The Silent Fight 无声的战斗 (1976) #

The Silent Fight 无声的战斗, illustrated by Wu Dacheng 吴大成, adapted from the work of Huo Miao 火苗, by Dong Yaogen 董耀根, translated by Haoran Xu, Lena Henningsen: Shanghai People’s Press, 1976. (No author or editor named).¹

Introductory note #

Haoran Xu

The artists #

The Silent Fight 无声的战斗 is a lianhuanhua adapted by Dong Yaogen 董耀根 from the works of Huomiao, published by Shanghai People’s Press in 1976. Huomiao is the pen name of Sun Wensheng 孙文圣, a writer who began writing children’s literature in the mid-1950s and whose works have been widely circulated both at home and abroad. Wu Dacheng 吴大成, born in 1945, is a professional artist at the Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, and he is especially good at painting Chinese characters. In this work, his use of black and white lines demonstrates the sketch-like quality of the figures and the painting style of early People’s Republic of China propaganda art.

The story #

This lianhuanhua is about the historical continuity and realistic conflict of class struggle, rendered from the perspective of Cheng Hai, a retired worker, referred to in the text as a veteran worker (lao gongren 老工人). The story begins when Cheng Hai happens to see Xiaobei, a young boy, with a cigarette in his mouth. Cheng Hai keenly realizes that the pupil is being seduced by a man with a shabby cap. Together with Zhuo Hong, the boy’s teacher, he eventually catches the bad guy who is corrupting the youth. To his shock, the bad guy turns out to be exactly the Guomindang spy who had persecuted Cheng Hai’s family before 1949. Published in the later stages of the Cultural Revolution, this work thus is closely aligned with the class ideology of Chinese society at that time. This story revolves around class struggle, reminding people to be alert to potential threats in society and not to forget class antagonisms and struggles.

A few remarks on language and translation #

The use of the character xiang 象 (which originally referred to an elephant and later came to signify ivory, as well as meanings related to similarity, imitation, and the outward form of something) firmly anchors the lianhuanhua within the era. The term “象” in this work refers to meanings associated with people or objects (Hu 2014), while “像,” which shares the same meaning and which is commonly used today, is not used. This confusion in usage is due to the fact that in the 1950s, the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme had mandated that “象” be used in place of “像,” and that “像” was considered the traditional form of “象”(Hu 2014). In the 1980s, “像” was re-designated as a standardized Chinese character. When the lianhuanhua was published, the character “像” appeared in the work as “象” because it was considered a traditional form of the character.

Early in the story, Cheng Hai’s wife is addressed as laoban 老伴 (a term used by elderly couples to refer to each other). In panel 46, this changes to “Mama Cheng 程妈妈”. This shift likely is due to her first meeting with Zhuo Hong, subtly hinting at the fact that she is Zhuo Hong’s mother. This change might also be due to her increased presence in the following episode, necessitating a more specific title for clarity. However, later on, “Cheng Hai’s wife” (laoban 老伴) and “Mama Cheng” alternate. To maintain consistency with the original text, the translation from 46 onwards uses the appellation given in the original.

In the process of translation, in order to be able to convey the meaning of the original text while ensuring the readability of the English language, some thoughts were given to the choice of words. For example, by translating the jiubianmao (旧便帽, literally “old cap”) as the shabby cap, we indicate the age of the cap without calling it old. We also choose to refer to Xiaobei as a pupil to indicate he is going to school and not to university. In Chinese, dog (gou 狗) is often used to emphasize contempt and express insult. Here, through the use of the phrase the gou dizhu (狗地主, literally “dog landlord”), the person is compared to an animal, deepening the insult to the landlord. Although the dog of a landlord may be awkward in English, this translation was ultimately chosen in order to maintain the insult while conveying the tone of the original.

The Silent Fight not only shows the distinctive features of the class struggle in Chinese society in the 1970s, but also profoundly reflects the influence of the political atmosphere on cultural works at that time through its unique artistic style and narrative techniques. As a comic strip published at the end of the Cultural Revolution, it foregrounds class antagonism and the continuity of history from the perspective of a retired laborer named Cheng Hai. The contemporary features used in the work, such as the mixing of the word “象,” reflect the dynamic changes in language and culture in the context of the times.

References #

China National Committee for Terminology in Science and Technology, 全国科学技术名词审定委员会, and State Language Commission, 国家语言文字工作委员会. 2001. “The Usage of ‘象’ and ‘像’ in Noun Meanings has Been Redefined—Meeting Minutes of the Seminar on the Usage of ‘象’ and ‘像’.” ‘象’与’像’在名词义上的用法有新界定——关于“象”与“像”用法研讨会会议纪要 China Terminology 科技术语研究 3 (4): 13–14.

Huomiao 火笛1976: The Silent Fight 无声的战斗 (adapted by Dong Yaogen 董耀根, illustrated by Wu Dacheng 吴大成, Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press.

Hu, Yirong, 胡易容. 2014. “A Semiotical Investigation on the Term ‘Icon’ in Chinese” ‘象似’还是‘像似’？ Signs & Media 符号与传媒 2014 (01): 39–50. https://doi.org/10.13760/b.cnki.sam.2014.01.007.

Sun Wenxian, 孙文圣. 2016. Chinawriter.com.cn. Accessed February 17, 2025. https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2016/0627/c404946-28492485.html.

Wu Dacheng, 吴大成. 2023. A & C Culture Center 美中文化产业中心. (February 6). Accessed February 17, 2025. https://acccnyc.org/en/artist/wu-dacheng/.

Read the translated lianhuanhua #

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We acknowledge the support of the ERC-funded project “Comics Culture in the People’s Republic of China” (CHINACOMX, Grant agreement ID: 101088049). We thank our colleagues Matthias Arnold and Hanno Lecher from the Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS), Heidelberg University, for providing us with high resolution scans of the comics which are part of the Seifert collection. ↩︎