Chu Teh-Yung's Inspirational Story: From Autistic to Famous Cartoonist

Chu Teh-Yung's Profile:

Chu Teh-Yung, born in 1960, is a famous cartoonist in Taiwan, whose cartoon columns have been serialized for more than a decade in Taiwan, of which his columns of The Vinegar Family have been serialized for ten years, which is the longest time of serialization for a cartoon in Taiwan. His cartoon works "Double Bang", "Shibuya", "Vinegar Family", etc. have great influence among young men and women in Mainland China and have a large number of loyal readers.November 21, 2011, 2011 Sixth Chinese Writers' Rich List sub-list? Comic Writers Rich List? On November 21st, 2011, the sixth sub-list of the Chinese Writers' Rich List, the Comic Writers' Rich List, was released, and Zhu Deyong was honored as the richest comic writer in the list with a ten-year royalty income of 61.9 million RMB, which aroused widespread concern.

How a pan-autistic man started his life

It wasn't until he was well past his prime that Taiwan's most famous cartoonist finally found the answer to his own life's riddle: he suffers from ? Asperger's syndrome? a pan-autistic disorder. Drawing became an outlet for all his pent-up frustration, and his cold-hearted conclusion was that? Everyone is sick?

There is a legend in Japan that if a person can call out the true name of a demon, they become the master of the demon and do not have to fear it anymore.

At the age of 53, Chu finally shouted out the name of the demon in his life: ? Asperger's syndrome?

It's a pan-autistic disorder that leaves sufferers with social difficulties, difficulty understanding other people's emotions, narrow interests, extreme discomfort with change, and frequent repetition of specific behaviors.

After seeing the name, Chu breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that many of the mysteries of his life had been solved. For the first half of his life, the disease made him a man living in a glass ball, a silent spectator in the surging flow of time and people. Painting became an outlet for all his pent-up frustrations, without letting them out, for a full 30 years.

? I finally realized that I'm not retarded. ? He laughed, leaning back on the couch with ease.

Always ready to run away at a launch party

In early January, Chu sat in a restaurant near Beijing's Jianguomen Gate as aides sent off media reporters one after another. His wife, Feng Manlun, brought him a pot of sugar water and asked if he wanted to moisten his throat. He smiled and waved his hand, so Mrs. Zhu got up and went upstairs to calm another group of reporters who had already set up cameras and lights.

Chu does not like to be mobbed or talk to strangers; he resists and gets nervous. When he was a child, he helped a classmate to buy stamps at the post office. He pinched the money, his mind went blank, and all he wanted to do was run away. He stood in silence at the post office for a few moments, then grabbed his classmate and shoved all the money he had in his hand and said, ? You do not ask me to ask, you go yourself.?

This incident has always stuck with him, and in his adult life, he is still constantly reminded of how much he is afraid of the outside world, and therefore repeatedly torn: ? It's a hard thing to think about, and you think, oh my God, what kind of person are you, how could you even ask?

This urge to run away from strangers was gradually and grudgingly restrained as he became famous, but it never went away. His new book, Love with an Idiot, was published in mainland China at the beginning of the year, and the publisher invited him to do a promotional tour of the country. In Nanjing, they invited two celebrities to share the stage with Chu, one was Meng Fei, who is famous for talking about male-female relationships; the other was Zhang Jiajia, a writer popular for his stirring, tear-jerking love stories.

It was a good day, with lots of laughs, but Chu was so nervous that his hands were sweating and he could feel his muscles shaking under his clothes.

? If I didn't have a little bit of sanity left, I might have dropped the microphone and run," he said. he said. The mainland publisher didn't dare tell him that there were thousands of people there that day, or he might have run away.

He said with a smile, this has been considered good, the last time he came to the mainland to do activities he remembers very clearly, is a week before the departure of June 26, 2011, he has been emotionally frustrated to the whole day and night in bed, do not eat or drink, ? If there was a button in life that could be pressed to end it, I think I would press it. Mrs. and her son stayed with him and kept talking, and had an agent on the mainland call to persuade him before he was able to go out.

? Why can other people enjoy themselves so much, why do other people like to be in public and like to befriend a lot of people, I can't help it? He has often asked himself this over the past 30 years, ? I often feel so sick and stupid that I just can't help it.?

Sick

In between interviews, he walks to the glass dome outside the restaurant with a glass of water. There had been no rain for so long in Beijing's winter that the glass was dusty, but the sunlight still filtered through, so it was as if he were shrouded in a gray mist, a black shadow. He stood in it, lost in thought.

