The Blue Lotus
Encyclopedia
The Blue Lotus first published in 1936, is one of The Adventures of Tintin
, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Hergé
featuring young reporter Tintin
as a hero. It is a sequel to Cigars of the Pharaoh
, with Tintin continuing his struggle against a major gang of drug smugglers. The story also highlights the Japanese invasion of Manchuria
. The Blue Lotus is a pivotal work in Hergé's career, moving away from the stereotype and loosely connected stories and marking a new found commitment to geographical and cultural accuracy. The book is also amongst the most highly regarded of the entire Tintin series, and was the 18th greatest book on Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
list.
The title, Blue Lotus, refers to the name of an opium den, itself a reference to the blue lotus
.
(Book 4), Tintin pursued an international group of drug distributors through the Middle East
and India
. He managed to capture most of the cartel
members, but not the mysterious leader, who fell down a ravine
in the mountains. Some time after these events, his body has still not been found. Tintin though is shown to be enjoying a vacation with the Maharaja
of Gaipajama. Then one day a Chinese man comes to meet him but he is hit by a dart dipped in a poison which causes madness (Rajaijah). He just had the time to tell him that someone going by the name of Mitsuhirato wants to meet him in Shanghai
. Tintin travels to Shanghai, China
, where he is awaited by the assassins of the opium
consortium.
However, two attempts on Tintin's life are foiled by a young Chinese stranger who arranges to meet Tintin in a secluded area. Once Tintin arrives for their rendezvous, he discovers that the young man has been struck by Rajaijah juice, the poison of madness, used by the drug cartel against their enemies.
Tintin also defends a young Chinese rickshaw driver from a Western businessman and racist bully, Gibbons, a friend of Dawson, the corrupt police chief of the Shanghai International Settlement
. Incensed, Gibbons and Dawson set about making life difficult for Tintin.
Meanwhile in Shanghai, Tintin meets Mitsuhirato, a Japanese
businessman, who urges him to return to India
and protect his friend the Maharajah of Gaipajama.
Having been persuaded by Mitsuhirato, Tintin is on his way back to India by ship when he is knocked unconscious and taken ashore along with Snowy
. He wakes up outside Shanghai, in the home of Wang Chen-Yee, the leader of a resistance movement
called "The Sons of the Dragon" dedicated to the fight against opium. Wang's son is the young man who helped save him from the two assassinations, but is now insane from Rajaijah poisoning. He goes about threatening to cut people's heads off with a sword (thinking it will "show them the way") and only his father's stern authority can keep him in check.
Wang also reveals that Mitsuhirato is their chief opponent: a Japanese
secret agent
and drug smuggler. Tintin manages to track down Mitsuhirato and witnesses him blowing up a railway line (this is based on the real-life Mukden Incident
). No one is killed and damage is minor, but the event is successfully portrayed by the Japanese government as a major Chinese terrorist incident and used as an excuse for a Japanese invasion of Manchuria
. Tintin is captured by Mitsuhirato and is to be injected with the Rajaijah poison, but had a near escape when he was aided by one of the members from "The Sons of the Dragon", who had infiltrated Mitsuhirato's house earlier and switched the poison for colored water.
Having obtained the poison of madness with the help of the member, Tintin returns to Shanghai, which has now been occupied by the Japanese Army, and tries to make contact with Doctor Fang Hsi-Ying, an expert on insanity, who may be able to cure Wang's son. However, Doctor Fang has been kidnapped by the drug cartel, presumably to prevent him developing an antidote to the poison. A note left by the kidnappers demands ransom money which must be paid at an old temple in the city of Hukow.
After a brief period of imprisonment in Shanghai by the Japanese Army, Tintin escapes and rides a train to Hukow to visit the temple where the ransom is to be paid, but a flood washes the tracks, and all the passengers must disembark. He rescues a young boy, Chang Chong-Chen
, from drowning in the Yangtze River
. They become fast friends, and Chang rescues Tintin from the Thompsons
who had reluctantly arrested him under orders from Dawson (who is collaborating with Mitsuhirato to capture Tintin). They later travel to the area where the ransom money is to be left, and are able to confirm that Doctor Fang has been kidnapped on Mitsuhirato's orders.
