BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhuanet)-- Nemo, a cute orange-and-white clownfish; Shrek, a giant green monster; Mashimaro, a fat, dumpy rabbit; and Detective Conan, a diminutive 10-year-old who cracks criminal cases like Sherlock Holmes have won the hearts of the young in China and all over the world.     

    

Nemo, a cute orange-and-white clownfish; Shrek, a giant green monster; Mashimaro, a fat, dumpy rabbit; and Detective Conan, a diminutive 10-year-old who cracks criminal cases like Sherlock Holmes have won the hearts of the young in China and all over the world. (Photo: China Daily)

The heroes of popular anime and cartoons are omnipresent, on office desks, handbags, computer desktops and in dreams.

    But their dominance has been challenged recently by an older generation of cartoon sweethearts who range from 40 to 75 years old.

    Generation-crossing fans of the Monkey King, hero of a 1964 Chinese anime of the same name, are currently celebrating his "40th birthday."

    Titled " Havoc in Heaven" (Danao Tiangong), the anime directed by pioneering animator/cartoonist Wan Laiming (1899-1997) and produced by the Shanghai Film Factory of Fine Arts is widely recognized as one of the best Chinese animes ever produced.

    The beautiful production tells the story of a monkey who wears a skirt made of tiger fur and wields a magic club, who leads a group of monkeys in rebellion against the rule of the Jade Emperor in heaven.

    Besides his courage, leadership and will, it is the practical jokes played by the monkey that have been long remembered.

    "He made such a mess in each room in heaven. He flew into a peach garden and ate as many peaches as he liked... the scenes were regulars in my childhood dreams," said Li Zhen, 26, a reporter from Guizhou Television Station in Southwest China.

    The anime is so influential that its title "Havoc in Heaven" has become a regular phrase in oral Chinese. A parent or a boss makes the remark when they return to the house/office and see a mess made while they were out.

    It has also become a symbol of identity for a generation of Chinese.

    "We are the last to have watched the 'Monkey King' dozens of times in our childhood," said an article titled, "We Were Born in the 1970s," which made waves on the Internet and found the soft spots of many who were born in the decade.

    But those who were born in the 1960s do not agree with the upstart children of the 70s.

    "They don't have the privilege of the Monkey King. We grew up with him," said Gong Liang, 40, a government official in Beijing.

    Though anime production techniques have made great progress in the past four decades, there have been no other Chinese anime/cartoons that can compete with the Monkey King in its influence, said scholars at the China Cartoon Forum held this August in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning Province.

    Major websites in China, including Sina.com, 163.com and Sohu.com all have forums dedicated to the "40th birthday" of the Monkey King.

    The Shanghai Film Studio of Fine Arts published a digital video disk (DVD) of the anime this July, which is selling like hot cakes on the Internet, at book stores and video stands.

    As people re-live their youthful memories of the Monkey King, its success has led to a number of other classic animes being released on DVD.

    They include such masterpieces as "Nezha Stirs Up the Sea" (Nezha Naohai), "Child of the Snow" (Xue Haizi), "Deer of Nine Colours" (Jiuse Lu) and "Little Tadpole Looks for Mum" (Xiao Kedou Zhao Mama).

    "They were so fascinating in my memories, and they still are even though my son has neared my age of the time," said Gong.

    Tintin nostalgia

    Besides the Monkey King, a reporter with a distinctive quiff and a small white terrier is also having his birthday celebrated in China.

    Tintin, the ever intrepid foreign correspondent of the Brussels-based Le Vingtieme Siecle, has been dashing around the world chasing adventure for 75 years, ever since Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi - more commonly known as Herge - came up with the comic strip character in 1929.

    Though Tintin has only filed one story to his editor in 75 years, the ginger-haired journalist and his dog Snowy have been sent as far as the jungles of the Congo, the docks of Chicago, the backstreets of Shanghai and even the surface of the moon, 15 years before Neil Armstrong.

    Books of his adventures have been translated into nearly 60 languages, including Latin and Mongolian, and 200 million copies have been sold.

    In Germany they call him Tim, in the Netherlands he is Kuifje, the Greeks call him Tenten and in China he is known as Ding Ding.

    Many Chinese in their 20s, 30s and 40s still keep collections of the black-and-white Tintin comics, which were first published in December 1984 by the publishing house of the China Federation of Literature and Arts Circles.

    Priced 0.47 yuan (US$0.06) each, the six-centimetre-long, 10-centimetre-wide books of about 200 pages were allegedly the first Western comics published in China after the country opened up in the early 1980s, said sources with the China Teenagers' and Children's Publishing House.

    "I have taken them everywhere with me in the past 10 years, since I left my hometown Wuhan for Beijing in 1995," said Zheng Yifan, 29, at a gathering of Tintin fans at the Blue Lotus Bar in Beijing this August.

    "I graduated from college in 1999, found a job in Beijing, got married and recently bought a small apartment - Tintin has been my company at all the important moments of my life, and he reminds me of boyish passion and dashing spirit though I have to play the games of the adult world today," he said.

    As the world's Tintin fans crest a nostalgic wave, holding exhibitions of Tintin's adventures in London, Tokyo and Brussels, their counterparts in China have set up Tintin fan clubs and hosted Tintin birthday parties in major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Wuhan.

    At one of the parties held in a book store in Beijing this August, Zhang Yong, 40, displayed his collection of Tintin comics published in 12 languages and more than 100 souvenirs bearing images of Tintin and his friends, including Snowy, the foul-mouthed Captain Haddock, the hysterical Professor Calculus, and Thomson and Thompson, the blundering bowler-hatted detectives.

    "I got them in my travels as a diplomat around the world. Tintin and his friends have always given me courage and a touch of humour," he told the Xinhua News Agency.

    He said he would buy souvenirs of Mashmaro or Detective Conan for his daughter, but he himself has more love for his favourite flame-haired Belgian buccaneer.

    "The old comic characters have a charm that can only be attained with the passing of time," said Zhang.

    Such fondly remembered characters include Astro Boy, who had his "birth" celebrated in China last year.

    The late Osamu Tezuka, a revered animator and cartoonist, claimed in the science fiction anime, which was broadcast by China's Central Television Station in 1982, that the jet-powered, super-strong, evil-robot-bashing, alien-invasion smashing robot boy he created in the 1960s was born on April 7, 2003.

    Snoopy, Charlie Brown's lovable dog who lives in his own private fantasy world, also had his "50th birthday" celebrated by China's Snoopy fans in 2000.

    "I didn't draw the cartoons for children. Adults who have experienced life understand them better," said the late Charles Schultz, creator of Snoopy and the "Peanuts" cartoon series, whose above words provide a footnote to the cartoon nostalgia currently sweeping China.

    (China Daily)