这些雪花落下来，多么白，多么好看。过几天太阳出来，每一片雪花都变得无影无踪。到得明年冬天，又有许许多多雪花，只不过已不是今年这些雪花罢了。 These falling snowflakes: how white, how beautiful. In a few days, the sun will come out, and each snowflake will disappear without a trace. Next winter, there will be plenty of snowflakes—they simply will not be the snowflakes of this year.
The Return of the Condor Heroes (神雕侠侣). Book II of the Condor Trilogy by Jin Yong (金庸). 1959.
Renowned Chinese wuxia novelist Louis Cha Jing-yong, pen name Jin Yong, passed away yesterday on October 30th, 2018, after a long illness at the age of 94. His fifteen works penned between 1955 and 1972 spread his reputation as one of the most popular wuxia writers in history and as the most famous writer of Hong Kong—by the time of his passing, he was the best-selling author of Chinese origin, with over 100 million copies of books disseminated worldwide.
Jin Yong is perhaps best known for his Condor Trilogy, a martial series set during three periods of Chinese conflict, beginning with the Jin-Song wars and concluding with the overthrow of the Yuan dynasty. The trilogy revolves around the Book of Wumu (武穆遗书), a fictional military treatise sought after by aspiring generals and political leaders. The Legend of the Condor Heroes, The Return of the Condor Heroes, and The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber have each been adapted into multiple films, television shows, and videogames, enjoying success in multiple languages across a global audience.
Jin Yong is acclaimed for his versatility as an author. His works are accessible to lay readers and critics alike, garnering him the ability to transcend cultural and geographic barriers that have challenged other contemporary writers. In the past, his works focused on concepts of self-determination and identity and often contained strong themes of Chinese nationalism, eliciting traditional Han Chinese practices and bodies of philosophy, especially Confucianism. However, as he progressed through his career, Jin Yong began evolving his nationalist thought into tenets more inclusive of increasing numbers of minority groups and criticized the validity of time-honored Chinese values. A number of his works, believed to be satirizations of Maoist Communism, were banned in the People's Republic of China. His sociopolitical developments and fictional world-building have engendered a highly specific discipline of study: Jinology. Jin Yong has left an indelible impact on Chinese literary culture, and his creations will continue to be discussed and debated as wuxia writing progresses.
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