For years, he hadn't been able to figure out what was wrong with him, why he was different from everyone else.

For example, since he was a child, he has never been able to write according to the correct strokes, and when he calculates the multiplication of single-digit numbers, he has to start from one to one, one to two to two, and memorize the whole nine-nine-nine multiplication table in silence; for example, he always recognizes the wrong words, and when he looks at the signboards of the restaurants, what he sees with his eyes is the name, and when he remembers it in his mind, it turns into another one. Then he went to tell others in a hurry, where where there is a very good restaurant, others full of expectation to find the past, of course, never find.

Even when he went on to become Taiwan's best-known cartoonist, he was never free of these worries and torments, often falling into depression and self-doubt.

These things that plagued him didn't start to come together until he was in his 30s. Mrs. Chu went through a lot of books and told him it was probably autism, along with dyslexia.

Last year it became a little more clear.

During that time, Chu often went with his wife to see a rehab doctor, who concluded that Chu had Asperger's syndrome, a condition that is not quite the same as autism.

Because of dyslexia, Chu's understanding of Asperger's Syndrome is based on what he heard from his wife, that people with this disease are prone to mood swings and temper tantrums. Chu said the disease has a ? Funny?

Coincidentally, the doctor he works with is also a patient with Asperger's Syndrome. When Mrs. Chu accompanied him to rehab, she listened to the two of them chatting, and when Mr. Chu said something, the doctor said something, and then Mr. Chu took over and started talking about the South, which was a complete contradiction in terms.

There is still no effective treatment for this disease, but Zhu Deyong seems to have a stone in his heart, and he knows what fate is all about.

Zhu's family almost flew into the sky, almost

After that, Zhu Deyong remembered why he always felt detached from his father when he faced him as a child.

His father was a student of Chiang Ching-kuo, and attended a cadre training school on the mainland, where he was first in his class and very much appreciated by Chiang Ching-kuo. After arriving in Taiwan, Chiang Ching-kuo came to him and asked: ? What are you going to do, what do you want to do?

Zhu Deyong heard his mother say that his father could not say a word at that time. Chiang Ching-kuo had to leave words, saying: ? Think about it, I will ask you next time.?

Chiang Ching-kuo's visit soon became known to everyone, and many people came to his father's door to ask him for favors, wanting him to recommend him in front of Chiang Ching-kuo.

After that, Chiang Ching-kuo did come again, and my father still shook his head silently, not knowing what he wanted to do, and the visitor had to leave with a sigh.

Zhu Deyong's mother talked about these things, inevitably bemoaned the missed opportunities in life, Zhu Deyong has also been unfair, why his father is so incapable, why satisfied to do a small civil servant.

He even understood why his father didn't talk to him

about his life as a child, and rarely encouraged him or rebuked him.

Until later, Zhu Deyong became a family man, and once went home to accompany his father, the two men sat across a round table, and after the pleasantries, they had nothing to say.

? The two of us just kept looking at each other like that. He sat with a smile on his face, not speaking; I also looked at him, I did not speak, so I sat for two hours. Chu later recalled, ? So, I used to say that I felt very close to my dad, but so detached. After my dad passed away, I felt that during the years I was with my dad, he didn't teach me anything, but he was able to convey love to me all the time. I just could feel the love that he communicated to me in the simplest way.

Chu's father lived to be 94, and lived a peaceful life. Chu thought, "It's hard to say whether it's unfortunate or fortunate that my father had a brush with prosperity when he was young, and if he had been promoted, he might have died of exhaustion. This is also considered a blessing in disguise, or rather, fate's compensation for the disease.

? Life is really strange things.? he said thoughtfully.

Watching the world from the sidelines in a glass ball

For Chu, fate's compensation happened elsewhere. The illness that enclosed him in his own world also allowed him to withdraw and become a spectator of the world.

He was 26 when he became famous, and Taiwan's dramatic changes had just drawn to a close, with the economic boom already unstoppable. At that time he painted "Double Bang", about the Chinese people's tangled view of marriage. One day when he went to buy soybean milk and doughnuts, he saw a young man on the street dressed in a very strange way, and felt that a new generation had emerged in Taiwan that was very different from the traditional one, so he painted "Vinegary Clan", which was about the new generation in Taiwan.

