[Repost] The Uncatchable Little Wolf: Five-Colored Soil Sino-German Picture Book Exchange

It was a very hap­py after­noon over a month ago. I just hap­pened to see this record today…Orig­i­nal address:The Uncatch­able Lit­tle Wolf: Five-Col­ored Soil Sino-Ger­man Pic­ture Book Exchangeauthor:Five-Col­ored Earth Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Book

Date: April 20, 2010

Loca­tion: Dongfeng Art Dis­trict Stu­dio

Text / The Uncatch­able Lit­tle Wolf Pho­tos / Tang Zhi­wen Video / Wang Zibao

                                           
Fam­i­ly Por­trait 

When dis­cussing Ger­man cul­ture, we often think of rig­or­ous and pro­found clas­si­cal Ger­man phi­los­o­phy, or Ger­man Expres­sion­ist art, which express­es emo­tion through abstract lines and col­ors. How­ev­er, there is anoth­er, often less­er-known side to Ger­many: a live­ly, inno­cent, and child­like Ger­many. This Ger­many, opened to mys­tery by the ancient fairy tales of the Broth­ers Grimm, has been paved with the way by con­tem­po­rary Ger­man pic­ture book authors, guid­ing us to under­stand this unique Ger­many.

Recent­ly, an exhi­bi­tion of con­tem­po­rary Ger­man chil­dren’s book illus­tra­tions was held at the Cen­tral Acad­e­my of Fine Arts. Wuse­tu also invit­ed Pro­fes­sor Dankert (Dun­can), the chief judge of the 2007 Ger­man Chil­dren’s Book Award, who came to Chi­na with the exhi­bi­tion, and Nadia Bud­de, one of the authors of the pic­ture books par­tic­i­pat­ing in the exhi­bi­tion, to appre­ci­ate teacher Xiang Hua’s tea art and taste Pu’er tea in his stu­dio in Dongfeng Art Dis­trict this after­noon. They also com­mu­ni­cat­ed with teach­ers Ajia, Yang Zhong, Xiong Lei, Xiong Liang, Xiang Hua, Zhuang Zhuang and stu­dents from the Cen­tral Acad­e­my of Fine Arts in a relaxed and pleas­ant atmos­phere.

Pro­fes­sor Dun­can first intro­duced the rhyth­mic lan­guage of Ger­man pic­ture books, per­son­al­ly read­ing aloud in Ger­man a pas­sage from a pic­ture book by Ms. Bud­de. It felt like float­ing on a riv­er in a small boat, fol­low­ing the waves’ ebbs and flows, even swirling around. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, such a vivid and rhyth­mic recita­tion can­not be trans­lat­ed into Chi­nese. The result is unrhymed lyrics like “Play­ing the Flute with the Lit­tle Bug” and “I Trav­el with the Tits.” Just like Chi­nese nurs­ery rhymes, tongue twisters, and absurd songs, which, though mean­ing­less in con­tent, are rhyming and beau­ti­ful, they lose their fla­vor when trans­lat­ed into a for­eign lan­guage.

Regard­ing the appro­pri­ate age range for pic­ture books, Ms. Bud­de explained that she enjoys cre­at­ing pic­ture books for all ages, pri­mar­i­ly for chil­dren to read on their own. For exam­ple, “Such dir was aus, aber­beeil dich!” is aimed at chil­dren aged 12 to 16, intend­ed for inde­pen­dent read­ing. The author recalls child­hood mem­o­ries and expe­ri­ences. Pro­fes­sor Dun­can explained that the book, pub­lished by a pub­lish­er spe­cial­iz­ing in pock­et books, has become a chil­dren’s clas­sic, not only a best­seller but also a long-run­ning sell­er. Regard­ing pic­ture book read­ing, Ms. Bud­de explained that because the book explores the his­tor­i­cal con­text of East and West Ger­many, chil­dren today lack this his­tor­i­cal under­stand­ing. There­fore, the com­bi­na­tion of illus­tra­tions and text, along with adult expla­na­tion, is essen­tial. Pro­fes­sor Dun­can explained that in Ger­many, this type of book with illus­tra­tions, text, and expla­na­tion is com­mon­place, mean­ing they are not sur­prised by this hybrid cul­tur­al form that com­bines edu­ca­tion, art, and enter­tain­ment. They were also curi­ous about the sit­u­a­tion in Chi­na. Is this cul­tur­al form sim­ply being import­ed? Teacher Xiong Liang answered ques­tions from for­eign friends based on his own cre­ative expe­ri­ence. “I view many forms from oth­er coun­tries as a method. When we have some­thing we want to express our­selves, more meth­ods will def­i­nite­ly pro­duce some­thing dif­fer­ent. When I see any form, I don’t think of it as for­eign or some­thing else. I am inspired by it, and the plots that come to mind are our own sto­ries, things we need to express our­selves.”

