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(This article is originally published at Readmoo)

Sometimes you just open a comic for a quick glance, but in an instant, you know you’re done for. It’s not just a matter of sharply crafted characters, or the depth of the plot – you’ve stepped into an entirely new world.

Being “done for”, naturally, is a good thing. You’re going to lose yourself in this comic. You’ll skip meals and lose sleep for it. You’ll keep coming back for more, devouring each twist in the plot, and savoring every detail of the world laid out before you, like you did when you first read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, or when you were desperately waiting for the final installment of Nagano Mamoru’s The Five Star Stories. The main storylines of these works are unforgettable, of course, but it is the inconceivable act of creating the sense of an entire world that keeps us coming back for more, because our imagination is already off and running, envisioning all of the other stories this vast universe makes possible.

For this reader, Buke’s Hell Parade is one of these wildly ambitious, and successful works of the imagination. I would say that its meticulously-wrought world stands among the greatest comic creations of Taiwan, except for the fact that I believe Hell Parade is on par even with the greatest manga from Japan, a nation renowned for numerous feats of astonishing world-building.

In the distant future of Hell Parade, the technologies and energy sources employed today have all been replaced by magic. Legendary creatures like elves and orcs live alongside humans, and sorcerers are employed by the government as a mercenary police force to deal with monsters that infiltrate society through mysterious hell-gates. The story revolves around two young sorcerers, Eli and his partner Sophy, the daughter of a wealthy family. Eli, whose origins are far more mysterious, has a take-it-or-leave attitude towards their low-paid government contracts. When a hell-gate on the northern border acts up, he is sent to the front lines, and Eli’s past suddenly returns to haunt him, revealing a complex and sinister plot operating in the background.

The full five-volume series of Hell Parade is the product of three years of dedicated effort, yet none of its nearly thousand pages feels superfluous. In an era where the Taiwan comics world is clamoring for original IP, Hell Parade seethes with a multitude of distinct personalities, original in appearance as well as temperament. Whether sorcerers, vampires, werewolves, witches – or even passersby in the street – each leaves a distinct and memorable impression. Buke smoothly strings together scenes that draw out a wide range of moods and emotions, from the endearing, to the fantastically strange, to out-and-out tearjerkers – the effects owing in large part to Buke’s ability to tell stories through her distinctively appealing line work. However, “telling stories” doesn’t really do justice to Hell Parade. The plot achieves its richness and complexity through a multitude of storylines which unfurl and intertwine with the intricacy of a finely wrought sculpture. The ability to juggle so many subplots is, of course, dependent on the complexity and scale of the universe Buke has created. The warp and weft of its many races, regions, cultures, and landscapes interlace to create something akin to the Bayeux Tapestry in its expansive vision of civilization and nature, a complex world that catalyzes the myriad interactions that constitute Hell Parade.

Character, setting, and plot nestle into one another like Russian dolls, a structuring device that avoids reliance on familiar clichés, and empowers Buke’s originality to shine from Hell Parade with a uniquely dazzling appeal. The deeper purpose behind the battles of men and monsters, the political intrigues, and the ties that bind the major characters are only revealed layer by layer, until the protagonist himself passes through the depths of doubt, and realizes that while his “awful and ordinary” world isn’t worth saving, neither is it deserving of destruction. But where do we find our peace in the midst of despair and emptiness? Of course, this question is directed toward the imagined world of Hell Parade, but it equally applies to our current reality.

There are no clear, simplistic answers in Hell Parade. Instead, it simply opens a space for deeper introspection. In the final chapters, even the nature of “Hell” itself is only explained in terms that will be mulled by readers for long after the book is finished.

The five volumes of Hell Parade are complete. Buke’s work is done. But the vast expanse of the imagined universe she has created is so suggestive of further stories, that her fans are condemned to eternally hope for sequels and spinoffs from this masterful world-weaver.

