Xinmin Evening News

[Xinmin wanbao]

Xinmin or ‘new people’ was a neologism in the early twentieth century in response to Western cultural influence. Originally founded in 1929 as the Xinminbao (Xinmin News), which had both day and evening editions, only the evening edition continued to publish after 1949 and changed its name to the Xinmin Evening News (Xinmin wanbao) in 1958. The newspaper was closed down by the Nationalist government in the 1940s and during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and was not re-launched until 1982. In 1996, it was the first evening newspaper that established an office in California for the American edition, which periodically publishes its last page (page 32) in English. In 1998, the Xinmin Evening News and the Wenhui Daily, established in 1938, teamed up to form the core of the Wenhui Xinmin United Press Group.

The new company owns many periodicals as well as the English-language newspaper, Shanghai Daily. The Xinmin Evening News is probably the most popular evening daily with a circulation of 1,700,000 còpies in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Xi’an, Shenzhen, etc. Its fictionalized newspaper office appears frequently and prominently in Wong Kar-wai’s film In the Mood for Love (2000): the lead actor works for the Xinmin yebao, which is exactly the Shanghainese spoken version of the newspaper’s actual name, and even the calligraphy for the film’s newspaper title is in the same style. Many columns of the Xinmin Evening News are thoughtfully written, e.g. ‘Reading is Pleasant’ (Dushule) and ‘New Book Corridor’ (Xinshulang). From time to time, the newspaper sponsors literary awards.

HELEN XIAOYAN WU