Yeh Chun Chan, 1914-1999, is a translator and writer, best known to Chinese children and their parents, as the man who brought them the tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Yeh was born in the village of Hong’ an in Hubei province. As a pioneer of promoting the Chinese cultural values to the world, he translated many books on the anti-Japanese war to let the world know about China’s efforts to fight against fascism.
Translator at the center for anti-Japanese war
In 1936, after graduating from the Foreign Language Department of Wuhan University, Yeh went to Japan to teach English with the financial aid of his tutor Julian Bell. There he was arrested for alleged “dangerous thinking” and therefore repatriated one year later. He returned to Wuhan, which was headquartering the war against the Japanese, though his health was bad.
Yeh Chun Chan with his classmates
In Sept, 1937, the two parties in China (the Communist Party and Kuomingtang) declared their cooperation pact against the Japanese Empire for the second time. At the end of this year, Yeh became a member and cofounder of the National Literary and Artistic Association for the Anti-Japanese War under the pen name Mar. In Feb, 1938, He joined the 3rd department of politics of the National Government Military Affairs Commission. Together with other literati, he took charge of the anti-war propaganda, including translation, interpreting and English broadcasting.
During this period, Yeh met many famous foreign journalists, artists and writers, such as the American journalists Agnes Smedley, Epstein, Snow, a film artist of Netherlands, Mr. Ivens and the British poet H. Auden. As Yeh described, “This was a time of poetry, when the cruel reality and hopeful romance coexisted.”
Pen warrior in Hongkong
As the war condition changed, in August 1938, Yeh came all the way to Hongkong via Guangzhou city along with other intellectuals from mainland China including Mao Dun after the 3rd department was dismissed. They took on anti-Japanese propaganda secretly. At first, Yeh worked as an editor of World Knowledge, later he started the English journal Chinese Writers with Dai Wangshu and other Chinese writers and he was responsible for script selecting, translation as well as layout design, striving to introduce Chinese wartime literature to foreigners.
At the time, Yeh translated the wartime short stories by Liu Baiyu, Zhang Tianyi and Yao Xueyin which were issued in influential literary publications. He also published two collections of translated novels—Collection of Short Stories in China’s Wartime and New Mission.
Yeh Chun Chan with his friends in Hong Kong
Apart from translating books and pamphlets spreading new ideas, Yeh also translated Chairman Mao's On Protracted War and New Era (later known as On New Democracy) which were published in Manila. It was the first time that Chairman Mao’s major works were translated into English and distributed outside China.
Speaker on British Isles
Before the outbreak of the Pacific War, Ye traveled to Chongqing and taught at Chongqing University, the National Central University and Fudan University. In 1944, he was invited by the British Propaganda Department to give speeches around Britain. It took him more than one month to fly to London though Hump Airline.
In the next three months, Ye toured the British Isles and gave speeches at factories, military camps, hospitals, middle schools and churches. The schedule was rather tight. Ye gave at least two speeches per day. His speeches covered under what conditions was the Chinese people living, how the Chinese people fought against the atrocity of the Japanese invaders, how people from different fields got together to face aggression. He also told the British that the Chinese people would definitely win the war.
Yeh Chun Chan signing for European readers
Yeh gave nearly 600 speeches, exposing to British the indomitable fighting spirit of the Chinese people, a significant source of inspiration, which also aroused the empathy between the peoples faced with the Nazi aggression.
Yeh’s wartime speech tour wrapped up when Japan declared unconditional surrender on Aug, 15, 1945. Later, he worked at the British Council and studied English literature at Cambridge University until 1949, when he set off for China.
Yeh Chun Chan in Cambridge
(Rewritten by Min Liu,edited by Diana & Sijia Hu)