(This article is originally published at Readmoo)

Botany is an approachable subject for a popular science book. No irritating technological or economic issues, an academic background in math or physics isn’t a prerequisite, and you don’t need reference materials on hand to illuminate the unfamiliar science. Plants are our food, our neighbors, and our friends – and the most intimate of strangers. Perhaps the fact that audiences can easily find things of immediate relevance to their lives has led to a sustained output of translations of botany-related nature writing and popular science from publishers in Taiwan, as well as the attention local experts have received in recent years for books like Isle of Healing and The Odyssey of Taiwan’s Montane Plants that combine nature writing and botany.

Arriving on this tide of interest in native plants is Plant Collectors’ Notebook, a graphic novel featuring plant collectors during the Japanese colonial period. Although the name might suggest this is a non-fiction guide, botanical information is actually only a supporting character in a plot motivated by the collectors’ troubled history, their social interactions, and their coming of age.

The book’s three protagonists each carry wounds of their own, and as they work with their colleagues collecting plants and producing specimens, they gain new experiences of both plants and life.

The main protagonist Hsu Liang-Shan is the only son of the proprietor of an herbal pharmacy. Distraught over the death of his younger sister to a heart ailment, he no longer believes in the efficacy of plants as medicine. But when he starts work at the Taipei Herbarium, not only does he recognize the value of his storehouse of herbal knowledge and realize that plants are useful in far more ways than he ever imagined, he starts coming to terms with the loss of his sister as well.

Liang-Shan’s supervisor, the botanical research assistant Matsuo Haku, is swift and decisive at work. As the story progresses, the reader discovers the link between his self-sacrifice on the job and the sense of inferiority and worthlessness stemming from his frail constitution. What he doesn’t realize is that his enthusiasm for plants is a quiet inspiration to those around him.

Joining the Herbarium team shortly after Liang-Shan is Wu-Tsao, an orphan raised in a village of mountain bandits. Illiterate but dexterous, she hopes that botanical knowledge will help her face the nightmare of being abandoned as a child. And whether it’s Liang-Shan helping her adapt to a new way of life, or Haku teaching her to read, she’s constantly making new discoveries.

Concerning scientific nomenclature, Liang-Shan notes, “Whether or not a plant has been given a scientific name, its essential nature doesn’t change. It still grows naturally through the passage of the seasons, and still flowers at the appropriate time!” However, when a plant encounters a collector and is identified and named by a botanist, its fate may still be altered. When a collector searches for plants, they may also be searching for a place of their own within the sphere of botanical knowledge.

With a collector’s day-to-day life revolving around plants, the graphic novel can’t avoid explanatory dialogue, but author Ejan strategically confines single-purpose descriptive content to two-page spreads that simplify complex topics into plain text. Taken together with the plot and art, the reader can gain a bit of knowledge without feeling like reading is a chore.

Further reducing the burden on the reader, as well as ensuring consistency with historical and scientific facts, the author sought the assistance of botanists and historians in the outline phase. By the final draft, every branch and leaf of every plant in every panel was reviewed by experts – and possibly revised in response to feedback. In the chapter introducing Wu-Tsao, the bandits don’t just rob travelers; they grow poppies and refine opium in a hidden encampment. A simple decision of what plants the bandits would use for their criminal activity had to take into account what plausible during the Japanese colonial period. This represents significant effort on the author’s part, as well as time spent on verification by editors and botanical and historical advisors.

Ejan says, “The name of a collector doesn’t go down in history like a botanist, but their work is the foundation for all further research.” Her collaboration with botanists and historians is itself a veiled tribute to that unacknowledged work. Perhaps that is something Plant Collectors’ Notebook has in common with readers: its protagonists silently support the work of botanical research – and plants silently support human life – in the same way that ordinary people like you and me contribute to the day-to-day operation of the world.

(This article is originally published at Readmoo)

Yeh Hsing-chiao, the main character in The Banana Sprout, is attending school in a city far from home, but when the relatives he was staying with must leave town for work, Yeh is forced to move into the student dormitory halfway through the semester. Yeh’s first official meeting with his roommate, the infamous oddball Untaro, makes for one of the most jaw-dropping scenes in the entire book: As Yeh passes by the dormitory he delights at the cool relief of a gentle, misting rain, but only seconds later, alerted by the dorm matron’s litany of curses, he looks up just in time to see a curly-haired youth zipping back up his pants before candidly calling down: “My bad!” It is only then that Yeh comes to the belated realization that the gentle rain he’d delighted in was no rain at all….

