Professor Okazaki Yumi, a renowned linguist and sinologist of Waseda University gave away 55 Wuxia novels she translated (from Chinese to Japanese) to the Department of Chinese of TKU in early December. She is presently at TKU’s Center for Wuxia Novels for a four month research stint. She has translated several novels, particularly those written by Jin Yong and Gu Long, into Japanese making it cool to read wuxia novels for Japanese intellectuals

She was toiling with the idea of coming to Taiwan to research on this particular genre in modern Chinese literature about 10 years ago when she attended an international conference on Chinese wuxia novels that was co-organized by TKU and National Central Library. Thanks to Dr. Clement Chang, the Founder of TKU, who had the foresight to set up a special research center devoted to the study of wuxia novels (definitely a wild card idea at the time) some years ago that eventually gave Professor Okazaki Yumi the opportunity to come over for a short-term academic exchange. She is very impressed with the collection of the center, saying it is in a class of its own.

She admits that she fell in love with wuxia novels when she was a grad student studying Chinese in Japan. Her Taiwanese friends introduced her to some of Jin Jong’s epic novels that made her marvel at the beauty of Chinese language. ( ~Ying-hsueh Hu )

Picture: Professor Okazaki Yumi gives away her Japanese translation of Jin Jong and Ku Long’s wuxia novels to TKU which are collected in the Center for Wuxia Novels.