LATEST

As this book’s title suggests, Jianghu refers to a locale. Literally translated as “rivers and lakes”, the term Jianghu has rich connotations, encompassing natural and human geographies as well as alternate universes with distinct codes of conduct, choices, and consequences. At the same time, Jianghu is a generic expression and a quintessential component of the Wuxia genre in Sinophone literature, film, theater, and other popular entertainment including comics and online games.

Depending on the context, modern references to Jianghu are found in fantasy, realistic fiction, poetic or prosaic descriptions of social environments or professional arenas, and even individual interior worlds as experienced in this Wuxia novel for tweens. In fact, Jianghu can define both the setting and the conceptual construct shaping the narrative lens: where the stories occur as well as how they are told. Adopting this milieu indicates the presence of alternative – sometimes intersecting – realities that occupy diverse dimensions of existence and realms of imagination.

Jianghu, Is There Anybody There? by Chang Yeou-Yu embodies the distinguishing features of Wuxia novels, beginning with a colorful cast of characters possessing different types and levels of Kong Fu, a euphemism for honing the requisite skills for one’s pursuits. In the Wuxia genre, Kong Fu refers to the practices as well as the outcomes of training one’s body and mind based on the disciplines of particular clans, schools, or sects of martial art. Written for tweens, this work centers 13-year-old Tsu Hsiao-Pi, who is kindhearted, reserved, and industrious. Abandoned as an infant and raised by the master cobbler of NiuTou Village, he becomes highly skilled at shoe repair and design, and is poised to take over the workshop as the story begins. Unlike his Kong-Fu-obsessed neighbor and childhood friend Kang Liang, who at age 13 is keen to leave his family’s steamed bao (buns) business in order to explore the Jianghu and compete for fame and glory as a martial artist, Tsu Hsiao-Pi is content to cultivate his craft and care for his aging mentor whom he considers his father. His other close friend Mai Tien, a compassionate, clever, and quick-witted 14-year-old, also compels Tsu Hsiao-Pi to stay put, although he does not readily admit it to himself.

Strategically situated along an ancient thoroughfare, NiuTou Village supplies essential services for travelers on their way to more prominent destinations. When suspicious circumstances bring a questionable visitor to the cobblers’ workshop, Tsu Hsiao-Pi is suddenly gifted with amazing Kong Fu he had not sought. Soon, he is forced to confront a complicated Jianghu and struggles to make tough decisions, such as whether to tell anyone about his newfound superpowers. While witnessing Tsu Hsiao-Pi’s character development and evolution as a reluctant hero, readers learn of the region’s legendary martial arts competitions and the champions whose names were inscribed on an iron pillar that once upon a time stood by the village’s LiangCha Pavilion. The whereabouts of that pillar becomes the point of contention as conspicuous characters stream into NiuTou Village and fill up the local inns, much to the dismay of the police chief-cum-village head Chien Chih.

Recalling the senseless violence often accompanying martial arts competitions in the past, Chien Chih has outlawed them by decree. Meanwhile, he has put in place a separate iron pillar inscribed with the names of the officers who had perished while protecting innocent bystanders and inexperienced contestants as the competitions had grown increasingly deadly over the decades. Challenging Chien Chih’s one-sided representation that privileges strict law enforcement over respect for the Jianghu’s chivalric ethos and values, the proponents of the martial arts competitions rally to re-stage the tournament in order to restore their honor and reputation. Moreover, they insist on reinstalling the missing pillar and are willing to take extreme measures to make that happen.

Against this backdrop of adult-world disputes and imminent threats to the community, readers zoom in on the lives of the main characters and their everyday activities. We observe intricate details of Tsu Hsiao-Pi working on special shoes that help Kang Liang with his Kong Fu practice, Mai Tien weaving lifelike animals and tiny shoes with the straw she freely collects from the workshop, and Kang Liang delivering stacks of bao-filled steamers while improving his balance and agility. We also witness adolescent angst and increasing tension between best friends as misunderstandings arise and loyalties are questioned.

Like its counterparts for adult readers, Jianghu, Is There Anybody There?  establishes an atmospheric Wuxia story world featuring landscapes with provocative place names, such as Twenty One Peaks, Laklak River and Ancient Road. Sketches by Lin I-Shian reflect traditional Wuxia illustration styles and flesh out the key characters. Author Chang Yeou-Yu distills the genre’s epic themes – individual and collaborative quests that involve navigating treacherous surroundings, lingering memories of old scores to be settled, plus conflicts that arise from the ambiguities inherent in rules and regulations vs. justice and truth – into intriguing narrative strands, spinning them into an action-packed plot with reveals and twists that are age-appropriate and relatable for the target audience. Through the sympathetic characters, Chang not only demonstrates some of the finer points of Kong Fu practice, but also outlines various philosophical approaches to life in the Jianghu.

The result is an engaging and entertaining journey through a Jianghu that welcomes anyone who wishes to visit.

When you type “Southeast Asia” into the search engine of Taiwan’s biggest online bookshop, Books.com.tw, and set the criteria to children’s books, you get two results: one is a title that’s out of print, and the other is Stamps Tell You Stories: The Legends and Cuisines of Southeast Asia which was published less than a year ago. In other words, it’s the only children’s title about Southeast Asia in the current Taiwan book market, as well as the only collection of folk stories written by immigrants to Taiwan from Southeast Asia, and the only book that introduces young readers to Southeast Asian stamps. This uniqueness wasn’t the result of an intentional creative effort but was caused by what Chou Hui-Lin calls “things coincidentally coming together”, with this serendipity facilitated by the shared passion to help young readers see the wider world.

The Legends and Cuisines of Southeast Asia is actually the fifth book in the Stamps Tell You Stories series, which is the first series of children’s books about stamps currently on the market to be published by a local Taiwan publisher.

Making Stamps a Window to the World

When Chou proposed creating the series, Wang Jung-wen, the publisher of Yuan-Liou Publishing, wondered: do children these days still have any contact with stamps? Fortunately, even though the company anticipated that the book might be potentially difficult to promote, they chose to believe that Chou’s passion would generate sales opportunities.

During the creative process, Chou learnt from one of the authors that Chunghwa Post (Taiwan’s postal service) had worked with over two hundred primary schools to set up stamp collecting sessions and trained teachers to help promote knowledge about stamps. Since the book was published, Chou and the authors have received a lot of collaboration proposals from schools, libraries, and museums. For example, they collaborated with the National Museum of Taiwan History to organize two parent-child activities which were combined with city tours. Chou also showed off the medal that the book had won at the stamp exhibition. Thinking back to the children and crowds she saw at the exhibition, Chou believes that while stamp collecting seems like a slightly obscure hobby at first glance, there are still definitely a number of people who enjoy it today.

Of course, Chou had the idea for the series mainly because she is a stamp collector herself. More than twenty years ago, she was editing a book series called Selected Masterpieces by Winners of the Hans Christian Anderson Award and someone she was working with gave her a set of stamps featuring American fairy tales which helped revive her childhood hobby and embark on the path to becoming a more professional collector. However, as a children’s literature researcher, her interest in stamp collecting is mostly tied to her focus on children’s books. Her fellow stamp-collecting friend (and one of the authors of the series) Wang Shu-Fen observed that the story used on each country’s stamp was often the story which was most representative of that country. This meant that with the right illustrations, the tiny postal stamps could be windows into foreign cultures for young readers.

