My Uncle Jules 我的叔叔于勒 (1980) #
My Uncle Jules 我的叔叔于勒 (1980), adapted from the French original by Guy de Maupassant by Sun Yufan, illustrated by Pang Bangben, translated by Aijia Zhang, published in Lianhuanhua bao 连环画报 08/1980, pp.13-161
translation and introduction: 6 March 2026
Introduction to the text #
Aijia Zhang
My Uncle Jules is a short story by Guy de Maupassant. The plot of this story is simple: a poor French family dreams of rescue from poverty by their Uncle Jules, who left years earlier to seek his fortune overseas. While on a one-day trip to celebrate the wedding of their second daughter, they unexpectedly encounter him working as an oyster seller on the ship. Shocked and embarrassed, the family quietly leaves.
Though simple, the story is widely known in China as a classic because it is included in the ninth-grade Chinese textbook published by the People’s Education Press, whose textbook series is the most widely used in China. Available evidence shows that it has been selected for at the tenth and eleventh editions of the People’s Education version textbooks, meaning that students across the country using this edition have been studying it since at least 2006 (People’s Education Press, accessed Feb. 18, 2026). Being widely circulated and studied, the story of Jules has likely become a shared memory for at least one generation of students, and possibly more.
Other evidence may push the circulation history of the story in China even further back, as shown in Images 1 and 2. The lianhuanhua editions published in 1980 and 1983 belong to the series Zhongxuesheng Huaku (Painting Collection for Middle School Students) and Zhongxue Yuwen Huaku (Painting Collection for Middle School Chinese). Their inclusion in these educational lianhuanhua series suggests that the story had already been selected as reading material for Chinese students by at least the 1980s:
Cover page of the lianhuanhua adaptation of My Uncle Jules, Tianjin People’s Art Press, 1980. Source: Kongfuzi jiushuwang.
Cover page of the lianhuanhua adaptation of My Uncle Jules, Hunan Children and Youth Press, 1983. Source: Kongfuzi jiushuwang.
Coincidentally, My Uncle Jules was also illustrated and published in the eighth issue of Lianhuanhua bao in 1980. Lianhuanhua bao is a monthly magazine founded in 1951 and published by the China Fine Arts Publishing Group (see also Are You A Communist?. In this version, the story is presented concisely in four pages with a total of twenty-four panels. The decision to translate the lianhuanhua bao version is more of an aesthetic choice for the appreciation of its visual style.
When adapted into both the textbook and lianhuanhua, the narration of the story has all been changed. These differences become especially clear when comparing the opening paragraphs of the three versions: Maupassant’s original story, the lianhuanhua bao adaptation, and the Chinese textbook version:
English version (Maupassant): “A white-haired old man begged us for alms. My companion, Joseph Davranche, gave him five francs. Noticing my surprised look, he said: …” (Maupassant, transl. Fullreads, accessed Feb. 18, 2026)
Lianhuanhua bao version: “A white-haired old man begged us for money, so I gave him a five-franc silver coin. Noticing my companion’s surprised look, I told him a childhood story that I will never forget.” (Sun, 1980)
Textbook version: “When I was a child, my family lived in Le Havre. We were not well off, just managing to get by. My father worked and came home late from the office, earning very little. I had two sisters.” (People’s Education Press, 2013)
These openings illustrate how the story’s narrative framework was reshaped in the process of adaptation. In Maupassant’s original, the story begins in the present: the narrator observes his friend Joseph Davranche giving money to a beggar, and the friend then recounts a childhood memory to explain his action. When the story was selected for the textbook, however, the narrative frame was removed entirely. The story now begins directly with the narrator’s childhood in Le Havre, shifting the perspective from an adult recounting a remembered explanation to a child recalling a family episode. In discussions of this revision, an article posted on Sohu (2020) argues that this textbook adaptation “loses its authentic aura and twists its core theme,” replacing Maupassant’s sympathy with a more overt moral critique of how a money-driven society distorts human nature.
The Lianhuanhua bao adaptation occupies a position between the two. Unlike the textbook version, it retains the opening episode in which an adult gives money to a beggar, thus preserving the narrative frame of a present action leading into a childhood recollection. However, the perspective shifts slightly: instead of Maupassant’s narrator observing Joseph Davranche, the narrator himself gives the coin and explains the reason to his companion. In this way, the lianhuanhua version remains closer to the structure of the original story while simplifying the narrative voice and adapting it to the concise visual storytelling format.
