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When a Chinese mythic world travels without translation_我的网站

A |     本报讯 《日报》全媒体记者 赵丽杰报道  2月19日，建昌县杨树湾子乡蒙古营子村个别地块上，5台挖掘机、10台翻斗车、1台装载机正在紧张修复被洪水冲毁的耕地。                   “8·20”洪涝灾害过程中，市自然资源局委托辽宁省核工业地质242大队有限责任公司，建昌县自然资源局配合，出动30余人及16架无人机。经过一周时间对水毁耕地情况调查，通过影像和现状图对比研判，初步统计，全县水毁耕地面积5.75万亩，其中可恢复4.1万亩，不可恢复1.65万亩。主要分布在黑山科乡、雷家店乡、大屯镇、杨树湾子乡、和尚房子乡等。    

    Chen Aijun works in an optical shop in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Aug. 14, 2026. (Xinhua/Lu Youyi)The video came with almost no instructions.
There was no narration explaining the mythology behind palaces rising above an ocean of clouds in the video, nor subtitles identifying the heavenly gates, cranes or tiny figures moving beneath them.
Yet viewers outside China quickly began naming the world for themselves.
Some called it "paradise." Others saw a "Celestial Palace" or an "Immortal Realm" familiar from Chinese fantasy games and television dramas. One user wrote, "Waiting on Wukong to show up," invoking the Monkey King from the Chinese literary classic "Journey to the West," or the hit game "Black Myth: Wukong."
The interpretations differed, but viewers did not seem to need the same cultural knowledge to enter the conversation.
Earlier this month, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning shared the 33-second AI-generated video on social media with a question: "What does the Chinese heaven look like?"
It opened up a hermeneutic discussion, with responses overseas suggesting a cultural image does not necessarily need to elicit exactly the same interpretation for everyone in order for it to be viewed meaningfully.
"The right to interpret ultimately lies with the audience," said Zhang Zheng, deputy dean of Tsinghua University's School of Journalism and Communication.
People encountering unfamiliar cultures inevitably draw on what they already know, Zhang said. Rather than fully grasping every cultural reference, what matters is whether audiences can encounter the work, understand it and respond to it emotionally.
Before strangers abroad could interpret this particular world, however, it first had to get out of one man's head.
Chen Aijun, 34, is an optometrist in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.
By day, Chen leads a quiet, down-to-earth life in a neighborhood optical shop. Inside, he worked among eyeglass frames and optometry equipment. On his computer was another landscape entirely: cloud seas, immense palaces, flying cranes and figures in ancient robes.
Chen's heaven did not come from any single ancient text.
Growing up in the 1990s, he watched "Journey to the West" and later encountered "The Investiture of the Gods," xianxia (immortal heroes) novels and fantasy games. Those stories mixed over time with images of Chinese architecture and landscapes he saw online.
He has never visited nearby Mount Emei, and most of what he knows of Mount Huangshan's famous sea of clouds comes from videos.
What appeared on his screen was therefore not a reconstruction of one fixed mythological scene, but a world shaped by traditional stories already filtered through television, novels, games, the internet and his own memory.
For years, Chen had no way to make that world visible.
He never studied painting, design, photography or 3D modeling. After high school, he joined his parents' optical business and eventually took over the shop.
Generative AI changed the gap between imagining an image and possessing the technical skills to show it to someone else.
More than a year ago, Chen began teaching himself through free online tutorials. In September 2025, he started regularly posting AI videos, and a month later began experimenting with palaces floating above clouds. He has since published more than 200 videos.
The process, however, involves far more than entering a few prompts. The technology lowered the technical threshold, but it did not make the choices for him.
When creating Nantianmen, the mythical heavenly gate, Chen first defines the spatial rhythm and tonal hierarchy, pairing towering architecture and cloud seas with deliberately miniature figures to amplify the celestial realm's grand scale.
If the result does not match the picture in his mind, he tries again. He often generates over 1,000 images a day, revising a single scene repeatedly before moving on to animation, editing, color grading and music.
The machine can generate a thousand possible heavens. Chen still has to decide which one is his.
"AI-produced images can be soulless, and it takes human inspiration and aesthetic sensibility to endow works with warmth and vitality," he said.
Zhang believes Chen's experience reflects a broader shift brought about by generative AI. He said AI is giving people without conventional artistic training access to forms of expression that once required specialized skills. But what they create still depends on what they bring to the tool.
"A person's existing knowledge inevitably shapes how they use AI," Zhang said.
Chen brought his memories to the machine. Viewers abroad, in turn, brought theirs to the image.
"Everyone brings their own associations to these scenes," he said.
If his imagined world had to be reduced to three elements, he would keep clouds, architecture and people. The first two should feel immense, he said, while the last should remain small.
The details are culturally specific, but the visual effect is more immediate: tiny human figures dwarfed by vast clouds and monumental architecture. The responses suggest that viewers did not need to understand every cultural reference to find a way into the image.
Chen has no overseas social media accounts and learned that the video was attracting attention abroad only when friends sent him screenshots.
His life at the optical shop has changed little. He still checks eyesight and fits glasses when customers come in, then returns to his computer when the shop grows quiet.
He now hopes to make longer AI videos with fuller stories. He also wants to visit Mount Emei and, one day, Mount Huangshan.
For years, images of distant mountains and clouds reached Chen through screens. His imagined landscapes later traveled through screens to people he had never met.
Now he wants to see the real mountains and clouds for himself.
    Chen Aijun makes AI videos in an optical shop in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Aug. 14, 2026. (Xinhua/Lu Youyi)
。市自然资源局委托中和地理测绘有限公司和该局工作人员成立10个调查组，开展水毁耕地实地踏勘及现场测量，每天出动30余人，十多台车辆，经过半个月时间，白天外业测量，晚上内业加班连图。

B |          水毁耕地中，耕地大面积被砂石覆盖，耕作层冲毁，农田的流失和破坏导致了土壤的侵蚀和污染，植被已经受到严重影响，需要进行生态修复和保护，第一批复垦耕地面积10122亩，总投资12745.67万元，项目涉及杨树湾子乡、黑山科乡等21个乡镇，施工单位于2024年10月末开始全部进场施工，每天投入挖掘机数百台，翻斗车一百多辆，装载机数十台等机械设备进行作业，截至目前已完成总体工程量90%以上，待化冻之后进行施肥旋耕，确保春耕之前完成所有复垦面积。                   《日报》全媒体记者 赵丽杰 摄。

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Published on:09:19:00