I'm curious about the Sect and Families that are written in the k-novels that I read. I know the settings of the stories is in China. What I want to know is if they exist in real life. I mean what's the basis of everything. Why the every Tang family uses poison? Why Mount Hua have plum blossom? Did someone wrote it and everyone liked it and because of it everyone's writing it. Just every clichè novel. Maybe there's a little bit of reality in it that's why it can't change. Just like a legend of a country. Not that I hate it. I'm just really curious and frankly, I think it's cool. If I am going to write, I want something like that. I wanted to ask the experts. A.k.a long time readers, and probably people who knew history. I am sorry if this is confusing. I don't know how to explain things.
I'm not an expert but I'm pretty sure it started from old wuxia novels like legend of the condor heroes or something.
I had the same exact question as you and I actually researched it a little. Even though I can't precisely tell you everything, I can tell you this. Some of the sects and families exist in real life and sometimes they actually practice some type of martial art and sometimes they don't. For example, Mt. Hua Sect actually exists, but it has nothing with martial arts. Mount Hua is also a real place that exists. So does Tang Clan and other things. However they have little to do with what you see in martial arts novels Here is what I've read on the topic and my speculation, as it is hard to know the actual history of why we have these tropes. The novel authors use real history of China and Korea with real clans that existed a really long time ago (some still actually do) and give them a new meaning and new properties. They place families and sects in locations where they would be located in reality (i.e. Wudang is in Hubei province, Shaolin is on Mount Song, as it is in real life). However that world might be much larger than Earth, so you might get a lot more area and distance, depending on the novel. After that, authors use some historical context along with legends and myths and give these places new magical abilities that kind of extend from what we would see in reality. Stuff like Shaolin monks use Buddhism to exorcise demons, Tang use poison arts, etc. As far as I can tell, it basically started big around 1970s when some famous authors introduced this kind of world in their novels and then it just cought on. Because those novels became popular, new authors just started using that kind of world and just write new stories within it. It makes it much more convenient - you don't have to invent anything other then the plot itself. All world settings and magical abilities are done for you, it is culturally rich and people in Asia can identify with them. Also, there is a lot about this topic on Wikipedia, so you can just search and read about it. No effort required other than reading the article.