Yam Chi-Keung's Bookmarks

Non-action in action: martial arts, landscape and religious concepts in Chinese film


Prof. Joachim Gentz, University of Edinburgh

Arts and religious concepts have often been associated in Chinese tradition. In the realm of martial arts Buddhists often play a double role. On the one hand they appear as experts who, through special spiritual exercises, develop extraordinary worldly fighting techniques and skills, which are far superior to those of average fighters. On the other hand they are depicted as mysterious personalities who, through their way of life, have no definite identities; they live and practice in remote places and in landscapes in which superhuman forces dwell. Because they do not participate in social life, live outside the social order and follow own precepts and laws they are often associated with subversive realms. Through recourse to the history of Buddhism, its role in Chinese society, its conflict with Confucian and Daoist values and the pointing out of filmic uses of a specific Buddhist aesthetics the talk will explain how the traditional role of the Buddhist came to fit in the role of the literary archetype of the xia-fighter in the 20th century. Connected to the figure of the Buddhist fighter is the specific jianghu (lakes and rivers)-landscape which was invented in the 1920s and represents, like the Buddhist, an other-worldly and self-referential in-between realm, which provides a perfect aesthetic frame for the depiction of the abstract fight between good and evil.

梁濤先生又記錄了1905年2月份《循環日報》上的一段廣告，那是一間叫做「鹿角酒店」的西餐單，如今重溫，不無趣意；當時的餐廳向顧客提供兩類選擇，一曰「小餐」，一曰「大餐」，前者9毫，後者1圓，菜式分別如下。

小餐菜式﹕1. 蟹肉泮絲湯；2. 焗鮮魚；3. 牛扒；4. 茨會雞；5. 番茄蛋；6. 燒豬排；7. 燴火腿；8. 凍肉；9. 咖喱蝦；10. 炮茨仔；11. 桃菜；12. 布甸；13 夾餅；14. 咖啡；15. 糖茶；16. 牛奶；17. 芝士；18. 鮮果。

大餐菜式﹕1. 吉士豆湯；2. 炸魚；3. 燒白鴿；4. 炸西雞；5. 大蝦巴地；6. 路粉鴨肝；7. 燒牛肉；8. 燴火腿；9. 凍肉；10. 咖喱奄列；11. 燴茨仔；12. 燴蘿蔔；13. 糖果布甸；14. 杏仁餅；15. 炸蛋絲；16. 咖啡；17. 糖茶；18. 牛奶；19. 芝士；20. 鮮果。