Tintin and Chang return to Shanghai, but not before Wang and his family are kidnapped by Mitsuhirato. In order to find them, Tintin travels to the Shanghai docks and hides in one of the barrels being unloaded from an opium ship. But it turns out that he was seen, and when he emerges he is confronted by Mitsuhirato armed with a gun, and soon finds himself a prisoner alongside Wang and his family. Then the boss of the opium cartel
is revealed to be the film producer Rastapopoulos
(see Cigars of the Pharaoh
for back story). Tintin is appalled that a man he had thought to be a friend could be the gang leader until Rastapopoulos reveals the tattoo of Kih-Oskh on his forearm. Fortunately, before the cartel could kill Tintin and Wang, the Sons of the Dragon, who had previously overpowered Mitsuhirato's thugs and had hidden in the other barrels (as planned by Tintin), reveal themselves, and force Mitsuhirato and Rastapopoulos to surrender. With Rastapopoulos arrested, the cartel is finally brought down, and Mitsuhirato commits hara-kiri. Fang Hsi-Ying finds an antidote to the poison of madness and Wang's son is cured (it is not mentioned whether the other victims of the poison are also cured). The ensuing political fallout over Tintin's involvement with the cartel and Japanese espionage leads to Japan
's withdrawal from the League of Nations
.The story ends with Chang being adopted by the Wang family and Tintin heading back for Europe.
Norbert Wallez
, had told him about Socialism
, the Soviet Union
, Belgian colonies in Africa or the United States
, which was depicted as a nation of gangsters and cowboys and Indians of the sort found in Hollywood movies (though Hergé does sympathise with the Indians in the way they are forced off their land).
As Tintin was published in Le Petit Vingtième
, a newspaper supplement, and Hergé announced at the end of Cigars that his next setting would be China. Father Gosset, chaplain to the Chinese students at the University of Leuven, wrote to Hergé urging him to be sensitive about what he wrote about China, since it might offend his Chinese students. Hergé agreed, and in the spring of 1934 Gosset introduced him to Zhang Chongren
/Chang Ch'ung-jen (known to Hergé as 'Chang Chong-chen'), a young sculpture student at the Brussels Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts
. The two young artists quickly became close friends, and Zhang introduced Hergé to Chinese culture, and the techniques of Chinese art
.
As a result of this experience, Hergé would strive in The Blue Lotus, and in subsequent Tintin adventures, to be meticulously accurate in depicting the places which Tintin visited by painstakingly researching all his topics. When his UK publisher complained that The Black Island
depicted an old-fashioned England, Hergé sent Bob de Moor
to Britain to redraw anything that was no longer accurate, resulting in huge changes to the album. This new-found commitment to accuracy would become a Hergé trademark.
As a token of appreciation, he added a fictional "Chang" ("Tchang" in French) to The Blue Lotus, a young Chinese boy who meets and befriends Tintin. Hergé lets Tintin explain to Chang that Chang's fear for the 'white devils' is based on prejudice and Chinese racism. He then recites a few Western stereotypes of the Chinese, confuting them.
and Nanking. As a result, the Japanese government invades China, occupying Shanghai, ostensibly to restore order. This parallels the real-life Mukden Incident
of 18 September 1931, which however took place some six hundred miles to the north. Manchuria was invaded by the Japanese from September 1931 onward, and Shanghai was attacked
in early 1932 though it was not fully conquered
until November 1937. Following Tintin's defeat of Mitsuhirato's drug-running gang, a League of Nations
investigation begins into the Shanghai-Nanking railway incident, which results in Japanese withdrawal from the League. The historical counterpart was the Lytton Commission, which began in December 1931; Japan withdrew from the League of Nations on 27 March 1933.
, in particular the Japan
ese Empire's advances into China. Tintin also rescues a Chinese man from a racist bully called Gibbons, who strives to get his revenge with the assistance of Dawson
, the corrupt Police chief of the Shanghai International Settlement
. The Japanese and some European characters are portrayed in a negative light, and their cartoon forms are somewhat racist. The Japanese, including the character of Mitsuhirato and Japanese soldiers, are shown with beaming teeth while the Chinese are shown as tight-lipped. As a result it drew sharp criticism from various parties, including a protest by Japanese diplomats to the Belgian Foreign Ministry.
