Some brutal children's stories I read in China

Some children's stories I read back then in 2000s China were surprisingly brutal.

Fox court

In a forest where humans lived with animals, a farmer lost a chicken, so a fox organized a court and interrogated in suspects and testifiers. The true criminal was of course a wolf, but the fox was allied with the wolf, so he wanted to declare a herbivore guilty instead.

An unlucky sheep was ordered forward as a suspect.

• "Where were you at the night of the disappearance?
• "I was at my home sleeping, sir. My eyes can't see in the dark anyway."
• "Do you believe Mr Cow did this?"
• "I am 100% sure he didn't."
• "But you just said you can't see in the dark, and yet the crime happened in the dark. Have you just contradicted yourself?"

Then the fox immediately declared the sheep guilty and had her executed. The farmer was given the skin and wool of the sheep, while the fox got all the meat and bones and had a nice feast.

Zhengyuan Jie

The last story is pretty obscure, and I admit so. However the next few stories are far from obscure. They are written by Zheng Yuanjie, the best-selling author of children's stories for over 30 years. According to some sources, he was the richest author in China in 2009, earning over 2 million dollars in royalty every year. 

His main avenue of publication is his children's magazine King of children's stories (童话大王), started in 1985 and publishing until sometime in the 2010s. Its slogan was "Suitable for people between 8 and 80", and he was the only writer for the magazine.

The following stories are published between 1978--1999. I read them in a 33-volume Zheng Yuanjie compendium, bought directly on his website in 2006. This compendium seems to be out of print now, and the newer compendiums seem to be more censored. 

Murder ants (杀人蚁)

First published in serial version in 1995. Published as a standalone book in 2005.

They are gonna fuck soon, over a corrupt corpse, and have 50 children.

Everybody emits electromagnetic waves all the time, like a broadcast station. If you accept a bribe, steal some money, or earn money in some other immoral way, no matter how small the amount, your waves change, forever, unless you give up every single penny that you unjustly earned.

One day in a school, the biology teacher told each student to bring 5 ants for the next biology class. Come next class, the teacher put them all into a large glass bottle and taught about ant biology. The bottle was then forgotten for two weeks before being dumped into the trash, shattering in the process.

It turned out that ants were not only intelligent, but also had a very endogamic attitude. Ants are divided into families, and families cooperate within and fight other families. However, during the two weeks these ants, stressed by their captivity, started intermarrying, producing extreme mutants. 

1. Their venom is extremely deadly, able to kill a human in about 5 minutes.
2. They can now only eat the fresh blood of those humans that emit such a money frequency. They literally "follow the money".
3. Immediately after eating the blood, they mate and give birth.

These ants are the "murder ants". As the story describes explicitly:

The murder ants began to eat on Chenyi. They only eat fresh human blood. They don't eat blood after 20 minutes of death. Murder ants are the most wasteful eaters on the planet...

The murder ants eat in two sessions. First session lasts 5 minutes, then they breed riding the frenzy of feasting, upon the bridal bed of the corpse. Each male murder ant can have 50 offspring within 10 minutes. After the murder ants mate and give live birth, they eat human blood again to supplement their physical strength. The little murder ants will share a blood meal with their parents immediately after birth, and then they can go out to the world to find food by themselves. When the next prey is caught, the little murder ants would become fathers and mothers themselves.

After many such murders all around the world, three master detectives were assembled to figure out what was behind these murders. They immediately concluded that it was not committed by humans, and not for any traditional motivation. Their final clue was the death of a child.

In American stories, children are precious and cannot die except in the very grimdark ones. This is a very modern idea, starkly contrasting with Grimms' Fairy Tales, or Babes in the Wood. 

Guess what happens in this children's story? Children died. Lots of them. 

In the beginning, only adults died, because their electromagnetic waves were stronger, but as more and more corrupt adults died, the murder ants got desperate for food, and even children were being hunted. The first child killed was a student who robbed another student some money. When the three detectives arrived on the scene, his accomplice was nearby, and one detective demanded him to strip naked, and on his body found some of the murder ants.

Thus the mystery was solved.

Humanity, however, did not make any concerted effort to destroy these murder ants. Indeed, most people were terrified and started repenting, returning whatever money they thought were acquired in improper ways. One man, who has spent away the bribe money and thus could not return the money, decided to stay in the bathtub, because murder ants could not swim. In three days, he was surrounded by murder ants, and he killed himself by ripping off his water-drenched skin and bleeding out.

