Talk:Youxia

Future expansion

I plan on expanding this page in the future. I recently had to move this from the Knight-errant page. (Ghostexorcist 21:56, 2 March 2007 (UTC))

Oppose merge

My belief is that the Knight-errant, or "Youxia" page, is unique and self-sustaining. To convert to a mere "Xia" page will make it ambiguous, as the pingyin-term is more popularly used to describe the earliest, if not mythical, dynasty of Chinese history.(Got Milked 21:56, 18 April 2008)

Did you even read the Xia page? It comments that Xia were people with martial arts abilities, with no social class, and wandered the land protecting people. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 15:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I've read it, but did you read what I presented? Let me try again: Yes, there is a "Xia Dynasty" page, and there is also a "Xia" disambiguation page, and as I've mentioned; the term Youxia is a good disambiguation from that popularly named dynasty, and also a disambiguation of other related Xia-named terminology describing:

Xia (Sixteen Kingdoms) (407-431)

Xia regime (618-623) during the transition from the Sui Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty.

Xi Xia (Western Xia), 1038 – 1227, state in ancient China of the Tanguts.

Xia class submarine, a Chinese ballistic missile submarine.

Xia, a place in the fictional Bionicle universe

You're a Wiki-contributor who particulary focuses a fascination on two things: Jewish, and Chinese; and that shouldn't affect the validity of a Youxia page, nor should it reflect upon how Arabs, Palestinians, and Persians view the validity of the state of Israel. Got Milked 23:50, 28 April 2008

Huh? I don't understand how me being interested in Jewish history has anything to do with this particular article and the proposed merge. Anyway, you misunderstand the specifics of the merge. I want to transfer the material from "Xia" to here. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 10:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Exactly! I stated that "Youxia/Chinese knight-errant" page be disambiguated from the more popularly used Xia terminology in describing the earliest of dynasties relating to Chinese history, and you stated "that Xia were people with martial arts abilities, with no social class, and wandered the land protecting people"; and I wondered to myself; "what does that have to do with the price of green tea in Zaire?". ANYWAYS, I just wanted to see that the page on "Youxia/Chinese knight-errant" will still be it's own exclusive page on Wikipedia, disambiguated from other popular uses of "Xia", as this is directed at English-speaking scholars and those interested in learning, and puts the Chinese knight-errant "Youxia" concept into direct perspective relating to more familiar themes in western-based texts. --User:Got Milked (talk) 05:38, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Merge complete. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 07:25, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Unmerged material

A large portion of the material from Xia is unusable because it lacks citations. However, I am place it here on the talk page so I can find citations and add it to the page at a later date:

---

The xiá (俠) is a Chinese concept that refers to a righteous person who excels in Chinese martial arts and who uses their armed expertise to protect the innocent and right social unfairness or injustice (鋤強扶弱). Such a person is said to possess "martial virtue" (wǔ dé 武德), and usually regarded as a people's champion. The conduct of Xia is not a synonym for Righteousness (正義) as in righting a wrong it may involve breaking the law hence in absolute term Xia adherents do not answer to the laws but to a set of self-imposed morality of right and wrong. Yet it is important to know that Xia is not the chinese term for philosophy zhe xue (哲學) is.

The xiá concept is the basis for the Wuxia genre of Chinese literature and cinema, and is fundamental to the understanding of the genre. Liang Yusheng, a founder of the post-war "new school" wuxia literature, once asserted: "I'd rather write a wuxia story with no force or martial arts than one devoid of the spirit of xiá (宁可无武，不可无侠)".

Cultural correlations

Xiá could be roughly compared to "chivalry" or 'heroes/heroines", and similar in part to (and often translated as) the Western concept of knights and knighthood, but owing to differences in cultural contexts, there are both major and minor differences:

• The feudal overtones of Charlemagne's or William the Conqueror's enfeoffed cavalry made up of nobles by birth are wholly missing from the Chinese concept. Unlike a knight, the xiá ("chivalrous man") need not serve a lord or hold any military power; neither are they required to be from an aristocratic class. In comparison, the main identification of a xiá is a code of conduct and an ideology of honor and social justice dedicated to serving the good of the people. The philosophy's expectations of good character in teacher-student relationships is a fundamental feature of traditional Chinese martial arts training. Another difference from western knights is that considerable numbers of these xiá are women.

