Taiwan Today

Anyone who takes even a cursory swing through a typical Taiwan bookstore will be struck by the extraordinary plethora of children’s books on the shelves. While hordes of young readers are content to sit on the floor, noses buried in books with brightly colored covers, their parents struggle to make a suitably educa­tional selection from the publishers’ wares heaped up around them. This is emphati­cally no easy task. A recent visit to a local bookstore revealed the following treasures, among numerous others:

• A musical book, which plays a song when the reader presses a button on the cover;

• A dinosaur jigsaw puzzle book;

• “Magic electrostatic sticker” books, which enable children to peel pictures off a backing sheet and insert them at appropriate places on the page;

• The Little Encyclopedia of Taiwan’s Four Seasons, a systematic introduction to the island’s flora and fauna;

• Number books for introducing kids to elementary math;

• A set of pocket-sized books mar­keted as “world surveys,” which help kids explore their environment;

• Touch Ace, computerized audio­-visual equipment in the shape of a book, designed to help young kids acquire basic English skills;

• Books with miniature toys attached, sometimes sold as counting aids.

Plus, of course, a huge selection of the conventional stories, fairy tales, myths, and legends that parents love to read to their children at home.

Such displays, far from uncommon, show that over the past few years, the children’s book publishing industry has made giant strides on all fronts: planning, produc­tion, illustration, printing, and distribution. Publishers are also demonstrating serious interest in going international, for example, by sending a strong contingent to the world’s most important international children’s book fair, held annually in Bologna, Italy.

The advent of professional marketing techniques is one reason why children’s books have enjoyed steady growth. But by far and away the most important reason is that the latest generation of parents is plac­ing ever more emphasis on education. One result is that they now take greater care over selecting books that are suitable for their offspring, particularly since many parents are discovering the pleasures of sharing books at home with their kids.

Kao Ming-mei (高明美), chief edito­rial director of Hsin Yi Publications (see page 18), attributes this at least in part to the island’s increased economic prosper­ity. “Parents have much greater purchas­ing power nowadays, and they pay more attention to preschool education,” she says. “It follows that children’s books are also coming in for more attention from parents. In the past, most people didn’t realize how important books were for children. They thought that paying US$2 for a book with ten pages or so was just ridicu­lous. But that’s all changed.”

Her view is echoed by other publish­ers. “Parents didn’t used to care much about the quality of children’s books,” says Kathleen Ou (歐桂伶), marketing director in charge of children’s books at Yuan-Iiou Publishing Co. “There was a perception that they were just another kind of toy. Today, though, because parents are better educated than before, they realize the importance of preschool education, and therefore they demand better books for their kids.”

Taiwan’s publishing industry has re­cently been pouring a tremendous amount of money and effort into meeting the upsurge in demand for quality children’s books. The past few years have seen two particularly noteworthy developments.

First, the trend towards internationali­zation has accelerated. Publishers have in­creasingly been cooperating with their foreign counterparts and trading in in­ternational rights. Not only do they want to translate and publish outstanding foreign children’s books, they are also making efforts to ex­port Taiwan-produced children’s books, many of which are excellent.

For example, Yuan-liou Publishing Co., one of Disney’s authorized agents, has translated more than a hundred Disney storybooks since its children’s books department was set up in 1989. More and more of the company’s output consists of translations. Another publisher that has focused on translating foreign children’s books in recent years is Wisdom Cultural Medium, Inc., one of Taiwan’s major children’s books publishers. Most of the foreign products these companies publish are from Japan and America, although some hail from Europe. Idna Tai (戴月芳), Wisdom’s editor-in-chief, believes that local publishers have a preference for Japanese and American children’s litera­ture because Taiwan’s culture is still so heavily influenced by both countries.

This worries some observers. Child psychologist Heman Yu (游乾桂) disap­proves of the rush to import translated children’s books into the Taiwan market. “It’s not really helpful for the promotion of our own children’s book industry,” he points out. “Local publishers need to think hard about what they’re doing. They need crea­tivity and imagination, but if they just translate foreign material, where is the stimulus to come from?”