8 years later, after 200 million people were killed, the murder ants all starved to death. Although I suspect there are some still kept in biolabs, in case humanity needs more purging in the future. It makes sense, considering that some anti-corruption bureaus in the story started running murder ant farms during this cataclysmic event.

The adventures of Shuke and Beita, mice sworn brothers (舒克贝塔历险记)

This is a very long series, with 350 episodes, written in 1980s. While most of them are pretty... ordinary, by Western standards, there are certain episodes that would be decidedly rated "mature".

In one notable episode, they met some descendants of the mice living in Einstein's home. One of the descendants seduced Beita so that the others could steal their alien-tech UFO. In another scene, Beita was caught by a mouse mafia, thrown into a microwave oven and almost died. Before he almost died, he shouted "FA KE!" which is the Chinese transliteration of "fuck".

How five apples turned the world upside down (五个苹果折腾地球)

Some historical background first. This story was written in 1993. In the 1980s, China was deep in a science-mania, with pseudoscience sweeping through the contemporary culture. Qigong, UFO, turning water into oil, and other paranormal phenomena were widely believed, making some paranormal performers very rich. In this context, we could understand the use of UFO at the beginning of the story.

Some aliens flew by earth and poured waste water on an apple tree. Because the water on the earth and the water of the outer planet are different in composition, that year the apple tree only produced five apples, but people who ate it would gain cosmic energy and become superman. Not just people, in fact, as we will see.

Manni was a late-stage cancer patient. When she ate an apple with cosmic energy, she was immediately cured, and she could cure others too. When someone questioned her ability, she cured a liver cancer patient who had only ten minutes left to live, leaving no doubters.

A prisoner named Zhu Like, who was wrongly convicted of murder, ate the second apple on the eve of execution. Just before he ate the apple, the prison guard told him the truth: the real murderer, manager Long, bribed the court.

At the execution, no amount of bullets could kill Zhu, and he walked out, let the truth be heard, and got the real murderer convicted. 

The third apple was divided into three cans. 

First can went to Maddy. He liked to sing, but his voice was not good. Once, he went to a singing competition, but he only had five yuan left, so he bought can number 1. As a result, "his music cells were 20 times more than all the musicians in the world combined". 

He Xiaoyu was a student with poor academic performance before the college entrance examination One night, he ate can number 2 a and his brain immediately became a wit, becoming an intelligent superman. 

An old nameless woman, who went by the nickname "old scholar tree", begged her daughter-in-law for food, who only gave her a can of apples, which happened to be can number 3. She became the most accurate prophet in the world.

An abandoned dog named No-no (不不) ate the rotten fourth apple. Because it swallows the apple in its entirety, it gained the most cosmic energy. As a result, No-no becomes invulnerable and smarter than humans. It became the head of a city and treated the citizens of the city as monkeys, as revenge for the mistreatment he suffered.

When people realized that all these superhumans (and a superdog) turned super after consuming some kind of apple, people went crazy for apples. The superdog mayor got swallowed alive, and probably dead (despite being invulnerable). The price of apples went through the roof, and everywhere people faced the dilemma about whether they should sell their apples to get rich, or eat them for a chance to get super.

In the ending scene, the aliens returned to earth, realizing that they had accidentally messed up all of earth. They took away the superhumans so that they could live in peace with the aliens. People on earth remained in a frenzy, looking for the last cosmic apple.

Virus concentration camp (病菌集中营)

The title is an alternative name for "hospital", because every hospital concentrates viruses. 

Just a note: the phrase "concentration camp" has no psychological shadow associated with it in China, much like the swastika has no such shadow. I can remember another story with the title Pet concentration camp (宠物集中营, Yang Hongying, 2004), where the title refers to a casual remark by one protagonist, "Another dog? Are you turning my home into a pet concentration camp?"

So don't think about a "concentration camp" as indicating anything evil here.

Side note: modern Chinese spoken language has a lot of words from the military, likely a legacy from the communist era, when society was organized militaristically. As a few examples, we have 总动员 (total mobilization), 大本营 (central base camp), 前线 (frontline), 吹响集结号 (blow the bugle), 统一战线 (united front), 苦战100天 (hard battle for 100 days), 两面包抄...

Not saying that military words aren't used in colloquial English, but I found them used a lot even in daily language.

Back to the story.

The viral protagonist is Yuan Lielie, the "king of virus". He was over 100 years old, and was born on the body of Yuan Shikai, taking his surname. The human protagonist is ___, a doctor who had the ability to hear virus speak. In a routine disinfection process, he heard Yuan Lielie calling for him to stop, and in gratitude, Yuan swore allegiance with the doctor.

