Abstract
The popularization of online gaming in Vietnam, including PC and mobile gaming, has witnessed the contribution of wuxia fictions as an essential aspect of digital content production. This article shows an attempt in tracing the cultural history of wuxia works in Vietnam. East-West differences have also been taken into consideration as a way to explain reading and playing preferences. By using life course approach along with the concepts of nostalgia and cultural proximity, this study tries to historically portray the wuxia readership in Vietnam and its vestige found in wuxia online games. The findings indicate that wuxia novels serve as a crucial factor representing the literary relationship between the Sinosphere and Vietnam. Its presence has enriched the content of Vietnamese literature, adding a new genre that has been widely accepted by many generations of Vietnamese readers. Because wuxia online games could be seen as the digital continuation of wuxia fictions, the author argues that prior experience drawn from interacting with wuxia novels affects the game selection-making process of players, and gaming companies in Vietnam also acknowledge that and deploy appropriate business strategies.
Highlights
Wuxia is a subgenre of quasi-fantasy and martial arts genres found in literature, theater, and cinema, which portrays the adventures of martial artists in ancient China (Chen, 2009)
The tempestuous history of Vietnam during the 20th century pandered to the axiomatic prevalence of wuxia fictions, opening up the path for numerous studies in Vietnam that focus on the impacts this genre has upon the Vietnamese popular culture
Starting as a marginal genre that was undercredited, wuxia novels have made a silent but sound literary revolution, being a typical example that showcases the harmony between popular culture and the so-called high culture
Summary
Wuxia (wu: martial arts, xia: heroism) is a subgenre of quasi-fantasy and martial arts genres found in literature, theater, and cinema, which portrays the adventures of martial artists in ancient China (Chen, 2009). The impact of wuxia fictions on popular culture in Vietnam is recognizable, ranging from the consumption of novels, film adaptations, manhua (Chinese comics) to online games.
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