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It sets for us a marvellous ideal, that of the Chüntzû [Jûnzĭ] or Superior Man—one
who is perfectly self-controlled and self-sufficient, wholly free from self-seeking
and able to stand firmly and serenely among forces which toss lesser men to and fro
like shuttlecocks, despite their tears and screams. [John Blofeld]
Chapter 4: “...Who, father, am I suppose to protect, old Chinese ladies in Chinatown?
Poor little white boys who don’t know how to fight? Just our family? Who, father,
if not my friends and a vulnerable people? Did you forget them? Despite what you
say now, I know in my heart that you didn’t. I know that because, unwittingly or
not, you taught me that way.
“If I had done nothing, I would be neither a doctor nor a martial artist. I would
be nothing because they have been my whole life.”
Chapter 2: “...Here is a paradox or a piece of irony that sounds like self-pity but
I don’t mean it to be. My great passion for elegant women has always interfered
with my relationships with such women. Oh, my young friend, no man has ever lived
who has had the elegance of a healthy, beautiful, and intelligent young woman. If
you find one, never let her go.”
Dorton knew the name of one such woman, a name that floated permanently in his ambient
air but was concentrated in his wine. He took another drink of wine and name.
Chapter 9: Yes, he had beaten the crap out of a boy who was three years older and
much bigger. What he enjoyed remembering more than the victory was the clinical
precision of his strikes, blocks, and evasions in a dangerous situation. At the
time, the incident was both a satisfying and learning experience. Years later, it
became something different and more important: it marked the beginning of an appreciation
of the precision demanded by his father in martial arts practice, and that appreciation
more than anything had led him to medicine and science.
Chapter 6: With Robert, Shamema’s ignorance and desire collided with a shock. Love-inspired
sex was a brilliant new world where the stroking of breasts was erogenous and oral
sex between healthy, hygienic couples enhanced lovemaking. New too were the endearments
of “Honey” and that little girls were made of sugar and spice and everything nice—that
a woman could be so sweet to a man, so deliciously desirable, to make him as insanely
in love as a woman could be. The sight of a man, her lover, showing great love was
a bewildering ecstasy.
Chapter 10: To tempt the agent into a strike, Robert lowered his open hands to the
front of his groin and moved towards the man. The agent bit. He darted forward
and tried a straight punch to Robert’s head with his right fist while the left was
prepared for a second punch to the chest. Robert blocked the first strike with a
move from bô shŏu (pushing aside hand) in which he raised his left hand upwards and
inside the punching arm, grabbed it, and pulled it down to his left. While pulling
the arm downwards, Robert made two simultaneous moves from gôu quán rèn jìn (hooking
fist knife advance): a hard kick to the agent’s shin just above the ankle with his
right foot and a upward punch up to the man’s chin. To be effective, both movements
had to be synchronized and exceptionally fast. They were. Robert’s right foot landed
on top of the agent’s left foot and pinned it to the ground. The force of the chin
strike caused the man’s body to lurch backwards but not far because Robert still
held his right forearm and pinned his left foot. Robert’s right fist rose above
the man’s head and came down, elbow first, into the man’s upper chest. At the same
time, the agent punched Robert in the lower right side of his chest, but the strike
had little power because of their closeness and the man’s lack of balance.
Part 1: Cultural Codes
1. A Borrowed Knife
2. Cultural Despotism
3. The Inferior Defeats the Superior
Part 2: Family Codes
4. Filial Piety
5. Two Faces
6. Sacred Ties
7. The Law of Change
Part 3: Warrior Codes
8. Chaos under Heaven
9. Ideology with Tools
10. The Shadow of Tian’anmen
11. Dragon Tears
12. Wakened Vengeance
Part 4: Political Codes
13. Controlling the Earth I
14. The Definition of Spite
15. Controlling the Earth II
16. The Ultimate Mace
17. Why? Is Not a Chinese Question
Endnotes
The Vengeance of Superior Men is a political/action novel that builds on the characters
and storyline in The Superior Men of Xinjiang (though the story will also stand on
its own).
Robert Jiang, a Chinese American doctor and martial artist, faces the mounting consequences
of exposing the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) attempts to use an environmental
disaster against the large Muslim minority in the vast resource-rich Xinjiang Autonomous
Region. In that expose, Robert was aided by a native Uyghur doctor, a young Uyghur-Chinese
woman, a Chinese friend, and a Special Operations Group (SOG) of the National Clandestine
Service. After initially rejecting Robert, the young woman, Shamema, accepts him
as her lover, and together they fend off attempts by the Chinese Bureau of Insurgency
Elimination to kill them. To protect Shamema and his family, Robert rejoins the
SOG to shutdown the Bureau.
International condemnation of the CCP’s actions in Xinjiang and Tibet, economic woes,
and the damaging trial of a student blackmailed into aiding the Bureau weaken the
iron grip of the Beijing government on the mainland. The Party’s belief that the
“inferior can defeat the superior” through a set of deceptive strategies (called
since ancient times Assassin’s Maces) lead it to the brink of war with America.
For descriptions of the Chinese-Muslim martial arts mentioned in the story, click
here.