It turned out that all diseases are caused by viruses, including stroke and cancer. The doctor realized that all his education was wrong, and started teaching the theory to others, and got promptly committed to a mental hospital. He then immediately cured his roommates by shaking hands with them, letting Yuan command all their "schizophrenia viruses" to leave.

Subsequently, the duo went on an adventure curing patients, escaping corrupt officials, criminals, all over China, and even visiting America once to resurrect his murdered girlfriend. By the ending of the story, the duo was protected by the Chinese government. The government let it be known that a massive anti-corruption investigation has uncovered thousands of corrupt officials, and any one of those who would not give themselves up to the police by the end of the year, would suffer wrath from the king of virus.

Compared to the previous story, this story is somewhat more... optimistic, harmonious, or mainstream. So what makes this story somewhat disturbing is its pseaudoscientific theory of health, and it's not just because this is a fantasy story. The author did not go to middle school and has a generally very shallow understanding of science and technologies, and does not trust experts or authorities, preferring the wisdom of "common sense". 

Of course, just because this story states that "all diseases are caused by the presence of virus" does not mean that the author really promoted that theory, but reading the story made me believe it for a while. What makes the problem much more disturbing is that the story was published in a 2000 book, with a postscript short story narrated by a "playful cell". The cell said that in fact, cancer is just caused by "playful cells" that don't want to follow the rules all the time. It's the ignorant humans that think it is such a dangerous thing. To cure cancer, instead of the useless modern medicine, simply command the playful cells to follow the rules again by talking in a stern voice, and they would obey. Cancer cured!

Liu Cixin

While Zhenyuan Jie is completely unknown outside of China, and I would say that he's pretty obscure even in China nowadays, Liu Cixin is a pretty relevant sci-fi author even now outside of China.

Liu's claim to fame on the international stage happened in 2015, winning the Hugo Award for Best Novel by The Three Body Problem. However, before that book was translated in 2014, he has already enjoyed fame among Chinese sci-fi readers since the 1990s.

I have been checking out some English sources on Liu Cixin, and as expected, the information is scant on pretty much all his works except the Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy (Oh yes, it's a trilogy. He won the award just by the first book, pretty awesome!). 

Here I give summaries on his other works, unknown outside of China, but definitely known in China. I feel like they should be noted, considering the amount of anti-American attitude is by no means rare, but a reflection of general sentiments among the Chinese public. For obvious reasons, such stories won't ever get officially translated into English, but I think it's important for the English-speaking world to know about them.

Granted, these stories are not children's stories, but they are certainly middle-school level stories.

Demonic jigsaw (魔鬼积木)

This story, published in 2008, is notable for several things: 

1. its strong anti-American and pro-African attitude
2. its strong support for genetic modification, for the betterment of human species and of society, especially non-Western societies that don't suffer the fear of genetic engineering
3. PAN SPECIES COMMUNISM

By the roadside of a highway in Texas, geneticist Ola and a group of policemen were standing around a female corpse. The deceased was the daughter of Ola, but he did not appear surprised or overly sad. The policemen were very confused and worried, because the death was apparently caused by a heart attack caused by fright. Something literally frightened her to death.

They followed some snake-like trail leading to a sewers opening, and Ola followed the head of the police inside. They were greeted with a creature with the head of a human and body of a snake. Ola calmly told the snake-man that he must die, and returned to the surface with the policeman.

Outside, general Felix arrived with the army to control the situation and keep the incident confidential. 

At a dinner sixteen years ago, Felix and Ola at a dinner. Felix was worried that modern Americans were growing weak and peaceful, and could not face the cruelty of war like people of developing nations. 

Dr. Ola was from the African country of Sambia [a fictional country, likely based on Zambia]. He had been discriminated and insulted in Europe and the United States because of his skin color. And during his escape from Sambia, he witnessed Japanese vessels hunting whales in the name of science. He sublimated his experience into a desire for total equality, not only between different races, but between all creatures. People and whales, ants and snakes, all should be treated equally. He later developed his thoughts into "pan-species communism". In order to achieve this, he secretly tried to mix the genes of humans with those of other species to create new species. 

However, he could not continue, since the public hated his research. In one incident, he led a Sambian boy on stage at a United Nations meeting, and the boy ate tree leaves on a branched that Ola carried. Ola intended to show that he found a way to end world hunger, but this triggered a public backlash. The boy was assassinated on the plane back home.

Felix gave him a new opportunity. In the name of creating a "super warrior", he could receive government funding for his research.