A well-known description comes from the historian Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian:

“ He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. ”

History

The concept of xiá goes back to the Zhou dynasty, especially the Spring and Autumn period. Referring to a class of warriors (the shi 士) whose social position is sandwiched between the commoners and the royalties, the xiá (sometimes known as xia ke 俠客 or xia shi 俠士) is originally the military counterpart (wu shi 武士) of the more scholarly shi (仕), who eventually developed into Confucian scholars. Both are highly prized by feudal princes and warlords, one becoming intellectual advisors who contribute to the governing of the state, and the other ending up as guest residents of their masters living by the blade. In ancient China, these warriors' preference to use force to resolve a conflict sometimes made them unpopular and inseparable from the common ruffians in the eyes of bureaucrats. The legalist Han Feizi, for example, listed the xiá among the five vermins of society.

The concept of xiá however underwent many transformations through the centuries. By the end of the Qing dynasty it has come to represent an ideal hero who wielded power by force, but could withhold it if necessary, and more importantly, possesses a sense of moral justice.

--Ghostexorcist (talk) 07:25, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Japanese equivalent

Wouldn't the Japanese equivalent be a "Ronin" rather than just any "Samurai"? Zargulon (talk) 19:01, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Inclusion of image File:HuoYuanjia.jpg

Late Qing period martial artist Huo Yuanjia, who became a popular folk-hero (大俠), and one of the Three Heroes of Youyan (幽燕三侠) , inspiring many martial arts stories.

The unilateral inclusion of this image with the following caption (as shown on the right) to represent "Youxia" is inappropriate:

• First, there are no references provided to establish a connection between the person depicted in the image (Huo Yuanjia) and the topic of this Wiki article (Youxia). This is thus WP:OR.
• Second, the caption does not even bring up the topic (Youxia) and thus does not establish the relevance of the depicted person in relation to the topic.
• Third, it is deceptive to misuse sources that do not support a connection between the person and the topic. They may talk broadly about the person, but they are required to be within the scope of the topic (which is not mentioned in their texts).

These points remain unadressed. -- Cold Season (talk) 16:38, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Have you read through the sources ChenDaoIsHere (talk) 14:23, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Did you? You are free to quote the exact passages with page numbers in the sources to disprove the points I have raised. However, there is none. But you already know that, since you could not even establish a connection between Huo Yuanjia (the person depicted in the image) and Youxia (the wiki article's topic) in the first place. --Cold Season (talk) 20:03, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Relax.

From one of the citated sources from my previous edit that was reverted (and had not been copy-pasted fully for the captioned image example provided here), from pages 90-93, 97-98, 105-106;

"Chapter Five

A Rhetoric of Marvel: Hyperbole, Biography, and the Xia Warrior

In this final chapter in the story of neigong internal strength, let us return to the opening

narrative of the first chapter, which gave us the 1934 Shen Bao newspaper report of a young woman

named Yang Jianxia challenging a Russian strongman to a duel. As the story goes, the Russian caught

wind of her skills and backed out of the contest. She then held forth on the merits of neigong internal

skill, and how “we Chinese” viewed “great strength” as not so much a virtue as a potential problem.

The gender and youthfulness of the Chinese challenger renders this account somewhat unusual,

but its narrative arc turns out to have been widely circulated in Republican vernacular print culture. The

progenitor of this narrative is the folk hero Huo Yuanjia (1868-1910), whose biography tells of how he

threw down the gauntlet to an arrogant Russian strongman in 1901. Other stories followed in his wake,

featuring well-known names among Republican Chinese martial arts practitioners, such as Wang

Ziping (1881-1973), Sun Lutang (1860-1933), and Han Muxia (1877-1947)—all of whom had

apparently challenged and defeated foreigners[...]"

