by Kylie Chan
Wan sui (Putonghua): ‘Ten thousand years’; traditional greeting for the Emperor, wishing him ten thousand times ten thousand years of life.
Wei? (Cantonese): ‘Hello?’ when answering the phone.
Wing chun: Southern style of Chinese kung fu. Made famous by Bruce Lee, this style is fast, close in (‘short’) and lethal. It’s also a ‘soft’ style where the defender uses the attacker’s weight and strength against him or her, rather than relying on brute force to hit hard.
Wire-fu: Move kung-fu performed on wires so that the actors appear to be flying.
Won ton (Cantonese): Chinese dumplings made mostly of pork with a dough wrapping and boiled in soup stock. Often called ‘short soup’ in the West.
Won ton mien (Cantonese): ‘won ton noodles’; won ton boiled in stock with noodles added to the soup.
Wu shu (Putonghua): A general term to mean all martial arts.
Wudang (Putonghua): A rough translation could be ‘true martial arts’. The name of the mountain in Hubei Province; also the name of the martial arts academy and the style of martial arts taught there. Xuan Wu was a Celestial ‘sponsor’ of the Ming Dynasty and the entire mountain complex of temples and monasteries was built by the government of the time in his honour.
Wudangshan (Putonghua): ‘Shan’ means ‘mountain’; Wudang Mountain.
Xie xie (Putonghua): ‘Thank you.’
Xuan Wu (Putonghua) pronounced, roughly, ‘Shwan Wu’: means ‘Dark Martial Arts’; the Black Turtle of the North, Mr Chen.
Yamen: Administration, as in Yamen Building.
Yang and yin: The two prime forces of the universe, when joined together form the One, the essence of everything. The symbol of yang and yin shows each essence containing a small part of the other.
Yang: One of the two prime forces of the universe in Taoist philosophy. Yang is the Light: masculine, bright, hot and hard.
Yellow Emperor: An ancient mythological figure, the Yellow Emperor is credited with founding civilisation and inventing clothing and agriculture.
Yin: One of the two prime forces of the universe in Taoist philosophy. Yin is Darkness: feminine, dark, cold and soft.
Yuexia Loaren (Putonghua): ‘Old Man Under the Moon’; a Taoist deity responsible for matchmaking.
Yum cha (Cantonese): Literally ‘drink tea’. Most restaurants hold yum cha between breakfast and mid-afternoon. Tea is served, and waitresses wheel around trolleys containing varieties of dim sum.
Yuzhengong (Putonghua): ‘Find the True Spirit’; the name of the palace complex on Wudang Mountain.
Zhu Que (Putonghua) pronounced, roughly, Joo Chway: the Red Phoenix of the South.
CULTURAL NOTES
Animals on the edge of the roof:
Traditional Chinese buildings have upturned roofs and on official buildings there is always the same series of creatures. The point of the roof holds a man riding a chicken (or phoenix), and he is followed by a series of mythical creatures, with a dragon’s head at the very back. The more creatures behind the man, the higher the building is in the Imperial hierarchy. Buildings in the Forbidden City have nine animals; in a small province there would be only one between the man and the dragon. The small vignette is a reminder and a warning to those working inside the building, that whatever they do, all of the mythical creatures on the roof are watching them, and will pounce on them and devour them if they stray from their official duty.
Ah Ting:
Part of the legend of the ‘Creation of the Gods’ involves the raising of all concerned to the Celestial. When it came time to choose the person for the job of Jade Emperor, the leader of the winning side graciously and politely didn’t immediately take the position, he just said ‘Ting, ting.’ (‘Wait, wait.’) Legend has it that a rogue by the name of Ting jumped up and loudly accepted the post of Jade Emperor, and as it was what the leader had said, he was given the post.
FURTHER READING
I have expanded my library considerably while researching for the second trilogy, Journey to Wudang, and I have delved deeper into the mythology, as well as the texts and scriptures, of Taoism. Here is a list of some of the works that I have added to my collection, and may be of interest:
A Selected Collection of Mencius, Sinolingua, Beijing, 2006
A Selected Collection of the Analects, Confucius, Sinolingua, Beijing, 2006
Anecdotes about Spirits and Immortals (in two volumes) by Gan Bao, translated into English by Ding Wangdao, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 2004
Creation of the Gods (in four volumes), Xu Zhonglin, translated by Gu Zhizhong, New World Press, Beijing, 2000
Early Taoist Scriptures, Stephen R Bokenkamp, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997
Journey to the North, Gary Seaman, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1987
Journey to the West, Wu Cheng’En, translated by W J F Jenner, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1993
Secret of the Golden Flower, Lu Yen, NuVision E-book, 2004
Selected Chinese Tales of the Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties Periods, translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 2001
The Origin of Chinese Deities, Cheng Manchao, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1995
The Scripture on Great Peace: the Tai Ping Jing and the Beginnings of Taoism, by Barbara Hendrischke, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2006
To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, a Translation and Study of Ge Hong’s Traditions of Divine Transcendents, Robert Ford Campany, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2002
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In 1985 Kylie Chan married a Hong Kong national in a traditional Chinese wedding ceremony. She lived in the Chinese community in Australia for eight years and in Hong Kong for ten years and now lives in Brisbane. Kylie has studied Kung Fu (Wing Chun and Southern Chow Clan styles) as well as Tai Chi and is a senior belt in both forms. She has also made an intensive study of Buddhist and Taoist philosophy and has brought all of these together into her storytelling.
Voyager has published her Dark Heavens and Journey to Wudang series.
Books by Kylie Chan
DARK HEAVENS
White Tiger (1)
Red Phoenix (2)
Blue Dragon (3)
JOURNEY TO WUDANG
Earth to Hell (1)
Hell to Heaven (2)
Heaven to Wudang (3)
CELESTIAL BATTLE
Dark Serpent (1)
COPYRIGHT
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
Earth to Hell first published in Australia in 2010
Hell to Heaven first published in Australia in 2010
Heaven to Wudang first published in Australia in 2011
This collection first published in Australia in 2013
This edition published in 2013
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Kylie Chan 2010, 2011, 2013
The right of Kylie Chan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright.
Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968,
no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a
retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or
by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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ISBN 978 0 7322 9805 0 (pbk).
ISBN 978 1 4607 0103 4 (epub)
Cover design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover images: figure by photolibrary.com; background figures by Getty Images; all other images by shutterstock.com
Chinese characters supplied by author
Author photograph by Adam Hauldren