White Tiger

in flavour.
    Tikuanyin (Cantonese; or Tikuanyum): Iron Buddha Tea. A dark, strong and flavourful black Chinese tea. Named because, according to legend, the first tea bush of this type was found behind a roadside altar containing an iron statue of Kwan Yin.
    Tin Hau (Cantonese): Taoist deity, worshipped by seafarers.
    Triad : Hong Kong organised-crime syndicate. Members of the syndicates are also called triads.
    Tsim Sha Tsui: Main tourist and entertainment district on Kowloon side, next to the Harbour.
    Tsing Ma Bridge: Large suspension bridge connecting Kowloon with Lantau Island, used to connect to the Airport Expressway.
    Typhoon: A hurricane that occurs in Asia. Equivalent to a hurricane in the US or a cyclone in Australia.
    Wan Chai: Commercial district on Hong Kong Island, between the offices and designer stores of Central and the shopping area of Causeway Bay. Contains office buildings and restaurants, and is famous for its nightclubs and girlie bars.
    Wan sui (Putonghua): ‘Ten thousand years’; traditional greeting for the Emperor, wishing him ten thousand times ten thousand years of life.
    Wei? (Cantonese): ‘Hello?’ when answering the phone.
    Wing chun: Southern style of Chinese kung fu. Made famous by Bruce Lee, this style is fast, close in (‘short’) and lethal. It’s also a ‘soft’ style where the defender uses the attacker’s weight and strength against him or her, rather than relying on brute force to hit hard.
    Won ton (Cantonese): Chinese dumplings made mostly of pork with a dough wrapping and boiled in soup stock. Often called ‘short soup’ in the West.
    Won ton mien (Cantonese): ‘won ton noodles’; won ton boiled in stock with noodles added to the soup.
    Wu shu (Putonghua): A general term to mean all martial arts.
    Wudang (Putonghua): A rough translation could be ‘true martial arts’. The name of the mountain in Hubei Province; also the name of the martial arts academy and the style of martial arts taught there. Xuan Wu was a Celestial ‘sponsor’ of the Ming Dynasty and the entire mountain complex of temples and monasteries was built by the government of the time in his honour.
    Wudangshan (Putonghua): ‘Shan’ means ‘mountain’; Wudang Mountain.
    Xie xie (Putonghua): ‘Thank you.’
    Xuan Wu (Putonghua), pronounced [roughly] ‘Shwan Wu’: Means ‘Dark Martial Arts’; the Black Turtle of the North, Mr Chen.
    Yang: One of the two prime forces of the Universe in Taoist philosophy. Yang is the Light: masculine, bright, hot and hard.
    Yang and yin: The two prime forces of the universe, when joined together form the One, the essence of everything. The symbol of yang and yin shows each essence containing a small part of the other.
    Yellow Emperor: An ancient mythological figure, the Yellow Emperor is credited with founding civilisation and inventing clothing and agriculture.
    Yin: One of the two prime forces of the Universe in Taoist philosophy. Yin is Darkness: feminine, dark, cold and soft.
    Yuexia Loaren (Putonghua): ‘Old Man Under the Moon’; a Taoist deity responsible for matchmaking.
    Yum cha (Cantonese): Literally ‘drink tea’. Most restaurants hold yum cha between breakfast and midafternoon. Tea is served, and waitresses wheel around trolleys containing varieties of dim sum.
    Yuzhengong (Putonghua): ‘Find the True Spirit’; the name of the palace complex on Wudang Mountain.
    Zhu Que (Putonghua), pronounced [roughly] Joo Chway: The Red Phoenix of the South.

About the Mythology
    In undertaking to write this story I had to do a tremendous amount of research on the nature of Taoism and the deities that appear in the book. I’m by no means an expert, but I thought the reader would like a small amount of further information on how Chinese beliefs fit together.
    Chinese folk beliefs are a mixture of animism, Buddhism and Taoism, which all seem to fit seamlessly together with a liberal dose of Confucian philosophy. Buddhism and Taoism both teach that a person who transcends the barriers inherent in our physical world will attain Immortality. Therefore, many famous historical figures are considered to be still around today and can be called upon to intervene when times are tough.
    Chinese believe that the spirits of their ancestors continue to guide and protect them, and therefore must be cared for and regularly visited. There are two festivals a year when families visit the graves of dead relatives to clean the graves and provide food and offerings of paper