"Those who want to become Wuxia have to uphold justice and be kind."

Today marks the 25th anniversary of World Book Day, celebrated mainly in the UK and Ireland to share the incredible power of books and the joy of reading. This time, we're going to talk about Wuxia, the "martial heroes" in Chinese culture.

With the rising popularity in the western world, Chinese Wuxia novels are catching people's eyes around the globe. Famous movies such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), the Grandmaster(2013), Yip Man(2008), and Hero(2002) attracted a lot of fans and viewers. Meanwhile, people started to dig into the translated Chinese Wuxia novels. More intriguingly, people begin to pose a central question: Does Wuxia really exist in reality?

Welcome To The Wuxia World, a showplanned and produced by Sichuan International Communication Center (SICC), offers an exclusive in-depth feature story through a personal interview with Yang Chen, a disciple of the Emei Sect. Welcome To The Wuxia World turned the spotlight on exploring the idea of Wuxia and presenting the life of people who still practice Wushu (or Kungfu per se) in modern society. "There are differences between the Wushu sects in the novels and reality, and not all the sects are fictional," Yang Chen said when talking about Wuxia in the real world and literature, "[but] in real life we're not very different from the others."

Towards the show's end, SICC also invites Wang Chao, an inheritor of the Emei Quan (Emei Fist), to briefly talk about his understanding of Wuxia. To him, Wuxia is not an inscrutable term for heroes in Chinese culture but a matter of a person's moral character. "Becoming Wuxia is the dream of every person who practices Wushu," he said, "As long as you're honest and kind, and willing to help the other, you will become Wuxia too."

Westerners embrace the ideas of hero scenarios, fascinated by the Hero's journey and legendary stories. Beyond the classical heroes commonly recognized by the Americans, there are many other brave and noble souls in the world–they might be a bus driver, a young little kid, any average person, or any powerful strong-mind being. Wuxia, the romantic term for Chinese heroes with superpower and the term of the oldest genres in Chinese literature, is, in fact, not just a fictional figure but a spirit. Even the most ordinary person could be Wuxia.