Early this year, one Beijing drama troupe had plans to adapt a story from an ancient Chinese novel into a modern play. While racking their brains trying to figure out how to embed modern elements into an ancient story, a consultant suggested they take the concept one step further: Why not set the play in the future?

The consultant, Zheng Jun, is a science fiction writer. Inspired by his idea, the team, mostly born in the 1990s, decided to set the story in the year 2677, 1,000 years after the novel's completion. Using the same plot, they developed scenes set more than 600 years from the present, and invited a magician, to create futuristic stage effects.

The producer of the play, Star Theaters, decided not to use the term "science fiction" to describe the play during its promotional activities. "For many audiences, this phrasing has strong connections to big budget Hollywood blockbusters," Hao Weili, Star Theaters' marketing director said on September 30. "We don't want to set high expectations and then end up leaving audiences feeling let down when they don't see those kinds of scenes in our play."

Convention in new landmark 

Zheng, the consultant, also prefers to be addressed as a futurologist instead of a science fiction writer, even though he has been writing sci-fi since the 1990s.

"Sci-fi literature has been excluded from mainstream literature in the past few decades," Zheng said. "For many people, sci-fi writers are full of unrealistic and crazy ideas but actually, a science fiction writer needs to have a solid knowledge of real-life science and technology in order to write well."

Hao and Zheng shared their ideas at a forum during the China Science Fiction Convention, running from September 28 to October 5 in Shougang Industrial Park in Shijingshan District of Beijing.

Serving as a comprehensive platform for exchange and communication within the science fiction industry, the convention, an annual sci-fi extravaganza, has taken place for six years since 2016. The government of Shijingshan District, host of the event, has been endeavoring to turn the area into a sci-fi hub, attracting enthusiasts from around the nation and the world.

The site of the event, Shougang Industrial Park, is a new landmark in Beijing, a giant repurposed industrial plant area. The factory was moved out of Beijing prior to the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Now, parts of the plant have been turned into venues for the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, to get underway in February next year. Most of the convention's activities are held in and around a blast furnace which has been transformed into a modern steampunk museum.

The convention is a festival for sci-fi lovers and those working in the industry. Along with a series of activities including thematic forums and an exhibition of new technologies, this year's event launched a science fiction carnival and the Beijing Science Fiction Film Week, displaying over 10 science fiction movies from both China and abroad.

Children and teenagers are the two of the event's major target demographics, with many toys, games and books on show for visitors.

Gu Bei, a female science fiction writer from Shanghai, conducted a survey in that very city, gathering information about the science fiction industry. It showed that children below 12 are the major age group interested in science fiction, making up over 40 percent of total respondents. "Kids are more likely to have a boundless imagination," Gu said. "That also explains why, for a long time, sci-fi novels have been categorized as children's books in China."

The survey also shows that when choosing to watch a sci-fi movie or read a sci-fi book, male consumers pay more attention to the knowledge content than female consumers. "Some even read sci-fi books to learn scientific and technological knowledge," Gu said.

A former computer programmer, Gu began her career in sci-fi by translating English sci-fi novels into Chinese and began writing her own in the process. "Imagination and knowledge are a writer's most valuable assets," Gu said.

The new boom 

Sci-fi literature was introduced to China over 100 years ago and has gone through many ups and downs ever since.

The current boom of the genre began with the hit book The Three-Body Problem by writer Liu Cixin and a blockbuster film, The Wandering Earth . The film, based on the eponymous novel, was released in 2019 and raked in 4.6 billion yuan ($719 million) at the box office.

The full scale of this sci-fi boom was detailed in a report on China's sci-fi industry released during the convention. The report showed that the output value of China's sci-fi industry reached nearly 36.3 billion yuan ($5.6 billion) in the first half of 2021, of which sci-fi literature contributed 1.4 billion yuan ($223 million), an increase of 12 percent year on year.

Last year, at the 35th Hundred Flowers Award, a national film award hosted once every two years, a special section was installed for sci-fi movies, the first time for a national film award to make such a move.

The convention also saw the establishment of the Beijing Science Fiction Industry Fund, which plans to invest 1 billion yuan ($154 million) in the capital's science fiction industry. China's first Science Fiction Industrial Consortium, which was jointly established by 40 enterprises, universities and research institutions in the industry, was also set up at the convention, aiming to link resources and talents from all sectors and create a sci-fi ecosystem.

Efforts to build itself into a center for the sci-fi industry have not ceased in Shijingshan District. In 2020, the district released a series of policies supporting the development of the industry with the cultivation of science fiction talent being a key part of its plan. In May, the country's first sci-fi education project launched in the district, with sci-fi classes being taught in the district's 10 schools, including both primary and middle schools.

Liao Hong, Deputy Director of the China Research Institute for Science Popularization hailed the convention as an imaginative and interactive experience for sci-fi lovers and teenagers. "The rapid development of China's science and technology sectors in recent years has opened up a new era of opportunity and development for this genre of fiction," Liao said.

(Print Edition Title:A Slice of the Future) 

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

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