3 replies to this topic

[snowybeagle]

Hergé, pseudonym of Georges Remi, was probably the first Westerner to present the plight of China in the pre-WW2 years of the Nationalist government in the form of comics popular to European audience.

The Blue Lotus was the fifth Tintin adventure, following Cigars of the Pharaoh. Incidentally, it was not available in Singapore for many years until sometime in the mid-late 1980s, despite all the other titles being available (except Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in Congo).

The Blue Lotus carried "bold anti-imperialist message, contrary to the prevailing view in the West, which was sympathetic to Japan and the colonial enterprise. As a result, it drew sharp criticism from various parties, including a protest by Japanese diplomats to the Belgian Foreign Ministry."

Hergé was urged by Father Gosset, chaplain to the Chinese students at the University of Leuven, to be sensitive about what he wrote about China after mentioning at the conclusion of Cigars of the Pharaoh that Tintin's next destination was China. "Hergé agreed, and in the spring of 1934 Gosset introduced him to Zhang Chongren, a young sculpture student at the Brussels Académie des Beaux-Arts. The two young artists quickly became close friends, and Chang introduced Hergé to Chinese history, culture, and the techniques of Chinese art."

For those who had not read The Blue Lotus, it was about Tintin foiling drug smuggling ring operating in Shanghai, with the background of China being forced to allow foreign concessionaries and the 1931 Mukden Incident (bombing of a section of railroad under Japan's South Manchuria Railway.

I was rather puzzled to read that the PRC banned this publication for a long time, and when it was allowed in 1984, "some pictures of the examples of Western prejudice were either altered or even taken out completely".

Has anyone read the two versions and could provide a comparison?

The only thing I could think the CCP could object to was Tintin's close cooperation with the Green Dragon Society against the drug runners. The Green Dragon Society was probably too closely related (at least in name) to the Green Dragon Gang, an actual gangster syndicate, and probably in cahoots with the KMT under Chiang Kai Shek during the bloody communist purge (White Terror).

Also, the scene showing adulation of Tintin after he successfully broke the drug runners' gang might not sit well with ultra-nationalists.

Any thoughts, anyone?

Edited by snowybeagle, 13 June 2005 - 11:41 AM.

[Yun]

The Green Dragon Society was probably too closely related (at least in name) to the Green Dragon Gang, an actual gangster syndicate, and probably in cahoots with the KMT under Chiang Kai Shek during the bloody communist purge (White Terror).

I think this historical gang was actually called the Green Gang (Qingbang). It provided most of the manpower for the massacre of the Communists in Shanghai in 1927, and was at that time headed by Du Yuesheng.

I have a deep impression of The Blue Lotus as one of the most sympathetic European portrayals of China in the 1930s. The Japanese were depicted as arrogant, jackbooted militarists, but as bucktoothed buffoons at the same time - especially in the scene where they walked out of the League of Nations. On the other hand, the Chinese people were shown as being civil, wise, traditional, and long-suffering. Perhaps it was the very portrayal of the Chinese in this way (no revolutionary spirit, with rickshaw-pullers being beaten by foreigners), and of friendship between a person from an imperialist country (Tintin) and a Chinese (Chang) that made the PRC under Mao want to ban the book.

[Sephodwyrm]

I actually read the Blue Lotus.
It is actually more than Tintin foiling a drug dealing gang based in China. That gang were also working with the Japanese to sell opium. At the same time, the Japanese also tried to start a war against China by sabotaging railroad tracks in China and blamed the Chinese for it. In any case, Tintin also fooled Japanese soldiers etc. The Chinese are actually portrayed in a very positive light in the Blue Lotus.

I have always felt that Herge is a very sensitive person when pertaining to world cultures. His Blue Lotus is a good work. However, I can postulate a few reasons why the CCP took out the western prejudices that Tintin brought up (Tintin rescued a boy from a flood, and Tintin told him about the prejudices that western society have about the Chinese. The boy laughed and also told Tintin about the prejudices that the Chinese have on westerners. In the end, it is concluded that they are all generally untrue).

1. A great number of Chinese would be very angry with westerners
2. A great number of Chinese would laugh at the westeners etc.

In any case, CCP taking out these prejudices is saving the westener's face, not the Chinese face.

[snowybeagle]

I have always felt that Herge is a very sensitive person when pertaining to world cultures.

This was brought about partly due to him accepting the advice from others to do actual research or use his personal experience rather than taking second-hand information.

According to the official website for Tintin at http://www.tintin.com
The Blue Lotus was where he began to take accurate portrayals seriously.

...
"1934 Casterman Publishing House, based in Tournai, Belgium, becomes the publisher of the Adventures of Tintin.

A meeting with a young Chinese student, Chang Chong-Chen, marks a decisive turning point.
Hergé becomes convinced of the importance of a soundly built storyline and of the necessity for thorough research and preparation. He begins to take seriously what was, until then, just a simple game."

http://tintin.france.../bio/biog1.html
[Note : the actual name of the student was Zhang Chongren or Chang Ch'ung-jen (张充仁, 1907 - 1998)]

Chang became another inspiration for what could be considered as the "darkest" of all Tintin's adventures, Tintin in Tibet.

In a case of real-life mirroring the story, Hergé lost contact with Chang during the invasion of China by Japan, and through the civil war as well as Cultural Revolution. It would be more than four decades before they meet again, and Chang survived the Cultural Revolution, being reduced to a streetsweeper before it's all over and he became head of Fine Arts Academy in Shanghai in the 1970s.

It must be noted that Tintin's earlier adventures, in the USSR (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, 1931, B&W), in the USA (Tintin in America, 1932, B&W), in Congo (Tintin in Congo), as well as in the Middle East (Cigars of the Pharaoh, 1934, B&W), contained more popular contemporary stereotypes.

Tintin in America was reworked and coloured in 1945, but it was not until 1973 that many of the negroid characters were redrawn as whites or ambiguos ethnicity.

Redrawings occurred in numerous instances in other Tintin books, since most of the adventures overseas was a reflection of the time before colonialism was largely ended, and many of the places visited by Tintin were colonies of European states.