"[...]When examined more closely, the source mChapter Fiveaterial suggests something more complex than mere

ideological posturing. These accounts identify themselves as standard biographies [zhuan 傳] of old

martial arts masters, and are regarded as an integral part of Chinese martial arts history. Some of these

figures have become modern-day household names, their stories widely familiar in Sinophone popular

culture. Among them, Huo Yuanjia is perhaps the most famous, with his story having been described as

“defining martial arts cinema.”2 His narrative has been retold in countless film and television depictions

into the present day, such as Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury (1972) and more recently Fearless (2006) and

Huo Yuanjia (2008). These biographies are incorporated into various genres in martial arts discourse:

the anecdotal story that would otherwise be lost or forgotten [yishi 軼事 or 逸事], the recording of

some famous master's sayings or deeds [lu 錄], or the collection of past exploits [wang shi 往事].

These figures are recorded as having written poems, and their names or deeds adopted as commonplace

Chinese idioms."

"[...]This Chapter Fiveworldview premised on qi proves critical in order to fully understand how deeply the

internal martial arts informed the Republican Chinese vernacular cultural imaginary. The primary form

it took in the cultural imaginary was in the genre of martial arts fiction that emerged in the period.

Known as wuxia 武俠 fiction, the genre revolves around the figure of the martial arts warrior, also

called the xia 俠 or xiake 俠客. As we will see later, the construct of the “old man of t'ai chi” in martial

arts discourse and the xia warrior in martial arts fiction drew from the same lodestone of embodied

imagining, the same doxa based on the workings of qi. From these beginnings in martial arts

discourse, writers of wuxia fiction would go on to discover the power of filmic media, yoking the

visuality of film to the task of making qi visible.

The crossing between biographical record and embellished fiction thus engendered an outsized

language, that represents the attempt to convey a certain ineffability, a rhetorical means of making qi

(nearly) visible. Hyperbolic embellishment in martial arts discourse became a particular mode of

writing, dedicated to showing what is otherwise invisible, and a stance assumed in order to describe

claims of the efficacy of qi. Martial arts writing and fiction established, in other words, a language for

expressing the ineffable, an ineffability that forms the very basis of the internal martial arts.

Huo Yuanjia's story proves to be a case in point. In the latter half of this chapter, I examine the

famous wuxia martial arts novel that first made the name of Huo Yuanjia famous, Tales of Recent

Gallant Heroes [Jindai Xiayi Yingxiong Zhuan 近代俠義英雄傳] (1923). This is a novel that

scholarship has typically regarded as a foundational text of the wuxia genre, and usually interpreted as

a narrative celebrating nationalistic identity."

"[...]Jiang Xiahun's own remarks record hisChapter Five personal enterprise to rescue the martial arts by wielding

the pen of wuxia. Referring to himself in the third person, he wrote:

Xiahun admires the xia but is unable practice the art itself. He thus had to employ empty words to perpetuate the

famous works of wuxia past and present, such as in [his novels] Fengchen Qixia zhuan and Wuxia Daguan... It is

but borrowing the wine cups of others as a libation over his own grave, and inappropriately receive the praise of

many. [I am] much ashamed. The ancient idea of guoji was the ordinary tiyu of our people. It originated with the

Yellow Emperor [Huangdi] quelling the barbarians and came down from the Qin and Han. Every generation had

their specialists.

Repeating the lament that the martial arts have since degenerated into “jianghu acrobatic

stunts,” he then invoked some contemporary names in the martial arts world: “In the last ten years,

fortunately we have Huo Yuanjia of Tianjin, General Ma Zizhen [Ma Liang] of Shandong, Master

Xiang Kairan of Hunan, and so on.” For Jiang, these names represent the equivalent greatness of xia for

the Republican Chinese era. As he saw it, wuxia writing served an important role by reminding people

of the former glory of xia and the Chinese martial arts."

