Child's play
Jiang Feng had many dreams. As a teenager, he wanted to be a journalist, a writer, and a professor. Some 20 years ago, he wanted to build China's first museum of children's literature.
Surprisingly, they have all come true. Now, 13 years after his formal retirement, 83-year-old Jiang serves as curator of the Museum of International Children's Literature, unveiled in May in his hometown of Jinhua, Zhejiang Province.
A few decades ago, Jiang received a letter from a teenage boy. Haifeng, a junior-high student, wanted some advice from the eminent author and researcher of children's literature.
The boy from Hubei Province had his head in the clouds: Sometimes he aspired to be a musician, sometimes an athlete, other times a photographer. It was not an exaggeration that he set his eyes on a new profession every week.
Through the help of the local paper's editors, Jiang started correspondence with the boy. He told the youngster to cherish his ambitions and work for them. "To fulfill any of these dreams would be the bliss of your life, but you've got to take one step at a time," he wrote.
"The bird of happiness does not fly from heaven," he went on. The editors printed this line from his letter, setting in motion a chain reaction. A girl from Hainan Province by the name of Liang Qiuwan, upon reading the article, started writing to Jiang. Their correspondence continued for several years, until she graduated from elementary school "when she probably had to face the realities of life or just had too much homework weighing her down".
Liang's first letter was simply addressed to "Grandpa Jiang Feng, Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province". Miraculously, it was delivered to his right door. "The post office might have known my name because I had a lot of mail," he explains.
Jinhua is a small city in eastern China's Zhejiang. In 1925, Jiang was born into an artistically endowed but economically deprived family in the town. His father was a painter, and his mother unschooled but well versed in classical poetry. She read him Tang Dynasty (AD618-907) poems when he was little.
At 12, the family fled into a deep mountain to hide from Japanese invaders. In the absence of the village teacher, the young teen had to take over and teach local kids about the beauty of classic tales. "I'm a natural with kids. I can talk with them when others fail," he says.
Jiang credits his third-grade math teacher for his fondness for children's literature. Si Zihui would wear a slender cheongsam (a traditional Chinese dress), a big smile, talking in a sweet voice. Jiang does not remember anything from her explanation of math formula, but her weekly story telling was etched deep in his mind.
Many of the stories were from classics, and she would give names of the characters to the students. But Jiang did not get one. He felt slighted, tears rolling down his face.
"Come to my office after class," she told him.
"I'm sorry I forgot to give you a name," she apologized, "but I'll give you my favorite children's book." Then she inscribed the following line: "Don't be afraid to be ordinary, but always remember that your ordinary heart will set off extraordinary sparks."
That was the moment he fell in love with children's literature, Jiang recalls.
Jiang's first piece of children's literature was published in 1943, and it was called The Duck that Fell into Water. He was still in school.
After he graduated he became a correspondent for a big newspaper in Shanghai, but kept up this hobby. One day, he came upon a news item about three youngsters who jumped off a mountain in an effort to turn into immortals. They had been inspired by a comic strip.
This tragedy gave him the idea that children's literature should provide positive guidance to the target reader.
In the 1950s, Jiang shifted gear and began researching children's literature. Since then, he has broken new ground in many areas: He was the first in China to stand on a college podium and lecture on the subject; he penned the first book of theory in New China; he edited the first literary history and then the first reference book; he was the first to revive the course after the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) brought everything to a standstill; he was the first to offer a master's degree in the field; and he is either the first or the only Chinese juror of several international awards for children's literature. The list goes on and on.
Jiang's take on the subject has evolved over the years. In the 1950s and 60s, under heavy Soviet influence, he emphasized the educational value of such literature.
"(Now) I believe it should be literature first and foremost," he says. And he does not eschew entertainment value, either, "which can also be a form of education".
"Children nowadays have much wider knowledge than our generation when we were at their age," he says.
And children's literature has also flourished in China. However, he regrets how commercial pressure has led many promising writers onto a path of high productivity and quick profits.
"There are facets to the Harry Potter series that are very successful," the theorist ponders on Western influence on this generation of young readers. "But it is too early to tell whether it'll be a classic. It has to stand the test of time."
Jiang did not wind down when he retired in 1994. He started to offer non-diploma graduate classes to those with similar interest. Over the past 13 years, 358 people have taken his courses, three of them older than he was and some were accomplished in their own right.
He also started a small free newspaper, which he publishes four times a year, with a circulation of 3,500 copies.
But talking to other authors is not enough. He has kept the door open for a direct channel with the ultimate readership - the children. Every year, he would go to the local Children's Palace and offer classes on children's poetry. "The most important thing is to encourage them to let their imagination fly free," he says.
In one such class in 2003, he asked a group of adolescents to interpret a black dot he had put on a piece of white paper.
Some said it was a small bug, some a burnt meatball, some a tadpole with its tail hidden. One kid deciphered the dot as "a window on history" and wrote a 70-line poem that pretty much went through thousands of years of Chinese civilization.
Wang Jinye, a fifth-grader, said it was "the eyeball of an Iraqi kid yearning for peace".
Jiang took a sigh of relief that China's 370 million children have such an abundance of food for thought.
"However much I've given to children, they have given me more."
(China Daily 07/03/2007 page20)