By the mid-1990s, Chu began to paint Shibuya, reflecting the new era of women in Taiwan, a woman who wants love but not marriage? A woman who wants love but not marriage? and a woman who wants to work but not love. A strong woman? and a woman who wants to marry any man. Marriage Maniac? and a man who can't figure out anything. A naive girl?

By the end of the 20th century, Taiwan's economy had come to a standstill, and the era of hustle, bustle, and chaos but hopefulness was over, as city dwellers were trapped in menial, cramped jobs that were hard to extricate themselves from. Chu Teh-yung then painted About Going to Work, questioning the way of life in a commercial society. Next came The Absolute Child, painting the world of children against the values of the adult world.

He had an innate resistance to the commercial age, even though he was hugely successful in it, and in a way that constantly poured cold water on the people of the age.

The culmination of all this observation and satire was Everybody's Sick, in which he did his best to depict the sickness of people in a consumer society. He draws a woman bragging to a man about how much her outfit is worth, while the man quickly pulls out a calculator, divides the price of the woman's outfit by her age, and concludes that the effect of the outfit is only $3,200.

Then, later, he drew Love with a Dummy as the second installment of Everybody's Sick. Many people took it as a comic book talking about love, but Chu shook his head: ? I just treat love as a shadow. What I really want to draw is this group of crazy people in a crazy world, under love all exposed love is just a peeping point.?

He has reason to be such a cold spectator. He and his wife are in the same category, don't know much about how to make money and don't work hard for it. Someone introduces them to buying golf certificates, which can appreciate in value, and they both forget about it together until the other person rushes in to tell them that the price of the certificates has risen to $1.3 million, and they have to show each other a hand.

And when Chu was working hardest to make money, Mrs. Chu threatened divorce, warning him not to become a ? money-printing machine?

Chu said to Mrs. Chu: ? My dream when I was young was to buy an island after I got rich, and I would be the king on it, nurturing my `prohibited guards'. Then that dream slowly began to shrink, shrinking to the point that when I got rich, I had to buy an airplane, so I could fly by myself. And then the dream slowly shrinks to buying a boat and going out on it and fishing and drinking champagne? Finally, it is narrowed down to a very plain, stay at home, it is very comfortable.

Abandoned by the times, it's just like that

Bystanders are inevitably left behind constantly by the rush of the world. Chu is in a glass ball, often feeling the world rushing wildly toward absurdity, and therefore furious.

In 1999, on his first visit to Beijing, he wandered through the hutongs of Nanluoguxiang and saw steamers unveiled and rolling steam rising from stores selling buns, and residents carrying a chopping board from their homes and squatting in front of their doors to chop meat.

? You may call them crude, but to me, that's a life, a living, breathing life.?

More than a decade later, he went back to that hutong and found it had changed completely. There were coffee shops, teahouses and clothing stores everywhere, while the air was filled with haze.

? I left almost every time with a feeling of anger. Why has it gotten to this point? I'm not saying don't make progress, but can it not be done this way? he asked.

The same goes for Taipei, where, in his view, all of Asia gives him the **** same kind of anger: that it's tearing down everything for wealth, with only money in its head.

? There is no way, no way at all.? he chanted. He recalled the Japanese-style house he lived in as a child in Taipei, where all the residents were forced to move out seven years ago, and then the house was sold to a development company and has been abandoned ever since.

Every once in a while, he finds a way to go there to see his family's old house. The entire neighborhood was boarded up with tin, and entry was forbidden. As he watched from outside, he felt the trees grow thicker while the roof collapsed piece by piece and watched it fall into desolation and collapse with each passing day.

He would also accompany his wife to see her old home in Kaohsiung. It was a family village, and his wife took him to the old houses that had fallen into disrepair, and told him that when he was a child, there were beds on this side and tables on that side?

Chu said: ?

Zhu Deyong said: "The feeling is that although my wife's childhood I have not experienced, but I followed her to see, it is the same as accompanying her to experience once again.

He made an analogy for this attachment: ? I have a chair that I can tell my grandchildren that your grandfather used to sit here, and look at the paint on the handles all worn off. When your grandson touches that chair, he connects with the first half of his grandfather's life. That's how memory should be. If a city has no memory, the city has no life. If the city has no life, the person who lives in it is bound to get sick. Because he has nothing to hold on to.

So he never worried about being abandoned by the times. To this day, he has to do everything himself, insisting on drawing four-panel comics one by one.

