This week I received a gift from Ray, my T'ai Chi teacher: a small statue of a fellow named Guan-di. Guan-di was a real historical figure whose exploits have earned him a place in the pantheon of Taoist gods. He's the Taoist god — something like what Westerners might think of as a patron saint — of both war and literature. One of the most well-known of Chinese deities, he opposes all disturbers of the peace and protects the realm from all enemies, both external and internal. Some stories depict him as a Robin Hood-type character. In addition to being a scholar, Guan-di is also the patron of rulers and bean-curd (tofu) sellers.
Guan-di is usually portrayed as a nine-foot tall giant with a two-foot-long beard, a scarlet face, the eyes of a phoenix and eyebrows of silkworms. As the warrior, he is frequently shown wearing full armor and carrying a weapon (a staff with a heavy, curved blade on one end that he's said to have invented and which we know as a guan-do or kwon-do). As the scholar, he is portrayed as a military mandarin, sitting unarmed and stroking his beard with one hand and holding a scroll in his other hand (the Chun-qiu, or the Spring and the Autumn Annals, one of the classic Confucianist works).
It's interesting that Ray should give me this gift at this time. I recently joined Toastmasters, the public speaking organization. I've been thinking about how to organize my first speech, which is supposed to be about myself. I had tentatively chosen "the pen and the sword" as my theme, since I use the former at work and the latter at play. No sooner had I decided to talk about these two aspects of myself, the writer and the fighter, than Ray introduced me to Guan-di, the embodiment of both. Ray doesn't know I'm planning this speech. But he does have an uncanny ability to give just the right gift at just the right time, whether it's a much-needed bit of instruction, a useful object or a question that makes you think. Now I'm curious to read the stories about Guan-di. When I do, my martial art connection will have brought me to a new area of literature. The literature, in turn, will point me back to martial arts, since Guan-di was revered as a fighter and since I'll discuss the tales with my teacher.
There are those who say the pen is mightier than the sword, but I'm beginning to wonder. It seems to me that they're more alike than different and that they represent two different means to the same end. Let me know what you think about this, and I'll consult my new patron for enlightenment. He's perched on top of my computer monitor, right next to Wonder Woman.