesis. The only problem is that I can't read German.

Oddly enough, the book's abstract is in English! It reads:

In China, it has at all times been common practice to turn the past into an allegory for the present. Most naturally, being used as a vehicle to discuss present problems, history is often truncated or even totally deformed. In the case of Yue Fei, the 12th century warrior who fought foreign invasion was killed by an administration favoring appeasement, history apparently has never even been properly written.

Yue Fei's story has, though, soon after his death become a matter of great popularity and it has been written and re-written many times in the following centuries, never just to tell the tale, but always to express some political point of view, adding up to quite an extensive body of mostly popular literature.

For political reasons again, in mid-18th century there originated a full-fledged colloquial-style novel about Yue Fei, known by several titles suchas 'Shuo Yue quan zhuan' or 'Jingzhong Yue zhuan', which imcorporates many a twist and turn that was added to the tale in one of the earlier versions. This novel has to be viewed as the culmination of the development of the myth of Yue Fei, and it enjoys great popularity even today, not as a book alone, but also as the base for modern radio plays and tv-series.

The present study attempts to trace back to its various origins, both historiographic and legendary, the myth of Yue Fei as it is set forth in this novel, and to explain the basic political implications thereof, finally searching it for the main ideological strains that account for the up to date unbroken popularity of Yue Fei as a national hero.

I really wish I knew German now! I would love to read about the political analysis of the tale.

[Iovah]

I am always amazed how Yue Fei has become a modern nationalist hero and his legends are taken by many has historic fact. I remember having a long debate with some Peking University history students once on the credibility of much of his legend. they take it all as fact, despite several misinterpretations and obvious mistakes, but it doesn't matter; people believe what they want to believe. They ignore the fact that it was a pre-nationalist society and forget about concepts such as fielty.