So, the two collaborated on Project Genesis. The project had three bases. In Base 3, a group of creatures with up to 95% of human genes were born. They looked exactly like humans, but they were enhanced with traits from many animals: agile, fierce, unfeeling, cunning, loyal. The perfect soldiers. 

Seeing the success of Base 3, Felix decided to erase Base 1 and 2 for confidentiality. Base 1 was destroyed with every creature inside without Ola's knowledge. Dr. Ola encouraged creatures in Base 2 to start a riot. They were still slaughtered by the American army, but a few escaped. One of those was the snake-man that frightened Ola's daughter to death at the beginning of the story.

The two massacres completely disillusioned Ola. He secretly took a batch of embryos cultivated at Base 3 and fled back to Sambia. There, he found help and support for his "species communism", did more radical genetic modification experiments, and reformed Sambian society. 

After Felix learned about it, he was furious, so he led an armada to coastally bombard Ola's Sambian base. Before the decisive battle, Ola led some reformers to persuade Felix to withdraw from the US army, but the arrogant Americans would not hear about it. 

In the early morning, 30,000 silver-winged humanoid creatures appeared on the coast. They were the mutants that Ola secretly brought out from the No. 3 base and cultivated using the uteri of Sambian women. The US army did not expect such a weapon. Their usual anti-air methods were completely ineffective. Soon the entire fleet was sunk, and Sambia, Ola, and his growing nation of mutants were free.

Supernova era (超新星纪元)

Written in 1991, rewritten in 2003. I read the new version.

The gamma ray burst from a supernova washed through earth, destroying the genetic repair ability of everyone above 13, dooming them to die within a year. Every nation started a massive rush to train their children up to the task of running the society.

In China, a few dozen classes of elementary graduates were shipped to a valley in Beijing, where they were given taser-rifles and an order to defend their own camp by any means necessary. They decided to stand their ground facing a massive invading army, and was declared the winner of this Battle Royale, and they were trained to be the new leaders of China. Similar games happened all over the world, sometimes with real bullets.

When the day came for grownups to die, they left quietly on buses to die in caves. The new leaders of China watched the life-indicators installed in the caves blinking into darkness, as midnight came. Immediately, all of China fell into chaos from the vertiginous freedom. The massive quantum computer "Great Quantum" saved the day by simultaneously calling millions of people on the phone, telling them what to do.

A few months passed with Great Quantum keeping everyone safe, but slowly, a massive sense of purposelessness swept through the nation, and they stopped going to work, preferring to party and sleep all day. Only workers of the vital industries kept working. The leaders convened to deal with this, and the chief strategist realized that it was because real life is not fun. He saw that the citizens were building massive constructions in a computer game that looked like Second Life, and set about gamifying real life.

Meanwhile in New York, people were having fun fighting urban war, using real weapons and dying for real. The president was a hot-blooded boy, and the true strategist for America was the child of a crack cocaine addict. He was abandoned on the island of the Statue of Liberty, and in one awkward moment, the president saw him taking his regular cocaine injection.

As I said, Liu does not approve of America, or democracy. The new leaders of China attempted direct democracy by letting everyone vote on the important issues, and suffered political paralysis as a result. The lesson is, of course, a nation should be led by a select elite who cares for the masses, rather than the masses for themselves.

Then it was found that Antarctica was melting from global warming, and nations swarmed to it, eager to colonize it. A worldwide conference of the leaders resolved to hold a new Olympiad in Antarctica, but the games would all be war games. One game was for two tank platoons to rush towards each other from a distance of several kilometers and take each other out, stopping only when they meet in the middle. The games are scored by kill rates.

In one game, a Chinese infantry unit fought a Japanese infantry unit, but both sides broke the rules. The rules specified that only cold weapons were allowed, but the Japanese brought dogs and the Chinese brought hand grenades. The committee ruled in Japan's favor, since the dogs were merely "warm weapons" while the hand grenades were definitely hot.

Near the end of the game, the Americans invaded the Chinese command camp (have I mentioned Liu is against America?). In retaliation, China nuked the American camp. The game was over and nobody won, since Antarctica was freezing up again.

The president of America was ousted back home, since Americans lost badly in the Olympiad games, and he was replaced by a figurehead that had no problem letting the cocaine-addict strategist to make all the decisions.

The American strategist figured that the spirit of America was exploration, while the spirit of China was ancestral veneration. Seeing this, he proposed to the leaders of China to engage in a new big game: country swap. Americans would finally have a new land to explore, and Chinese would lose their ancestral power. 

The plan went through. Peace was finally achieved on earth, and within a few decades, humans started colonizing Mars.