The Republic of China
was so pleased with the album that its leader at the time, Chiang Kai-shek
, invited Hergé for a visit. However, because of objections to the implied ideology of Tintin
, the People's Republic of China
forbade the publication of the album for a long time. It finally allowed publication in 1984, but some controversial items were changed. For example the words 抵制日貨, dǐ zhì rì huò, "Down with Japanese products!" was changed to 大吉路, dà jí lù, "Great Luck road".
The original version of The Blue Lotus was published in black-and-white in Le Petit Vingtième
in 1934. It was later redrawn and colourised in 1946.
Many scenes that appeared in the original 1934 version were left out in 1946. They included:
play major recurring roles in other stories, the two nations mentioned in The Blue Lotus are not referred to again in the series.
The term "Poldavia" had been popularised a few years earlier in 1929 when several left-wing members of the French parliament
had received letters urging them to aid the oppressed people of Poldavia. Some of them had written back expressing support and requesting further details, but the whole thing was a prank instigated by journalist Alain Mellet, a member of the extreme right-wing Action Française
.
The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist , who wrote under the pen name of Hergé...
, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Hergé
Hergé
Georges Prosper Remi , better known by the pen name Hergé, was a Belgian comics writer and artist. His best known and most substantial work is the 23 completed comic books in The Adventures of Tintin series, which he wrote and illustrated from 1929 until his death in 1983, although he was also...
featuring young reporter Tintin
Tintin (character)
Tintin is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. Tintin is the protagonist of the series, a reporter and adventurer who travels around the world with his dog Snowy....
as a hero. It is a sequel to Cigars of the Pharaoh
Cigars of the Pharaoh
Cigars of the Pharaoh is one of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero...
, with Tintin continuing his struggle against a major gang of drug smugglers. The story also highlights the Japanese invasion of Manchuria
Mukden Incident
The Mukden Incident, also known as the Manchurian Incident, was a staged event that was engineered by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for invading the northern part of China known as Manchuria in 1931....
. The Blue Lotus is a pivotal work in Hergé's career, moving away from the stereotype and loosely connected stories and marking a new found commitment to geographical and cultural accuracy. The book is also amongst the most highly regarded of the entire Tintin series, and was the 18th greatest book on Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
The 100 Books of the Century is a grading of the books considered as the hundred best of the 20th century, drawn up in the spring of 1999 through a poll conducted by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde....
list.
The title, Blue Lotus, refers to the name of an opium den, itself a reference to the blue lotus
Nelumbo nucifera
Nelumbo nucifera, known by a number of names including Indian Lotus, Sacred Lotus, Bean of India, or simply Lotus, is a plant in the monogeneric family Nelumbonaceae...
.
Synopsis
In Cigars of the PharaohCigars of the Pharaoh
Cigars of the Pharaoh is one of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero...
(Book 4), Tintin pursued an international group of drug distributors through the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. He managed to capture most of the cartel
Cartel
A cartel is a formal agreement among competing firms. It is a formal organization of producers and manufacturers that agree to fix prices, marketing, and production. Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there is a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products...
members, but not the mysterious leader, who fell down a ravine
Ravine
A ravine is a landform narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streamcutting erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. A ravine is generally a fluvial slope landform of relatively steep sides, on the order of twenty to...
in the mountains. Some time after these events, his body has still not been found. Tintin though is shown to be enjoying a vacation with the Maharaja
Maharaja
Mahārāja is a Sanskrit title for a "great king" or "high king". The female equivalent title Maharani denotes either the wife of a Maharaja or, in states where that was customary, a woman ruling in her own right. The widow of a Maharaja is known as a Rajamata...
of Gaipajama. Then one day a Chinese man comes to meet him but he is hit by a dart dipped in a poison which causes madness (Rajaijah). He just had the time to tell him that someone going by the name of Mitsuhirato wants to meet him in Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
. Tintin travels to Shanghai, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, where he is awaited by the assassins of the opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
consortium.
