Huang Yung-nan (黃永楠) does not fit the mold of the loudmouth that he is. With his no-name polo shirt and slacks and self-effacing manner he's completely unremarkable in appearance, which is fine by him. He doesn't want the public to know that he's the one who makes fools of Taiwan's political elite on a daily basis with his editorial cartoons drawn under the name Coco.
"Almost no one knows me. I haven't even met most of the editors of the papers I draw for," he said in a rare interview in Taipei last week. "It's better that no one recognizes me. That way I can walk around the city in busted sandals and a dirty T-shirt if I want -- which I sometimes do." The low profile Coco prefers to keep seems symptomatic of his split personality, the public Coco who has over 20 books to his name and states his opinions before millions in the pages of publications around the world and Huang, whose closest friends describe as an amicable yet slightly reclusive intellectual. He's the man who's out there, but never to be seen.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
"It's important to stay out of the fray if you're going to be an editorial cartoonist. If you get too close to the people you're satirizing or too involved in what's going on you run the risk of losing your objectivity," he said.
Coco stays outside of Taipei's inner political circle partly out of a rigid journalistic work ethic. But remaining on the periphery as an observer is also facilitated in his case by the fact that he works from the comfort of his home in San Diego, where he ended up precisely because of his big mouth.
Forced out
Coco has been drawing editorial cartoons since the late 1970s, starting out when Taiwan was beginning to make the transition from an authoritarian state into the free-wheeling democracy that it is today.
He became friends with several leading opponents of the government, including Kang Ning-hsiang (
Originally an architect by trade, he started out moonlighting for major underground opposition publications, like The 80s (
Before Coco, hundreds of dissidents had written reams of scathing commentary on the Chiang Kai-shek (
"My drawings were humorous as well as subversive, which confused the government. They had no clue what to make of it.
"Authoritarian governments have no sense of humor because they're preoccupied with trying to make people think a certain way. Humor is simply not a part of the official culture under these kinds of regimes." When Coco speaks of iron-fisted governments' reactions toward humor he does so with the weight of traumatic personal experience.
Almost immediately after his cartoons began publication, the authorities came knocking at his door seeking explanations.
"Those poor fellows. They were so puzzled by the whole concept of a political cartoon. They'd ask me, `So, what are you trying to say about Chiang Ching-kuo with this?' or `What are you trying to prove with this?'"
Some of his offending images included depictions of Chiang Ching-kuo's face on the body of a fly and on a meditating Buddha. He also took personal pleasure in lambasting the National Assembly, which was filled with octagenarian representatives appointed for life ostensibly representing provinces in China.
"I would tell them that it's just a joke, but they were still trying to find ways to nail me with something. I would tell them, `You can't arrest a cartoonist. You'd make a laughing stock out of yourselves.'" When Formosa was shut down in 1979 and most of the figures of the opposition movement were either jailed or under tight surveillance, Coco continued to draw for papers abroad and in Taiwan but knew that he was being watched. He also knew the stakes were high, since the prominent dissident Bo Yang (
"They started following me around and asking my boss at the architecture firm what I was up to -- the usual intimidation tactics. And they worked. The pressure became enormous." "The local security officers would take me out to lunch about three times a week, disrupting my work and making sure I knew they were on to me. It was weird, they were all smiles and friendly, but they would be telling me to stop what I was doing."
Eventually the pressure became unbearable and, following the advice of friends, he fled to New York. The government got the last laugh -- at least for the time being.
"When I left, the security officials who had always been on my back hosted a lavish send-off party for me and provided an escort to CKS [International Airport]. It was all done with an air of politeness, but of course they were overjoyed to see me go. I can't say I was exiled, because I left of my own will, but I'll say I was pushed out."
Always good for a laugh
Coco wasted little time once in the US to use his connections in the publishing field to pick up where he had left off drawing editorial cartoons for Chinese-language papers in the US and elsewhere.
His friend Wang Nai-yuan (
"When he went to the US he was young and a bit disoriented from what he'd been through. He's overcome a lot of hardship since then, and he never let it bring him down," Wang said.
Life in the US has been easier on Coco. First, he settled in New York drawing for a newspaper published there by the China Times (
"After Taiwan became democratic, my work moved from being a part of the opposition aimed at toppling the KMT government to its proper position as part of the regular media acting out the role of a reporter or editorialist in a free society. Humor as editorial can only exist in a free society. Under authoritarian rule, humor is perceived as a personal attack." With the new freedom to have virtually anything published, Coco's work took on more nuance as politicians of every political stripe became fair game.
"Mostly an editorial cartoonist will comment on the ruling party, but they're definitely not the only ones who invite mockery."
Easy Targets
One of the high points of his career was the presidential election of 1996, which saw the cementing of the legacy of former president Lee Teng-hui (
"Lee's my favorite one to draw because he's seen the biggest changes over time." Other characters, in particular former vice president and current KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
Coco prides himself on providing balance in his commentary, but he makes no bones about drawing Chinese leaders and the People's Liberation Army as brutish ogres playing with fire over the Taiwan Strait.
"I just don't like the Chinese government," he says, rolling his eyes at the memory of Hong Kong's pro-Beijing Wen Hui Pao (文匯報) and even Chinese papers using his cartoons when they mocked Taiwanese leaders. (A note to those papers: he never received payment.) Taiwanese politics may have lost some of the super-charged energy of the early 1990s, but Coco feels there will never be a dearth of political absurdities to expose with his cartoons. The cross-Strait tension, for starters, will always be a rich source for commentary in the years to come, he said.
"As long as the Taiwan-China standoff continues, I'll probably never lack work." He won't lack work, the loudmouth will just get louder.
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