Taiwan artist sings homeland's praises at French comics festival

Paris, Feb. 4 (CNA) For Taiwanese comic book artist Ruan Guang-min (阮光民), his homeland is a "sweet potato-shaped treasure trove" of cultures and a largely untapped inventory for rich ideas.

Speaking with CNA at the 52nd Angoulême International Comics Festival in France last week, Ruan said that he found French readers to be more accepting of Taiwan comics than those in Asia.

"What is interesting is that you don't need to be well known. European readers only care about your drawings -- they like it, they buy it. Their acceptance and inclusiveness are pretty broad."

The 51-year-old Ruan, known for capturing Taiwan's stories, people, and history through his illustrations, said he was very happy to have been able to introduce Taiwan to foreign readers through his comics.

The French translation of Ruan's 2011 comic "Seasoning to Happiness" (幸福調味料) was one of some 130 original Taiwanese comics that were on show at the Taiwan Pavilion in the international comics festival, which ran from Thursday to Sunday last week.

Published as "L'assaisonnement du bonheur" in French, the comic was a big hit at the festival, where readers flocked to the booth of its French publisher, Asian District.

Ruan told CNA that the ideas for his stories came from none other than the island nation that nurtured him.

Taiwan culture defined

Ruan used his award-winning 2022 comic adaptation of Taiwanese poet Loa Ho's (賴和, 1894-1943) novel "The Steelyard" (一桿「稱仔」) as an example of Taiwan's often overlooked cultural heritage.

Ruan recalled that he was inspired to adapt the story at the invitation of Taiwan literature professors.

The scholars have been researching Taiwanese literature from the Japanese colonial era for a long time, but were unable to introduce their work to people outside academia, he said.

Ruan grew up in a culturally mixed family, but, despite his mother's deep roots in Taiwan, he said he was not familiar with the literary giants born and raised on the island as Loa.

"Because in my textbooks, there were only [Chinese writer] Xu Zhimo (徐志摩) and the image of picking oranges," he said, referring to Chinese poet Zhu Ziqing's (朱自清) well-known essay titled "The Back (背影)."

Ruan said that from his perspective, Chinese writers like Xu and Zhu, who made their names between the Qing Dynasty and the early years of the Republic of China, do not accurately represent modern-day Taiwan.

In the Taiwanese artist's opinion, the likes of Loa and Lung Ying-tsung (龍瑛宗, 1911-1999) a Taiwanese novelist of Hakka descent, would better define Taiwan's literary history, despite the island's Japanese colonial rule being their subject matter.

From his point of view, Ruan said, Taiwan is a place made of various languages and ethnicities, and that the Japanese era was part of its history.

Only by recognizing that fact can Taiwan's culture gain more weight, he added.

As such, Ruan said he aims to adapt works of Taiwanese literary masters of the era including Loa, Lung and Lu Ho-jo (呂赫若, 1914-1950), a Taiwanese writer, vocalist and playwright, to let more Taiwanese people know of such stories.

"If no action is taken, if no more people tell these stories, a lot of our history will regrettably disappear," he said. "We are all beneficiaries of those who came before us. They wrote such literature and those of us who benefitted from them must not fail the foundation which they cemented."

Ruan then described Taiwan as a "sweet potato-shaped treasure trove" of cultures waiting to be explored.

"Even though some things were not born and raised there, they are still cultures foreign nations planted deep within Taiwan awaiting discovery."