The Dutch Diplomat Who Made a Chinese Detective Famous
Today, we’ll talk about how a Dutch diplomat who first reached China during WWII transformed ancient Chinese courtroom tales into globally popular detective fiction, bridging cultures and reshaping the image of Di Renjie for modern audiences.
The Dutch Diplomat Who Made a Chinese Detective Famous
Today, we’ll talk about how a Dutch diplomat who first reached China during WWII transformed ancient Chinese courtroom tales into globally popular detective fiction, bridging cultures and reshaping the image of Di Renjie for modern audiences.
Fans of the highly anticipated historical drama The Great Tang Mist starring Feng Shaofeng as the legendary judge Di Renjie might be surprised to learn that many of the most famous detective stories about Di Renjie were not originally written by a Chinese author at all. Instead, they were imagined, reshaped, and brought to global audiences by the Dutch diplomat and scholar Robert van Gulik, whose lifelong fascination with Chinese culture led him to create one of the most enduring bridges between East and West in modern literature.
One line often associated with these tales suggests, “Monsters do not exist, it is the human heart that is clouded.” That idea lies at the core of many Judge Dee stories, where seemingly supernatural crimes are ultimately revealed to be rooted in human motives. Yet behind these stories lies another, equally compelling narrative: that of Robert van Gulik himself, a man who spent his life pursuing an almost obsessive curiosity about China.
In March 1943, van Gulik arrived in wartime Chongqing to take up a post as a secretary at the Dutch embassy. At that time, Chongqing was China’s temporary capital during the war against Japan, and naturally, a certain amount of tension hung the air. At any moment, air raid sirens would sound, and much of the urban landscape consisted of makeshift shelters and flimsy wooden structures. Yet for van Gulik, the journey marked the fulfillment of a long-held dream. He had lobbied persistently for a posting in China, determined to immerse himself in a culture that had fascinated him since childhood.
The journey itself had been long and circuitous. In 1942, after leaving a previous diplomatic assignment in Japan, he traveled through Southeast Asia and Africa before finally reaching China. To pass the time during his travels, he read several Chinese books that he had packed in his luggage. Among them was an eighteenth-century detective novel, Four Great Cases of Empress Wu. At the time, he could not have known that this seemingly casual choice would shape the course of his life. The book introduced him to the figure of Di Renjie, a magistrate of the Tang dynasty known for his sharp mind and moral integrity. The stories captivated van Gulik and planted the seeds for his own future literary work.
During his years in Chongqing, van Gulik lived what he considered an ideal “Chinese life.” He wore traditional Chinese clothing, practiced calligraphy, composed classical-style poetry, learned seal carving, and played the guqin, a traditional Chinese musical instrument. Through these pursuits, he formed deep friendships with Chinese officials, scholars, and cultural figures. He also met and married a Chinese woman, establishing a personal connection to the culture that went far beyond academic interest.
To describe van Gulik simply as a novelist would be misleading. From a modern perspective, he stands out as one of the most remarkable sinologists of the twentieth century. His intellectual curiosity led him into diverse and sometimes unconventional fields. He was among the first Western scholars to study ancient Chinese sexual practices from a scholarly perspective, producing works such as Sexual Life in Ancient China. He also wrote The Lore of the Chinese Lute, a pioneering study of the guqin. In a life that lasted just fifty-seven years, he produced an extraordinary body of work driven largely by personal passion rather than institutional obligation.
Interest in van Gulik’s life and work has continued into the present. In April 2026, a new Chinese translation of his biography, Following the Floating Clouds: The Life of Robert van Gulik, brought renewed attention to his story. Scholars note that figures like van Gulik, who immersed themselves so completely in another culture, are increasingly rare in today’s more specialized academic world.
Van Gulik’s Judge Dee stories achieved both popular and critical success. In 1982, a Chinese scholar named Zhang Ling first encountered his work through a serialized translation in Reader’s Digest. She was struck by the unique blend of elements in the stories: gruesome crimes alongside refined literary gatherings, poetic imagery combined with suspenseful plotting. The stories carried a distinctly classical Chinese atmosphere, yet were shaped by a narrative style accessible to modern readers.
Years later, while living in the United States, Zhang Ling discovered that earlier Chinese translations of van Gulik’s works were incomplete. Determined to present them more faithfully, she embarked on a long-term project to translate the entire Judge Dee series. Beginning in 2012, she worked steadily, eventually completing the translations over more than a decade. The task was demanding, requiring careful attention not only to language but also to the many historical references embedded in the texts.
Van Gulik himself had once translated one of his novels, The Chinese Maze Murders, into Chinese, publishing it in Singapore in 1953 under the title Di Renjie Cases. Written in the style of traditional Chinese chapter novels, it demonstrated his remarkable command of the language. For later translators, this set a daunting standard.
