F Trope: Wu' means martial arts, which signifies action, 'Xia' conveys chivalry. Wuxia. Say it gently... 'whooshah'... and it's like a breath of serenity embracing you. Say it with force, 'WuSHA!', and you can feel its power…honourable warriors (侠 xiá) fighting against evil…wuxia stories are set in modern times, or even the future…Jiānghú (江湖 — literally "rivers and lakes")…martial-artists and monks, wandering knights and beautiful princesses, thieves and beggars, priests and healers, merchants and craftsmen…intricate relationships of honour, loyalty, love and hate between individuals and between communities in this milieu.
Current Event: “The Jade Warrior”
Ni Eyamba bit her lower lip as she stared down at the pre-calculus summative exam and sighed. What would the class do if she stood up and announced that she was a fusion of Atai, the mediator wife of Abassi, the creator god; and the Chinese “deity” of clan, nation, societal harmony, anti-individualism, and fulfillment of mandate still defines success. Contemporary Chinese, however, are unable to articulate the country's cultural DNA.
I am the articulation of the Chinese DNA of my mother melded with the gods and goddesses of my father’s home – the Dark Continent. I am...
Behind me, Jackson Jackson, my totally American best friend at Obama High School, poked me in the back with his tablet computer stylus and whispered, “Who do you think you are, Albertina Einsteinina?”
I rolled my eyes and got back to work. When we first talked, he asked me all about my families – not the shy one, I told him as much as he could stand.
Which happened to be an hour and seven minutes of constant talk – all through our relaxed study and into the fourth period of lunch. I’d intended to prove to myself that no one cared about me. Certainly Mom and Dad didn’t – why else would they send me to the US for schooling while they went to live the bright life in Espirito Santo, north of the capital of Brazil?
I was stuck in this...Jackson poked me again and I wrestled down an urge to turn and blast him with lightning. But then my only real friend in America would be a smoking pile of ash.
Of course I’d have to figure out how to immolate him without burning down both the school and turning myself into a pile of crematorium dust as well. Too bad my deityhood didn’t extend to omniscience. If it had, I would be able to ace this exam.
Also, the powers I’d supposedly gotten from the Efik side of my family tended toward creating things rather than destroying things. That’s why it had merged almost seamlessly with my Chinese blood. Most of Reunited China was in the throes of a materialistic orgy that made the 20th and the first half of the 21st Centuries of American excess look like…well…18th and 19th Century European excess…which made 16th and 17th Century Indian excess look like…well, you get the idea. Seems every dominating civilization seeks to outdo the previous dominating civilization...
“You gonna finish the test or just dream about graduating from high school?”
“闭嘴,” I said – Chinese for “shut up”, which is what Americans seem to say to each other a lot. Almost more than, “Wanna be friends?”
Behind me, I feel the rush of air past my ear as he breathes, “Wu xia.” He lifted the second syllable. Blood pounded in my ears. Said in such a way, he was doing no less than challenging me to a duel. I grinned, hunched over my tablet and raced through the rest of the test. I very much wanted to expend some of my angry energy by beating Jackson’s…
Names: ♀ China, Nigeria (Efik tribe); ♂ United States (#1, 2013), United States (#13)
Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg
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