Hu Feng's edition of the story does include serveral details that are not present in the more recent editions: footnotes explaining Japanese customs (for the Shanhai audience in 1936) are presented, and more emphasis is placed on taiwanese rebel leaders (against the Japanese colonists) Yu Qingfeng and Lin Xiaomao.

     Hu Feng's edition of "The Newspaper Boy" in some ways has more impact than the most recent edition does. Melodramatic scenes describing Mr. Yang slumped against the wall utterly depressed, his eyes filled with tears are omitted, and the story has terse, compact quality to it. On the other hand, the omissions in Hu Feng's edition can be preceived as an attempt to depersonalize the story, to play up the themes of class struggle and to glorify the Taiwanese rebel leaders. Hu Feng (a pseudonym for Zhang Guangren) was a prominent figure in the leftist literary circle in mainland China. Based in Shanghai, Hu Feng was an active writer, translator, and literary critic.

     What were Hu Feng's motivations for publishing works such as Yang Kui's "Newspaper Boy"? Were the omissions in his translation deliberately selected for political reasons, or were they merely editing made by a literary critic? Japanese encroachments on Chinese territory (starting in Manchuria with the Mukden Incident of 1931 and moving down into northern China) touched off a national resistance movement led by leftist intellectuals in mainland China. While the Japanese systematically nibbled away at Chinese territory, the Chinese Communist Party sized the opprotunity to win popular support by promoting nationalism/anti-Japanese sentiment. Hu Feng was an active contributor to the literary movement in mainland China. The publications of Shan Ling: Chaoxian Taiwan Duanpian Ji, a collection of short stories from Korea and Taiwan, both colonies of Japan, was an attempt to draw attention to the ruthless policies of the Japanese, implemented in these colonies. Hu Feng's edition of Yang Kui's "Newspaper Boy" played down individualism and national identity, suggesting that the major contending forces in the story were the workers/peasants and the cruel Japanese overlords. This message, transposed onto the situation in mainland China, cast a glorious light onto the activities of the Chinese Communist Party.

     The most recent edition of "The Newspaper Boy" published in Wang Mama Chu Jia and in Guangfu Qian Taiwan Wenxue Quanji is most likely the closest to Yang Kui's original versions of the story. I have been unable to examine the version of the story. I have been unable to examine the Japanese original edition. The most recent edition of the story appeared in a collection of Yang's stories in 1979, along with the author's short introduction to the anthology.

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