Taiwan Today

In a blink of an eye, Tsai Chih-chung (蔡志忠) is able to say what day of the week a person was born on after he learns that person’s date of birth. In another two seconds, Tsai can calculate how many days there are from the beginning of the year to the individual’s birthday, thanks to his sharp mind and ability in mathematics.

In a way, Tsai has overthrown the common assumption that an artistic mind and analytical thinking are mutually exclusive, or that a person strong in one way of thinking is often weak in another. He is one of the best-selling comic authors from the Mandarin-speaking world, having published about 300 comics and graphic novels in 45 countries worldwide and sold more than 40 million copies. In 1998, at the age of 50, he then surprisingly turned his attention to advanced mathematics and physics, two fields in which he had never previously received any formal education. After immersing himself in these subjects for the following 10 years, Tsai produced a four-volume series titled East Cosmology Physics in 2010, in which he claimed he had proven that the Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein’s most notable equation, was wrong.

Tsai was born in 1948 in central Taiwan’s Changhua County, where he was raised as a Catholic and learned Bible stories from a young age. By the age of three-and-a-half, Tsai says he was able to recite quite a few verses from Catholic literature. He also began to think about what he should be when he got older. “In the countryside, children began to help out [the family] at a very young age,” Tsai recalls. This usually meant doing chores around the family farm, for example, but since Tsai’s father worked as a secretary in a local township administration office at the time, there was no “family business” for him to get involved in. So Tsai began a process of self-enquiry to figure out where his interests lay.

“Who Am I?”

“I spent a lot of time hiding under a desk and giving much thought to questions like, ‘Who am I?’ ‘Where do I come from?’ and ‘Where am I going?’” Tsai recalls. But it was not until about a year later, after Tsai received a small blackboard from his father, that he finally realized he liked to draw more than anything else. “My biggest aspiration then was to paint movie billboards because it seemed to be the best job for anyone who wanted to make a career in painting,” Tsai says. But that dream did not last for long. In third grade, with comics gaining popularity in Taiwan, he decided to be a comic artist. Young but determined, Tsai started to draw and submit his artwork to publishing houses.

At 15, Tsai received an opportunity to publish his work when he received a job offer as a cartoonist from a publisher in Taipei. Though Tsai had always been a top student at school, the choice of continuing his education or taking the job was not a struggle. “If the dream girl you’ve been obsessed with finally agrees to marry you, would you tell her to wait a bit more?” he asks. Without hesitation, Tsai quit school and headed to Taipei alone to work as a full-time comic author.

After successfully entering the comic industry, Tsai wrote under the pen name Tsai Chih-chang (蔡志昌) between the ages of 15 and 20. During that time, he turned out nearly 200 Chinese martial arts graphic novels, as the genre was the hottest trend then. He completed his compulsory military service and then entered Kuangchi Program Service (KPS) to work as a production designer in 1971. A provider of radio and television programs, KPS was one of the earliest organizations in Taiwan dedicated to training professional broadcasting personnel.

His experience at KPS helped Tsai acquire skills in art directing and producing animations. In 1976, Tsai founded an animation company which, in the following eight years, produced several well-known animated films. These include Messy Temple created by Taiwanese cartoonist Ao You-hsiang (敖幼祥) and Lao Fu Zi drawn by Hong Kong comic author Wong Chak (王澤), the pen name of Alfonso Wong (王家禧).

Tsai’s career took another interesting turn in 1982 when he was invited by the then president of Taiwan-based Crown Publishing Co. Ltd., Ping Shin-tao (平鑫濤), to serialize a cartoon in Crown Magazine, one of the most popular modern literature periodicals in Taiwan at that time. “[Ping] told me that he wanted to cultivate someone who could become the next great comic artist after Wong Chak, and he hoped Taiwanese could produce some popular cartoon characters of our own,” Tsai recalls. He took on the challenge and thus began the creation of a four-panel comic strip with some of his funniest and most memorable comic characters. These included a thief who wears an eye patch, a bold detective with a mustache and a drunken warrior—a skinny man who always holds a stalk of grass in his mouth.

Tsai says that at the time, he tried to come up with many funny ideas every day and he would keep them in a notebook as a way to accumulate material for his comic strips. “But the way I think is very different from that of most people. Thinking is what I do best,” Tsai says with confidence and a mysterious smile.

Tsai’s humorous comics brought him great fame as the works went on to be compiled and published in 24 volumes. Tsai had little intention of dwelling on such success, however, saying that he was looking for a greater sense of fulfillment. “The work you spend less time on gives you less sense of achievement. I always like to commit a long period of time to a single task,” Tsai says. With just such an idea in mind, Tsai closed his animation company in 1984 and moved to Japan the next year at the age of 37, spending most of the following four years there. “I just rented a place to live and drew comics,” he says. Asked why he had to leave Taiwan to do so, he explains that it was necessary for his work. “I didn’t want to have social contact with anyone, including my friends and family,” he says. “I wanted to be completely alone.” Tsai adds that he has always liked to be by himself since he is a strong believer that one has to work alone in order to accomplish something great.

It was indeed during this solitary period of his life that Tsai began to adapt the profound teachings of ancient Chinese philosophers into accessible and humorous cartoons, in the process producing his best-selling comic books to date. Some of his most notable works from this time include Zhuangzi Speaks: The Music of Nature, The Tao Speaks: Lao-Tzu’s Whispers of Wisdom, Confucius Speaks: Words to Live By and Sunzi Speaks: The Art of War.

