On the evening of December 15, Zheng Yuanjie revealed on Weibo that "Fairy Tale King", which was launched in 1985, will be suspended in January 2022. In a letter from Zheng Yuanjie to three trademarks, she said that the main reason for the suspension was to "devote all energy to the protection of 672 infringing trademarks."
36 years ago, "The Fairy Tale King" came out of nowhere, creating a miracle in the history of Chinese children's literature. It can be said that "Fairy Tale King" accompanies the childhood years of many post-70s, post-80s and post-90s readers. The news of the suspension of publication suddenly came, making many people express their reluctance.
One person wrote for 36 years, it turned out to be "character-driven"
On the 20th anniversary of the founding of "Fairy Tale King", a commemorative album was published. On the title page, Zheng Yuanjie wrote four big characters of "personality". "I have what I have today, which is entirely due to character. My personality is not good, my heart is not open-minded, and I will repay my eyes. But without this, at least "Fairy Tale King" would not have been written alone for 36 years. ”
Born in 1955 in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, Zheng Yuanjie served in the military, repaired airplanes, and worked as a worker. In her 20s, Zheng Yuanjie worked as a worker in an instrument factory in Beijing and made a girlfriend, whose parents were intellectuals, and Zheng Yuanjie did not graduate from elementary school. At that time, his girlfriend's family told him that he had to go to college to continue the relationship, and Zheng Yuanjie decided to break up decisively. After returning home, Zheng Yuanjie made a list, calculating that he could win a successful career, and found that from learning foreign languages to engaging in scientific research, he had to go to college, so he crossed out one by one and finally stopped at writing.
On May 30, 1978, his fairy tale debut, Gecko and Bat, was confirmed for inclusion in the children's journal Sunflower, and the editor returned a handwritten letter affirming that his ideals of writing for children were remarkable. Zheng Yuanjie set this day as the starting point for his children's literature creation.
Zheng Yuanjie, who worked tirelessly, quickly became famous, and almost all of his works were published in famous children's publications across the country. Some magazines sold 100,000 copies because of their popularity. But then he discovered a problem, that is, in that era of a thousand words and two dollars, his income would not rise because of magazine sales, and his payment was not proportional to his income. Later, he came up with the idea of running his own children's publication, which was later "Fairy Tale King". At that time, he proposed royalties instead of royalties, which was a precedent at the time. Three years later, the monthly sales of "Fairy Tale King" exceeded one million. The huge sales of "Fairy Tale King" once made Zheng Yuanjie the writer with the highest royalty income in China, earning 20 million yuan in 2009.
The proportion of text in "Fairy Tale King" is extremely high, and for a long time the proportion of text and pictures exceeded 9:1, and all the stories were completed by Zheng Yuanjie, and the intensity of work can be imagined. For many years, Zheng Yuanjie went to bed at eight o'clock every day, got up at 4:30 a.m. to write "Fairy Tale King", and wrote the prescribed amount of 6,000 words for 2 hours a day and then went to work.
From "The Legend of Shuk Beta", "Roque the Great Bad Wolf", "Pentium Money Detector" to "Rubik's Cube Mansion", Zheng Yuanjie has created a large number of classic fairy tales. His stories incorporate many of his thoughts and unique educational concepts, which have inspired many children's childhoods.
Agreed to his son's withdrawal from elementary school and supported his daughter to attend a doctorate
On the first day of Zheng Yuanjie's son Zheng Yaqi's primary school, he was shocked by the words "no breath" used by the teacher when reprimanding the students, and went home to tell Zheng Yuanjie, and Zheng Yuanjie was also shocked. Later, Zheng Yuanjie felt that this kind of education lacked respect for children, so he proposed that his son withdraw from school, and at home he gave Yaqi a private school-style education, using his own textbooks, involving writing, philosophy, morality, self-help, mathematics, physics and chemistry, etc., with fairy tale characters as the protagonists to connect the knowledge points of the textbooks, and teach his son in the way of storytelling. In this way, Zheng Yaqi spent three years to complete the six years of middle school classes.
Zheng Yuanjie once explained in an interview with the media: "It should be said that if there is no computer and no Internet, I am not at ease to let Zheng Yaqi never go to school again and no longer contact with his peers." The Internet compensated for the interpersonal problems that arose from his absence from school. He has a lot of netizens, chats on the Internet, and often goes out to meet and play together. ”
Contrary to Zheng Yaqi, Zheng Yuanjie's younger daughter Zheng Yafei is a bully who was admitted to six colleges and universities in the United States at the same time. Zheng Yuanjie once said that what kind of education a child is suitable for let him receive what kind of education, and he also supports his daughter's love of going to school, and even said that he wants her to study for a doctorate.