The teach­ers dis­cussed the cur­rent state of pic­ture books in Chi­na and Ger­many. Teacher Ajia has been pro­mot­ing pic­ture book read­ing since 2002, and has seen ini­tial suc­cess. He remarked that due to cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences in Chi­na, there are prob­lems with the adult world’s under­stand­ing of chil­dren, and that adult artists are quite dis­tant from chil­dren’s pic­ture book cre­ation. There are very few peo­ple like Teacher Xiong Liang, who both works in the adult art world and cre­ates pic­ture books for chil­dren. Wu Se Tu, a spon­ta­neous group, hopes to find stu­dents in col­lege who can pur­sue both artis­tic cre­ation and chil­dren’s pic­ture book cre­ation. Accord­ing to the teach­ers, pic­ture books in Chi­na are still in their infan­cy, and the mem­bers of Wu Se Tu came togeth­er because they share a com­mon goal, work­ing on the same sub­ject and focus­ing on the same issues—perhaps a kind of fate. Teacher Yang, who has trav­eled exten­sive­ly between Chi­na and Japan, also not­ed that many Chi­nese par­ents are still unfa­mil­iar with the con­cept of pic­ture books. Most peo­ple in Chi­na view pic­ture books as an art form that requires look­ing down, where­as in Europe, Amer­i­ca, and Japan, it’s viewed from the top.

So, what is the cur­rent state of pic­ture books in Ger­many? Pro­fes­sor Dun­can used the work of pic­ture book author Ms. Kyle, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the CAFA’s Ger­man Con­tem­po­rary Chil­dren’s Book Illus­tra­tion Exhi­bi­tion, to illus­trate the vibrant and diverse nature of the Ger­man pic­ture book for­mat. The book tells the sto­ry of a pig and a girl. The pig rep­re­sents the iner­tia with­in each of us, such as tempt­ing the girl to eat and drink exces­sive­ly. The author first cre­at­ed a clay mod­el for the back­ground, then pho­tographed it and hand-paint­ed it. Inter­est­ing­ly, when Ms. Bud­de lament­ed that few­er than 100 pure artists in Ger­many also cre­ate chil­dren’s pic­ture books, and that only about 20 top-tier pure artists also draw and cre­ate chil­dren’s pic­ture books, the Chi­nese teach­ers and stu­dents present exclaimed, “So many!” After all, such “part-time” pure artists in Chi­na are extreme­ly rare, and it’s hard to imag­ine even the biggest names in Chi­nese art cre­at­ing chil­dren’s pic­ture books. Ms. Bud­de also explained that, gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, pic­ture book author­ship is a pop­u­lar pro­fes­sion in Ger­many, and com­pe­ti­tion is fierce. Some pic­ture book authors pub­lish their work while still study­ing, while oth­ers’ excel­lent works remain unpub­lished. The devel­op­ment of Ger­man pic­ture books is also thriv­ing. Accord­ing to Pro­fes­sor Dun­can, 30% of pic­ture books and youth lit­er­a­ture in Ger­many are import­ed, pri­mar­i­ly from the UK, the US, and Scan­di­navia. In addi­tion, 50% of high-qual­i­ty book reviews and news­pa­per columns are trans­la­tions. Fur­ther­more, Ger­many, with its inter­na­tion­al out­look, con­sid­ers some Scan­di­na­vian works as its own. In con­trast, accord­ing to Pro­fes­sor Ajia, in Chi­na, almost 80% of pic­ture books are import­ed, and orig­i­nal pic­ture books remain a prob­lem.

How did Ger­man pic­ture books progress from their ear­ly stages in East and West Ger­many to their flour­ish­ing stage? Bud­de explained that she was born in East Berlin and that East Ger­many had a long tra­di­tion of chil­dren’s pic­ture books, many of which have become clas­sics. She also believes that pic­ture books were a rare field where artists enjoyed con­sid­er­able cre­ative free­dom, lead­ing to a diverse range of expres­sion. While East Ger­many had cen­sor­ship, it was rel­a­tive­ly freer than oth­er art forms. The works are char­ac­ter­ized by sim­plic­i­ty, clar­i­ty, pow­er­ful expres­sion, and even a touch of Ger­man Expres­sion­ism in terms of struc­ture, lay­out, col­or, and line work. Pro­fes­sor Dun­can again cit­ed the works in the pic­ture book exhi­bi­tion as exam­ples. For exam­ple, Ensikat, the author of “A Lit­tle Pony Christ­mas,” was born in East Ger­many, yet his work was acclaimed in West Ger­many and through­out Europe. After reuni­fi­ca­tion, the aes­thet­ics of the for­mer East Ger­man region were trans­ferred to West Ger­many. At the time, the East Ger­man Min­istry of Cul­ture also had cen­sors over­see­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of chil­dren’s pic­ture books, but that time is gone.

