Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Traditional stories - Chinese-American young cartoonist: The creation will integrate two cultural connotations.

Chinese-American young cartoonist: The creation will integrate two cultural connotations.

Hong Kong's monthly Horizon tells the creative story of American-born and award-winning chinese comic artists Yang Jinlun and Zhao Kailan. The article is compiled as follows:

Thirty years ago, when I was still in Shanghai, I also drew cartoons and got to know famous elders such as Wan Laiming, Zhang Leping, Sheng Tewei, Cai Zhenhua and Le Xiaoying. Among the young and middle-aged are, Xuan, Mao Yongkun, Liu, Pan, Shi Meicheng, Shen Tiancheng, Pan Shunqi, Zheng Xinyao, Sun, Wang Jian and so on. After moving to the United States, most of my familiar art friends are engaged in oil painting, Chinese painting creation or arts and crafts design in order to survive and develop abroad. Few people are willing to "ask for trouble" to concentrate on comic creation that is difficult to make a living.

However, I am still very concerned about cartoons that Americans call "comic novels". I went to the bookstore to browse and choose the best ones to buy and enjoy at home. Of course, they are all works of foreign cartoonists. Chinese painters include Cai Zhizhong, Zhu Deyong, Lao Qiong, Ao Naixiang, Jimmy and other cartoonists in Taiwan Province Province, while Chinese mainland has no initiative to show up. With great expectation, I finally found two talented young cartoonists in China, Yang Jinlun and Zhao Kailan, both of whom were born in the United States and won prizes.

Yang Jinlun's mental journey of painting ABC.

Yang Jinlun 1973 was born in California on the west coast of the United States, commonly known as "ABC", which means "China people born in the United States".

Like many China children born in the United States, he is full of mystery about his parents' motherland and has a unique understanding of the ancient and distant China culture, so his English name is not westernized, but taken from the Chinese transliteration "GeneLuen".

He loved painting since he was a child. Because he couldn't find a teacher to teach art after class in his place of residence, he insisted on self-study. When he applied for a university, he filled in the Department of Art at UCLA and the Department of Computer Science at Berkeley. I can't believe that he was admitted to two universities at the same time. However, the mother thinks that "learning art is difficult to support the family" and does not agree with her son to be an artist. He had to choose to go to Berkeley to major in computer and minor in comparative literature, which benefited him a lot in writing painting novels in the future. After obtaining a master's degree in education, he worked as the director of information center and computer teacher in a Catholic high school in Oakland, San Francisco. The rest of the time, he is addicted to the imaginary world of comic creation and is often invited to give lectures at universities, libraries and educational institutions around the world.

When Yang Jinlun was a child, he moved from San Francisco Chinatown with his parents, lived there for nine years and moved to a white community. His neighbors are all white families. He is the only China student in the school, just like a loner. He is kind-hearted and often bullied by white children. He always tolerates others. Like Chinese and Asian children, he is burdened with the problem of "identity and role orientation" and will mutter to himself: "Who am I? American or China? "

He doesn't envy white people, but he is proud of China people with yellow skin. Since he was a child, he likes to listen to his mother's stories about China's myths and legends such as Journey to the West and Meng Mu's three major movements, and learn about his ancestors' long history and culture. China people have many fine traditions, such as respecting the old and caring for the young, respecting parents and attaching importance to family values, which are worth learning from westerners. Therefore, he believes that "China people should use their fine traditions to influence the values of westerners, instead of giving up their own culture blindly. Only a group that knows how to respect its own national culture can win the respect of other ethnic groups. "

In order to realize his beautiful dream, he went all out to start his cartoon creation career. He thinks that the China blood flowing in him is very important, so it must be fascinating and interesting to skillfully use the image of the Monkey King to express the life experiences of Asians born in the United States.

After five years' efforts, he compiled an autobiographical comic novel, American Born. In this work, he takes the Monkey King's fairy tales as the introduction and takes himself as the prototype, shaping a Chinese child named "Wang Jin", using new techniques and simple lines outlined with a brush; Fluent, blending Chinese and western painting styles, in the oriental action and dialogue design, western humor is everywhere. The story tells the plight of China immigrants living in foreign countries and their descendants, and describes the psychological process of "ABC" in the conflict, painful struggle and attempt to integrate between China traditional culture and American society.

Chinese American ended up with a Hollywood reconciliation. Sun, a teenager from Taiwan Province, and cousin China both got out of their confusion dramatically, found the soul of China, harmoniously integrated into the mainstream American society, and really grew up.