By the Yang River 洋河边上 (1974) #

By the Yang River 洋河边上, adapted by Zhi Yi 志一, illustrated by Ye Yongsen 叶永森, translated by Astrid Y. Xiao, Tianjin: Tianjin renmin meishu chubanshe, 1974.¹

translation and introduction: 1 February 2026

Introduction to the text #

Astrid Y. Xiao

Compared with other lianhuanhua published on the ChinaComx website, By the Yang River 洋河边上 is a non-typical example of the genre, and this fact becomes immediately apparent upon entering the first panel. The images are not enclosed by frames, nor is the text uniformly arranged along the margins of the page. Instead, text and image are interwoven in a highly adaptive manner. In panel 2, for instance, the text is positioned in the lower right corner of the page, inserted into the blank space between the vividly colored protagonist and the muddy road. Likewise, in the final double-page panel, the protagonists (including the rescued little mule) pose for a conventionally jubilant group portrait; here the text is placed in the blank space beside the grandmother. Thus, this children’s lianhuanhua appears closer to the genre of the picture book, which foregrounds the coordinated effect of image and text. However, picture books are generally neither this small in format nor this brief in length. This observation thus raises an ontological question about lianhuanhua itself: what is lianhuanhua, or more precisely, what works can be said to belong to this category? Within the field of children’s lianhuanhua, the answers are notably diverse, and the boundaries remain far from clearly defined.

Returning to the narrative, By the Yang River, like Niqiu Protects the Watermelons 泥鳅看瓜, was also published in 1974, in the fading years of the Cultural Revolution. The author of the original story is Hao Ran 浩然, a writer who occupied a distinctive position during the Cultural Revolution, and whose works were able to obtain official permission for publication during that time. Hao Ran is described as a “peasant novelist” (Huang, 1976), a designation derived from his reputation for writing about rural life. His best-known novels in the Western world are The Golden Road 金光大道 and Bright Sunny Skies 艳阳天, with the background of the Land Reform Movement and the Agricultural Collectivization Campaign of the 1950s. Compared with these two, his short children’s stories from the 1950s to the 1970s are less well-known. Nevertheless, these stories were produced in large numbers, and some of them were adapted into lianhuanhua thus reaching a wide readership.

The story is quotidian, and it can also be read as a coming-of-age narrative of an elementary school student Guoqing 国青. The young protagonist’s name carries symbolism: guo 国 denotes the nation, whereas qing 青 refers to youth (e.g., 青年; 青春) and also to a blue-green hue (青色), a color associated with vitality and spring. It is worth noting that Hao Ran is particularly adept at exploiting the symbolic potential of his protagonists’ names. In The Golden Road, for instance, the name of the heroic protagonist Gao Daquan 高大泉 connotes perfection and flawlessness by homophonic association (for further discussions of the implications of Gao Daquan, see Richard King’s Millstones on a Golden Road, Chapter 5, pp. 111-135). During his summer vacation, Guoqing returns to the countryside. His grandma is driven by an excess of protective concern. She restricts his outdoor playful activities and insists that he remain at home, which leaves Guoqing deeply frustrated. Fortunately, the boy’s second eldest great uncle (二老爷) intervenes, vouches for the boy, and secures him an opportunity to learn how to swim. In the end, Guoqing puts his hard-earned swimming skills to use by rescuing a little mule that has accidentally fallen into the water, an animal belonging to the people’s commune. “I never imagined that my little Guoqing is so capable, and so thoughtful too…” Grandma reflects with great satisfaction at the conclusion of the story (panel 24). At this point, the adaptor of the lianhuanhua steps forward to deliver an explicit exhortation:

Dear little friends, that’s the end of the story. We hope you will also go out into the world, face the high winds and waves, learn from the workers and the poor and lower-middle peasants, grow through real-life practice, and become reliable successors to the great revolutionary cause of the proletariat. (panel 24)

This message is absent from Hao Ran’s original story and added by the adaptor. It is possible that this “high winds and waves” (大风大浪) draws upon a paraphrase of Chairman Mao’s well-known formulation: “High winds and great waves are nothing to be feared. Human society has developed precisely through such high winds and great waves” (大风大浪也不可怕 人类社会就是从大风大浪中发展起来的) from the Speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s National Conference on Propaganda Work in 1957 (在中国共产党全国宣传工作会议上的讲话, read the speech here). It may also be an allusion to the 1967 People’s Daily editorial entitled “Advance Forever with Chairman Mao through Great Winds and Waves” (永远跟着毛主席在大风大浪中前进, read it here). In this editorial, the newspaper revisits Chairman Mao’s remarks on winds and waves and cites his poetic line “Wind batters me, waves hit me—I don’t care. Better than walking lazily in the patio.” (不管风吹浪打 胜似闲庭信步, Mao, 1972, p.83). In the end, the editorial exhorts the “young revolutionary vanguards” (革命的小将们): “Let us forever follow the great leader Chairman Mao and advance through great winds and waves!” (让我们永远跟着伟大的领袖毛主席 在大风大浪中前进).