Yet, once they become roommates, Yeh quickly realizes that Untaro is not just some profligate libertine – his Japanese roommate’s room is filled with all kinds of books, both in Japanese and foreign languages. Indeed, he is such a voracious reader that even one of his teachers must confess to being less well-read. Untaro often skips class, but he spends most of his time immersed in independent study and has even mastered German, a language that remains elusive to Yeh. 

Yeh’s diligence and strict obedience stand in stark relief to Untaro’s freewheeling personality. At first, Yeh’s oddball roommate is little more than a constant source of annoyance to him, but through their daily interactions and insights from a teacher, he finally realizes that Untaro’s impulsive behavior is a manifestation of the same uncertainty about the future that Yeh himself feels. After a heartfelt discussion, the two come to a conclusion: given that they both feel uncertain about the future, perhaps they can undertake some common cause to begin looking for the answers they seek. They decide to deploy their respective literary strengths in the making of a new, relatively open-minded literature journal that will offer a challenge to the strict conventionalism of the school journal Soaring Wind.   

If the time period in which The Banana Sprout transpires was not clearly stated, one could be forgiven for mistaking it for a modern, Japanese high school bildungsroman. Many hallmarks of the Japanese coming-of-age tales are present: two young, likable friends with polar-opposite personalities combine forces in pursuit of some ambitious objective – their enthusiasm and drive can be inspiring, their antics both galling and hilarious, and at times the realizations they come to as they grow can cast the reader into a melancholic gloom. Yet, once we learn when and where this novel takes places, it is hard not to marvel at the author, Zuo Hsuan’s talents; this charming and poignant story is the product of the author’s meticulous distillation of a vast amount of historical research. If not for Zuo Hsuan’s elegant reconjuring, even the average Taiwanese reader would find it difficult to imagine what life must have been like in Taihoku High School during the 1930s.  

Taihoku High School was the predecessor to what is now National Taiwan Normal University. During Japanese rule, the school was a seven-year, all-boys, elite academy consisting of a four-year middle school and a three-year college preparatory program. The four-year middle school (called the “Basic Program”) accepted graduates of elementary schools, while the college preparatory program (called the “Advanced Program”) consisted of students that had graduated from the Basic Program and were automatically matriculated, as well as middle school students from other schools who tested into the program. Because graduates of the Taihoku High School could directly enroll in the Japanese Imperial Universities (the predecessors of Tokyo University, Kyoto University, and National Taiwan University) without taking entrance exams, competition among prospective students was fierce – of the 160 students admitted to the Advanced Program every year, less than thirty were Taiwanese, with the rest consisting of Japanese students. Regardless of their nationality, any student seen wearing the Taihoku High School uniform would likely have been regarded in the much the same way as the bookstore proprietress in the graphic novel saw them – as future doctors and influential politicians in the making.

Interestingly, this academic “cream of the crop” was far from a bunch of nerdy bookworms – much like the banana leaves that wreathed their school crest, they were full of liveliness and exuberance. The lax campus regulations created the ultimate environment for students to engage in self-guided exploration. Not only were they allowed to pursue whatever academic interests and extracurricular activities they pleased, arming themselves with all the basic expertise any budding intellectual may need, they were also allowed the freedom to experience life unbound by restrictions. As such, some students affected a disheveled and slovenly appearance like Untaro, while others could be seen reveling in late night sessions of song and dance, beating on drums, locked arm-in-arm.… This bold and unrestrained campus culture likely blurred the ethnic lines between Japanese and Taiwanese. In an otherwise strictly regimented colonial society, this tiny campus became a rare oasis of freedom and liberalism. 

