Pulp Fiction Frenzy
Chinese serialised web novels are gaining traction in the English-reading world. Can Chinese pulp fiction enter the Western cultural market just as Japanese manga did twenty years ago?
By Yi Ziyi
Adapted from the same-titled web novel by Chinese author Tang Qi, fantasy television drama Three Lives, Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms (2017) became instant hits not just with local audiences but also abroad
Chinese Online Novels
An article titled “Chinese Web Novels Help Young American Quit Drugs” appeared in the Southern Weekly on March 16 and promptly went viral across China’s social media. It says a young Californian, Kevin Cazad, used to do drugs to ease the pain of a breakup, but ever since he came across a translated Chinese web novel, Coiling Dragon (Panlong, 盘龙), on Chinese web novel translation website Wuxiaworld.com, he was “completely intoxicated” and “totally forgot about cocaine.” “[Chinese web novels] are as addictive as drugs but at least they won’t kill me,” Cazad was quoted as saying.
As founder of Wuxiaworld and translator of Coiling Dragon, Lai Jingping, sees it, this novel-beats-drug story sounds somewhat selfaggrandising. But it is undeniable that a new craze for Chinese web novels has already swept a circle of Asian literature lovers in the English- reading world since late 2014, thanks to the efforts of various translation websites.
Web novels have become the primary driver for boosting China’s original popular culture. Analysts believe that if there is one thing in China that can rival Hollywood and Japanese manga in the future, it must be web novels.
“It takes time for Chinese web novels to enter the Western mainstream market. Fifteen or twenty years perhaps. After all, building a huge cultural brand like Nintendo’s Super Mario and Pokemon cannot be achieved overnight,” Lai told ChinaReport.
A Breath of Fresh Air
“Chinese web novels are able to make me forget everything else when I read them, focusing fully on just reading and I always feel a need to read more when I have caught up on the released chapters,” 26-year-old Dane Tina Lynge Hansen told ChinaReport.
It was Coiling Dragon that first brought Hansen and other readers into the wild world of the Chinese imagination. Before Chinese web novels surfaced in the English-speaking world, Japanese light novels and manga had proved popular among Western readers. Light novels, very popular among teens and young adults in Japan, refer to easyto- read works with light-hearted plots, simple language, short paragraphs and manga-style illustrations.