VIEW THIS PAGE With Asian culture, music and fashion popular in the West now, many expat parents in Taiwan have wondered how best to introduce their young children to the “mysterious” Chinese characters used here. For artist Christoph Niemann, a transatlantic creative spirit with feet firmly planted in Berlin and New York, the answer was easy, and illuminating: a colorful children’s book.
He titled it Pet Dragon, found a publisher in New York, and before he knew it, the unusually formatted and illustrated book had caught on with children — and adults — worldwide. A native of Germany, Niemann is a prolific illustrator with style all his own. In a recent e-mail interview with the Taipei Times, the 38-year-old writer/illustrator talked about the book’s genesis and what drew him to such a unique concept.
When asked how the book took shape, Niemann said: “On a recent trip to Asia, and it was in Japan where the idea first came to me, I was introduced to the meaning and a little bit of the history of Chinese characters by Chinese designers I met in Tokyo. Their explanations made me feel a bit like a five-year-old boy who has his eyes suddenly opened wide to a whole new world. And since Chinese characters have such a beautiful visual and metaphoric meaning, I felt it would make a nice illustrated children’s book.”
Niemann added that he wasn’t trying to create a book to teach Chinese to children, or to adults by extension. What he wanted to do was create some preliminary interest in Chinese characters for Western children. “All I really wanted to achieve was to spark some interest in this wonderful written language, which then might inspire readers in the West later on to try to learn more in a real language class or on their own, whether the readers were 4 or 40.”
Niemann, whose earlier children’s books and newspaper illustrations are playful and colorful, said that he hoped the “playfulness” of the format and illustrations of Pet Dragon would spark Western children’s imaginations in a novel way.
The book was published in English in New York, and there is now a German edition, Niemann said. Some French publishers are looking at the possibility of putting out a French translation as well, he said.
When asked what kind of reactions he has received about the book, he said: “You know, it’s funny, but some of the most touching responses by e-mail have been from parents who purchased the book for their children but ended up enjoying themselves as well. I love that response.”
Niemann said he was about 10 years old when he first became aware of Chinese characters, and he said he while he was “intrigued by the graphic beauty of the characters, I was utterly confused by their complexity.”
When asked about his background, the artist told the Taipei Times: “I was born in Germany and majored in graphic design at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart in the late 1990s. After graduation, I went to New York where my career blossomed, but after a few years in the States my wife Lisa and I decided we wanted to try Berlin, so that’s where we are now. I still do most of my work for US magazines and newspapers, as well as for book publishers in New York.”
Niemann currently has a legion of new adult fans around the world who follow a visual blog he runs for the New York Times Web site.
“I love to visit New York every few months to catch up on things and be inspired, but thanks to the Internet, it virtually doesn’t matter where I work from now,” he added.
Christoph Niemann’s The Pet Dragon: A Story About Adventure, Friendship, and Chinese Characters is published by Greenwillow Books. VIEW THIS PAGE
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist