Fake Louis Cha unrepentant, asks for editing help

The author of that blog, a 28-year-old fan of the wuxia novelist, wrote a letter in response, in which he explains how his actions, including writing over one hundred fan letters to Louis Cha over the course of two decades, are "rational worship" rather than Yang Lijuan-style star chasing.

(Letter #104, would the media convey this letter to Mr. Jin Yong)

Respected Mr. Cha: Hello!

The number in "Letter #104" that you see here means that this is the 104th letter that I've written to you. I don't remember when it was that I wrote the first letter - probably when I was eight or nine, around 20 years ago, and later the majority were sent off to Zhejiang University. At the time I was blind, but later it was different. Many years ago I dropped out of high school, which means that I don't even have a high-school diploma. Right now, thinking about it, it may have been that I did myself in over-reading Louis Cha. I was so innocent back then; my only thought on leaving school was to make money from writing within ten years (before I was thirty; I am actually 28 right now), to make money to set up a "Louis Cha Prize for Literature." But after going out into society I found that the world I saw was completely unlike what I imagined. I ran up against walls for several years, but I was never willing to give up. There will be a "Louis Cha Prize for Literature"!!!

I want to explain how my situation is different from that of Andy Lau's recent star-chaser Yang Lijuan, and from last year's "Panda burning incense". There are indeed similarities with those two situations, but they are entirely different. They were blind, but my veneration is rational. From your Statement, you have left anger behind; here, I want to make an explanation for that Statement. You perhaps believe that several people on Bokee have colluded, because early this year Bokee had a special "Louis Cha Criticism" page. And because your statement appeared on Sina and not on Bokee. I counterfeited this fake Louis Cha page; it has nothing to do with anyone else, and the legal responsibility rests with me. Moreover, I do not know those writers in the "criticism", to say nothing of collusion. However, because of that criticism, I fear that "Louis Cha" has truly been cut to pieces by them, and that my own dream of a "Louis Cha Prize for Literature" is destroyed - years of effort all gone.

In your Statement, you said: "Although my learning and writing are not the greatest, they are still not as bad as that. If they have opinions, then publish them under their own names. With that level of writing, I would certainly not accept them as students, and with this kind of personal character, I would keep an even greater distance." The level of your education and your writing skills are well known to all; otherwise, you would not have Louis Cha fans like myself. You criticize me for having no skill, but I think that a high-school dropout who is able for a time to pass off a fake as the real thing must have a bit of skill. And I'm not even 30 yet; if nothing else, I at least have a few decades left of study and practice, right? It's no crime for someone to pursue his studies, is it? Mr. Cha, you are still learning at 85. I am just 28; I too want to study.

As for the so-called "learning" you mention in your Statement, the early parts of Kunlun Slave and New Sword of the Yue Maiden that have to do with the clan of Kunlun slaves and the Qi Circulation Inscription were materials that I looked up - they are the viewpoints of Guo Moruo and others, not my own scholarship. I have no knowledge. And then there's my personal character - it's not good at all, it's problematic. This was my second time to masquerade as Louis Cha. One other time was when I was looking for work in Beijing. I went to work at the advertising department of a newspaper. I had no diploma, so I made a fake college diploma. The manager had studied history, and during the interview he went off on a tangent and we talked about why Li Yuan weakened and excluded Liu Wenjing; without even handing over a resume I went on the job the next day.

One question I cannot fathom: there are dozens of "Louis Cha" blogs online - I've registered four myself - but how did things come to this?

Yesterday evening (2007.04.17), I received a note from a reporter, Mr. Tan, with Southern Metropolis Daily. In it, he asked whether it was an honor to see Louis Cha's own writing. Indeed, I feel truly honored. How many people are there who, like me, have often written letters to Louis Cha but have never received a reply? I have indeed met a few great scholars like yourself. Last year, Wolf Totem author Jiang Rong, who could not be found by hundreds or thousands of reporters, replied to my letter. The reason was that among all readers, only I had written a theoretic follow-up to Wolf Totem: the China Theory hypothesis (100,000 characters in a series of letters speculating that China's English name, the wolf, and the dragon are closely connected to the Monglolian word "china" [wolf] - a trinitarian hypothesis). Even if you take this hypothesis to be false, it at least is the summation of the efforts of a lot of people. In the first piece, my skills were much worse than they are today, so I used the family tree of Genghis Khan found at the back of The Condor Heroes as evidence. At that time, I actually had been "struggling" for many years, but there was no end and I could not find direction in life. I did not know the meaning of life. I thought of death, and if not for the difficult, unanswerable question of the "china theory" that caught my attention, I truly do not know what would have happened.

My own personal outlook is not too bright - a man nearly thirty still struggling toward a goal that others think is unreachable. People my own age have children who are already going to school, but I am still the same as ever. People around me look down on me, and I can only tell myself: I won't give up, I won't give up....My home is in a village in east Hebei. It's a large family; my younger brother and sister have already gotten married, but I am still the same as ever. My family members point and curse my "struggles worth a fart" for the "Louis Cha Prize for Literature." Only my grandmother and grandfather love me. My grandfather is just your age, also a pig. Because he joined the eighth-route army when he was 18 and his body was worn out back then. Now that he is old and has no retirement money, he'll probably not last out the year. I say this to ask you if you'll tell your lawyer to delay the suit a bit. First, to wait until my grandfather passes away. Second, the "Louis Cha Criticism" on Bokee still says that you are an apologist for Taiwan independence, and it was precisely for this reason that this fake Louis Cha page exists. If these two circumstances are combined, I expect that your reputation will suffer a bit.

Lastly comes a request from this Louis Cha fan: supposing that you must take to legal measures, the ultimate result may end with me going to prison. Before that, can you help me revise Kunlun Slave and New Sword of the Yue Maiden? Or is there really no possibility of improving them?

All the best!

Louis Cha fan Tian
2007.04.18