Well, Allie and I have stopped arguing....

[alfreda89]

You see, the next thing in the book just seemed ridiculous to me, and she wasn't explaining anything other than to say "This is when I met him" and "But I NEED her!"

"You don't need a Chinese wizard in 1810 New York. There were hardly any Chinese at all in North America at that time!"

"He's a wizard. He's on the run, and he had to save his family by getting them out of China. He teaches me about kudzu root."

Well...I don't want to give away too much, but of course he could get to America -- or London first, in this case -- in this book, and even if he's not a major player in this story, he might figure in. So I went poking around in some research, and lo and behold, China was beginning a horrifying famine in 1810 -- one that, over two, two-year periods, would kill 45 million people.

Yes, you read that correctly. So "Li Sung" (I think all practitioners except Allie's family use pseudonyms, and Esme's real name is not Esme!) has ample reason to be where he is right now.

Then there is the woman who is a cat.

"She may be the transformation teacher, but you don't learn anything about transformation in this book!"

"But she teaches me how to be a spy!'

"And her name can't be Abigail Brown, she must have become a practitioner in self-defense. She doesn't look like an Abigail."

"Her name is XXX."

"So she is Russian, or named for a Russian?"

"No, that's not her real name, either -- "

So now I am reading about Moldavia, and having Kira tell me she's left it all behind, ignore it -- but we all know your past marks you and can bite you when you aren't watching for it. So...I expect more progress on the book this week, now that I know what Allie is trying to tell me.

After the biscuits with teeth, why should anything surprise me?

Comments

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Then you have other levels of social organization. The aforementioned Four Families Association - which is only one of many such - has been around for almost a thousand years. When the government functioned well, they were basically a nice little civic organization. (They've adapted well to democracy - and piss them off, and you will have the letter writing campaign from hell on your ass.) When the government wasn't functioning, they'd step in and try to keep things running as best they could. And one of the things they've traditionally supported was martial arts education - which is why they helped Hong Shifu, my master, come to the country.

There are a lot of places practitioners could fit into this - and probably they'd be in more than one of them. Taoist magicians, and practitioners of folk religion are an obvious one. There was a high degree of syncretism between Taoist and Buddhist (and other) practices during the Ming Dynasty - and families of philosophically oriented practitioner-scholars would probably use what worked, I would guess. (And there's a lot of tie in with martial practice, too.) But there were also a lot of folk practitioners and demon hunters and wandering mystic-performers and folks around. (Not to mention this whole class of poor scholars and failed scholars and the other have nots from the examination system.)

It's also worth keeping in mind that the Manchus - who founded the Qing dynasty - were pretty unusual. Most non-Han groups who invaded and took over China founded a dynasty, assimilated, and were never heard from again. The Manchus both worked hard to remain ethnically (and I seem to recall ritually) distinct and enforced measures on the Han as well. So if you're looking for people in power trying to control and not trusting Chinese magic users, that would be an interesting place to look. (The Qing spent a lot of time trying to keep a lid on the monasteries, and the martial arts underworld - a lot of whom tended to hang out with the order I'm a member of, ne'er do wells as we have been - not to mention other random scholars and philosophers and popular leaders who really wanted the Manchus out.)

Okay, this is ridiculously long, even for me. Fun to reminisce about my mis-spent youth and blow of my proposal a little more, though...

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

No, no, it's all very interesting. Part of the fun of fiction is stirring things up and see what you end up with. And I need to come up with what kind of martial arts might have attracted an Asian dragon five hundred years ago, when he didn't "fledge" and was on the run for his life. He made it to our era, so he did all right -- mostly because he was a magic-user before he didn't transform. That's why they tried to kill him -- wingless ones without magic were no threat. But a magic user? Not good.

Different book, there. Is there a book in English that would be useful for understanding the martial arts philosophy? Because I think it would have been behind a lot of what he used to shape his life. And why he would still try to help dragons by talking to the different groups, acting as a go-between, etc. I think he was more with the Japanese during the Shogunate, but he would have learned a couple of the Chinese dialects, in theory.

I figure he kept the religion of dragons, but he is familiar with human religions. The ones that convert or try to use their philosophy to keep others oppressed (like I believe Confucianism was once used by the nobles of one dynasty? That may be fiction, I got that suggestion from someones' novel and plan to check it out) would have annoyed him. Some of it, like certain tenets of Buddhism and pure Christianity, he would respect. (Even Islam -- he'd see it as something that stopped the tribes from trying to kill each other. The more radial forms would be just another place religion went wrong....) Of course he's part human, and his curiosity about humans has kept him interested.

We could have an excellent talk over sushi and sweet potato sake, if you were in my neighborhood. In the meantime, we got LJ!