How did the Chinese-flavored “Princess’s Kite” come about?

 
  The Princess’ Kite is the sec­ond pic­ture book writ­ten by Jane Yolen that I have trans­lat­ed. The first isGood­bye, Hap­py Val­ley (illus­tra­tion by Bar­bara Cooney)In that sto­ry, she recounts in the first per­son how her home­town, the Hap­py Riv­er Val­ley, was flood­ed by the con­struc­tion of the Cob­bin Reser­voir. The sto­ry moved many, lead­ing many to believe it was a gen­uine account of her child­hood, when she lived in the Hap­py Riv­er Val­ley in Mass­a­chu­setts. In fact, she was a true New York­er, born and raised in the city. She moved to the vicin­i­ty of the reser­voir with her hus­band after mar­ry­ing and hav­ing chil­dren, and lat­er wrote the sto­ry. Her sto­ry­telling skills are tru­ly admirable.


   
Most Chi­nese read­ers were intro­duced to Jane Yolen through her pic­ture book “Watch­ing Owls Under the Moon,” which won the 1988 Calde­cott Medal. Of course, the award went to illus­tra­tor John Shon­en, but it’s hard to imag­ine the suc­cess of her work with­out Jane Yolen’s beau­ti­ful, qui­et sto­ry. She is a pro­lif­ic writer, not only of pic­ture books but also of poet­ry, fairy tales, nov­els, and non­fic­tion for both chil­dren and adults. She has won numer­ous awards, the most pres­ti­gious of which are two Neb­u­la Awards and a World Fan­ta­sy Award, two of the high­est hon­ors in sci­ence fic­tion and fan­ta­sy lit­er­a­ture. Over the years, she has cre­at­ed at least 150 high-qual­i­ty orig­i­nal fairy tales, beloved by read­ers. Some crit­ics have even hailed her as the “Amer­i­can Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen.” How­ev­er, she is some­what uncom­fort­able with this praise, explain­ing that she sim­ply enjoys turn­ing her life expe­ri­ences and feel­ings into sto­ries. For her, writ­ing is not just work; it’s also enter­tain­ment, or, in oth­er words, life itself.



 
 
Even a quaint Chi­nese folk tale like “The Princess’ Kite” is based on her life and, in her own words, is a semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal sto­ry. The emper­or in the book is Yolen’s father, and the lit­tle princess is of course her­self. She says she always want­ed to do things to please her father, but she nev­er found the right way.


Jane Yolen as a child with her par­ents

 
 
Her father, Will Yolen, was a mul­ti­tal­ent­ed genius. He worked as a jour­nal­ist and screen­writer, but his great­est pas­sion was kite fly­ing. His devo­tion reached such a high lev­el that he won the World Kite Cham­pi­onship and set a Guin­ness World Record for con­tin­u­ous kite fly­ing for 179 hours. He was one of the key fig­ures in pro­mot­ing kite fly­ing as a pop­u­lar sport in the Unit­ed States in the 1950s. His daugh­ter right­ly called him the “Kite King” in her ded­i­ca­tion. Leg­end has it that Will, so engrossed in his kite fly­ing, acci­den­tal­ly fell into Long Island Sound, and it was his daugh­ter who man­aged to res­cue him from the sea. A bit like a lit­tle princess sav­ing her father, isn’t it?


Jane Yolen worked as a news­pa­per edi­tor as a teenag­er, and it almost became her career.

Jane Yolen of Girls’ Gen­er­a­tion can sing and dance
I gave up bal­let just because of my body shape.

 
 
Jane Yolen’s inspi­ra­tion for this sto­ry stems from her father. It began in 1961, a year after grad­u­at­ing from uni­ver­si­ty at the age of 22, when she was look­ing to become a free­lance writer. Her father had asked her to write a book about kite fly­ing, and he asked her to be the “author.” Despite the mod­est roy­al­ties and the fact that her name could­n’t be on the book, she hap­pi­ly accept­ed. While research­ing every avail­able source on kites, she came across a book that men­tioned how Emper­or Shen, impris­oned in a tow­er, was saved by a kite. This inspired her, leav­ing a vivid image that stuck with her, and she wrote the sto­ry years lat­er.