Yu further notes that children’s books play a critical role in the preschool learn­ing period. “They help relieve the pres­sures on kids and they have an influence on personality,” he says. “But at the moment our children are mainly exposed to Western culture and values, not all of which are suitable for them. For example, I don’t regard Snow White as a good story for chil­dren. It depicts threats, physical violence, and murder. In the West, the present trend is away from that kind of material.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, few publish­ers would agree with Heman Yu. Kathleen Ou, for example, is quick to defend. Yuan­-liou’s products. “Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, and The Little Mermaid are loved by children all over the world, regardless of nationality, age, or sex, because they are wonderful characters,” she says. “Also, with their bright colors and beautiful illustrations, the quality of Disney’s storybooks is very high. You have to remember that it takes a great deal of time and money to produce storybooks locally, so my company will continue to concentrate on translations.” Her view is echoed by Wisdom’s Idna Tai: “The children’s books that my company translates have all won awards, and their quality is beyond question.”

A few publishers do still adhere to the ideal of creating excellent children’s books locally. Red Tomato Cultural Co., estab­Iished four years ago, is a good example. General manager Chiu Chen-tsung (邱承宗) believes that the huge influx of children’s books from abroad has actually stimulated Taiwan publishers to upgrade the quality of their products. “But,” he goes on, “I admit that it’s much tougher to pro­duce children’s books locally than to rely on translations.”

It took Chiu no less than two years to complete a set of books about insects. “I lived in the mountains for about ten days a month, inspecting, photographing, and catching various insects. Then I had to check their Chinese names, their English names, and their official classifications. After that, I had to bring in professionals to double-check everything. It was really hard work. But I think it’s a worthwhile project, because we have all these insects here in Taiwan and we should tell our children about them. We can’t just depend on foreign children’s books.”

Chiu notes that his company was the first in Taiwan to produce arts-related children’s books. “As a result, sales are good, and other companies have followed our lead in highlighting children’s arts educa­tion,” he says, with justifiable pride. “And this is still the only company that publishes children’s Hakka song books. We do what no other publishers have done before, and that’s what makes this company special.”

The second major development has been a significant increase in the amount of business and cooperation between publishers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. “But that kind of cooperation is still very infor­mal,” says Kao Ming-mei of Hsin Yi Pub­lications. “For example, we don’t make much use of mainland Chinese illustrators. It depends on how closely the subject matter ties into Mainland China. If the relation­ship is close, then of course they’re obvi­ously the right people to express the spirit of the story.” And Kathleen Ou of Yuan­-liou Publishing is quick to point out an­other factor at work: “There is a chronic shortage of local illustrators.”

Although most Taiwan publishers regard Mainland China as a big market, some of them are concerned about a per­ceived gap in quality. Red Tomato’s Chiu explains the problem. “If you’re talking about cross-strait exchanges on the publishing level, Mainland China will always get the worst of the deal,” he says. “That’s because average incomes in Mainland China are lower than in Taiwan, so over there they can’t so read­ily afford a quality book produced in Taiwan. On the other hand, people here aren’t going to be keen on buying children’s books produced in Mainland China, because packaging and printing over there are both pretty rough.”

Wisdom’s Idna Tai agrees, but adds an important point. “In general,” she says, “the quality of authors and editors of children’s books in Mainland China is higher than here. For example, a typical deputy editor-in-chief over there is equivalent in status to an associate professor. But here in Taiwan, people in their thirties can become editors-in-chief. Then you find that the mainland produces outstanding books for children in the fields of literature, history, and philosophy; but Taiwan is weak in those fields. That’s because of a lack of professionals.”

Tai goes on to point out that it’s diffi­cult for the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to cooperate with each other in the fields of sociology and literature because of huge cultural differences between them. The problems are not just ideological: even the form of the written language is different, with the mainland using simplified char­acters while Taiwan retains traditional full-form pictographs. “I think cooperation only really works in the scientific field,” Tai says, “because there at least you find words and ideas in common.”

Idna Tai is concerned about another major headache for publishers—market­ing. “Generally speaking, booksellers ignore children’s books,” she says. “They just stuff them into a corner somewhere.” Her view is echoed by Kathleen Ou of Yuan-liou Publishing. “Where are parents supposed to look for children’s books in the bookstore?” Ou says. “It’s even a prob­lem in some branches of Kingstone, and that’s one of Taiwan’s largest bookstore chains.”