Designing a Journey on Paper

When readers open the contents page of any books in the Stamps Tell You Stories series, they’re always deeply impressed by the non-linear graphic design based on the concept “What You See Is What You Get”. Chou opens the first volume in the series, Taiwanese Children’s Stories, and points to the small world map with Taiwan labeled in red: “First and foremost, I wanted to let readers know where we are in the world.” In the subsequent books in the series, the world map features a blue bird, and readers can follow its arrows as it flies so they can understand the locations of these stories relative to Taiwan. There is a pull-out map on the next page, so in The Legends and Cuisines of Southeast Asia for example, readers can see a more detailed map of Southeast Asia with the region indicating the location for each story and its corresponding stamp and page number. “I wanted to incorporate the concept of traveling”, so that readers can travel to the stories and regions they want to experience without having to read the pages in order. Even just the design of the contents pages alone let Chou demonstrate what she learned during her master’s degree in multimedia design.

As well as the two main content themes of stamp stories and folk legends, Chou has tried to include other elements in the hope of creating more connections with readers. She happily shares that a lot of little girls have been fascinated by the haiku in Japanese Folklore and Haiku, the fourth book in the series. The food in The Legends and Cuisines of Southeast Asia was inspired by discussions with the author group. “The first story we decided to include was the ‘Watermelon Legend’ from Vietnam, and then I asked them if they had any more stories like that.” However, adding this new element to the book also brought new possibilities to the creative process, and Chou, who had previously just collected stamps involving children’s stories, now had to search for food-related stamps too.

Additional Puzzles in the Works

The Stamps Tell You Stories series is still in progress, but Chou admits the publication timing and what theme they go with is still largely down to chance since the choice of authors, work schedule, stamp content, market trends, and company strategy are all factors which can have an influence on the completion of the book. Pointing to the main illustration on the lower half of the cover, Chou explains that the design is based on the concept of the classic board game Sugoroku. She was inspired by the album artwork on one of the records in her shellac collection, so she invited the artist, Huang Tzu-chin, to be the art designer for the book since he has an in-depth collection of Sugoroku and has conducted research on the subject. The image of the Sugoroku is often blocked by the partial dust jacket, so readers might not see it on first glance. However, Chou perseveres and imagines a future where the series reaches ten or more volumes so she can put the illustrations from each of the covers together and create a giant picture of a Sugoroku game for readers. One can’t help but wonder what other surprises might be in store for readers thanks to Chou’s ingenuity. 

When Wang Ling-Hsuan and I were students in the forestry department, our teacher asked the class to do a report on wildlife, and we decided to study the gray-black spiny ants near our department building. The gray-black spiny ants we drew in the book are similar to the ones we studied back then which lived on a wire mesh fence and worked on some small saplings nearby where they farmed aphids. The saplings had sprouted beside the fence because there were some big trees nearby whose fruits had been eaten by small birds which had excreted the seeds. There were five or six different kinds of vines and bushes on the fence which made it look messy but actually meant there were lots of structures that animals could use to hide in. We also found another eight species of ant and lots of other small creatures near the fence. When we first came up with the concept for the book, we wanted to include all these creatures but later we worried that it would distract from the gray-black spiny ants so we either didn’t show them in the pictures or we let them hide in the corners.

There were five different versions of this book from start to finish, most of which Ling-Hsuan and I both liked because we tried out various different styles. Even though some of the illustrations weren’t used in the final version of the book, we tried to change them a bit and incorporate them into the end product. Sometimes, readers might suddenly find themselves wondering “why’s that in here?” and it might be because it’s a variation of another scene in one of the previous versions.

It took us so long to finish the book because we were writing and illustrating it while we were still studying, but by the time it was done there weren’t any ants on the fence, probably because the area had been cleared and without the saplings or aphids the ants were forced to move on. However, gray-black spiny ants are resilient creatures, and I found another city of them in a different part of campus where people had thrown away all sorts of things and the ants were living in old umbrellas, broken flowerpots, door frames, and fractured water pipes, as well as dried out plant pots where they’d formed a thriving colony. Who knows, maybe they were the same ants and they’d found an even better place to build a whole new little city!

Notes from the Author

This story isn’t just dedicated to Tyke the elephant, but also to all animals that suffer at the hands of human society and every child who has ever been harmed, as well as to you and me. Tyke was captured from the wild and sold to a circus. Unable to bear the abuse she endured for over 21 years, Tyke tried to escape and killed a human in the process, then was eventually shot and killed.

When I read about the case it put me into a deep sense of despair. After reading more about circus animals, I was shocked to learn that animals had endured such unimaginable cruelty in the human world. I hope with all my heart that Tyke is in a better place, somewhere that she has freedom and dignity, where she has the care and support of her family so she can relax and just be an elephant.

We often hear that analogy that “life is a circus”. In human society, we frequently find ourselves going against our own natures to fulfil the expectations of others, whether it be in life, or in school or work, and even in our dreams and genders. We are confined and tormented, and in spite of ourselves we end up performing all kinds of circus acts. A lot of the time, we not only perform but also become tamers ourselves, forcing others to perform as well, and forgetting that we were originally all peers, friends, and family.

Many people would agree that being a parent is the most challenging job in the world. In a society where utilitarianism and credentialism are still rampant, we usually set out under a banner of love and care, but we become circus tamers without realizing it. As parents, do we really want what’s best for our children, or do we just want to fulfil our own expectations? Are we willing to try and genuinely understand, respect, and accept our children’s nature and true selves? It’s the family members who truly make up a home. Our houses should be places full of the utmost comfort, reassurance, and tolerance, but what becomes of our homes and our children when we become tamers?

In real life, the injuries and repression we suffered leave a shadow, be it subtle or obvious, that never really fades. As much as we all want to have the strength and courage to be ourselves, the attitudes of those around us are still incredibly important. Indifference, neglect, and conformity don’t just prevent healing but can even deepen the wounds, while genuine support, understanding, and companionship can nurture the faint flicker of healing and help us feel happiness again beyond the pain.  

Even though human society inevitably makes tamers of us all, if we’re willing to stop and look at ourselves, we can go back to being friends and family who impart warmth and strength, offering the kind of compassionate support that helps other people feel better. When we know we can all rely on each other, maybe then we can feel free to be ourselves and rekindle our own inner joy.

Notes from the Illustrator

I once read a news story about the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus canceling the elephant show that the company and its predecessors had been running for over 140 years and how they gave one final performance in May 2016. To this day, I still have vivid memories of that news story.

When I received the text for Wang-Wang, the Elephant several years later, I was shocked but also pleasantly surprised. What shocked me was how I kept associating the character in the book with the news story I’d read. Just like the herd of elephants in the article, Wang-Wang should have been running happily across wide open plains but instead he had been confined to a circus cage for reasons unknown, perhaps due to either poaching or illegal breeding, and spent his days performing the same acrobatic tricks over and over again for human entertainment.

I was pleasantly surprised that Wang Yu-Ching had been able to write Wang-Wang, the Elephant as a cute, fun book for children, while also including a lot of thought-provoking messages hidden beneath the story’s surface. Even after I’d finished reading it, the text had left a lingering feeling in my heart. Perhaps it was because deep down I felt like Wang-Wang, the Elephant was a true story. 

The circus is still a happy place for a lot of people, but I wonder if they would feel the same way if they found themselves in the animals’ position? Is there a sad hidden story behind what the animals do to entertain the audience? I don’t know and I can’t say for sure since I’m not one of them, but it can’t be a happy place for them.

I once witnessed a circus show but the animal was a lion rather than an elephant. In the performance on stage, the lion was forced to into various movements and postures such as sitting on a chair or obediently lying down. It was forced to listen to the tamer’s instructions, and why did it obey? The trainer had a whip in his hand, and if the lion didn’t listen the trainer would threaten to use it or crack the whip towards the sky. I found it hard to imagine the animal as a majestic lion in the savannah, king of beasts, when I could clearly see the inner helplessness and fear in its facial expressions while the trainer took the time to bask in the audience’s applause.

That show was an upsetting and deeply uncomfortable experience for me, and to this day it remains the last circus performance I’ve ever watched. Animal rights is probably too heavy and a complex issue for me to give a concrete answer about since there are often a range of structural problems involved. However, I think the most direct way to deal with it is to refuse to watch performances like that. The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was disbanded in 2017 after the cancelation of the elephant show. It makes me happy that the retired elephants, like Wang-Wang in the story, can finally get the peace and freedom they deserve at the Center for Elephant Conservation in Florida.