It was a shame that the tal­ent­ed edi­tor, Susan Hirschman, ini­tial­ly reject­ed the sto­ry as unsuit­able for chil­dren!

 
 
How­ev­er, the book’s pub­li­ca­tion was some­what fraught. Around the mid-1960s, Jane Yolen’s pri­ma­ry col­lab­o­ra­tor left Macmil­lan. Susan Hirschman, who sub­se­quent­ly took over the depart­ment, dis­ap­proved of the sto­ry. She frankly told Yolen that she was­n’t very good at writ­ing chil­dren’s sto­ries yet, and per­haps she would gain some insight after hav­ing her own chil­dren. Susan, a top edi­tor, had been the right-hand woman of leg­endary Harper’s edi­tor Ursu­la, and it was she who dis­cov­ered Pat Hag­gins in 1967 and men­tored her in the clas­sic Hen Rose Goes for a Walk. Even the best edi­tors can make mis­takes. For­tu­nate­ly, Jane was a con­fi­dent writer, and she asked her agent to con­tin­ue sub­mit­ting her work to oth­er pub­lish­ers. Final­ly, in 1966, she found a kin­dred spir­it. Ann Bene­duzzi, edi­tor at World Pub­lish­ing, not only decid­ed to pub­lish the book but also hired Chi­nese-Amer­i­can artist Yang Zhicheng to illus­trate it—a tru­ly remark­able com­bi­na­tion!

It turns out that Yang Zhicheng’s debut in the Amer­i­can children’s book indus­try is relat­ed to Ursu­la Nord­strom!

The sto­ry of Yang Zhicheng and Ursu­la is also writ­ten in “The Pow­er of Child­hood”

 
 
Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, Yang Zhicheng’s debut in the Amer­i­can chil­dren’s book indus­try coin­cid­ed close­ly with Jane Yolen’s. Ini­tial­ly work­ing as an adver­tis­ing design­er in New York, he enjoyed sketch­ing ani­mals in Cen­tral Park in his spare time. A friend rec­om­mend­ed him to Ursu­la of Harper’s. Ursu­la was so impressed with Yang Zhicheng that she imme­di­ate­ly com­mis­sioned him to illus­trate The Nasty Mouse and Oth­er Nasty Sto­ries by Wood­ley (author of “Trees Are Good”), pub­lished in 1962. Although Yang Zhicheng him­self dis­liked the book and nev­er col­lab­o­rat­ed with Ursu­la again, it won the Graph­ic Design Asso­ci­a­tion’s Award for Excel­lence that year. Pub­lish­ers flocked to him, and Yang Zhicheng was drawn into the chil­dren’s book world, a posi­tion he would lat­er deep­en.




Illus­tra­tions for The Princess’ Kite, whose bold white space is still stun­ning today!

 
 
The artist imbues this sto­ry with a rich Chi­nese fla­vor. Not only does he accu­rate­ly depict the author’s intend­ed nar­ra­tive, but his images reveal some­thing more, per­haps even unimag­ined. The most strik­ing aspect is his use of paper-cut­ting as his pri­ma­ry cre­ative medi­um, a ground­break­ing exper­i­ment in the West­ern pic­ture book world at the time. Even more strik­ing is his gen­er­ous use of white space in the com­po­si­tion. This not only con­trasts with the vibrant paper-cut illus­tra­tions but also allows for a vibrant “qi” (ener­gy) to flow through the can­vas. The atten­tive read­er can sense the flow of this ener­gy, hint­ing at the artist’s explo­ration of the qual­i­ties of wind. This cre­ative approach embod­ies the spir­it of tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese literati paint­ing, offer­ing a fas­ci­nat­ing glimpse into Zen phi­los­o­phy. Around 1965, Yang Zhicheng began study­ing under Zheng Man­qing, a mas­ter of poet­ry, cal­lig­ra­phy, paint­ing, mar­tial arts, and med­i­cine, and pre­sum­ably grad­u­al­ly gained insights.


Yang Zhicheng first met the retired Wujue old man in the Unit­ed States to treat his leg dis­ease, but because of this oppor­tu­ni­ty, he became his dis­ci­ple!

 
 
The Princess’s Kite won the Calde­cott Medal in 1968, the first tru­ly pres­ti­gious award for both the artist and the writer, giv­ing them a sig­nif­i­cant boost in their cre­ative careers. The book also won the Lewis Car­roll Book­shelf Prize, a tru­ly remark­able award, mean­ing it “deserves to be placed on the same shelf as Alice in Won­der­land”! This tru­ly deserved hon­or is tru­ly remark­able. This leg­endary sto­ry of love and loy­al­ty, illus­trat­ed with vibrant and beau­ti­ful Chi­nese illus­tra­tions, is a true addi­tion to any book­shelf.



Ajia …
Writ­ten in Bei­jing on March 5, 2016(Revised on Jan­u­ary 2, 2017)

[Trans­la­tion High­lights 1: Ded­i­ca­tion]
 
  The ded­i­ca­tion of the author and painter of The Princess’ Kite is very inter­est­ing. The author Jane Yolen wrote: “For my father,
who is the king of the kite fliers, and for my lit­tle princess,
Hei­di
Elis­a­bet.” — Ded­i­cat­ed to her father, the rea­son has been men­tioned above; but why is it ded­i­cat­ed to her “Lit­tle Princess Hei­di”? It is a fam­i­ly anec­dote: in 1962, Jane Yolen mar­ried David Stamp (who lat­er became a famous com­put­er sci­en­tist).



 
 
The cou­ple’s first few years were filled with romance. In 1965, they decid­ed to take a break from reg­u­lar work and embark on a year-long Euro­pean tour, one tak­ing pho­tos with a cam­era, the oth­er writ­ing on a type­writer. They trav­eled for about eight months and, when they arrived in Rome, dis­cov­ered they were expect­ing their daugh­ter, Hei­di.


Jane Yolen and David Stam­p’s hap­py fam­i­ly, Hei­di has two younger broth­ers

 
  Hei­di was born in 1966. Dur­ing the peri­od of her preg­nan­cy, Jane Yolen sold the copy­right of “The Princess’s Kite”.
“Lit­tle Princess” is her lucky star!


   
When Hei­di grew up, she first worked in oth­er pro­fes­sions, and lat­er turned to writ­ing chil­dren’s books, main­ly col­lab­o­rat­ing with her moth­er.

 
  The orig­i­nal ded­i­ca­tion by illus­tra­tor Yang Zhicheng reads: To my moth­er, “Rival­ing the
Clouds,” for her gift of bound­less ener­gy and artis­tic
resource­ful­ness, and to the friend­ly rival­ry of ACS where it
This is ded­i­cat­ed to his moth­er. I know his mother’s Chi­nese name is Tang Yun, but “Rival­ing the
“Clouds” may be a char­ac­ter or an alias, it’s hard to guess (I ini­tial­ly guessed it might be “Lingyun”
ACS, I found out, is like­ly the for­mer abbre­vi­a­tion of his alma mater, Art Cen­ter Col­lege of Design (now renamed), but I’m not entire­ly sure. So, regard­ing the trans­la­tion of this ded­i­ca­tion, I had to ask Yang Zhiben him­self. He kind­ly replied, and the orig­i­nal image is below:


   
This is the ori­gin of the Chi­nese trans­la­tion of the ded­i­ca­tion, “Saiyun.” I sus­pect this very Chi­nese sto­ry remind­ed Yang Zhicheng of his moth­er, whose ener­gy and artis­tic inspi­ra­tion seemed bound­less, and the image of the kite also has some con­nec­tion to “Saiyun.” (Also, Yang Zhicheng’s moth­er was born in the Year of the Drag­on; could this also be relat­ed to the image of the kite?) Out of curios­i­ty, I found a biog­ra­phy of Yang Zhicheng’s father, “Yang Kuan­lin: Chi­na’s First Gen­er­a­tion Mas­ter of Archi­tec­tur­al Struc­tur­al Engi­neer­ing Design,” which includes a pho­to of his moth­er:

 
  This is a pho­to of her and her moth­er-in-law Yang Jiang! It turns out that Yang Zhicheng’s eldest broth­er is the son-in-law of Qian Zhong­shu’s fam­i­ly——


   
Mr. Yang Kuan­lin trag­i­cal­ly passed away in 1971, dur­ing that unique era. How­ev­er, I once had the priv­i­lege of hav­ing lunch with Mr. Yang Zhicheng, and he spoke of his father with fond mem­o­ries. He told me a sto­ry about how his father built a unique house for his fam­i­ly in Shang­hai in the 1930s. It sound­ed like a leg­end. This sto­ry is now avail­able in Eng­lish, and I’ve read it myself. He was tru­ly an extra­or­di­nary father!


