Graphic Fiction by Xie Peng and Duncan Jepson

What's it like to be young in modern China? This graphic story—about someone who's just arrived in a new city and wants, desperately, to fit in—provides some answers.

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Excerpt originally appeared in Words Without Borders' November 2012 issue: Banned Chinese Writers.

for Sharing
https://wwb-campus.org/literature/sharing

Xie Peng

The graphic artist Xie Peng was born in Beijing in 1976. He graduated from Beijing City University with a major in photography, then went on to study oil painting at the Sichuan Art Institute, literature at the Beijing Film Academy, and history at Beijing University. He has directed an animated film, and has been editor in chief of a magazine, an exhibition planner, a university professor, and an art director for a gaming company. His animated short film,The Future, was shown at the 4Flash Animated Movie Festival and won Best Film Award, Story Category. His work Kongju was exhibited by the Shanghai Museum of Art. He now works at a gaming company in Shanghai. Darkness outside the Night is his first graphic novel.

Duncan Jepson

Duncan Jepson is an award-winning director, writer, and producer of five feature films, including Hope Without Future? (2009) and Follow Your Heart: China’s New Youth Movement (2007). He has also produced films and programs for Jackie Chan’s JCE Movies, National Geographic, and Discovery Channel, among others. His first novel, All the Flowers in Shanghai, was published by HarperCollins in 2011. His latest novel, Emperors Once More, the first in a crime series, was published in March 2014. He has written for the International Herald Tribune, the Daily Telegraph, and the South China Morning Post. Duncan is currently working on a new documentary feature, A Devil’s Gift, about the difficult future facing Hong Kong youth. A lawyer by profession, he lives in Hong Kong.

Links available online only

Meet Xie Peng and Duncan Jepson

Read Words Without Borders Campus's interview with Xie Peng and Duncan Jepson.

Then, listen to a four-minute NPR story about artist Xie Peng: "For China's Youth, A Life of 'Darkness Outside the Night.'"

Life and Times in Shanghai

To see what might make people fall in love with "everything they saw" in a city, look through the photo galleries Shanghai Shopping and Shanghai Life.

Mask, Yuyuan Shopping Center, Shanghai（豫園商場, 上海）By d'n'c. CC BY-SA 2.0 license.

Young and Restless in China

Watch the documentary Young and Restless in China (trailer below).

China's Golden Generation

Read a New Yorker article profiling China's "Golden Generation" of ultra-rich youth, and find out why China has seen "one of the most rapid emergences of wealth stratification in human history."

In the Lap of Luxury

Read NY Magazine's "Scenes from the Chinese Consumerist Revolution." Don't miss the infographic about slang for different kinds of people at the top.

Then, read about a survey on materialism in countries around the world, in which 71 percent of people in China said they gauge their success based on the things they own.

Links available online only

More from Duncan Jepson

Watch the trailer for Duncan Jepson's film, Follow Your Heart: China's New Youth Movement, and find out more on his website.

(Watch the video on YouTube.)

Learn "Why Asia is Obsessed with Graphic Novels and Comics" and “Why the West Fails to Understand Chinese Literature” in two essays from Duncan Jepson.

Finally, take a look at Jepson's novel All the Flowers in Shanghai.

The Chinese Life of Luxury

Watch a trailer for the hugely successful Chinese blockbuster film Tiny Times 1.0, about four friends living the life of luxury in Shanghai, reminiscent of the materialism of city life portrayed in "Sharing." Read more about the film and its "rampant materialism," then read about the heated debate about the movie in China.

(Watch the video on YouTube.)

Then, look at photographs from artist Chen Wenling's exhibit "God of Materialism" in Beijing (includes some representations of nudity).

Chinese Hip Hop

Read about Chinese hip hop, which alternately celebrates and "takes jabs at" consumer culture in China, in Guernica.

A View from Shenzhen

View Weng Fen's photograph, "Sitting On The Wall, Shenzhen," below or on the website for the International Center of Photography.

Censorship: A Worldwide Issue

A graph showing the rise of book titles targeted by censorship efforts in the US. © American Library Association.

Censorship occurs in many countries, to some degree or another. Below, you'll find examples from a few countries and links to information about many others.

Iran:

"An Iranian Metamorphosis," in which a single word in a children's cartoon gets a man thrown in prison
“Don’t Be a Stooge for the Regime—Iranians Reject State-Controlled Media!,” an essay in the Markaz Review about the Iranian press and internet both in Iran and abroad
The Committee to Protect Journalists' page for Iran, where you can find out how many journalists are currently in prison for their writing. (The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent not-for-profit human rights organization.)

Russia:

"My Grandmother, The Censor," a personal essay about Soviet-era censorship in Russia. (Journalist Masha Gessen, who wrote this essay and fled Russia for the US several years ago, was recently sentenced to prison in absentia in Russia for spreading “false information.”)
Read a New York Times interactive article about the Russian government’s crackdown on anti-war protests during their invasion of Ukraine.

Egypt:

Read a 2013 article in which Egyptian novelist Mansoura Ez-Eldin says that it is the “silence or self-censorship of creative people that actually threatens Arab creativity.”
Then, read an interview with formerly imprisoned writer Ahmed Naji in World Literature Today, or visit the Committee to Protect Journalists’ page for Egypt.

The US:

Read about the rise of book bans in both US schools and public libraries in the New York Times.
Browse the stories about US censorship at Columbia University's Knight Institute (newest stories at the bottom).
Find out which ten young adult and children's books are most often challenged or banned in the US.

Cuba: Speak Spanish? Read posts on Cuban censorship from the human rights organization Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos (OCDH).

To find out about the state of free speech all over the world, visit the home page of the Committee to Protect Journalists. To read "underreported," often censored, stories from around the world, visit Global Voices and browse stories in Reporters Without Borders.

More Spare Language*

Detail from "Dear B." by Mazen Kerbaj.

Looking for other writing that does a lot in a few words? Try the ancient Chinese poems "Poem to the Tune 'Pure Peace'" and "Poems for Parting."

For another graphic piece that pairs images with spare language, try "Dear B." by Mazen Kerbaj, a heartfelt letter to the author's hometown of Beirut. (translated by Mercedes Claire Gilliom)

Or, read and explore learning resources for Shaun Tan’s wordless graphic novel The Arrival, another graphic story of someone trying to fit in after moving to a new place.

* For Teaching Idea 2

Reading Grade Level(s): 4, 5, 6 and up