Product ReviewsSherlock in Shanghai : Stories of Crime and Detection by Cheng Xiaoqing by Xiaoqing Cheng (2006, Hardcover)

A small sample of a large Chinese literature

: This is a collection of translated tales by a very popular Chinese writer of the early 20th Century. This selection of tales is, I presume, representative, but the translator makes it clear that it is only a small fraction of the work available. The characters of Huo Sang and Bao Lang will be very familiar to Sherlockians. They fit together very much like Holmes and Watson and their world is very similar to the Gaslight era of 1895. The feats of reasoning by Huo Sang leave his partner just as amazed as the good doctor until they are explained and the same air of wonder pervades Bao Lang’s recounting of his partner’s adventures.

Cheng Xiaoqing wrote for the popular Chinese Press from 1915 until the Communist Revolution in 1949. Besides almost singlehandedly introducing modern detective fiction to Chinese Literature, he was a major collaborator in the translation projects that made Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works available in Classical and modern vernacular Chinese along with those of Maurice Leblanc, Earl Derr Biggers, Leslie Charteris and S. S. Van Dine.

Cheng’s stories were mostly centered on Huo Sang and his biographer/partner, Bao Lang. This pair were clearly a Shanghai version of Holmes and Watson with a comfortable bachelor household, a devoted housekeeper and a circle of eager policemen looking for their help. There was even an expert criminal opponent, The South-China Swallow, a master thief along the lines of Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin. In 1945, a ‘complete’ pocket book version of the Huo Sang tales was published which comprised some 30 volumes, although the murky publishing history of his efforts makes the ‘complete’ tag questionable.

In addition to his writing, Cheng Xiaoquing taught at the High School attached to Soochow University for most of his life. After the Comunist take-over, the market for ‘frivolous’ fiction disappeared and his literary efforts were confined to a few adventure stories and classical-style poetry. It is most ironic that his work was in official disfavor with all three governments under which he wrote.

To the Kuomintang Literary World, his work was part of the “Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies” literature, works of no social significance or value. True Literature was supposed to instruct the reader in ways to improve society and move it away from the superstition and errors of the past. Not surprisingly, the Japanese Occupation Government approved only pro-Japanese oriented fiction, so Cheng was forced to produce most of his work during this period under pseudonyms. Finally, under Communist rule, his work was again thought to carry no uplifting social messages and was, of course, banned.

The irony of these viewpoints is that Cheng’s work was of enormous social significance in that it championed the rational approach to crime solving and to thinking in general. It was instrumental in introducing the elements of Western Thought to Chinese society in palatable form without actively advocating change. It merely made such changes seem reasonable and necessary. His villains were often corrupt officials and dishonest professionals, not traditional lower class idlers and misfits. His heroes were educated, rational people who cared about victims of oppression or cheating and who strove to improve society through leveling barriers.

Reviewed by: Philip K. Jones, August 2008.Read full review...