Yang Zhicheng’s child­hood sto­ry “The House My Father Built”

[Trans­la­tion Extra 2: Princess’ Name and Food Names]

 
  The Eng­lish name of the pro­tag­o­nist of “The Princess’ Kite” is: Dje­ow
Seow, accord­ing to pro­nun­ci­a­tion, is sim­i­lar to “petite”, but the sto­ry explains that the mean­ing of this name is “small­est”, so “petite” is def­i­nite­ly not appro­pri­ate as a name.

 
 
How­ev­er, on the first page of the main sto­ry, there is a char­ac­ter for “膠”. This is of course the “胶” in “glue”, but it may also be used as a sur­name in Chi­nese.Dje­ow
Could Seow pos­si­bly be “膠小” (膠小) or “膠小小” (膠小小)? We also con­tact­ed the author and illus­tra­tor through the copy­right agency regard­ing this ques­tion. As shown in the image above, Yang Zhicheng con­fi­dent­ly stat­ed that the “膠” he used here sim­ply means glue. The copy­right hold­er, Jane Yolen, respond­ed on behalf of the author:


As for
“Dje­ow Seow”: I believe this is intend­ed to be a Chi­nese name that
trans­lates as “the small­est one,” but rather than writ­ing it in
Chi­nese char­ac­ters (which Amer­i­cans would­n’t know how to
pro­nounce), they spelled it out as best as they could using Eng­lish
let­ters. Do I explain myself clear­ly? I hon­est­ly don’t think the
author would know the cor­rect Chi­nese char­ac­ters to use, but maybe
the pub­lish­er can come up with some­thing based on the mean­ing and
sounds of the name.


 
 
In short, sim­i­lar to my ini­tial spec­u­la­tion, Jane Yolen like­ly did­n’t design this Eng­lish name based on any Chi­nese char­ac­ters she knew. Instead, it was derived from a hypo­thet­i­cal or per­haps an unheard-of pro­nun­ci­a­tion. Even the illus­tra­tor, who knew Chi­nese at the time, could­n’t fig­ure out which char­ac­ter it was. So, we had to cre­ate a name based on the orig­i­nal mean­ing, and that’s how “Lit­tle Princess” came to be.


 
  In the sto­ry, the lit­tle princess’s dai­ly food deliv­ery to her father trapped in the tow­er is also very inter­est­ing. There is a pop­py­seed in the orig­i­nal text.
Cakes, what is this? See the pic­ture below:



 
 
It turned out to be a pop­py seed cake! In such a dis­tant ancient time, how could a lit­tle princess send such a West­ern-style cake to her father in the tow­er every day? Per­haps Jane Yolen was think­ing about the “Opi­um War”? Any­way, for­eign­ers’ asso­ci­a­tions with Chi­nese food are actu­al­ly quite sus­pi­cious. How­ev­er, pop­py seeds are used in Chi­nese food, gen­er­al­ly used to make cook­ing oil, called “impe­r­i­al rice oil”. Pop­py seeds are also called “impe­r­i­al rice”, and the word “impe­r­i­al” has a roy­al con­no­ta­tion. So pop­py­seed
In this book, cake is trans­lat­ed as “御米冰” (note that it is not “御米冰”).
(As for what “impe­r­i­al rice cakes” taste like? I haven’t tried them either. Next time, I’ll try to adapt the pop­py seed cake recipe and make them into pan­cakes. Per­haps they’ll taste good too!) (*Note: Regard­ing the Chi­nese food in this book, a young read­er went to the US to ask Jane Yolen in per­son how she came up with it. The Amer­i­can author frankly said she had no idea; it was illus­tra­tor Yang Zhicheng’s idea!)

 
 
Just a secret, the “water chest­nut” in the orig­i­nal text was orig­i­nal­ly “water cal­trop”. I also changed the recipe and I feel that water chest­nut is more suit­able for the emper­or on the tow­er to fill his stom­ach ^_^