In fairness, Kathleen Ou is ready to admit that bookstores have problems of their own. “Children’s books come in many dif­ferent sizes, unlike Taiwan’s adult books, so it’s not easy to stack them properly on stand­ard shelving,” she says. “That means clerks tend to arrange children’s books at random. Sales inevitably suffer, and the next thing you know, the bookseller has sent the pub­lisher a big pile of returns. That leaves the publisher with no choice but to market the books through door-to-door salespersons. At present, about 60 to 70 percent of chil­dren’s books are sold that way. It’s particu­larly common in rural areas, because there aren’t so many bookstores there.”

This can have a significant distorting effect on the trade as a whole. In Taiwan there is little difference in price between a book bought in a store and the same book purchased through mail order, although mail-order purchases often carry with them the obligation to make further purchases. But a comparison between the respective prices of store-bought books and books sold door-to-door reveals a dif­ferent picture. Door-to-door salespeople are on commission, and they frequently inflate the price of a book before beguil­ing potential customers with attractive­ sounding discounts. The result is that consumers all too often end up buying more and also paying more.

Children’s book publishers are devoting a huge amount of money and manpower to track­ing international market trends, and among the most important of these is the much-heralded CD-ROM revo­lution. Yuan-liou Publishing is in the van­guard. After two solid years of planning and production, it has just put out its first CD for preschoolers, based on one of its best-selling children’s titles. The Mouse Bride tells the enchanting story of a mouse who hopes to marry off his daughter to somebody strong. He interviews the sun, the clouds, the wind, and even a big wall, before coming to the realization that his daughter wiII be better off married to another mouse after all.

Hsin Yi Publications, not to be caught napping, has also recently put out its first preschool-oriented CD, a program in three parts. First, children are taught how to use the computer’s mouse. Next, they build up speed through a hide-and-seek game. And finally, they are encouraged to create a story all by themselves, by moving the mouse around—for example, they can “drag” a turtle down to the seashore, or move the sun from east to west.

Not all publishers show the same amount of interest in developing CD-ROM products for children. “CD-ROM hasn’t yet become widespread in Taiwan homes, and so its cost has remained pretty high,” Idna Tai says. “If publishers decide to put out a CD now, in effect they’re choosing to shoulder a share of the costs of developing CD-ROM. So I think it’s better to wait until it becomes a cheaper, more widespread product.”

Despite all this, most people recog­nize that there is no stopping the inevita­ble rise of CDs. “It’s a good computer-aided teaching medium for preschoolers because it’s vivid and easily portable,” says Kathleen Ou of Yuan-liou Publishing. “But a CD will probably have a limiting effect on a child’s imagination, because it has to be formatted in advance with a certain number of possible options and answers, whereas a book needn’t be like that. CDs can spoil a child’s ability to get along with other children, too. If you rely on computers to solve all your problems, your interactions with other people are bound to suffer as a result. That’s not true of books. It doesn’t matter what happens with CDs, you’re not going to replace books in preschool education that easily.”

In recent years, the industry has shown a number of encouraging develop­ments, with much more attention being paid to early childhood education. But publishers and child psychologists alike still worry about the extent to which parents are able to influence children’s thoughts. “As a publisher, I want to try and open a door for children,” says Chiu Chen­-tsung of Red Tomato Cultural Co. “After children go through that door they can see many different things and they ought to be free to explore by themselves. Adults, and I include parents in that, shouldn’t impose limits. It’s rather like taking your kids to a park. They should be free to make up their own minds what they want to see. Trees, flowers, insects—it’s up to them.”

In similar vein, Heman Yu empha­sizes the important role that psychology plays in a child’s development. “No mat­ter who you are—publisher, author, illus­trator, or parent—you have to make an effort to ‘understand’ children,” he says. “It’s no use trying to write children’s books from an adult point of view. The idea isn’t to inject your adult ideas into a child’s head by piling words on top of each other; the idea is to give children a chance to develop their imaginations, thought processes, and creative powers. The fewer words the better.”

Maybe. But with so many new and translated titles being published each month, and the CD revolution probably irreversible by now, the number of words Iooks set to rise dramatically. And the news is not all bad. “Children’s books have come a long way in Taiwan,” Yu says, “Yes, there’s still room for improvement—but I for one certainly expect to see it.