The question is, will modern readers be able to relate to these youths of ninety years ago? In fact, this question did not even cross my mind while reading – I was carried off by the meticulous detail and clean precision of Zuo Hsuan’s prose, and became immersed in the eccentricities and surprising twists of Yeh and Untaro’s world. From a modern vantage, their mindset and behavior vary only slightly from that of today’s highschoolers or college students. The uncertainty they feel towards themselves, their peers and their new environment is entirely relatable to modern audiences. Perhaps, as the story develops further, we will see conflicts of race, gender, and agency which are more specific to that period, but prior to that I assume readers will have just one wish: to see more of these youngsters who, like the banana sprouts of their insignia, embody limitless potential.

GPT is set up by The Ministry of Culture to encourage the publication of Taiwanese works in translation overseas, to raise the international visibility of Taiwanese cultural content, and to help Taiwan's publishing industry expand into non-Chinese international markets.

Applicant Eligibility: Foreign publishing houses (legal entity) legally registered or incorporated in accordance with the laws and regulations of their respective countries.

Conditions:

1. The so-called Taiwanese works must meet the following requirements:

A. Use traditional characters
B. Written by a natural person holding an R.O.C. identity card
C. Has been assigned an ISBN in Taiwan
i.e., the author is a native of Taiwan, and the first 6 digits of the book's ISBN are 978-957-XXX-XXX-X, 978-986-XXX-XXX-X, or 978-626-XXX-XXX-X.

2. Applications must include documents certifying that the copyright holder of the Taiwanese works consents to its translation and foreign publication (no restriction on its format).

3. A translation sample of the Taiwanese work is required (no restriction on its format and length).

4. The translated work must be published within two years, after the first day of the relevant application period.

Grant Items:

1. The maximum grant available for each project is NT$600,000, which covers:

A. Licensing fees (going to the copyright holder of the Taiwanese works);
B. Translation fees;
C. Marketing and promotion fees (applicants for this funding must propose a specific marketing promotion plan and complete the implementation before submitting the grant project results; those whose plans include talks or book launching events attended by authors in person will be given priority for grants);
D. Book production-oriented fees;
E. Tax (20% of the total award amount);
F. Remittance-related handling fees.

2. Priority consideration is given to books that have received the Golden Tripod Award, the Golden Comic Award, the Taiwan Literature Award, books on Taiwan’s culture and history, or series of books.

3. The grant will be given all at once after the grant recipients submit the following written documents to the Ministry before the submission deadline in accordance with article III, paragraph 5 of this application guidelines:

A. Paper receipt with signature or stamp (format given along with the Ministry's formal announcement);
B. A detailed list of expenditures, sales volume (or expected sales volume) of translated books, and marketing promotion plan results;
C. 10 print copies of the final work published abroad (if the work is published in an e-book format, grant recipients shall instead provide purchase authorizations for 10 persons).

Application Period: Twice every year. The MOC reserves the right to change the application periods, and will announce said changes separately.

Announcement of successful applications: Winners will be announced within three months of the end of the application period.

Application Method: Please visit the Ministry’s official website (https://grants.moc.gov.tw/Web_ENG/), and use the online application system.

For full details of the GPT, please visit https://grants.moc.gov.tw/Web_ENG/PointDetail.jsp?__viewstate=pvWqz/p/nta24J579unZRwn9PKt77jmtn7aTE1VXtTw+KPMfSuwgOHJZcscjkMix7n5bknQ4C1jvfwxUC1ZSeBfK7nUo4Ss4 

Or contact: [email protected]

Read previous part: https://booksfromtaiwan.tw/latest_info.php?id=234

Beyond books that helped to identify the damage done, we have also seen a slew of titles focusing on the gradual process of recovery. Malaysian family therapy proponent Feng Yi-liang’s (馮以量) Allow Yourself to Choose Love (允許自己選擇愛) and With Whose Trauma are You Burdened? (你背負了誰的傷), for instance, guide readers through a process of reconciliation with life’s hardships and traumas. Counseling psychologist Chou Mu-Tzu’s (周慕姿) Trying Too Hard: Why We Can Never Do Enough (過度努力) exposes how seeking perfection is a behavior that derives from past trauma and argues that the path to self-acceptance begins by identifying the source of one’s trauma.