When dis­cussing their jour­neys in pic­ture book cre­ation, the teach­ers shared many inter­est­ing expe­ri­ences. Ms. Bud­dle began by dis­cussing her own cre­ative jour­ney. She trained as a graph­ic design­er, but due to fam­i­ly cir­cum­stances, she was­n’t able to attend art col­lege until she was 27, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly stud­ied only through night school. Before she even start­ed uni­ver­si­ty, she had already pub­lished a pic­ture book. Her book, “Such a dir was aus, aber­beeil dich!”, began with the first chap­ter pub­lished in an ani­ma­tion mag­a­zine, and then a pub­lish­er found the author for pub­li­ca­tion. She typ­i­cal­ly cre­ates both the illus­tra­tions and text simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. She also explained that she works very slow­ly, tak­ing two years to com­plete “Such a dir was aus, aber­beeil dich!”, a process she admires for fel­low pic­ture book authors who can pro­duce two or three books a year. This sur­prised and impressed the teach­ers and stu­dents present, demon­strat­ing the true mean­ing of “slow work, fine work.” Of course, this was also finan­cial­ly viable. Ms. Bud­dle’s “Such a dir was aus, aber­beeil dich!” ” earned her a €3,000 advance from the pub­lish­er. How­ev­er, many pic­ture book authors are forced to jug­gle mul­ti­ple roles. After all, advances are lim­it­ed, and rely­ing sole­ly on them to make a liv­ing and cre­ate works is prob­lem­at­ic. Teacher Ajia also dis­cussed the domes­tic sit­u­a­tion. Gen­er­al­ly, pub­lish­er edi­tors come up with ideas first, then find pic­ture book authors to cre­ate them. Orig­i­nal pic­ture book authors like Teacher Xiong Liang, who both write and illus­trate their own books, are rare. Teacher Xiong Liang said that he does what­ev­er he wants, and his ideas have noth­ing to do with pub­lish­ers. He also humor­ous­ly said that mak­ing books is freer than mak­ing art, and that mak­ing books offers the free­dom to choose whether to pub­lish them.

Regard­ing the free­dom of choice in chil­dren’s pic­ture book mate­r­i­al, Teacher Ajia believes that Chi­nese cul­ture is more reserved, draw­ing on the past to illus­trate the present and using fan­ta­sy to illus­trate real­i­ty. In Chi­na, the top­ics avail­able to chil­dren are rel­a­tive­ly broad, but the main issue is the abil­i­ty to express them. Bud­dle said that East Ger­man cul­ture was sim­i­lar­ly reserved. Teacher Xiong Liang shared his own sto­ry: his new book, “Paper Dra­ma,” was reviewed by an edi­tor who said it might lead to crit­i­cism. Xiong Liang said that it would­n’t, as he had reviewed it sev­er­al times.

Dis­cussing chil­dren’s cul­ture, Dun­can explained that it can be con­sid­ered a sub­cul­ture. In Ger­many, this includes pic­ture book authors, illus­tra­tors, copy­right agents, and oth­ers. While this may seem awk­ward, it actu­al­ly fos­ters high­ly spe­cial­ized teams, often with their own asso­ci­a­tions and train­ing pro­grams. Pro­fes­sor Dun­can even joked that three British peo­ple form a club, three French peo­ple form a love tri­an­gle, and three Ger­mans form a soci­ety.