I once bought 10 suites in one go to store letters from readers
In January 2017, Zheng Yuanjie's father, Zheng Hongsheng, recalled a past event on his WeChat public account, mentioning that in the 1980s and 1990s, Zheng Yuanjie received a large number of letters from small readers every day, and at most, thousands of small readers wrote letters every day. There are more and more letters from readers at home, what should I do if I can't put them down? Zheng Yuanjie decided to buy a house to store letters from young readers. At that time, the house price in Beijing was 1400 yuan per square meter, and Zheng Yuanjie bought 10 houses in one go. Today, the price of these houses has doubled by dozens to hundreds of times. Some people think that it is just a paragraph, but unexpectedly, this matter has been confirmed by the party Zheng Yuanjie.
Zheng Yuanjie said: "These ten houses have never been lived, never rented, never sold, all are still there, and the letter also "lives" in it. Zheng Yuanjie also said that with the development of the Internet, handwritten letters are becoming less and less, and now young readers interact with him through Weibo or Douyin. On Weibo, Zheng Yuanjie continued her humorous and humorous style, just like reading a letter more than twenty years ago, sometimes transparent, sometimes naughtily replying to readers, and once because of "God reply", it was on the hot search.
Some people were troubled by being urged to get married, saying that they did not want to get married, Zheng Yuanjie replied that "this is the right granted by the Civil Code"; some people hope to get off the list as soon as possible, and he wishes that "if you meet the right person as soon as possible, there is no suitable resoluteness that cannot be difficult for him, rather than living in the same bed and dreaming of life, it is better to die alone than to seek defeat and be proud of the crowd".
Wrote for 36 years and 32 years in advocacy
In China's children's publishing market, "The Fairy Tale King" itself is a "fairy tale" that is difficult to copy. From its inception in 1985 to its last issue in December 2021, Fairy Tale King has published 495 issues, with a total print run of more than 200 million copies and a maximum circulation of more than 1 million copies per month. In 1985, the inaugural issue of "Fairy Tale King" was also auctioned for 100,000 yuan. When talking about the reason for the suspension, Zheng Yuanjie frankly said: "I myself am also very sad, very helpless, very lost, but there is no way, there is no way to take the next strategy of a strong man who breaks his wrist." I've been thinking about this decision for over a year. If there were any other way, I wouldn't have stopped the Fairy Tale King. ”
Zheng Yuanjie specifically mentioned three trademarks registered in bad faith in her Weibo post announcing the suspension of publication. Among them, the Pipilu trademark is used to sell pork skin meat, while the fairy tale king and Shuk trademarks are used to sell children's clothing and underwear, respectively. He said: "I have used the three trademarks for 32 years to defend my rights without success. Behind you, there are 672 infringing trademarks waiting for me to defend my rights. I can only suspend the writing of the monthly magazine "Fairy Tale King" from January 2022 and devote all my energy to defending the infringing trademarks until all 672 infringing trademarks are successfully defended. ”
Over the years, Zheng Yuanjie has always been on the road of safeguarding rights. It can take years to defend a trademark that infringes intellectual property rights. For example, he said that it took 14 years for a restaurant to register the Pipilu trademark without his authorization; a company registered the Halosisi trademark for the sale of marinated food, and it took him 10 years to successfully defend his rights; a company registered the Shukbeta trademark for the sale of rat food without his authorization, and it took him 9 years to successfully defend his rights. Zheng Yuanjie once said in an interview: "Since 1981, when I named Pipilu, Lusisi, Shukbeta, and Roque the Great Bad Wolf, I had the consciousness of preventing infringement, and I deliberately did not use common Chinese words as the names of my original literary characters, only used imaginary names." Since 1993, I have registered 280 trademarks for my original well-known literary character names Pipilu. My awareness of intellectual property protection is not strong, but I still can't hide from your covetousness and crazy plagiarism. ”
Before deciding to use the suspension of "Fairy Tale King" to attract everyone's attention, Zheng Yuanjie also used another trick, "I am still writing new works, but I do not take it out and publish it." When the trademark infringement has stopped and all the infringed cases have been successfully defended, it will be published. At present, there are 5 million words in the computer. The reason for this is that as soon as my work is published, I can quickly find that the names and titles of the people in the article are registered, and the infringement situation is more serious. For writers, works are like their own children. I don't want these 'kids' to be in danger outside. ”
For rights protection
Readers expressed their support
And look forward to resuming publication as soon as possible
Source: Cover News, Xiaoxiang Morning News, Shanxi Evening News, China Youth Daily, China News Network, etc