Setting aside the propagandistic exhortation that surfaces in the final panel, the story bears political imprints in multiple respects. These are evident in the construction of the protagonists. Guoqing is presented as ideologically “red from root to tip” (根正苗红) because he was born into a family of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (panel 1). As both guide and guardian to Guoqing and the other children, Great Uncle also possesses an impeccable revolutionary pedigree. He is introduced as having once been “a brave guerrilla fighter” and is now identified as “an old poor peasant” (panel 6), which renders him a figure of unquestioned respect and trust. Political inscription is also apparent in Guoqing’s summertime endeavors. Each attempt he makes (hauling earth from the fields, panel 2; picking fruit, panel 3; and rescuing the little mule, panels 16-24) is for fulfilling his promise to his father to “receive re-education from the poor and lower-middle peasants” (panel 1) and to contribute to the collective labor and welfare of the people’s commune. In this sense, even the most mundane actions in the narrative are framed as meaningful acts of ideological practice.

Nevertheless, in comparison with other Cultural Revolution-era lianhuanhua that foreground struggle and revolution, By the Yang River maintains a balance between political inscription and everyday narrative appeal. Put differently, even if one were to strip away its political elements, the work could still be read as a self-contained short story with a coherent plot and elegant prose. The adaptor preserves the concision and liveliness of Hao Ran’s language, particularly in the nuanced rendering of dialogue, interiority, and gesture, as well as in the depiction of the big water training drill scenes (panels 8, 9, and 10). The visual presentation of this watercolor-illustrated, full-color lianhuanhua is exquisite. Its paper quality is conspicuously superior to the thin and fragile stock typical of most lianhuanhua of that time: it is thick, durable, and capable of rendering saturated colors with clarity. More than half a century later, the copy preserved by ChinaComx shows only slight yellowing, while the colors remain vivid. This material endurance testifies to the fact that even during the (late) Cultural Revolution, when the cultural publishing industry suffered severe disruption, children’s books of high quality continued to be produced and circulated.

Finally, for readers whose engagement with this lianhuanhua has prompted a deeper interest in Hao Ran, By the Yang River, or more broadly in rural life and childhood in northern China during the second half of the twentieth century, and for those wishing to further develop their Chinese-language proficiency, the translator recommends consulting a 2021 essay by Liang Dongfang 梁东方 listed in the references below, as it offers further information about the lianhuanhua’s adaptation and its historical context. It also explains why this work deserves sustained attention from the viewpoint of a contemporary Chinese editor.

Explanations regarding translation #

On the translation of personal kinship terms: the lianhuanhua does not specify the genealogical basis of the “二 second” in 二老爷. That is, whether this ranking derives from the paternal or maternal line, or whether it functions merely as a loose form of address. After consulting Hao Ran’s original text, the translator was able to determine that 二老爷 in fact refers to “the first younger brother of the maternal grandfather” (Hao, 1980, p.127). Within the narrative, however, this precise genealogical positioning is not of particular importance, so the translator adopts the more general rendering “second eldest great uncle” (panel 6), subsequently shortened to “Second Great Uncle” (e.g., panel 7) or simply “Great Uncle” (e.g., panels 9 and 10). This decision merits explicit clarification here because kinship relations in rural China are highly intricate, and ordinal ranking carries significant social meaning. Such rankings index relational proximity within the family and village, as well as hierarchies of seniority and authority (e.g., elders conventionally occupying positions of greater power than juniors). For this reason, in everyday practice and in literary representation alike, rank-based appellations such as 二老爷 often supersede personal names altogether, and they function as the primary (and sometimes exclusive) mode of reference to an individual.

On the translation of onomatopoeia: Hao Ran’s original text makes extensive use of onomatopoeic expressions (e.g., 噼里啪拉; 噗通) to depict scenes of diving and bodily movement in water. The lianhuanhua adaptor preserves these vivid sound effects and even introduces additional ones. For instance, the “Pu-tong pu-tong” (扑通扑通) in panel 10 does not appear in the original text by Hao Ran but is added by the adaptor to echo the “Pi-li pa-la” (噼里啪啦) in panel 9, which produces a parallelism across panels. In the English translation, these onomatopoeic expressions are rendered in pinyin. This choice is intended to allow readers to apprehend the splashing vitality of the riverscape through sound and feel the sensory immediacy of the short story.

Reference #

Hao, R. (1980). Haoran ertong gushi xuan [Selected children’s stories by Hao Ran]. Beijing Chubanshe.

Huang, J. C. (1976). Haoran: The peasant novelist. Modern China, 2(3), 369–396.

King, R. (2013). Milestones on a golden road: Writing for Chinese socialism, 1945–80. University of British Columbia Press.

Liang, D. (2021). Yu Haoran youguan de ‘Yanghe bian shang’ [The stories related to Hao Ran’s “By the Yang River”].” Bolanqunshu, (2), 58–61.

Mao, Z. (1957, March 12). Zai Zhongguo gongchandang quanguo xuanchuan gongzuo huiyi shang de jianghua [Speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s National Conference on Propaganda Work]. Marxists Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/chinese/maozedong/marxist.org-chinese-mao-19570312.htm

Mao, Z. (1972). The poems of Mao Zedong (W. Barnstone, Trans., intro., & notes). University of California Press.

People’s Daily. (1967, July 16). Yongyuan genzhe Mao zhuxi zai dafeng dalang zhong qianjin [Advance Forever with Chairman Mao through Great Winds and Waves]. Zhonghua Wenku. https://www.zhonghuashu.com/wiki/%E6%B0%B8%E8%BF%9C%E8%B7%9F%E7%9D%80%E6%AF%9B%E4%B8%BB%E5%B8%AD%E5%9C%A8%E5%A4%A7%E9%A3%8E%E5%A4%A7%E6%B5%AA%E4%B8%AD%E5%89%8D%E8%BF%9B

Read the translated lianhuanhua #

Front cover, title page, and back cover

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