Dis­cussing the pro­mo­tion of pic­ture books, Pro­fes­sor Dun­can not­ed that Ger­many, with a pop­u­la­tion of 82 mil­lion, has approx­i­mate­ly 10,000 book­stores and chain stores. In addi­tion to large chains, there are also many small­er, spe­cial­ized book­stores spe­cial­iz­ing in chil­dren’s books. In Ger­many, pic­ture book read­ing pro­mo­tion pri­mar­i­ly occurs in homes and schools, unlike the tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese cul­ture of week­end trips to book­stores where the elder­ly read to their chil­dren. Pro­fes­sor Ajia believes this is pri­mar­i­ly due to recent efforts to pro­mote pic­ture books in Chi­na. Fur­ther­more, tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese cul­ture empha­sizes oral trans­mis­sion. Cur­rent pic­ture book pro­mo­tion in Chi­na draws on both Chi­nese and West­ern mod­els of oral trans­mis­sion, such as “Read Aloud,” where adults read to chil­dren, view­ing pic­ture books as a con­tin­u­a­tion of this oral tra­di­tion. Fur­ther­more, the rel­a­tive­ly high price of chil­dren’s books for most peo­ple and the dif­fi­cul­ty of bor­row­ing them from libraries are also sig­nif­i­cant fac­tors. Pro­fes­sor Yang Zhong added that this is also relat­ed to the con­sumer men­tal­i­ty of Chi­nese con­sumers, who gen­er­al­ly believe that books with more words are more cost-effec­tive and are there­fore reluc­tant to pur­chase them. Pro­fes­sor Dun­can not­ed that Ger­many pre­vi­ous­ly expe­ri­enced this prob­lem.

What should grad­u­ates inter­est­ed in pur­su­ing a career in pic­ture books do? Ms. Bud­de said that a career in this field requires con­sid­er­able effort, such as trav­el­ing to var­i­ous exhi­bi­tions, queu­ing, and show­ing your draw­ings and sketch­es to oth­ers. Ger­many, for exam­ple, has many pro­fes­sion­al book fairs, such as the Frank­furt Book Fair and the Leipzig Book Fair, where you need to intro­duce your­self, show­case, and pro­mote your work. Pub­lish­ers also main­tain archives on pic­ture book authors, which can be accessed through the archives.

How should mul­ti­me­dia read­ing be viewed? This is a top­ic of con­cern for teach­ers in both coun­tries. Pro­fes­sor Dun­can stat­ed that while he hopes chil­dren will mas­ter mul­ti­me­dia skills, he also does­n’t want them to become depen­dent on com­put­ers. As the say­ing goes, “Read­ing is ben­e­fi­cial,” and the lessons chil­dren learn from books are indis­pens­able. He empha­sized the need to find a well-bal­anced approach, ensur­ing both learn­ing how to read and find­ing the media for­mat that best suits them. Ms. Bud­de also believes there’s no need to wor­ry about mul­ti­me­dia pic­ture books. She her­self has cre­at­ed mul­ti­me­dia books that fea­ture nar­rat­ed con­tent in dif­fer­ent lan­guages, with both text and images. While she was once con­cerned, she lat­er real­ized that e‑books, being a rel­a­tive­ly new phe­nom­e­non, would­n’t tru­ly dom­i­nate the print mar­ket. The phe­nom­e­nal sales of the Har­ry Pot­ter print edi­tions are a prime exam­ple.

What makes a good pic­ture book? Pro­fes­sor Dun­can believes that it must be unique and dis­tinc­tive in style; blend text and images; res­onate with chil­dren’s mind­sets; and reflect the spir­it of the times. She again used the works of par­tic­i­pat­ing pic­ture book authors to illus­trate the debate over what con­sti­tutes a good pic­ture book. For exam­ple, “Rick is So Hand­some” is wide­ly con­sid­ered to have clean and clear illus­tra­tions, mak­ing it a pop­u­lar choice for pic­ture book pro­mo­tion. How­ev­er, it has been elu­sive in Ger­many’s var­i­ous nation­al pic­ture book awards.

This Sino-Ger­man pic­ture book exchange pro­vides valu­able insights into the devel­op­ment of Ger­man pic­ture books. I’m pleased to see that artists from both coun­tries have sparked many bril­liant ideas through this exchange. I’m par­tic­u­lar­ly pleased to see that Chi­nese artists are eager to revi­tal­ize and devel­op Chi­nese pic­ture book art and have already tak­en proac­tive action. We all look for­ward to more oppor­tu­ni­ties for such exchanges to pro­mote the devel­op­ment of our own pic­ture books.

Pro­fes­sor Dun­can intro­duces Ger­man pic­ture books to every­one

Ms. Bud­de 
Teach­ers and stu­dents are com­mu­ni­cat­ing

Teacher Xiong Liang is appre­ci­at­ing Ger­man pic­ture books
 

Teach­ers Ajia, Zhuangzhuang, Xiong Lei, Xiang Hua and oth­ers are appre­ci­at­ing and dis­cussing Ger­man pic­ture books 

Ms. Bud­de is sign­ing the pic­ture book pre­sent­ed to Teacher Xiong Liang