As China transitioned from imperial rule under the Qing Dynasty to the early days of the Republic, Bo’ai Road in Haikou’s Qilou area became the street for the local publishing movement that would redefine Hainan’s relationship with its homegrown literary and cultural heritage. The original Hainan Publishing House, one of several publishers that opened along Bo’ai Road, was the largest and most famous in Hainan at the time. Venerated Hainanese scholar Wang Guoxian, who the publisher employed as editor-in-chief, oversaw the writing, collation, and editing of numerous Hainanese literary collections. It is in no small part, thanks to him, that works written by ancient Hainanese scholars like Qiu Jun have survived into the present day. 

History has already happened, but what if we imagine for a moment that Wang Guoxian hadn’t stepped in at that crucial moment. Would the works of his scholarly ancestors still be accessible today? It is worth remembering that such writings are an important part of Lingnan culture, and had Wang not transcribed, annotated, and curated them, Hainan’s contributions to the collective culture of the Chinese nation, which are just as crucial as those of the country’s Central Plains region, would likely have been lost to history. 

Though the original Hainan Publishing House (the eponymously named, modern-day “Hainan Publishing House” goes back to 1990) is no longer in operation, its original premises on Bo’ai Road still stand as a testament to that generation of “saviors” who dedicated themselves to rescuing Hainan’s precious and ancient cultural and historical record, which includes various chronicles and works by famous literary and political figures.

As time and society moved on, Hainan’s literary treasure trove continued to disappear, ravaged by mites, or faded beyond recognition, and Hainan did not have an established tradition of book collectors reprinting texts. The severe crisis that Hainan’s literary and cultural heritage faced in the early years of the Republic of China riddled Wang Guoxian with anxiety. So, he and his colleagues embarked on a more than 40-year-long quest seeking out, researching, and collating texts from across Hainan and republishing them. From these works, we can understand so much more about Hainan’s society and natural environment across the ages. Through these works, this small tropical island off the southern tip of the Chinese mainland was able to make an outsized contribution to the cultural development of the Chinese nation.

In this episode, we follow Cai Pa as she walks in the footsteps of Wang Guoxian along Bo’ai Road to recapture the essence of this great man and his inspiring story of contribution to the preservation of Hainan’s literary and cultural legacy.