Shenzhen Teenager Yang Yufan Publishes Debut Essay Collection Yufan's View of the World in Hong Kong
Preface by veteran Japan-based journalist Jiang Feng hails the book as "a vivid portrait of a new generation of Chinese youth — open, confident and reaching upward"
HONG KONG / SHENZHEN — Yufan's View of the World (《语凡观世界》), the debut personal essay collection by Shenzhen teenager Yang Yufan, has been published in Hong Kong. The book features a preface by Jiang Feng, a veteran media professional long based in Japan, who recommends the work with warm praise.
Writing from a lucid youthful perspective and an unusually broad, cross-disciplinary vantage point, the collection records the author's reflections on growing up, observations on society, and insights gathered through travel. It portrays a new generation of Chinese young people who strive upward, incline toward goodness and grow toward the light — offering a pure infusion of youthful energy into the story of contemporary adolescence.
Unlike conventional student writing, Yufan's View of the World steps beyond the four walls of the campus. Built around a core of "travel, observation, reflection and expression," the book gathers the author's field-study experiences, social observations, reflections on daily life and personal musings. The prose has shed its childishness while retaining warmth and breadth: it holds both the unspoiled sincerity of a child and the perceptiveness of a teenage eye. Together, these pieces fully render the world as seen through the eyes of a Shenzhen teenager of the new era — the mountains and rivers in his heart, and the path of growth beneath his feet.
Jiang Feng's endorsement
Jiang Feng speaks highly of the collection. A senior journalist who has long cultivated China-Japan cultural exchange and worked on the front lines of international communication, Jiang is particularly appreciative of Yang's writing.
In the preface, he writes candidly that what moves readers most in a child's collection is rarely how many ornate words it contains, but rather that it lets us see the world once again through a child's eyes. The world is vast, he notes, and growing up means setting out with curiosity to see that world — and, in the very process of seeing it, catching sight of a better self.
In Jiang's view, Yufan's View of the World is more than a teenage anthology. It is a vivid microcosm of how young people of the new era understand growth, the world and values, revealing the open, confident, inclusive and upward-looking character of China's youth.
A habit of learning by doing
Behind the breadth of the writing lies a discipline of knowledge and practice woven into Yang's everyday life. A student in Shenzhen and the first junior reporter for the Dute news app, Yang has consistently embraced the ideal of "reading ten thousand books and traveling ten thousand miles." He applies himself to his studies, thinks diligently, and spends his out-of-class hours actively engaged in social practice, cultural exchange and public-service activities.
He joined a community study program at HKU SPACE ICB, where he gained first-hand exposure to industrial upgrading and the circular economy, and took part in depth in the Shenzhen Child-Friendly City Observation Group — observing society and listening to the world through practice, continually widening the boundaries of his understanding and gathering material for his writing.
Of particular note, in the summer of 2026 Yang won the Gold Award in the Chinese-language Young Host Competition at the Tokyo Youth Arts Festival, earning high praise from the panel of professional judges on site.
A voice with the world in its sights
Sustained travel and observation have enabled him both to chronicle the experience of growing up and to articulate deeper thinking about society, responsibility and the future — truly achieving "the world in his eyes, thought in his heart, and power in his pen."
At a time when young people's growth calls more than ever for broad horizons and positive guidance, Yufan's View of the World breaks down stereotypes about "teenage writing." In the most sincere youthful voice, it records what a teenager has seen, thought and come to understand. Every piece is a true imprint of growing up; every reflection, a spiritual answer sheet of adolescence.
Using brush and ink as a vessel to carry a young man's far-reaching ambitions, and holding his original aspiration as a torch to view the myriad worlds — many years from now, reopening this book, one may find that those moments once thought trivial are precisely what compose life's most precious memories. The greatest value of a book may lie not in how many people it can influence today, but in whether, years later, it still allows its author to meet his younger self again. Yufan's View of the World carries exactly such meaning.
The voice of a youth, the thinking of a youth, the stature of a youth — as free as the wind, as bright as the light, living out the person he was meant to be.
