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  • Traditional Culture in Chinese Children’s Literature after 1980
  • Qi Tongwei (bio)

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Traditional Chinese culture became “the other” we always need talk about after modern lifestyle and thoughts gradually affected Chinese life. However, this particular “other” still has a deep appeal in our mind and life, as some of this culture can even be considered inborn. So let us browse the fictions in China after 1980 to see the influence of traditional culture.

Root-seeking Elements

In the 1980s, Root-seeking literature was an important part of Chinese literature. During the ten-year Cultural Revolution (1966–76), the educational system was destroyed, and there were no well-organized educational curriculums. Under such conditions, Western culture and traditional Chinese culture all became unfamiliar. However, after the Reform and Open Up policy, many things—for instance, customs which were forbidden during the Cultural Revolution—were allowed and encouraged. In 1978, China sent fifty students and researchers to the USA. This is only one example of how China was enthusiastically trying to learn from other nations by the end of the 1970s and during the 1980s. Government leaders frequently visited modern societies around the world. Writers also wanted to use Western modern literature forms to renew literary language. On the other side, after being ignored for a long period, traditional culture also became a “fresh” element of narrative innovation. In 1984, the “root-seeking” movement was introduced at a literature conference in Hangzhou.

As a result, we can now find a combination of modern Western literary forms and traditional Chinese culture elements in children’s fictions such as Yu Huan (Hallucinations about a Fish), Lan Niao (Bluebird), Wo’men Meiyou Biao (We Didn’t Have a Watch), Mishi Zai Shenxia Guzhen Zhong (Lost in the Ancient Town at Midsummer). These works introduced readers to different narrative forms and themes. In Yu Huan, we enjoy the scenes of the river [End Page 63] form the viewpoint of a boy who took a boat back to his hometown on the headstream of Huangpu River from Shanghai. He always “neurotically” felt there was a large fish following his boat. The fish is a metaphor for countryside culture and hometown, because the boy’s family emigrated from there to Shanghai, the most modern city of China. This kind of neurotic figure can also be seen in Lan Niao and Wo’men Meiyou Biao. In Wo’men Meiyou Biao, author Mei Zihan removed punctuations in some paragraphs to make a tense of long debate in Cultural Revolution. In Qin Wenjun’s Sidi De Lü Zhuangyuan (The Green Plantation of My Younger Brother), the plantation strongly attracted younger brother to move back from Shanghai. In Wuci de Yaolanqu (Lullabies without Lyrics) for E’ji (meaning grandmother in this story) and Badama (a Mongol boy) the yak is considered divine. However, in the progress of economic developments, traditional thoughts were no longer common and understandable. For instance, the family members in Shanghai could not comprehend Sidi’s obsession with the farm. The yak was eventually killed.

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Fan Xilin’s Wuxia Novels

In Chinese, the word fiction, or novel, is translated into the word Xiaoshuo (小说). However, Xiaoshuo is not a new word. It has a long history, and its meaning has changed over time: it went from “sayings that were not profound” to “unofficial history,” “storytelling,” “text of storytelling,” “records of legend,” “stories of fictitious figures,” and finally, “popular narrative genres” (Tan). Some of these meaning are similar to the concept of fiction or novel in Western literature while some of the earlier ones are different. In other words, Chinese Xiaoshuo tradition showed different expressions with western works of fictions or novels since their respective development. For this reason, since the modernizing process of the late Qing Dynasty, many researchers discussed or objected the use of “Westernized Chinese fiction” (以西例律我 国小说) in their analysis. Therefore, the Wuxia works of Fan Xilin (novels about ancient Chinese martial arts, kung fu) can be seen as one kind of Xiaoshuo—as “records of legend.” In children’s literature, Fan Xilin’s Wuxia novels are an important example of the revival of Chinese Xiaoshuo...

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