Sources discuss Huo Yuanjia as a Chinese folk hero aka. Youxia and his influence to the idea of "xia" and stories about xia. If the sources themselves are an issue, then that can be discussed, but the sources clearly draw a delineation. ChenDaoIsHere (talk) 11:50, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

And, from the very first page of the Taiwanese source:

[...]另，1925 年《申報》刊載一則廣告「笑舞台今夜初次開演俠情好戲大俠霍元甲」( 申報，1925)。當時記者便是訪問向愷然，瞭解霍元甲 (1868–1910)為人及其歷史。記載如下：

霍元甲抱定是不給外人看輕中國的主義⋯⋯ 一遇到俄國大力士中國人是東亞病夫，他就認為是絕大的國恥，所以情願拚命比武，拚命打擂台，要一雪中國的國恥⋯⋯對於這位發起精武體育會大俠霍元甲，格外加以注意，這是別開生面的好戲。( 申報，1925)

上述報導中， 無論是抵禦外敵， 亦或是強國保種，霍元甲已然被塑造為打破「東亞病夫」的中國武術傳奇大俠。

The source further elaborates on the history of Huo Yuanjia's status as a folk-hero or "大俠" ChenDaoIsHere (talk) 12:04, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

And yet, there is no content about the topic "Youxia" itself. All you mention are other concepts like "folk hero" and others that are NOT "Youxia", a straight misuse of sources. --Cold Season (talk) 14:56, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Note how my quoted texts specifies Chinese folk-heroes as xia. The Taiwanese sources literally calls Huo Yuanjia as a 俠.

"Youxia" 游侠, "xia" 侠 and "daxia" 大侠, as well as xiake "侠客" are synonymous terms and concepts, Chinese conversations often use them interchangeably. Note how the source also calls out "[...]Known as wuxia 武俠 fiction, the genre revolves around the figure of the martial arts warrior, also called the xia 俠 or xiake 俠客." The wikipedia article itself uses the concept synonymously as well to describe the concept. The Chinese language equivalent of this very article is called "zh:侠客" and begins with the introductory text 侠客，又称侠仕、游侠、豪侠，简称“侠”. ChenDaoIsHere (talk) 18:41, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Your quoted text can specify anything, but the only thing that's relevant is "Youxia". Another wiki is also not a reliable source (WP:WINARS), while its uncited content does not supercedes guidelines and policies in another wiki. You are conflating terms that are not synonymous. Go find a reliable source that connects Huo Yuanjia and Youxia. I have humored this long enough, as you ignore the mentioned issues. --Cold Season (talk) 13:57, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I have not ignored anything you've mentioned, and answered as best as I can, but that what you are asking is very myopic. If you choose to be myopic, then I must answer in detail.

If we are to be exact, it is correct that aformentioned the sources don't call Huo Yuanjia directly in the most literal way as a "Youxia", if your understanding of the term is specifically as detailed in the historical, pre-1000s definition of the concept. However,the English wikipedia article does not itself distinguish the historical meaning of "youxia" in the Han dynasty from it's later and contemporary meanings. Every relevant Chinese text, academic or otherwise, do use the terms interchangeably. If you choose to align with only the historical use of the term exclusively, most studies will still note analoguous nature of them and the evolutionary transition of concepts. The sources treat the terms synonymously, as xia is the key radical.

