CRI听力:China to Promote Cute Cartoon Image Worldwide

As children and teenagers grow up with comic books, certain classic characters will stay with them forever.

But, are there any characters in Chinese comic books that could enjoy a certain level of popularity among children worldwide?

Although insiders in China's publication industry all shake their head, they've proposed promoting China's own cute cartoon images far and wide. XU Fei has more.

China to Promote Cute Cartoon Image Worldwide 

To Chinese children, the story of the little mermaid is always enchanting. Other fictional characters like Snow White are also quite popular among Chinese children.

Unfortunately few communities of international children are aware of any Chinese folktale characters, even though some of the characters are well known by Chinese children.

Insiders think that's because the international publishers see China as a market more than a place where cultural exchanges could take place.

Zeng Yi is the director of international cooperation office of China Children's Press and Publication Group, the largest publisher of children's books in China.

"I'll give you an example here. In the very recent Beijing international book fair, some of the publishers only send their international sales team here. When you walk to their tables, they will say "international sales team only, no rights", which means that they don't intend to buy anything here from China at all. They are only here treating China as a market for their own products."

Is it China's lack of classic cartoon book series what causes this "sales only, no rights" phenomenon? Famous Chinese writer of children's books Yang Hong-ying finds that China has developed rapidly with its original cartoon books.

She also thinks these domestic publications have a lot in common with those available on the international markets.

"The good comic books which are largely favored by children all share a feature: children would love the book in which they would find an echo in their own feelings."

Though China may have a number of good comic books, they might not appear on a recommendation list presented by domestic publication groups during those international-level book fairs.

Zeng Yi explains the reason.

"When we think about what books the international market would appreciate, sometimes we got trapped by our own perception that they might be more interested in our traditional stories or mythological stories. But later on, we found that foreigners are very much interested in topics like how a Chinese child lives his life everyday. Probably when we choose the subject areas, we haven't done enough market research to understand really what the foreign readers would appreciate to learn from China."

The China Children's Press and Publication Group, for which Zeng Yi works, is now working to promote China's own cute cartoon images that focus on childrens' daily lives.

The Happy Piggy Joey Series is one of the examples that the publication group made a success in promoting it to the communities of international children. Zeng Yi says its success comes from its content with childish delight.

"This picture book is about how Joey enjoys life, how Joey enjoys playing with other animals, all about his daily life such as when he tries to get rid of mosquitoes to have a good sleep. Those are all the details which make Joey's life happy and very child-centered. So children could feel that Joey is one of them and is also their very good friend."

Written by prolific children's author, Gao Hongbo, and illustrated by Li Rong, who is reputed for a distinctive and immediately recognizable drawing style, the popular series little Piggy Joey comprises of 24 volumes.

According to Zeng Yi, the Belgium-French group Media Participations, the largest comic book publisher in Europe, has already bought the option to produce animated TV series based on this character.

"And very soon probably this character-the carefree, often smiling little piggy called Joey, could be seen by millions and millions of children on TV across the world."

When Zeng Yi said this, her eyes are filled with a light of hope and aspiration.

For Studio Plus, I'm Xu Fei.