A comic-strip version of The Ugly Chinaman, a popular book by human rights activist and writer Bo Yang (柏楊), will be soon be published.
In The Ugly Chinaman, Bo Yang presented controversial, in-depth criticism of Chinese culture, depicting the Chinese as dirty, noisy and vainglorious brown-nosers who are incessantly fighting amongst themselves.
The book came as a shock when it was first published in Taiwan in 1984, said Chang Hsiang-hua (張香華), Bo Yang’s wife.
PHOTO: HSIEH WEN-HUA, TAIPEI TIMES
Although the book was banned in China until 2000, underground copies had spread as far as the Xinjiang region and Heilongjiang Province by then, she said.
In last August, Bo began planning a comic version of the book, saying that it could reach out to young people today, who tend not to read.
The publisher of the comic edition, Hsu Jung-chang (徐榮昌), said he had long been a fan of Bo’s original work.
Jung said he admired Bo’s faculty for critical analysis and that the author’s sharp insight had not faded over the decades.
Cartoonist MoMo — who was born in 1980 and is 60 years younger than Bo — was given the task of drawing the comic version.
MoMo said that the age difference meant that she could reinterpret the classic book from the perspective of a younger generation. She hopes to make the comic version a tool of civic education across generations and national boundaries and pass on Bo’s gift of critical thinking to others.
MoMo, who has worked as a cartoonist for 20 years, has never published a complete comic book.
“When I agreed to take the job, I didn’t know who Bo Yang was and didn’t know how serious it was,” she said.
The only thing that Bo Yang asked from her was to “make it really funny and make him look stupid,” she said.
In the illustrated version of The Ugly Chinaman, Bo will appear as one of the characters, who often argues with others.
Contemporary issues, including campus shootings in the US and the Japanese whaling industry, will be discussed in the book alongside the orginal themes of the problems with Chinese culture.
“The most difficult part is softening the image of Bo Yang, who is a serious person,” MoMo said.
Bo began experiencing serious health problems in September 2006 and he has been in and out of hospitals several times since then. Because of his health troubles, he has stopped writing.
Chang said on Thursday as he visited Bo in the hospital that Bo, who was recently hospitalized again for pneumonia, follows Taiwanese politics closely despite his illness.
Bo, who was a political prisoner for 10 years during the Martial Law era, is disappointed in the Democratic Progressive Party administration, but is worried about the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) return to power, Chang said.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial
RSS