If we further examine teaching plans designed for the textbook version, the story’s theme is often summarized as follows: by depicting how the father’s attitude toward Jules changes with the latter’s rise and fall in fortune, the story portrays the family as snobbish, cold, hypocritical, and selfish, thereby vividly exposing the indifference of human relationships in a money-dominated society (Cheng, 2024). Character analysis is similarly framed within a moral contrast. For example, Joseph’s (the boy) addressing the destitute sailor Jules as “sir,” noticing his miserable and exhausted appearance, and silently giving him a tip are interpreted as signs that his heart is filled with familial affection and compassion. His kindness and innocence are thus contrasted sharply with the selfishness and cruelty of the parents, conveying what the teaching plan describes as the author’s hope that “everyone could show a little more sympathy toward the weak and a little more warmth toward their relatives” (Cheng, 2024). This reading is by no means an isolated case. On the contrary, a search for teaching plans for My Uncle Jules in Chinese will generate teaching plans of remarkable consistency. From Gu’s article in 2006 to Cheng’s publication in 2024, the same thematic summary and moral message are repeatedly reproduced. This reflects how a text is appreciated and interpreted in the context of school education, oftentimes with a prescribed theme and meaning.
The People’s Education Press loves this story because elements in it can lead to and support the lesson that “in capitalist society, relationships between people are essentially monetary relationships” (Cheng, 2024). Yet students may remember it differently. Regardless of the textbook interpretation, ask almost any Chinese reader about My Uncle Jules, and they will smile knowingly and say, “Oyster!” The vivid depiction of well-dressed tourists savoring oysters left a deep impression on generations of students, especially for inland children like me, who grew up at a time when oysters were not that commonly found. Here, by presenting the lianhuanhua version of My Uncle Jules, we hope to present how foreign stories are interpreted, adapted, and remembered within a different cultural context.
Notes on the translation #
For this translation, in addition to the usual side-by-side transcription and translation texts, we have prepared a scanlated version for easy browsing as well; this was done in partial inspiration by John A. Crespi’s work on scanlating manhua.
References #
Cheng, Yufeng 程玉凤 2024: “Wo de shushu Yule” jiao’an sheji 《我的叔叔于勒》教案设计 [Teaching plan for “My Uncle Jules”]. Accessed online (last access Mar. 6, 2026).
de Maupassant, Guy: “My Uncle Jules.” Transl. by Fullreads. Accessed online (last access Mar. 6, 2026).
Gu, Qing 顾青 2006: “Wo de shushu Yule” 《我的叔叔于勒》 [Teaching material for “My Uncle Jules”]. Accessed online (last access Mar. 6, 2026).
Lianhuanhua Bao 连环画报: Digital archive. Accessed online (last access Mar. 6, 2026).
Lianhuanhua Bao 连环画报 1980.8: Wo de shushu Yule 我的叔叔于勒 [My Uncle Jules], adapted by Sun Yufan 孙玉凡; illustrated by Pang Bangben 庞邦本. Tianjin: Tianjin renmin meishu chubanshe. First edition September 1980.
People’s Education Press 人民教育出版社 2013: Jiunianji shangce yuwen jiaocai 九年级上册语文教材 [Ninth Grade Chinese Textbook, First Semester], 10th/11th ed., Beijing: People’s Education Press. Accessed online (last access Mar. 6, 2026).
Scribd 2026: Renjiaoban jiunianji shangce yuwen dianzi keben 人教版九年级上册语文电子课本 [People’s Education Edition Ninth Grade Chinese Textbook (digital version)]. Accessed online (last access Mar. 6, 2026).
Sohu 搜狐 2020: 《我的叔叔于勒》：教材删去了3处关键信息，毁了原著的“灵魂” [“My Uncle Jules”: The textbook removed three key details and destroyed the ‘soul’ of the original]. Accessed online (last access Mar. 6, 2026).
Sun, Weimin 孙为民 1980: Tianjin: Tianjin renmin meishu chubanshe. Accessed online (last access Mar. 6, 2026).
Shuang, Lin 霜林 1983: Changsha: Hunan shaonian ertong chubanshe. Accessed online (last access Mar. 6, 2026).
Read the translated lianhuanhua #
This translation was produced by Aijia Zhang, a PhD student at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Heidelberg University, supervised by Lena Henningsen. The translator acknowledges the support of the ERC-funded project “Comics Culture in the People’s Republic of China” (CHINACOMX, Grant agreement ID: 101088049). My thanks go to the ChinaComx team for their helpful comments on previous versions of this text and translation, and to our research assistants for producing the high resolution scans of the journal. ↩︎