How did wuxia fiction become a part of your life? To what other interests has it led you?
My personal experience with wuxia fiction was one of love, hate, and then love again many years later. My first exposure to wuxia was in 1980, when I watched TVB's 1970s adaptation of LUK SIU FUNG. At the time, I had no idea about wuxia novels, the conventions of wuxia, or the connections of wuxia with Chinese history. I just figured it was cool fighting shows on TV.
My formal introduction to wuxia came two years later, when I watched DGSD '81 with my father. My father explained to me that a writer named Jin Yong had written the story of DGSD as a novel many years earlier. From this series, I learned about many basic wuxia conventions (the revenge theme, xia ethics, inner power, the setting of wuxia in the context of history, the romantic subplots, etc.). My father also told me about another Jin Yong story named LOCH, which I watched with him the following year...then ROCH, SPW, DOMD, etc.
From 1981-1985, I was a veritable wuxia obssessive. I thought about it all the time, acted it out while playing at school (I was a very young child at the time), and even talked to people as if I were living in a wuxia world (translated into English, hilariously enough). There was even one occassion when my imitation of Felix Wong's moves for Gwok Jing's Hong Lung 18 Palms saved me from getting beaten up by a schoolyard bully.
But something strange happened in the middle of 1985. I was growing up. I had just turned 13 years old and for some reason, all the things that had previously been cool about wuxia just became hopelessly corny and stupid to me...especially the romantic subplots. I really resented the heroes all having beautiful girlfriends/wives when I had trouble attracting the attention of attractive girls at school. I couldn't watch wuxia adaptations anymore (or any Chinese series heavy on the romance theme for that matter). I literally left the room if one was playing (especially ROCH). I devoted myself to other interests: anime', rock music, NBA basketball...just not wuxia (although I did continue to enjoy Gu Long's LUK SIU FUNG during these years...mainly because the romance factor was low compared to most stories and the warriors were true bada**es).
It was like that for ten years...my resentment of wuxia reaching a peak in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Then, as I graduated from college in 1994, a gradual thaw began. I began to remember the fantastic adventure of those Jin Yong adaptations and how fun they had been rather than my resentment of them during my teenage years. I became nostalgic for those days. To see if anything had changed since 1985, I rented LOCH '82, ROCH '83, and for the first time, HSDS '86 (missed it the first time due to my being in deep denial in 1986) and watched them all the way through. The magic was back. Having grown up and resolved my insecurities about romantic relationships, the resentment I remembered these series causing me as a teenager was gone. Furthermore, having become much more sophisticated and mature after 10 years of high school, college, and graduate school, I was able to appreciate wuxia on a much deeper level than I had as a child, when it had all been just about neat fighting scenes. I fell in love with wuxia all over again. In 1999, I discovered that there were other English-literate wuxia fans on the Web at the Yushy Wuxia Forums and in 2002, SPCNET Wuxia Forum.
That's my story about wuxia and me.