Letter from China: The mythical deer with a growing fan base

By Xinhua writer Bai Xu
DUNHUANG, Gansu Province, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) — When I was a small girl, my favorite animation movie was “A Deer of Nine Colors,” which tells the story of a nine-colored deer who always helped people out of difficulties. Once she saved a man from drowning, but the man betrayed his benefactor, and was punished in the end.
I guess it is a shared memory of many Chinese people. Like a lot of others, I was fascinated by the aesthetic images of the movie and the omnipotence of the deer, without knowing where the story was from.
But today, if you search for the movie on Chinese social media, you will easily discover that it was based on the story of the mural “Deer King Jataka” from the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, a key hub on the ancient Silk Road in northwest China’s Gansu Province. Many internet users will also tell you that the magnificent original mural is in cave 257.
This is just one example of how people’s knowledge of and passion for Dunhuang has grown in recent decades, a view echoed by Liu Xuexue with the Dunhuang Museum.
According to the 36-year-old local woman who works as a guide in the museum, Dunhuang was a quiet place in the 1990s, and most of the visitors were foreigners.
This is partly because Chinese people back then were not as affluent as they are today. However, when I managed to travel two to three decades ago, I went to the coastal city of Qingdao as a teenager, and Mount Tai, one of the “Five Sacred Mountains” in east China, when I was at university. The idea of visiting Dunhuang had never occurred to me until several years after I became a journalist.
In contrast, as of Sunday, the city of Dunhuang with its population of merely 200,000 had received more than 7.24 million visitors so far this year, an increase of 21.54 percent year-on-year. There is such a large number of visitors that tickets to the Mogao Caves are sold out quickly during peak season, and the iconic Mingsha Mountain is packed with tourists dressed as flying apsaras for photos against the backdrop of desert.
My 14-year-old daughter asked me to take her to Dunhuang for such photos because her best friend at school did so during the summer vacation. She learned about the flying apsaras, typical images in the Dunhuang murals of celestial deities flying in the sky, from the recent hit TV drama “Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty.”
The Dunhuang murals have even inspired athletes in the Olympic arena. Chinese coach Sun Dan once led the rhythmic gymnasts to the city for a closer look at the movements of the flying apsaras, before bringing the performance to the Tokyo Olympics, where they finished fourth in the group all-around event.
In fact, Chinese cultural elements have appeared at international sports competitions on various occasions.
Ice-dancing pair Wang Shiyue and Liu Xinyu, who ranked 12th in Beijing 2022, setting a new best result for Chinese ice dancers at a Winter Olympics, wore outfits inspired by the ancient brush painting scroll “A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains,” and danced to the music from the animation film “Kung Fu Panda.”
Wang Liuyi and Wang Qianyi, in swimming suits in the Chinese Qipao style, showed their versatility in the artistic swimming duet free routine to the Chinese traditional music, clinching China’s first-ever Olympic duet title in Paris.
Behind the popularization was the growth of social media, movies and TV dramas, which allowed more people to see the charm of Chinese culture. A recent example is the phenomenal video game “Black Myth: Wukong,” which is inspired by the ancient Chinese tale “Journey to the West.” It meticulously recreates historical sites and ancient architecture, and lures people to follow the Monkey King’s footsteps and visit the real-world locations.
However, it boils down to an increasing interest and confidence of Chinese people in their own culture.
Wearing traditional attire, or Hanfu, is becoming a trend among Chinese young people, with Hanfu-renting and photograph stores popping up all over China. In many cities across the world, such as London and Paris, you can also see Chinese youngsters dressed in Hanfu playing Chinese musical instruments, such as the Guzheng and Pipa, in the streets.
The televised “Chinese Poetry Competition” has captivated audiences for years. Participants from all walks of life — scientists, students, deliverymen, police officers and pilots — showcase their knowledge of and passion for classical poetry.
Innovative products derived from artifacts in museums sell well as gifts or souvenirs: necklaces that draw inspiration from traditional brush painting in the Palace Museum; wooden combs in the shape of Pipa; vanity mirrors bearing patterns resembling the one on display in the Luoyang Museum of central China; keyboards with the colors of the Dunhuang murals and the nine-colored deer image…
“In recent years, there has been a boom in the number of such innovative products that are of use in various aspects of people’s life,” said Song Yanli, a saleswoman at the official gift shop of the Dunhuang Museum.
Noting that buyers today are knowledgeable enough to discern all the cultural elements adopted in the design, the 32-year-old said that they must develop more products to keep pace with public demand.
During my trip in Dunhuang, I also came across Xing Yanxia, a woman from north China’s Shanxi Province who worked as a cosmetician in a Hanfu-renting and photography store. Her job was to do the make-up for visitors borrowing flying apsara dresses for photos. She is scheduled to work in Dunhuang between July and October before returning to her hometown.
Last year Xing worked in Yunnan for several months, doing make-up for those wearing ethnic-minority costumes. “Everywhere in China has its unique cultural elements and styles, and I would like to learn as much as I can,” she said, beaming.
Nearly 50 years of age, the woman has a big ambition. “Maybe one day, I can start such a store in a foreign country and do make-up for foreigners,” she said. “Our costumes are gorgeous. They will like them too, won’t they?”
I don’t know if she will succeed or not, but one thing is for sure: the nine-colored deer from my childhood is being embraced by a growing number of fans, along with a multitude of other fascinating elements of Chinese culture. ■