However, two attempts on Tintin's life are foiled by a young Chinese stranger who arranges to meet Tintin in a secluded area. Once Tintin arrives for their rendezvous, he discovers that the young man has been struck by Rajaijah juice, the poison of madness, used by the drug cartel against their enemies.
Tintin also defends a young Chinese rickshaw driver from a Western businessman and racist bully, Gibbons, a friend of Dawson, the corrupt police chief of the Shanghai International Settlement
Shanghai International Settlement
The Shanghai International Settlement began originally as a purely British settlement. It was one of the original five treaty ports which were established under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking at the end of the first opium war in the year 1842...
. Incensed, Gibbons and Dawson set about making life difficult for Tintin.
Meanwhile in Shanghai, Tintin meets Mitsuhirato, a Japanese
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
businessman, who urges him to return to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and protect his friend the Maharajah of Gaipajama.
Having been persuaded by Mitsuhirato, Tintin is on his way back to India by ship when he is knocked unconscious and taken ashore along with Snowy
Snowy (character)
Snowy is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. He is a white Wire Fox Terrier and Tintin's four-legged companion who travels everywhere with him...
. He wakes up outside Shanghai, in the home of Wang Chen-Yee, the leader of a resistance movement
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
called "The Sons of the Dragon" dedicated to the fight against opium. Wang's son is the young man who helped save him from the two assassinations, but is now insane from Rajaijah poisoning. He goes about threatening to cut people's heads off with a sword (thinking it will "show them the way") and only his father's stern authority can keep him in check.
Wang also reveals that Mitsuhirato is their chief opponent: a Japanese
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
secret agent
Secret Agent
Secret Agent is a British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, and Robert Young...
and drug smuggler. Tintin manages to track down Mitsuhirato and witnesses him blowing up a railway line (this is based on the real-life Mukden Incident
Mukden Incident
The Mukden Incident, also known as the Manchurian Incident, was a staged event that was engineered by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for invading the northern part of China known as Manchuria in 1931....
). No one is killed and damage is minor, but the event is successfully portrayed by the Japanese government as a major Chinese terrorist incident and used as an excuse for a Japanese invasion of Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
. Tintin is captured by Mitsuhirato and is to be injected with the Rajaijah poison, but had a near escape when he was aided by one of the members from "The Sons of the Dragon", who had infiltrated Mitsuhirato's house earlier and switched the poison for colored water.
Having obtained the poison of madness with the help of the member, Tintin returns to Shanghai, which has now been occupied by the Japanese Army, and tries to make contact with Doctor Fang Hsi-Ying, an expert on insanity, who may be able to cure Wang's son. However, Doctor Fang has been kidnapped by the drug cartel, presumably to prevent him developing an antidote to the poison. A note left by the kidnappers demands ransom money which must be paid at an old temple in the city of Hukow.
After a brief period of imprisonment in Shanghai by the Japanese Army, Tintin escapes and rides a train to Hukow to visit the temple where the ransom is to be paid, but a flood washes the tracks, and all the passengers must disembark. He rescues a young boy, Chang Chong-Chen
Chang Chong-Chen
Chang Chong-Chen is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé...
, from drowning in the Yangtze River
Yangtze River
The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the...
. They become fast friends, and Chang rescues Tintin from the Thompsons
Thomson and Thompson
Thomson and Thompson are fictional characters in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. Thomson and Thompson are detectives of Scotland Yard, and are as incompetent as they are necessary comic relief...
who had reluctantly arrested him under orders from Dawson (who is collaborating with Mitsuhirato to capture Tintin). They later travel to the area where the ransom money is to be left, and are able to confirm that Doctor Fang has been kidnapped on Mitsuhirato's orders.