When I wrote my previous picture books, I started by making sure I had a clear layout of how the story would begin and end, then I got to work on illustrating the page that I was most excited about drawing. However, this was definitely not the case with The Prince Who Hated Green Caterpillars. Even though I’d already mapped out the plot, I wasn’t sure about the characters’ inner thoughts or how the story would end, so I couldn’t skip around when working on the illustrations and I had to work through the book in order, starting with the first page and finishing with the last. That continuity made it easier to get into the world of the story, but I was still hesitant about sketching the characters’ expressions right up until I drew the final line.

Not having a fixed plan was a new creative approach for me. From the moment I first came up with the story, I didn’t try to find a clear-cut resolution to it, instead I tried to create a defined space where contradictions such as virtue and vice, kindness and ignorance, love and hate, salvation and persecution etc. could all coexist. Rather than keeping these opposing elements at a safe distance from each other in the story, they were all combined into one person. I was curious about whether it was possible that the good and evil could exist at the same time rather than hiding from each other like day and night, and what might happen if they collided together. I wanted to design a moment after which everything would change, and that was the original intention behind this picture book.

What happens after these collisions? When we grow up, we realize there are a lot of questions in life that don’t have answers. Can we understand each other even if our circumstances are different? Can we repair the damage we’ve caused? If this story needs a specific resolution, I hope that it’s one of love, that it’s a cheesy fairy-tale about how “from now on, we’ll all live happily ever after.” So, by the end of the story, in the prince’s mind the best kingdom isn’t the one without the color green, it’s the kingdom that he promised to the girl.  

Author-Illustrator Liu Chen-Kuo in His Own Words

My workplace is sometimes like an illustration lab. I like to experiment with different artistic disciplines such as sculpture, papercutting, contemporary ink painting, abstract drawing etc., and combine them with my original ideas about shape and color, then contemplate how I can use it all to produce new and interesting illustrations.

Years ago, I bought a guide to cross stitch patterns and it felt very warm and tactile which firmly planted the idea in my mind that I would use it in an illustration someday. Then, as I was creating a picture book for young children which eventually became Who Wants to Play Hide and Seek?, I had this instinct that I should experiment with cross stich, so I started by drawing it on paper before trying it out on a computer, and then I ended up buying a cross stich kit so I could actually make it for real.

When I finally had a few illustrations that had taken shape a few months later, I turned to my wife who was hard at work mopping the floor and asked, “Does the way I used cross stich make the images feel warm and tactile?” She glanced at it, then her eyes widened and she said, “Yes, I think it does!”

So, every day I started to patiently create the embroidery on my computer by using my mouse to thread each stitch. I often needed to wear farsighted glasses for this process so that I could alter the size of the squares. I thought about how to incorporate the rules of cross stitch and did a lot of calculations, asking myself questions like: how many squares would each of the octopus’s eight legs take up? And how many squares there would need to be between them? Now that the book is out, I really hope you all enjoy the end result!

A Recommendation from Children’s Literature Critic Sarah C. Ko

Veteran picture book creator Liu Chen-Kuo’s new book Who Wants to Play Hide and Seek? masterfully demonstrates how to turn complexity into simplicity and has that all-important trait of a great children’s picture book: it’s simple without being monotonous, and clear without being superficial.

With smart humor and an elegant aesthetic, this little book takes babies and toddlers through a fun game of conceptual imagery: numbers, time, space, colors, shapes, similarities, differences, and so on. The texture of cross stich is like a soft fabric which suits the sensory imagination of toddlers and creates a cozy atmosphere that can be enjoyed by adults and children alike. This is a book you can really play with, in the same spirit as the works of Eric Carle and Gomi Tarō, all the way through to its satisfying, and surprising, conclusion.