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"For example, his [Jin Yong's] *Return of the Condor Heroes chronicled the life and adventures of a fictional swordsman, Yang Guo, who was in love with an older woman (his beautiful teacher, Little Dragon Girl). Much of the drama involved Chinese societal rejection of such a relationship, which was against the Confucian ethic of a student, being in an inferior position, having an intimate relationship with a teacher. Such a relationship was considered taboo in the past, and even in contemporary times is still frowned upon in less liberal Chinese communities.
Return of the Condor Heroes proved to be so popular that no fewer than five adaptations thus far of Chia's [Jin Yong's] work have been produced by entertainment makers from four different sources - Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Singapore.
Japan even produced an animation version of his story. It was fast becoming regarded as one of the great Chinese contemporary romantic literary works besides being a wuxia novel. Yang Guo and Little Dragon Girl became household names after the successful character portrayals by Hong Kong actors Andy Lau and Idy Chan in the early 1980s. In fact, the two storybook characters were unofficially dubbed the Romeo and Juliet of the Far East.
The opening lines of a poem written by Chia for Return of the Condor Heroes proved more popular with the modern generation of young Chinese than classical poems from the Tang or Song eras." ...
Extracted from and courtesy of 2005.12.15 Asia Times Online: Chinese martial arts hit home