To Tsai, these books are about more than artwork, as they represent the insight and wisdom he has accumulated from years of reading. In fact, Tsai says content is what counts most for any book, including a successful comic book. “Ninety-nine percent of my effort is put into content and only 1 percent is used for drawing,” Tsai explains. “For example, if a joke isn’t funny, it won’t be funny even after you turn it into a comic or 3-D animation,” he says with a smile. Still, the artist recognizes the importance of the comic format. “It wasn’t my reputation or the teachings of the [Chinese] philosophers that made the series so popular. You can see that there are so many books on the market talking about the teachings of Confucius and Sun Tzu’s (also spelled Sunzi) Art of War, but not all of them sell well. What made my books well-liked are the comics. Comics are a common language of the world and have no borders,” Tsai says.

Up-and-coming comic author Rita Liu (劉俐華), who writes under the pen name of Snow, believes Tsai’s work is much more than illustration or an adaptation that only translates the superficial meanings of the texts. Liu says she has always been interested in Taoist philosophy and is a fan of Tsai’s comic work. In reading Tsai’s classical series, Liu says she feels the guidance of “a gentle and patient teacher and a learned scholar.”

“Profound but elusive, Chinese literature and Taoist philosophy appear to be particularly friendly in master Tsai’s books. I feel that he has looked into these classics, meditated on them and then conveyed the essence of the books to readers through his gentle strokes,” Liu says. “His work also reveals the wisdom and humor of his own life, so it can easily strike a chord with readers. Just like Chinese calligraphy often gives away the temperament of the calligraphers … the [cartoon] characters created by Tsai share the artist’s leisurely elegance and tranquil charm.”

Riding on the success of the classical series, Tsai adapted more works of Chinese literature into graphic novels. His adaptations also expanded from the teachings of Chinese philosophers to Chinese historical novels and works of fantasy and adventure, including Records of the Grand Historian, Essays and Criticism, Journey to the West, Outlaws of the Marsh, The Legend of Deification and Ghosts and Wizards.

In 2011, Tsai began to publish his latest series, which is based on Buddhist scriptures. The artist says he is not a Buddhist—he has been non-religious for a long time—but simply appreciates the religion’s philosophy.

Having known Tsai for nearly 40 years, Hung Teh-ling (洪德麟), a comic history expert and comic critic, describes Tsai as a true “doer.” “He draws comics so fast that it scares people,” Hung says. “He would sit at his desk, light a cigarette, have one puff and begin to draw. Then he would just keep going and leave the cigarette there without having a second puff.” Hung points out that Tsai has the skills and high level of self-confidence required to be successful in the industry. On top of that, Hung says that Tsai has continued to push his own limits. “He’s a very energetic person. His industriousness is well-known in the [comic] circle,” Hung notes.

The artist definitely showed his enthusiasm for taking up challenges again when he delved into the areas of math and physics in 1998. “I knew there was no knowledge in the universe deeper than physics, so I wanted to tackle that subject directly, which is why I chose to study cosmology. Since math is the language of physics, I also began to study calculus and advanced mathematics on my own,” he explains. Just like his well-known expertise in playing bridge, one of his hobbies, he believes that people do not need to be trained in school to be good at something as long as they put their mind to it. “When you do what you like most, you’ll definitely do it well and fast,” Tsai says.

During the time Tsai studied physics intensively, he stopped all other work and kept little contact with friends or the outside world. He says he got up every morning at 1 a.m. and would just stand by the window, thinking and sipping coffee. He did nothing but that, studying and taking notes for 12 hours each day, going to bed as soon as it got dark. From the 10 years Tsai spent this way, he produced about 160,000 sheets of drawings and an estimated 1.4 million words. His four-volume physics series represents a summary of those efforts.

Tsai is fully confident of the new ideas he has introduced in the books, which use Eastern philosophy to tackle questions in physics, although the series has not been widely discussed in the physics community. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is known as a theoretical framework for understanding the structure of universe. Tsai claims that he has found more than one way to prove the equation is wrong and has come up with a new equation using the parameter of time, which he says can replace Einstein’s formula.

“Modern physics is constructed on the Western ‘track.’ If we only walk on the tracks built by others, how can we have any chance of surpassing the train before us? We’ll have a better chance of discovering things no one has noticed before only if we begin to see and think about things from a different perspective,” Tsai says. He adds that as the science of physics still has much room in which to grow, he believes that only time will prove whether he is right or wrong. “If I were to go down in history, I would be remembered for my comic works for 50 years at most. But physics will see me remembered for 1,000 years,” he claims.

Key to Success

Tsai believes the key to his or anyone’s success is to find one’s passion early on in life. “When you open a door and walk in, you know what you went in there for. When you’re driving on a highway, you know which destination you’re heading to. But, surprisingly many people have no idea of their direction when dealing with such a huge issue like life,” he says. When asked how he evaluates his achievements in many different fields, Tsai says he considers his greatest contribution so far as having brought Chinese culture and philosophy back into the spotlight for the more than 1.4 billion Mandarin-speaking people worldwide and promoting the Eastern ideology to the rest of the world.

Looking forward, Tsai has no intention to stop drawing, saying his goal for the next phase of his life is to produce a series of comic books teaching algebra, geometry and calculus. “Would you believe me if I tell you that I can teach students everything about math and help them score full marks on math exams?” he asks cheerfully and confidently. As Tsai has proven himself a master of the power and charm of comics, it is certain that readers can expect to see more works from the thinking artist and discover more possibilities from the world of comics.

Write to Audrey Wang at audrey@mail.gio.gov.tw