Tintin and Chang return to Shanghai, but not before Wang and his family are kidnapped by Mitsuhirato. In order to find them, Tintin travels to the Shanghai docks and hides in one of the barrels being unloaded from an opium ship. But it turns out that he was seen, and when he emerges he is confronted by Mitsuhirato armed with a gun, and soon finds himself a prisoner alongside Wang and his family. Then the boss of the opium cartel
Cartel
A cartel is a formal agreement among competing firms. It is a formal organization of producers and manufacturers that agree to fix prices, marketing, and production. Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there is a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products...
is revealed to be the film producer Rastapopoulos
Rastapopoulos
Roberto Rastapopoulos is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. He is the antagonist in many of Tintin's adventures....
(see Cigars of the Pharaoh
Cigars of the Pharaoh
Cigars of the Pharaoh is one of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero...
for back story). Tintin is appalled that a man he had thought to be a friend could be the gang leader until Rastapopoulos reveals the tattoo of Kih-Oskh on his forearm. Fortunately, before the cartel could kill Tintin and Wang, the Sons of the Dragon, who had previously overpowered Mitsuhirato's thugs and had hidden in the other barrels (as planned by Tintin), reveal themselves, and force Mitsuhirato and Rastapopoulos to surrender. With Rastapopoulos arrested, the cartel is finally brought down, and Mitsuhirato commits hara-kiri. Fang Hsi-Ying finds an antidote to the poison of madness and Wang's son is cured (it is not mentioned whether the other victims of the poison are also cured). The ensuing political fallout over Tintin's involvement with the cartel and Japanese espionage leads to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
's withdrawal from the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
.The story ends with Chang being adopted by the Wang family and Tintin heading back for Europe.
Method change
Up to the writing of The Blue Lotus, Hergé's writing was mainly based on popular prejudice and on what his mentor, the abbotAbbot
The word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...
Norbert Wallez
Norbert Wallez
Abbé Norbert Wallez was a Belgian priest and journalist. He was the editor of the newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle , whose youth supplement, Le Petit Vingtième, first published The Adventures of Tintin.Wallez studied at the University of Leuven...
, had told him about Socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Belgian colonies in Africa or the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, which was depicted as a nation of gangsters and cowboys and Indians of the sort found in Hollywood movies (though Hergé does sympathise with the Indians in the way they are forced off their land).
As Tintin was published in Le Petit Vingtième
Le Petit Vingtième
Le Petit Vingtième was the weekly youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle from 1928 to 1940. The comics series The Adventures of Tintin first appeared in its pages.-History:...
, a newspaper supplement, and Hergé announced at the end of Cigars that his next setting would be China. Father Gosset, chaplain to the Chinese students at the University of Leuven, wrote to Hergé urging him to be sensitive about what he wrote about China, since it might offend his Chinese students. Hergé agreed, and in the spring of 1934 Gosset introduced him to Zhang Chongren
Zhang Chongren
Zhang Chongren , was a Chinese artist and sculptor best remembered in Europe as the friend of Hergé, the Belgian comics writer and artist and creator of The Adventures of Tintin. The two met when Zhang was an art student in Brussels.-Early life:...
/Chang Ch'ung-jen (known to Hergé as 'Chang Chong-chen'), a young sculpture student at the Brussels Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts
Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts
The Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels is an art school, founded in 1711.The faculty and alumni of ARBA include some of the most famous names in Belgian painting, sculpture, and architecture: James Ensor, Rene Magritte, and Paul Delvaux...
. The two young artists quickly became close friends, and Zhang introduced Hergé to Chinese culture, and the techniques of Chinese art
Chinese art
Chinese art is visual art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists or performers. Early so-called "stone age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. This early period was followed by a series of art...
.
As a result of this experience, Hergé would strive in The Blue Lotus, and in subsequent Tintin adventures, to be meticulously accurate in depicting the places which Tintin visited by painstakingly researching all his topics. When his UK publisher complained that The Black Island
The Black Island
The Black Island is the seventh of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as the hero. It was first published in the newspaper supplement Le Petit Vingtième in the late 1930s...
depicted an old-fashioned England, Hergé sent Bob de Moor
Bob de Moor
Bob de Moor is the pen name of Robert Frans Marie De Moor , a Belgian comics creator. Chiefly noted as an artist, he is considered an early master of the Ligne claire style. He wrote and drew several comics series on his own, but also collaborated with Hergé on several volumes of The Adventures of...
to Britain to redraw anything that was no longer accurate, resulting in huge changes to the album. This new-found commitment to accuracy would become a Hergé trademark.
