Chinese science fiction

Chinese science fiction (traditional Chinese: 科學幻想, simplified Chinese: 科学幻想, pinyin: kēxué huànxiǎng, commonly abbreviated to 科幻 kēhuàn, literally scientific fantasy) is genre of literature that concerns itself with hypothetical future social and technological developments in the Sinosphere.

Science fiction in China was initially popularized through translations of Western authors during the late-Qing dynasty by proponents of Western-style modernization such as Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei as a tool to spur technological innovation and scientific progress.

With his translation of Jules Verne's "Fifteen Little Heroes" into Classical Chinese, Liang Qichao became one of the first and most influential advocates of science fiction in Chinese.

In 1903, Lu Xun，who later became famous for his darkly satirical essays and short stories, translated Jules Verne's The Cannon Club and Journey to the Centre of the Earth from Japanese into Classical Chinese (rendering it in the traditional zhang wei ban style and adding expository notes) while studying medicine at the Kobun Institute (弘文學院 Kobun Gakuin) in Japan. He would continue to translate many of Verne's and H.G. Wells' classic stories, nationally popularizing these through periodical publication.

The earliest work of original science fiction in Chinese is believed to be the unfinished novel Lunar Colony (月球殖民地小說), published in 1904 by an unknown author under the pen name Old Fisherman of the Secluded River (荒江釣叟). The story concerns Long Menghua, who flees China with his wife after killing a government official who was harassing his wife's family. The ship they escape on is accidentally sunk and Long's wife disappears. However, Long is rescued by Otoro Tama, the Japanese inventor of a dirigible who helps him travel to Southeast Asia searching for his wife. They join with a group of anti-Qing martial artists to rescue her from bandits. Deciding that the nations of the world are too corrupt, they all travel to the moon and establish a new colony.

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