Everything Can Be Repaired: A Journey of Healing and Reconstruction

Upon first see­ing *Kintsu­gi* (orig­i­nal title: *The Rab­bit Who Search­es for Answers*), I was imme­di­ate­ly drawn to its strik­ing cov­er. Against a black back­ground, a rab­bit stretch­es upwards, try­ing to grasp a blue teacup, which floats away to the upper right. Behind the rab­bit, a group of strange-look­ing white sea crea­tures fol­low close­ly… The sim­plic­i­ty and neg­a­tive space of the illus­tra­tion seem to hint at a pro­found and unset­tling sto­ry, com­pelling one to turn the pages and seek the answers.

This is a word­less book cre­at­ed by Peru­vian artist Issa Watan­abe (1980-), her sec­ond book pub­lished after the word­less book *The Migrants*. It won first prize in the “Sto­ry” cat­e­go­ry at the 2024 Bologna Chil­dren’s Book Fair in Italy. The judges gave it extreme­ly high praise, stat­ing that it “offers a poet­ic alle­go­ry with excep­tion­al ten­der­ness and depth through unique and ele­gant visu­al sto­ry­telling, con­fi­dent­ly and con­cise­ly pre­sent­ing a jour­ney from loss to rebirth.”

Read­ing this word­less sto­ry is both a visu­al artis­tic expe­ri­ence and an open dia­logue with the soul, invit­ing read­ers to par­tic­i­pate in the nar­ra­tive based on their own expe­ri­ences and insights. The nar­ra­tor’s “silence” is per­haps its most cap­ti­vat­ing aspect, allow­ing each read­er to dis­cov­er their own unique sto­ry. The inge­nious arrange­ment of visu­al details makes the read­ing process full of explorato­ry plea­sure, while the quote from Emi­ly Dick­in­son’s poem “The Hope Bird” at the end of the book infus­es the entire work with philo­soph­i­cal and emo­tion­al depth.

As a book review­er and an ordi­nary read­er, I also need­ed to try read­ing this word­less book sev­er­al times to feel I could clear­ly under­stand the sto­ry. I also found that dis­cussing and delib­er­at­ing with like-mind­ed peo­ple (adults or chil­dren) helped me under­stand more. More­over, I know that the more times I read it and the more like-mind­ed peo­ple I involve, the more dif­fer­ent ver­sions of the sto­ry will emerge. There­fore, the ver­sion of the sto­ry I’m shar­ing below is one that I’m cur­rent­ly using. Of course, it’s just one of many pos­si­ble ver­sions—

The sto­ry begins with the pro­tag­o­nist, a rab­bit, car­ry­ing two teacups, walk­ing towards a large table. Shar­ing his tea break is a small red bird perched on a branch oppo­site the table. This seem­ing­ly ordi­nary tea-drink­ing scene car­ries a hint of the strange. Branch­es abrupt­ly sprout from the table­top, as if qui­et­ly telling a metaphor: dai­ly life is like this table, where peo­ple sit togeth­er drink­ing tea and chat­ting, shar­ing warm moments, while the branch­es sym­bol­ize the extend­ed events and expe­ri­ences in life. Every­day objects hang­ing on the branch­es, such as a comb, glass­es, a teapot, and a hat, seem to bear wit­ness to past hap­py times. The rab­bit, teapot, teacups, and the stopped clock in the pic­ture also inad­ver­tent­ly evoke clas­sic imagery from *Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land*. How­ev­er, the author clev­er­ly places these items in uncon­ven­tion­al loca­tions, sub­tly stir­ring a sense of unease in the view­er, mak­ing them eager to know what will hap­pen next.

Soon, the scene changed. The red bird looked down at the table, the reflec­tion of the branch­es on it resem­bling cracks. At that moment, the rab­bit, who was pour­ing tea, stood up anx­ious­ly, ears back, watch­ing the red bird intent­ly. The table, stool, and branch­es on the red bird’s side, includ­ing itself, began to grad­u­al­ly change from col­or to white. The next scene was intriguing—the white bird sud­den­ly grew a pair of human feet, its right foot draped with the table­cloth, and flew away. The table­cloth flut­tered with its ankle, the branch­es on the table dis­ap­peared, and the objects hang­ing from them scat­tered to the ground. The rab­bit hur­ried­ly chased after it, clutch­ing a small green twig tight­ly in its hand. This twig had once grown from the branch­es of the large table, a wit­ness to the past and a sym­bol of the rab­bit’s hope.

The rab­bit’s jour­ney was fraught with per­il. He encoun­tered a horse gnaw­ing on branch­es, tra­versed dan­ger­ous Venus fly­traps, and final­ly rowed alone to a patch of dark water. Look­ing around, he saw only a few soli­tary ice­bergs. The rab­bit could­n’t find what he was look­ing for; per­haps the answer lay beneath the ice­bergs. So, he plunged into the water, and a dark and mys­te­ri­ous under­wa­ter world unfold­ed before him.

