Fabled Authors in City of Fables

Rui’an， a county-level city in Wenzhou， a flourishing port city in southern Zhejiang Province， is celebrated for its galaxy of fable authors and their important contribution to the prosperity of the country’s fable writing.

Over 180 fable writers in Rui’an have been well-known all over the country since the 1950s. In the first national fable writing competition in 2007， 781 writers won prizes and 563 of them were from Rui’an. In recent years， authors in Rui’an have created many national firsts in this field. Recently， Rui’an has been named a powerhouse of fables. The following accounts are about some writers whose stories are as fabulous as the fables they write.

The Colt Crosses the River

Peng Wenxi， a teacher in a rural school in Rui’an， created the river-crossing colt in 1955 when he was 29. One day he had an inspiration for a fable and hastily jotted it down on a piece of paper used specially for his class preparations. The story was mailed to New Teenagers News based in Shanghai.

The fable is about a colt who knows nothing about a river it wants to cross. So he asks a buffalo and a squirrel how deep it is. The buffalo says it is shallow and the squirrel says he once almost got drowned in the deep river. The colt wades across the river， finding it is not as shallow as the buffalo says it is and not as deep as the squirrel says it is.

The fable first appeared in 1957 in the Chinese textbook for fourth graders in primary schools across Beijing. Shortly afterwards， it was selected for the Chinese textbook for fourth graders all over the country. Today， it is in the textbook for second graders.

Experts say that the fable is a rarity， for most texts in Chinese textbooks were short-lived due to various reasons. While other texts came and went frequently through the ups and downs of five plus decades， this one has stayed. Moreover， the fable has been translated into 15 languages over the past five decades. However， most readers even don’t know Peng Wenxi wrote it， for in those years it was an established practice to drop authors’ names from textbooks.

The fable did not bring any success to the rural teacher. Shortly after the publication of the fable， Peng Wenxi was purged from the school because of his family background. He became a farmer and ran into serious financial problems. He was so poverty-stricken that he didn’t have money for his son’s school tuition. Fortunately， he received from the New Teenagers News four gift copies of a pictorial adapted from his fable. When the school leaders saw the four pictorials， they put their hands on the four books and waived the tuition. The junior was able to continue his education.

In a national program jointly held in 1979 by eight ministries of the country to select best fables， the one by Peng Wenxi won the first award. However， organizers were not sure who the author was. It was suggested that it might have been written by a foreigner as some jurors had read its English version. The organizers sought help from experts at Shanghai Foreign Languages University and the result was negative. Then they found a clue that led to the New Teenagers News. They searched the archives at the New Teenagers News and finally put their hands on the manuscript. All were surprised that it was written by Peng Wenxi， an unknown teacher in rural Rui’an of Zhejiang Province.

In 1980， Peng was notified that his fable won the first award. Since then， he was able to receive about a dozen of copyright payments a year， ranging from 50 US dollars to RMB 200 to 300 yuan per payment.

In 2009， he received a letter from the Hong Kong Education Authorities requesting the permission to have the fable in a Chinese textbook for students in Hong Kong.

Peng Wenxi died of heart attack on May 27， 2009 at the age of 84.

The Couple

After his graduation from Hangzhou University in 1962， Zhang Heming came to work as a Chinese language teacher at Rui’an Middle School. He met his future wife Hong Shanxin as a student in a freshmen class in the senior high of the school. He was a good teacher and she was a good student， both young and both active in arts and sports activities. In 1969， they got married. For a while， Hong still referred to her husband as teacher.

In 1970， Zhang Heming came to work as a playwright for Rui’an Yueju Opera Troupe. One of his best plays was adapted from “The Little Mermaid”， a fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson. The adaptation idea came from his wife after she had read the story. Zhang liked the revolutionary idea of creating a Yueju Opera play from a foreign fairy tale， something which no Chinese colleagues in this field had ever done in this field. Inspired， he did it and it was a success.

Zhang contributed a great deal to the success of his troupe. Years later he took over the management of the troupe and became its director while many other similar troupes ran into financial difficulties as they lost their fight to television. Under Zhang’s leadership， Rui’an Yueju Opera Troupe survived and became prosperous. In the second year， the troupe made a record of staging 518 performances. For five consecutive years， Zhang Heming was honored as a model worker of Rui’an and Wenzhou. The troupe even staged a performance in Zhongnanhai. In 1987 Zhang was awarded a National May 1 Model Worker Medal.

Zhang began to write fables and fairytales for his troupe. Over years he has created quite a few fairytale Yueju Opera plays including some for children. Moreover， he has written many fables and has published collections of his fable plays and fables.

The China Fable Research Association held a forum respectively in 2007 and 2008 on his fables. In 2009， he was elected a vice president of the association and he set up a prize to encourage people to write fables and fable plays.

It is not a coincidence that the names of his collections include the word princess. The couple has three daughters. And Hong Shanxin has done more than inspiring her husband and giving him ideas for creating writing. She also helped by making good copies of his manuscripts.

Budding Young Writers

It sounds like a fairy tale but Rui’an city does have a large crowd of budding young writers in local schools. Red Flag Experimental School， a primary school in downtown Rui’an， has a pupil population of 1，100 and “Buds in Clear Water”， the school’s literary association， has more than 200 young writers from all grades of the school.

It also sounds like a fairy tale but Rui’an City does publish “Little Flowers”， a literary publication targeting the school-age children， while many literary publications across the country have perished or are struggling hard for survival. Sponsored by Rui’an Literature Association， “Little Flowers” has come out more than 100 issues since its inception in the 1980s. The record print is 78，500 copies. “Jade Sea”， the city’s other literary publication operated by the same association， allots space for fables and for aspiring young writers.

Well， it does sound like a fairy tale if some writers in Rui’an establish their reputations as excellent fable writers from the galaxy of writers of all ages. Xie Bingqi， now a teacher at Mayu Second Middle School of Rui’an， won a third award at the Fourth National Golden Camel Fable Writing Awards last year. In 2008， Xie was elected a councilor of the National Fable Association. He is also the president of Rui’an Children’s Literature Association.

He says that Rui’an as a national powerhouse of fable writing marks a new departure point and that there is a long way to go. “We are always on the road，” says Xie. □