Trying Too Hard: Why We Can Never Do Enough 

Despite the diversity of subject matter represented by recently published works in the self-help book market, the many branches and schools of thought, and the divergence of focus on various kinds of relationships or age groups, the exploration of mental health cannot be divided by country or language because mental health issues are  ultimately a human subject that exists in all cultures. 

In these past few years, Aquarius Publishing has seen that in addition to Mainland China , Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, and Indonesian outfits have also showed heightened interest in securing publishing rights for self-help books. Thanks to Books from Taiwan, who promoted our books and served as our publishing liaison in negotiations, the publishing rights for the Aquarius titles mentioned above have all been sold abroad. Certain trends in global markets can be derived from the titles Aquarius has sold abroad: relationships, emotions, family and self-affirmation seem to be common areas of interests across international borders.

As someone with over 20 years of experience in publishing, I’ve noticed that dynamics in preferences for certain book topics seem to follow a cyclical flow not unlike fads in fashion, where preferences for skinny jeans seem to alternate with baggy jeans in a recurrent pattern. However, these so-called trends are never a sure bet. For instance, a trend may develop when a certain kind of book sells well, which then leads many other people in that field to release their own books. However, this can also lead to a fairly inconsistent standard of quality. Oftentimes, if one only realizes the market is saturated after blindly following a certain trend to the point that sales fall off, the realization will have come too late.

A successful publisher doesn’t pick out the prettiest flower from their own garden, but rather branches out into far-flung fields to find exotic flowers not yet available back home. At the same time, they must also identify the dry patches in their own garden and fill in the empty spots where needed.

For instance, we are all concentrated on the lives we live, but we also have to learn how to accept death—this is the focus of Su Shun-Hui (蘇絢慧), an author that writes about recovering from grief and whose book And Then, I Was Finally Able to Say Goodbye (於是，我可以好好說再見) seeks to guide readers through the pain of losing a loved one. In a similar vein, Shang Pei-yu’s (商沛宇) A Cancer Clinical Psychologist’s Healing Bag of Tricks (癌症心理師的療心錦囊) is a monograph written in solicitude and care for cancer patients and their families.

In the verdant garden of Taiwan’s book market, a book that will someday become a bestseller is just one of many seeds with a bright future, while those topics that have not yet taken root in the market have unlimited potential for development.

Designed by Yang Cho-cheng of Hemu Architects, the Yuanshan Grand Hotel is a classic example of postwar architecture in Taiwan that is often cited for its symbolism and historical significance in the annals of architectural discourse. Scholars including Fan Ming-ju and Joseph R. Allen have analyzed the hotel using political, cinematic, and other frameworks. Given that most academic texts focus on the yellow glazed tiles of the hotel’s roof, the title The Red Mansion feels like a rediscovery that compels the reader to consider the overwhelming presence of red in the building, rather than simply gaze at the rooftop, where one’s attention may naturally be drawn when beholding antique palaces. This title uncovers the stories that take place within the walls of the hotel, and that exist beneath the contours of the building’s silhouette that remains so dominant in architectural history. Through a cast of colorful characters, the reader gets to know the fascinating history that this edifice contains.

Why was the yellow roof such a striking feature during the era of authoritarian rule? To answer this question, we must return to Taiwan before World War II, when it was still a Japanese colony. By 1929, the 34th year of Japanese governance, Ide Kaoru had already long served as chief architect of the Taiwan Government-General’s Building and Repairs Section. In this capacity, he’d made many observations and formed insights into the architecture of the island. Ide believed that every metropolis had representative colors and palettes, such as the hazy hues of London, the vivid light of Paris, the earth tones of Rome, and so on. It was the task of the architectural designer to harmonize with the environment, rather than try to bend it to his will. In addition, the urban palette was created by not only static buildings, but the replaceable signage of shops and the dynamic movements of carriages and motor vehicles. Buses traveling back and forth on the streets were among the important elements that influenced one’s overall impression of a city, as well.