For a land-dwelling rab­bit, the under­wa­ter world was full of unknowns and curios­i­ty. At first, the sur­round­ings were vibrant with col­or, but as the rab­bit moved for­ward, the crea­tures of the under­wa­ter world quick­ly turned white again. The rab­bit sensed the change in its envi­ron­ment; it swam past white coral reefs, its shoes get­ting caught and turn­ing white as well. The rab­bit strug­gled to swim upwards, final­ly sur­fac­ing exhaust­ed. It knew that this ardu­ous search would ulti­mate­ly yield no answers. For­tu­nate­ly, the small green twig it clutched in its hand was still there; hope remained.

This under­wa­ter explo­ration evokes the feel­ing of falling into an emo­tion­al abyss amidst pain and con­fu­sion. The rab­bit’s “swim­ming” into the unfath­omable depths is like enter­ing the sub­con­scious world with­in itself, search­ing for direc­tion and strength in the dark­ness. Ulti­mate­ly, it decides to return to land and con­front its shat­tered life.

Yes, no mat­ter what dif­fi­cul­ties or predica­ments we encounter, the sun will still rise, even if it only illu­mi­nates a mess. At the end of the sto­ry, the rab­bit returns to his famil­iar place, gaz­ing at the scat­tered objects. The items that once hung on the branch­es are now bat­tered and bro­ken, and the blue teacup in the rab­bit’s hand is reduced to frag­ments. He stops, his ears slight­ly raised, as if he’s thought of some­thing, and begins to gath­er the bro­ken pieces, attempt­ing to repair them. A bro­ken stool leg is fit­ted with a suit­able piece of wood, a cup split in two is pieced togeth­er with anoth­er bro­ken cup, and a bowl and its fall­en han­dle are glued togeth­er to become a new teacup… The repaired objects, though bear­ing their scars, become unique.

Final­ly, the rab­bit insert­ed the green twig into the repaired teacup, believ­ing that the twig would even­tu­al­ly grow and the items would be hung back on the branch­es to wel­come a new life.

To reit­er­ate, the above ver­sion of the sto­ry is mere­ly one pos­si­ble inter­pre­ta­tion and retelling. I believe that even I, at a dif­fer­ent stage of life and with a dif­fer­ent mind­set, might inter­pret it in many dif­fer­ent ways. This depends on the mem­o­ries I choose to com­pare it with at this par­tic­u­lar point in time. As Gabriel Gar­cía Márquez said in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, *Liv­ing to Tell the Tale*, “Life is not what we expe­ri­ence, but what we remem­ber, and the way we recon­struct it in our mem­o­ries in order to tell it.” There­fore, it is cer­tain that for the cre­ator, Isa Watan­abe her­self, there is also her unique ver­sion of the sto­ry, which may even con­tin­ue to evolve.

Although it’s a word­less book, with the main sto­ry told entire­ly with­out text, there are still some words inside, such as the title, title page, ded­i­ca­tion, post­script, and pub­li­ca­tion infor­ma­tion. These may actu­al­ly reveal some inter­est­ing infor­ma­tion. For exam­ple, the orig­i­nal title, “Kintsu­gi,” also known as “Kintsu­gi,” is a Japan­ese tech­nique for repair­ing bro­ken porce­lain using lac­quer or gold pow­der, orig­i­nat­ing from the Chi­nese “mend­ing porce­lain.” Judg­ing from the author’s sur­name, “Watan­abe,” she clear­ly comes from a Japan­ese fam­i­ly. Choos­ing this par­tic­u­lar tech­nique as the title, besides cre­at­ing new beau­ty through the repair of bro­ken objects in the sto­ry, may also rep­re­sent her under­stand­ing of the “sabi” aes­thet­ic, close­ly relat­ed to Zen phi­los­o­phy and the Japan­ese tea cer­e­mo­ny. In repair­ing, the cracks and flaws are exposed, allow­ing the read­er to appre­ci­ate the imper­ma­nence of life and the beau­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ty that comes with imper­fec­tion.

Atten­tive read­ers might notice a large­ly blank ded­i­ca­tion page before the title page. Against a com­plete­ly dark back­ground, it fea­tures only a chair, a bird’s nest, an egg, and a few pro­trud­ing leaves on the left, while the right side sim­ply and solemn­ly reads, “Ded­i­cat­ed to my daugh­ter, Mei.” Inter­est­ing­ly, at the end of the book, on the copy­right page (book infor­ma­tion page), there’s a long list of acknowl­edg­ments on the left, dense­ly filled with “My Fam­i­ly” and the names of sev­en rel­a­tives and friends, includ­ing her sis­ter, Maya Watan­abe (1983-), a visu­al artist. On a sep­a­rate page on the right, the red bird reap­pears, but not on a branch; it’s above Dick­in­son’s poem “The Hope Bird.” Try to guess: what is the con­nec­tion between the egg and the red bird? And what is the con­nec­tion between them and “my daugh­ter, Mei”?

