Quick Takeaways: If you’ve read more than one wuxia novel, you’ve encountered the word Jianghu. Characters enter it, are exiled from it, are bound by its rules, betray its codes, and spend entire novels navigating its politics. It’s as constant a presence in wuxia fiction as the cultivation system is in xianxia. But Jianghu is […]
Quick Takeaways: I have already explained in my previous post how the five elements and yin-yang are connected and why the four holy beasts cannot exist without the Yin-Yang, and how the four symbols interact with the Five Elements. It’s been a journey, and if you are still with me from my first post, then […]
Quick Takeaways: Here are a few titbits I have noticed over the years of my journey. People learn yin yang first, then they learn the Five Elements, and they hold both as interesting but separate things. Related, obviously, yin yang qualities are assigned to each element, but fundamentally distinct topics you can understand independently. I […]
Quick Takeaways: I’ve been sitting with this argument for quite some time now, and I still find it genuinely elegant every time I think it through. And I just wanted to let it out and put it out there for people to think about it. Most people who are interested in Chinese mythology and cosmology […]
Quick Takeaways: If you are like me, who grew up reading Western fantasy and mythology, you might have heard about the Four Elements of Nature and how they are the building blocks of all things. But this is a Western concept originating from the Greek philosopher Empedocles. The Chinese take this a step further by […]
Quick Takeaways: When I started reading cultivation fiction seriously, isekai was just beginning its rise to global popularity as a recognizable category. For the first few years of following both traditions, I treated them as parallel tracks in East Asian web fiction Chinese cultivation novels over here, Japanese reincarnation fantasy over there, occasionally overlapping. 10 […]
Quick Takeaways: I’ll be honest – it caught me by surprise when I found this one. I’d been exploring Chinese mythology for about seven or eight years after I developed an interest in it because of my reading of cultivation novels. I came across a casual reference in my exploration of the Four Symbols about […]
Quick Takeaways: The question deserves a straight answer, so here it is upfront: No, yin-yang is not demonic. It is a pre-theistic cosmological philosophy describing how complementary natural forces interact to produce all phenomena in the universe. It has no devil, no demon, no evil entity, and no supernatural agency of any kind within its […]
Quick takeaways: Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This means I may receive a small commission if you buy through links on this site, at no extra cost to you. I appreciate your support 10 plus years of reading xianxia means a lot of abandoned series, a lot of late nights, […]
Quick takeaways: I have been exploring mythology for twenty years. I first encountered the Four Holy Beasts, Qinglong, Zhuque, Baihu, Xuanwu, through my readings of cultivation novels, and spent a long time working out what each one represented before feeling confident I understood the tradition. During my exploration of the Four Guardians of Chinese mythology, […]