As a token of appreciation, he added a fictional "Chang" ("Tchang" in French) to The Blue Lotus, a young Chinese boy who meets and befriends Tintin. Hergé lets Tintin explain to Chang that Chang's fear for the 'white devils' is based on prejudice and Chinese racism. He then recites a few Western stereotypes of the Chinese, confuting them.
Fictionalisation of real events
Several historical events are loosely portrayed in The Blue Lotus. Mitsuhirato and his accomplices blow up the railway line between ShanghaiShanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
and Nanking. As a result, the Japanese government invades China, occupying Shanghai, ostensibly to restore order. This parallels the real-life Mukden Incident
Mukden Incident
The Mukden Incident, also known as the Manchurian Incident, was a staged event that was engineered by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for invading the northern part of China known as Manchuria in 1931....
of 18 September 1931, which however took place some six hundred miles to the north. Manchuria was invaded by the Japanese from September 1931 onward, and Shanghai was attacked
January 28 Incident
The January 28 Incident was a short war between the armies of the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan, before official hostilities of the Second Sino-Japanese War commenced in 1937.- Naming :...
in early 1932 though it was not fully conquered
Battle of Shanghai
The Battle of Shanghai, known in Chinese as Battle of Songhu, was the first of the twenty-two major engagements fought between the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China and the Imperial Japanese Army of the Empire of Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War...
until November 1937. Following Tintin's defeat of Mitsuhirato's drug-running gang, a League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
investigation begins into the Shanghai-Nanking railway incident, which results in Japanese withdrawal from the League. The historical counterpart was the Lytton Commission, which began in December 1931; Japan withdrew from the League of Nations on 27 March 1933.
Political turmoil
As another result of his friendship with Zhang (Chang), Hergé became increasingly aware of the problems of colonialismColonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
, in particular the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese Empire's advances into China. Tintin also rescues a Chinese man from a racist bully called Gibbons, who strives to get his revenge with the assistance of Dawson
Dawson
-People:*Dawson Roger Dawson, author of Secrets of Power NegotiatingFictional characters*Dawson, in Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends*Dawson Leery, on the TV show Dawson's Creek...
, the corrupt Police chief of the Shanghai International Settlement
Shanghai International Settlement
The Shanghai International Settlement began originally as a purely British settlement. It was one of the original five treaty ports which were established under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking at the end of the first opium war in the year 1842...
. The Japanese and some European characters are portrayed in a negative light, and their cartoon forms are somewhat racist. The Japanese, including the character of Mitsuhirato and Japanese soldiers, are shown with beaming teeth while the Chinese are shown as tight-lipped. As a result it drew sharp criticism from various parties, including a protest by Japanese diplomats to the Belgian Foreign Ministry.
The Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
was so pleased with the album that its leader at the time, Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
, invited Hergé for a visit. However, because of objections to the implied ideology of Tintin
Ideology of Tintin
Hergé started drawing his comics series The Adventures of Tintin in 1929 for Le Petit Vingtième, the children's section of the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle, run by the Abbé Norbert Wallez, an avid supporter of social Catholicism, a right-wing movement...
, the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
forbade the publication of the album for a long time. It finally allowed publication in 1984, but some controversial items were changed. For example the words 抵制日貨, dǐ zhì rì huò, "Down with Japanese products!" was changed to 大吉路, dà jí lù, "Great Luck road".
Publication history
This adventure was originally published under the name Tintin en Extrême-Orient (literally "Tintin in the Far East").The original version of The Blue Lotus was published in black-and-white in Le Petit Vingtième
Le Petit Vingtième
Le Petit Vingtième was the weekly youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle from 1928 to 1940. The comics series The Adventures of Tintin first appeared in its pages.-History:...
in 1934. It was later redrawn and colourised in 1946.
Many scenes that appeared in the original 1934 version were left out in 1946. They included:
- The fakir who performs tricks with glass and daggers and reads Tintin's palm is named as Cipacalouvishni.