For the publication of Everybody's Sick, he drew more than 1,900 sketches, and only 300 were selected. If I had to cheat for money, I could have published six or seven books in a row.? He did the math and then told a joke about a friend's kid: the kid wanted to learn to draw from him and was stopped by his mom because she said, ? That's very poor oh?

There's a line in a movie Chu used to watch that really touched him. The man in the movie said that when he came across a fork in the road of life, he always knew which one to choose, but he always chose the other one because he knew the right one was too painful for him.

? This quote is very inspiring to me and very much in line with my state of mind. ? Chu said, ? A life is what it's all about.?

Interview Q&A:

One Read: The new novel is the second book in the Everybody's Sick series, why did you choose the angle of love?

Zhu Deyong: I think people's madness is most easily manifested in two things: love and money. Why is it crazy? Because everyone has been misled by this era. This is an era where everything is actuarial, even love is actuarial. So people can't touch love.

One reading: so now a lot of emotional experts especially hot, such as Zhang Jiajia, Meng Fei?

Zhu Deyong: I think this is a very ridiculous thing. Love is one of the purest things in human nature, and you can't do anything about it if you're right in the eyes. You fall in love with a person, before you meet him, your previous ten years of life is completely irrelevant, like living separately in the universe as aliens. But at that very moment you meet, and then all the big and small things, joys and sorrows, life and death are all together. But why did you have to get into this mess? I came to calculate how much money you have, have a house and car?

One reading: "With the fool in love" inside, in fact, there are you and your wife?

Zhu Deyong: Right, because I reacted the same way as others on some things.

Next Read: Can you give me an example?

Chu: (Laughs): This is my privilege not to tell you. One of the things that makes me happy is that I often call myself privately ? the person who lays landmines inside the comics? Because I would reflect a lot of people of this era in my comics, so when everyone reads my comics and sees a certain one, he will be shocked for a moment, ? Is this about me? That's stepping on a landmine.

? Out of Time? It's a conspiracy

Next Read: You've been drawing four-panel comics for 30 years, aren't you worried about being obsolete?

Zhu Deyong: I think that's a kind of conspiracy. It is to let people be forced to always whip themselves, lest they be eliminated by the times. But why can't people stop? That is a collective intimidation, no one dares to stop.

Next Read: Fear of being different from everyone else.

Chu: Right. There is no such thing as moving forward all the time in the world, sooner or later we have to stop, but when we stop, what are we left with? I painted "Everyone is sick", people asked me what kind of disease, I said that Taiwan and the mainland got ? Greed?

Taiwan's?

Taiwan's? is to get and then lose again, they did not because of the loss and pious down, but instead still attached to the then (all), continue to greed. Some entrepreneurs make fake oil, investors speculate in real estate? The mainland is the disease of greed after gaining. Greed disease? , although get, to be more. But I think it will stop, the economy will all shift, no place is bad for more than 50 years, and no place is good for more than 50 years.

One reading: you paint in this way is rather stupid.

Zhu Deyong: In fact, as long as I start to hire a team, do the assembly line, authorization, I will soon be able to?

One Read: But the price is to give up this life.

Zhu Deyong: Yeah, but we are not that kind of people, even want to become that kind of people can not help.

If I have to give a solution, I can only say to become simple

One Read: You will depict the exaggerated and morbid reality in your comics, but it seems that you seldom look for the cause.

Chu: There are so many reasons. Chinese education never teaches us that life is the most important thing, instead it teaches us that success and wealth are the most important things. That's why every kid is trying to study hard, get into a good school, get a good job, and make a lot of money. Our education doesn't teach us anything about the aesthetics of life. Without a spiritual life, we have to replace it with material things.

One Read: But you also rarely talk about what to do.

Zhu Deyong: In fact, I'm just the one who asked the question, because the answer I'm not capable of giving. Have to give, can only be solved from the source, is that you have to become simple, the first point is to slow down; the second point, you let yourself be a simple person.

Zhu Deyong inspirational story: from autistic to famous cartoonist

Give me an example of my own well. In my time, no one encouraged you to draw comics, if you draw comics, you're dead (laughs). They would say, "If you draw comics, how are you going to live in the future? You won't make any money and no one will marry you. But I just kept a very simple mind. It could be, me, Asperger's patient, I just love drawing, why can't I do what I love? Because I have a literacy disorder, and there was no way I could be a good student, and I didn't have another path to follow, so I had to keep painting. That's how my path has slowly come together, bit by bit.

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