A land of creativity and imagination
Sichuan is a land of creative thought, which is why the world's best-known science fiction magazine is based there, said Han Song, a famous science fiction writer.
Science Fiction World, which was set up in Chengdu in 1979, is a monthly periodical with a circulation of nearly 400,000 copies a month.
The Three Body Problem, the first Asian science fiction novel to win the Hugo Award, one of the most prestigious science fiction awards in the world, was first published by the periodical. Its author is Liu Cixin, a Chinese science fiction writer.
In 1986, Science Fiction World started bestowing the Galaxy Award every autumn.
"It is the most prestigious science fiction prize in China. The grand prize-awarding ceremony attracts thousands of Chinese fans and writers from the United States, Great Britain and Japan to Chengdu," Han said. "The periodical is a famous brand of Sichuan where various possibilities about China's future are churned out from people's creative minds," he said.
Two of China's four best-known science fiction writers were born in Sichuan.
He Xi, 45, is an engineer in Zigong. His latest novel Year of Heaven, which is about a disaster brought by climate change, won the Galaxy Award this year.
"In another award-winning novella, he created six parallel worlds to accommodate the surplus Chinese population," Han said.
The other famous science fiction writer born in Sichuan is Han who "forecast" the attack of the World Trade Center towers in New York by terrorists in a science fiction novel in 1999. Han studied in the departments of English and journalism at Wuhan University in Hubei province from 1984 to 1991, earning his bachelor's and master's degrees.
He started writing science fiction novels at Wuhan University. In 1988 and 1990, he won the Galaxy Award twice.
Han has witnessed the change of Sichuan from a big agricultural province to a powerhouse of technology and industry with many state-of-the-art laboratories, ranging from aerospace engine development to nuclear fusion research.
Sichuan and Israeli medical scientists are exploring how to wipe out depression with gene technology. Another group of scientists are working 2,400 meters underground, the deepest laboratory in the world, to discover dark matter. Also, Sichuan people are famous for indulgence in consumerism. Many inventions derive from their love of a life of leisure, he said.
"Gimi, a Chengdu company, has developed a futuristic product called no-screen TV, which projects images anywhere at anytime and is especially favored by young people who like traveling," Han said.
(China Daily 09/28/2016 page36)