- As the fakir warns him of the dangers to come, Tintin looks visibly more nervous in the 1934 version than in 1946.
- After firing the dart into the neck of the Chinese man at the Maharaja's palace, the fakir from Cigars of the Pharaoh can be seen hurrying away through the jungle.
- Tintin then tells the Maharaja that he will not leave for China until he knows the fakir is back in custody. They later receive a telegram announcing his recapture. Tintin, who has lost Snowy, decides to leave without him (these decisions were changed in later versions).
- When Tintin is jailed after bumping into a SikhSikhA Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
policeman, Dawson sends three tough men in to beat him up. In the original version they are British soldiers, from EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, IrelandIrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and ScotlandScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. However, it is they who end up in hospital where an official pays tribute for their "sacrifice in the defence of their ideals!". In 1946 the white soldiers are replaced by IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n policemen.
- While watching a newsreel in a cinema, Tintin sees footage of Sir Malcolm Campbell breaking the world land speed record in his high-powered Bluebird car.
- While searching the cellar of the Blue Lotus, Tintin opens a door and he and Chang come face-to-face with yet another gangster. Tintin tells Chang to follow his example, raise his arms and put down his gun. When the gangster bends down to pick up the guns, Tintin slams the door onto him, knocking him out. Chang then ties him up with rope.
Fictional countries
The Blue Lotus mentions two fictional countries, the first of several in the Tintin books. However, while fictional countries such as SyldaviaSyldavia
Syldavia is a fictional Balkan kingdom featured in The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé. The name was derived from TranSYLvania and MolDAVIA.-Overview:...
play major recurring roles in other stories, the two nations mentioned in The Blue Lotus are not referred to again in the series.
- Pilchardanian Republic: A EuropeEuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an RepublicRepublicA republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...
, which resembles the pre-World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
French Third RepublicFrench Third RepublicThe French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
. It was mentioned during a newsreel, when Tintin hides in a movie theatre. Its name derives from an alternative word for the sardineSardineSardines, or pilchards, are several types of small, oily fish related to herrings, family Clupeidae. Sardines are named after the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, around which they were once abundant....
, which is a type of fish. - Mitsuhirato and his men capture a man they believe to be Tintin wearing a huge fake beard and wig. However it turns out to be genuine hair and beard: the man is in fact the consulConsul (representative)The political title Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries...
for Poldavia.
The term "Poldavia" had been popularised a few years earlier in 1929 when several left-wing members of the French parliament
Chamber of Deputies of France
Chamber of Deputies was the name given to several parliamentary bodies in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:* 1814–1848 during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy, the Chamber of Deputies was the Lower chamber of the French Parliament, elected by census suffrage.*...
had received letters urging them to aid the oppressed people of Poldavia. Some of them had written back expressing support and requesting further details, but the whole thing was a prank instigated by journalist Alain Mellet, a member of the extreme right-wing Action Française
Action Française
The Action Française , founded in 1898, is a French Monarchist counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras...
.
Cultural references
- The poem Tintin sings after receiving madness injection is Each Peach Pear Plum, in comes Tom Thumb, by Janet and Allan AhlbergJanet and Allan AhlbergJanet and Allan Ahlberg are the creators of many popular children's books, which regularly appear at the top of the 'most popular' lists for public libraries. Husband and wife, they worked together for 20 years until Janet died of cancer on 13 November 1994, aged 50. Allan wrote the books, and...
. When Snowy finds him he is singing "Tarantara, zing, boom" — from the song "Loudly let the trumpet bray" in Gilbert and SullivanGilbert and SullivanGilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
's IolantheIolantheIolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....
.
See also
- Le Mondes 100 Books of the CenturyLe Monde's 100 Books of the CenturyThe 100 Books of the Century is a grading of the books considered as the hundred best of the 20th century, drawn up in the spring of 1999 through a poll conducted by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde....
External links
- The Blue Lotus at Tintinologist.org
- The Blue Lotus at Tintin wiki
- Poldavie at Wikipédia (in French)