To quote from 中国之侠 / Zhongguo Zhi Xia by James J. Y. Liu:

"[..]与韩非截然相反,司马迁热情赞颂中国之侠,写下了不朽篇章《游侠列传》(传中“游侠”、“侠”、“侠客”也都是等义词)。在序论里,司马迁劈头就将韩非加在侠身上“以武犯禁”的罪名提出来,然后义正辞严地为侠申辩,说游侠“其行虽不轨于正义”,“虽时打当世之文罔”,但是,他们“言必信”,“行必果”,“已诺必诚”,“不爱其躯,赴士之厄困”,而且“不矜其能,羞伐其德”, 因此“声施于天下,莫不称贤”,真是“名不虚立,士不虚附”。他认为这种“侠客之义”是不可轻视的,是难能可贵的,是值得称颂的。因为当时人们处于残暴统治之下,不免要遭到欺压之害,而需要有所依靠,借以排难解忧,所以,尽管游侠被韩非之流诬为 “邦之蠹”,被统治者视为暴徒,尽管一大批游侠在司马迁生长的景帝、武帝时代正被血腥镇压,但他还是不顾个人安危,毅然为以朱家、剧孟、郭解为代表的二十余名游侠立传,而且满腔热忱地歌颂他们。从这个意义上说,司马迁正是在继承和发扬游侠们的侠义精神,他本身也当得起“大侠”的称号!"

To quote from 近代“武侠”形象的再造与“新民”动员, DOI：10.16099/j.sus.2023.05.08.0002, chosen for it's succinct summary:

"作为中国文化独特产物的“侠”[1]237，在其发展过程中，由历史史实演变为文学社会想象[2]、由“游侠”转变为“武侠”[3]，最终积淀为一种“文化精神”[4]。由于春秋晚期“士”之文武分途，“好用力”“重意气”[5] 的“游侠”成为社会中的重要势力。随着汉代大一统政权对“游侠”的打击，任侠者呈现出“由武向文”的转向[6]，但其精神气质与行为方式逐渐成为汉末魏晋时期一些注重知识交流与传承的士大夫的气质与标签[7]，并作为文人咏侠诗中抒发建功立业理想的原型。唐代以来，士人在追求精神气质的基础上，以“游侠”为原型创作的“剑侠”再现了“侠”之“武”色彩[8]，在报恩仇、抱不平的基础上开始注重道德教化[9]。宋元明时代，“侠”逐渐世俗化，更有一些民间秘密结社将其固化为道德信仰。作为一种社会心态，“侠”还与心学、儒家、释家交相辉映，成为士人精神活动的重要体现[10]，并在灾害叙事中成为警世正俗的教化内容[11]。在明代注重其“义”而非“技”的基础上[12]，受清代儒家伦理忠义观的影响，演变出“官侠”“忠侠”形象。随着清末国事衰微、民族危亡，知识精英将处于传统文化价值系统边陲地位的“侠”提升至新高度，并提炼出新的理想人格[13]。“侠”原有的私人之间的恩义心理、同门互助的同道心理[14] 被“ 雪大耻， 复大雠， 起毁家， 兴亡国”[15]683 的救国救亡心态所取代，并作为救亡图存的主体，承担起变革社会风气之使命"

"[..]1920 年代，王五、霍元甲等武术人逐渐成为“为国为民”形象的代表。时人十分认可大刀王五“尝有天下国家之志，招游侠之士操纵之”的游侠风范，他不仅积极谋划解救谭嗣同，更号召“我辈武人，所重者侠义勇耳，君危不扶，国困不救，何以为人哉”[46]。霍元甲更是体现了新旧、中西交融之际社会对于“侠”的期待。向恺然所作《近代侠义英雄传》[38]"

For more information, 余英时's 中国文化史通释 - 侠与中国文化, goes into greater detail. I won't quote them now because it is an extensive study.

Please in turn explain in detail why the separation of terms is now suddenly necessary, when the actual article and the sources both in English and Chinese languages are nowhere as pedantic, rather than answer with ill-will and impatience.

If you think Youxia should be a completely separate concept and category from Xiake and indeed Xia in general, that means those need to be made into entirely new, separate categories and/or articles, or rewriting this article to reflect either the actual historical definition of youxia, or reflect it's transition to the modern understanding. That is fine and I understand the trouble, but if that is the issue then please say so directly. ChenDaoIsHere (talk) 15:22, 23 July 2026 (UTC)