Source: CCTV.com

04-10-2008 14:24

The subject of swords and sword making doesn’t seem much of a topic with which to ‘rediscover’ China. So when my crew and I setout for Guangdong,I was very unclear on our purpose for going there. I wasn’t extremely gung hoto introduce yet another ‘ancient relic’ show on CCTV-9.

What significance at all did swords play in modern Chinese society? Even when I asked around , I was hard pressed to find a goodexplanation. Answers like “Chinese swords are used a lot in movies” and “Wushumartial artists use swords in their routines” simply wasn’t cutting it for me(no pun intended).

Anyway, we drove from the Guangdong airport to Yangjiang in anundercover police car, by way of a friend of a friend of a friend. It waspretty cool, outfitted with speakers and lights etc…(at the end of the trip thedriver even let me say things over the loudspeakers!) Yangjiang was a portcity, very near to Macau. Like many smallsized cities in Guangdong,its local economy was practically fueled by one specialty product: steel andknife production. Needless to say, itfelt like stepping foot into a mini modern industrial era.

The steel-making technology was modern indeed, but wouldthat be the connection I was looking for to make this show applicable to today? No. We weren’t there to talk aboutsteel-making machinery. The man we were to film produced traditional hand-madeswords, completely from scratch, even making his very own steel compositions. Iwas getting farther and farther away from the connection to the present, andlooking back into time! It seemed doomed to be another ‘ancient relic’ show.

The sword master, Mr. Zhu Ben is a man originally from Taiwan. Beforehe began making swords himself, he was a sword practitioner, being especially infatuatedwith Japanese sword culture. It is fact that many facets of Japanese culturetoday bear their roots in ancient Chinese culture. Various aspects of Chineseculture were adopted by the Japanese, then tweaked and improved on, making themdistinctly Japanese. One example of this exchange was swords. Sword culture in Japan originated from Tang dynasty China.

Like most Chinese, Mr. Zhu Ben is proud of his heritage. Hebegan to wonder why the whole world was infatuated with samurais and Japaneseswords, when in fact the whole tradition originated in China. Whywasn’t the world just as obsessed with Chinese swords? He discovered that theart of making Chinese swords and rites involved with it were almost entirelylost over the centuries. This was his calling. He gave up practicing swords,and moved to this steel-making headquarters in the mainland. He vowed todedicate his life to revive the art and knowledge of Chinese sword making.

After learning this, I felt like I was getting closer to theconnection between past and present…at least I had a real person telling areal, current story. But I still couldn’t link how swords were linked to thelarger Chinese society today.