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Hai Zi

Died in March 26, 1989 / China / Chinese

Poems were written mainly in Chinese language. Dominant movement is chinese dynasties.

Biography

Hai Zi is the pen name of the Chinese poet Zha Haisheng (Chinese:查海生). He was one of the most famous poets in Mainland China after the Cultural Revolution. He committed suicide by lying on the path of a train in Shanhaiguan at the age of 25. Zha Haisheng was born in an agricultural family of a small village in Anhui Province. He spent his childhood in traditional Chinese rural areas when the whole country was involved in the Cultural Revolution. In 1979, he was enrolled in Peking University at the age of 15.[1] He began to write poems as a student in early 1980s. After graduation, he worked in China University of Political Science and Law. He kept sending his own poems written in an extremely dull environment of life to different newspapers and publishers but was hardly accepted. He remained unknown to common readers until his death.Hai Zi was fascinated with Tibetan culture and qigong in his last years. He ended his life by lying on the path of a train not far from Shanhaiguan near his 25th birthday. A bag with a Bible, a book of selected stories by Joseph Conrad, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, and Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl was found beside his body. His death is now regarded as an important event in modern Chinese literature with some suggesting it symbolizes "the sacrifice of the agricultural civilization".[2] It was also later suggested that the cause of his suicide may have had something to do with illusions created by qigong training.[3] Not long after his death, most of his works were published by major publishers of China and were spread rapidly over the country.

Hai Zi has become one of the most quoted poets after the New Culture Movement. His mystical life and death remain an important topic of Chinese literature and society. A cult of Hai Zi involves young people from all over China since the 1990s, though he is still not entirely accepted by older experts.

Hai Zi's poems have a strong influence on the popular culture in Mainland China. Some of his poems have been set to songs.

Hai Zi's poem Facing the Sea, with Spring Blossoms is inferred and mentioned several times in the Hong Kong movie McDull, Prince de la Bun.

Many coastal places of China are regarded as the one described in the poem Facing the Sea, with Spring Blossoms. But according to some research about the life of the poet, the beach of Xichong in Shenzhen is the most probable place.