Taihoku, as Taipei was then known, needed a long-term plan in order to create its own urban palette. Situated at a relatively low latitude compared to the Japanese mainland, Taihoku was well-suited for brick buildings in colors that would be enlivened by the bright sun. These facades would convey a sense of modernity and create a unique style for the city; they would also be easy to clean and maintain in such a humid climate. The brick buildings that were planned and designed under Ide Kaoru’s guidance included the pale green Taihoku Civic Hall (today’s Zhongshan Hall) and the High Court of the Taiwan Government-General (today’s Judicial Building); the tawny-colored Taiwan Education Hall (today’s National 228 Memorial Hall) and Taihoku Imperial University campus (today’s National Taiwan University); and the red ochre of the Taihoku High School campus (today’s National Taiwan Normal University). These structures have a cohesive style when viewed together, while each building also boasts its own colorful details.

After World War II, Taipei’s landscape was shaped by architects who were well-versed in European and American modernism. They seemed to be on the verge of developing a unique urban palette for Taipei, but ultimately still fell short of Ide Kaoru’s ideal, which called for a blending of colors that could express calm and restraint while retaining a sense of vigor. Taipei’s postwar style instead deployed white tiles on building exteriors in order to convey a sense of spaciousness. The rapid economic development of this period produced mass quantities of buildings with uniform interiors and a limited range of exterior colors. The architects of the Republic of China were quite obsessed with white facades that emphasized volume, a modernist principle embodied most visibly by the New York Five in the 1980s. This group of star architects, also known as the Whites, was idolized and imitated around the world. We all know how the rest of the story went. In the rainy climes of Taipei, the white brick exteriors were not cleaned as regularly as the mighty building management committees had envisioned. They quickly became stained by exhaust and grime in the era of the automobile and no longer highlighted the spatial or structural features of the buildings as originally intended. The tiles were successively removed and restored, but no longer did they convey the modernist ideal of the city of white. In this city of pale hues filled with people of all social strata, how could the Republic of China’s blue bloods show off their elite status during an era of authoritarian rule? Landmarks with yellow glazed roof tiles thus became the symbol of a ruling class pining for their lost homeland.

According to Professor Yang Hongxun of the architecture department of Tsinghua University in Beijing, Confucian temples and the habitations of the highest classes of the imperial family were the only structures allowed to use yellow glazed tiles during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Even the households of other nobles, including princes and lords, were limited to green or black tiles. The Kuomintang government took credit for overthrowing the Manchu Qing empire and leading the Xinhai Revolution. After relocating to Taiwan, the KMT used public resources to successively construct places like the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine, the National Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, and the National Theater and Concert Hall. In a twist of historical irony, these buildings all proudly make use of yellow glazed tiles, that most potent symbol of the imperial power toppled by the Xinhai Revolution. In the so-called Republic of China, the ruling party was essentially creating symbols to demonstrate they were the successors to the imperial palace. That the KMT inherited this mentality from dynastic times is absurd and paradoxical, a fact that has largely been overlooked beyond the communities of architectural researchers.

If you looked out over the cityscape of postwar Taipei, you’d see glimmers of golden roofs in the midst of endless rows of white buildings, a brazen imposition of the shadow of the ancient Chinese capitals of Luoyang, Chang’an, Nanjing, and Beiping upon the Taipei Basin. The tallest of these buildings with yellow rooftops was none other than the Yuanshan Grand Hotel, the protagonist of the book in question.

Ultimately, neither white nor yellow became a representative color of Taipei or the urban style of Taiwanese architecture. All that remains is the massive red mansion that still towers on Yuanshan, a location chosen for its excellent feng shui to house a shrine during the Japanese colonial era. The Yuanshan Grand Hotel has borne witness to tumultuous events like the establishment of the Democratic People’s Party, a great fire on its roof, the hiring of “lion-hearted” general manager Stanley Yen, and the controversy over the national flag during a Chinese delegation’s visit in 2008. The elite pretensions that the authoritarian government-in-exile vehemently maintained have faded away over time. A palace that once wielded immense power has ultimately reverted to the competition of the free market. Thanks to the stories recorded by T.H. Lee, we are able to glimpse Taiwanese history in the hotel. As for Taipei’s future and the question of how to create a national style, we’ll leave this in the hands of generations to come.