Dri­ven by a strong curios­i­ty about Isa’s own ver­sion of the sto­ry, I exten­sive­ly researched her back­ground. It turns out she had a poet father and an illus­tra­tor moth­er. Her father, José Watan­abe (1945–2007), was a renowned poet and screen­writer in Peru­vian lit­er­a­ture, and also cre­at­ed some chil­dren’s sto­ries. José was of mixed race, but inher­it­ed a love for haiku from his Japan­ese father. His sig­na­ture Span­ish short poems, while not strict­ly haiku, pos­sess a remark­able sim­plic­i­ty, restraint, and tran­quil beau­ty, and can be seen as alle­gories depict­ing the human con­di­tion. Per­haps we can also appre­ci­ate these qual­i­ties in Isa’s poet­ic graph­ic sto­ries.

In an inter­view, Isa men­tioned that the inspi­ra­tion for “Mr. Rab­bit Search­ing for Answers” came part­ly from her father’s death. At the time, she was liv­ing abroad, car­ing for her new­born daugh­ter, and there­fore unable to see her father one last time or attend his funer­al. Lat­er, she received a box of items her father had kept, includ­ing her child­hood toys and a pho­to­graph of him hold­ing her, with repair tape on the back. These items became more mean­ing­ful in her father’s absence, becom­ing sym­bols “rep­re­sent­ing a per­son­’s pres­ence and absence.” Lat­er, between 2019 and 2020, she expe­ri­enced a per­son­al cri­sis; the break­ing of every­day objects made her feel unbal­anced, and the process of repair­ing these items gave her the strength to rebuild order. These expe­ri­ences ulti­mate­ly trans­formed into pro­found metaphors about break­age and recon­struc­tion in her work.

Isa favors word­less books, believ­ing their great­est charm lies in their open­ness. She hopes read­ers will fill in the blanks with their own expe­ri­ences and under­stand­ing, con­struct­ing the sto­ry from with­in. Her illus­tra­tions are filled with sym­bol­ic details, espe­cial­ly the use of neg­a­tive space, allow­ing read­ers to dis­cov­er deep­er emo­tions and mean­ings. Her cre­ative process empha­sizes intu­ition and impro­vi­sa­tion rather than strict plan­ning. She does­n’t start by draw­ing the entire sto­ry­board; instead, she cre­ates the visu­al ele­ments of the sto­ry first, then freely splices and com­bines them, let­ting the sto­ry unfold nat­u­ral­ly. Every detail in the book is hand-drawn with col­ored pen­cils, then freely com­bined to com­plete the over­all image. She likens this cre­ative method to a child’s unre­strained play, a nat­ur­al out­pour­ing of inspi­ra­tion. Isa is well aware that works cre­at­ed in this way might be too per­son­al­ized to be pub­lished, but she does­n’t care, because she believes the cre­ative process itself is more impor­tant, help­ing her heal.

Because of her spe­cial con­cern for chil­dren, she prefers to draw ani­mal char­ac­ters, as ani­mal char­ac­ters are uni­ver­sal and help sto­ries avoid spe­cif­ic cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal con­texts, mak­ing the themes more glob­al. At the same time, ani­mal char­ac­ters can soft­en seri­ous themes, cre­at­ing a safe “fic­tion­al space” for child read­ers, mak­ing it eas­i­er for them to under­stand com­plex emo­tions and expe­ri­ences.

How­ev­er, her abil­i­ty to recon­struct her view of chil­dren in her work also stems from her expe­ri­ence as a moth­er. She frankly admits that becom­ing a moth­er was pure­ly acci­den­tal; ini­tial­ly, she was quite fright­ened, but the moment she first saw her daugh­ter, Mei, she fell deeply in love with the child, a feel­ing that per­sist­ed every day after­ward. Becom­ing a moth­er changed her world­view; she began to redis­cov­er the world through a child’s per­spec­tive. This curios­i­ty and won­der at all things influ­enced her cre­ations, fill­ing them with explo­ration and insight. Isa ded­i­cat­ed her work to her daugh­ter, Mei, shar­ing her reflec­tions on life and hop­ing she could find joy in it. That deep love per­me­ates every detail of her work. I believe that in Isa’s own ver­sion, the main theme must be love and hope.

Isa’s quo­ta­tion of Dick­in­son’s poem at the end of the book is like­ly both a trib­ute to her poet father and a hope for her daugh­ter. The red bird perched on “The Hope Bird” seems to be say­ing: no mat­ter what dark­ness and heart­break one expe­ri­ences, as long as there is hope, life can be rebuilt.

With love and hope in our hearts, every­thing can be repaired.

Writ­ten by A‑Jia on Jan­u­ary 8, 2025 in Bei­jing