The origins of the Judge Dee series trace back to van Gulik’s reading of Four Great Cases of Empress Wu in the early 1940s. The figure of Di Renjie fascinated him. Several years later, while stationed again in Japan, he noticed that the local market was saturated with imitations of Western-style detective fiction. He found this disappointing. China, he believed, had its own rich tradition of courtroom case stories and legendary judges such as Di Renjie and Bao Zheng. In his view, these figures were just as compelling as Western detectives like Sherlock Holmes, but they hadn’t been developed into modern literary forms.
In 1949, van Gulik tested the waters by publishing an English translation of part of Four Great Cases of Empress Wu. The book was well received, encouraging him to write original stories. In 1950, he completed his first Judge Dee novel, The Chinese Bell Murders, followed soon after by The Chinese Maze Murders, published in 1956. The latter became a breakthrough success and even attracted praise from Agatha Christie, one of the most celebrated writers of detective fiction.
Van Gulik’s version of Di Renjie was both traditional and modern. He retained the historical setting and many elements of classical Chinese storytelling, but infused the character with qualities that appealed to contemporary readers. Judge Dee was intelligent, decisive, physically capable, and morally upright. He embodied the Confucian ideal of the scholar-official while also resembling the resourceful heroes of modern detective fiction.
The supporting characters added further depth and vitality. There was Ma Rong, rough and impulsive; Tao Gan, skilled in unconventional techniques; Hong Liang, the loyal assistant; Qiao Tai, a strong but tragic figure; and clever women like Orchid, who navigated the constraints of their social position with intelligence and courage. The stories also incorporated narrative devices familiar to modern readers, such as locked-room mysteries, creating a fusion of Eastern and Western storytelling traditions.
Over the next decade and a half, van Gulik continued to write Judge Dee stories wherever his diplomatic career took him. Despite his official duties, he consistently found time to write, treating these stories as a personal calling. His son later recalled watching him at his desk, sketching illustrations for his books in a style inspired by Ming dynasty prints, often with a cigarette in hand, yet never allowing ash to fall on his work.
In total, van Gulik wrote more than twenty Judge Dee stories of varying lengths. They were translated into nearly thirty languages and gained a wide international readership. These works also laid the foundation for later adaptations of Di Renjie in film and television, both in China and abroad.
Van Gulik’s deep connection to Chinese culture can be traced back to his childhood. Born in 1910 in the Netherlands, he moved at the age of five to Java, where his father had been posted. There, in Chinese neighborhoods, he first encountered Chinese characters on shop signs and scrolls. These mysterious symbols fascinated him. He began copying them in the sand, asking passersby for their meanings. This early curiosity grew into a lifelong passion.
As a teenager back in the Netherlands, he formally studied classical languages and European literature, but continued to pursue Chinese on his own. He later adopted the Chinese name Gao Luopei, a phonetic rendering of his Dutch name. Although encouraged by scholars to pursue an academic career, he chose diplomacy instead, seeing it as a way to engage more directly with the cultures that interested him.
His postings in Japan and China deepened his involvement with Chinese cultural traditions. He became particularly devoted to the guqin, studying under renowned masters and forming lasting friendships within intellectual circles. His social network in China was extensive, including prominent figures in politics, academia, and the arts.
Van Gulik also pursued a personal life that reflected his cultural interests. In Chongqing, he met Shui Shifang, a well-educated Chinese woman with an official family background. They married and went on to build a family together, moving from country to country as his diplomatic career required. Their life was shaped by a shared engagement with Chinese culture.
In his later years, van Gulik continued to explore a wide range of interests. During a posting in Kuala Lumpur, he kept gibbons as pets, inspired by their symbolic significance in Chinese poetry. He even began writing a study on these animals, alongside his ongoing literary and scholarly work.
In 1967, van Gulik was diagnosed with lung cancer. Even then, he did not choose to immediately inform his family, focusing instead on completing his final projects. Among them were his study of gibbons and his last Judge Dee novel, The Chinese Lake Murders, also known as The Mid-Autumn Case. In that final work, the tone becomes more reflective, even philosophical. At one point, Judge Dee, having resolved a difficult case, admits that he is utterly exhausted. It is hard not to hear in those words the voice of the author himself.
Robert van Gulik died later that year at the age of fifty-seven. His life had been one of constant movement, curiosity, and creative energy. He pursued knowledge across cultures, disciplines, and continents, driven by a desire not to merely study China, but to understand it and to live it.
In one of his poems, he wrote of drifting like floating clouds to distant lands, meeting old friends, and sharing wine. The image captures something essential about his life. He was, in many ways, a traveler between worlds, carrying stories, ideas, and traditions across boundaries, and leaving behind a legacy that continues to shape how those worlds understand each other.
Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Qiu Guangyu, translator Yu Shougang, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.