Chinese city to build $45M complex dedicated to Taiwanese cartoonist

Chu Teh-yung poses in front of a spread of some of his cartoons at his home in Taipei, Taiwan. Chu says he gets to design the museum part of the complex that is being built in his honour in China. (Wally Santana/Associated Press)
Officials from a city in eastern China have consolidated their plans to build an amusement complex, with artist workshops and luxury hotels, dedicated to a Taiwanese cartoonist.
Chu Teh-yung says he's signed a contract with officials from Hangzhou, which will also create an animation building next to the city's West Lake. The 260-million yuan ($45 million Cdn) compound is due to open in 2010.
"The museum will be my concept. They agreed not to interfere," said the 49-year-old artist.
Chu's six main comic books, available in China for a decade, have become extremely popular for their humour and sarcasm.
They portray family issues — not political ones — such as parental pressure and generational clashes, which have become more marked as China modernized and a new class of white-collar workers came to the fore.
"[The urban workers] see in my cartoons their own stories … people who are struggling with the same family and marriage problems as they themselves are," notes Chu.
The dedication of such a large museum complex to a Taiwanese artist seems incongruous, especially given that anything dealing with Taiwan is ultra-sensitive in China. Chinese authorities view the island, which split from China 60 years ago during a civil war, as a rogue breakaway province.
Chu sees it as an indication of the Chinese easing on cultural expression.
Beijing poet and publisher Shen Haopo says Chu's works are welcome by officials because they depict positive moral values at a time when China is in transition as it confronts Western ways.
"China is at a juncture of absorbing foreign values to enrich our own culture," said Shen.
Chu says the museums will display his cartoons and sculptures and include whimsical designs such as a toilet shaped like a whale's mouth.
"I want to show that humour can be immersed into daily lives," said the cartoonist