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.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai