CHINA IN TIN TIN

In 1993, a book entitled China in Kuifje (China in TinTin), written by
journalist Marcel van Nieuwenborgh and Chinese historian Claire Chang, was
published in Louvain (Belgium). Although the TinTin comic books are primarily
stories full of adventure, the artist and author Herg‚ (pen name of Georges
Remi) always store to come as close as possible to the actual situation and
events in the countries in which he set his stories. The album TinTin and the
Blue Lotus, which is situated mainly in Shanghai, is an outstanding example
of Herg‚'s precise method of working, not least because all the Chinese
characters that appear in the book, including street signs and advertisements
in the background of the pictures, are written correctly and are meaningful.
This album first appeared in the children's supplement of a Belgian newspaper
in 1934 under the title of "Les aventures de Tintin en Extrˆme-Orient" (The
adventures of Tintin in the Far East).

Van Nieuwenborgh and Chang have traced Herg‚'s major sources of inspiration
and information to two Chinese who were living in Belgium at the time: Tchang
Tchong-jen, a student of sculpture in Brussels and Lou Tseng-Tsiang, a former
statesman and diplomat who became a Benedictine monk residing in the abbey of
Sint Andries in Loppem. In addition, the authors draw attention to the way
Herg‚ depicts Chinese reality in Shanghai of the 1930s. It becomes obvious
that some details in the story are not as accidental or innocuous as they seem
to be at first sight. For example, in the first edition one of the wall
posters in Shanghai in the background of a picture is a call for the boycott
of Japanese goods and when TinTin runs into an arrogant American, the Chinese
characters on the wall poster behind them read "Down with imperialism".
Nieuwenborgh and Chang also find that, in some cases, Herg‚ changed details
for political reasons: in the first edition, British policemen of the
International Settlement in Shanghai are given the orders to beat up TinTin;
in a later edition, the British have been replaced by the Sikhs.

Marcel van Nieuwenborgh and Claire Chang, China in Kuifje (China in TinTin)
Louvain (Belgium): Davidsfonds 1993. 45 pp. With illustrations. ISBN:
90-6152-821-6.