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paperback HK$145.00
Inkstone Books
Paddyfield.com
More reviews by Wayne E. Yang
Readers may purchase reviewed books from Paddyfield.com, Asia's online bookseller.North American readers may prefer to buy US editions from Powells.com.
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One Hand, Two Fingers by Gavin Coates
Though he calls himself an "outsider," editorial cartoonist GAVIN COATES has a lengthy history and deep intimacy with Hong Kong. His drawings and their colors are vibrant. His figures have features twisted into gnarled caricatures, ripe for gentle poking, yet generally kept from becoming venomous and grotesque. Now his cartoons have been collected into an enjoyable book called ONE HAND, TWO FINGERS.
Coates says he became interested in the political process when "Hong Kong was being transferred from the British frying pan into what many feared would be a Chinese fire." He is a talented chronicler of the foibles of the city and its mandarins. You might think that satire has no shelf life under a government not especially known for openness, but Coates gives the Chinese government its due for letting him draw "without being silenced one way or another." He admits that the over-the-shoulder gazing "could have been a lot, lot worse." That recognition seems to temper some of the vitriol that Coates could otherwise have directed towards the Chinese government and its Hong Kong administration.
One of Coates's best cartoons shows his derision of Hong Kong immigration policy. Polite and smiling officers stand behind desks to greet the city's more desirable immigrants (a groveling officer greets "rich Chinese tycoons and friends of `Mr. T' [Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa]"), while monsters that satirically recall Chinese dragons, one more twisted than the other, "greet" the immigrants as the categories become less desirable (the nastiest guarding against "really dark brown or black people [and] Falun Gong running dogs"). Coates does not shy away from issues of race or political identity.
A surprise is the strength of the book's essays, particularly John Russell Taylor's "Down with Them All, A Random History of Political Caricature," a textual complement to Coates' strong work. American Mark Clifford takes Coates to task for his "scant sympathy" for the United States. Coates puts American reviewers in the awkward position of having to examine whether their reactions to his U.S. cartoons are simply reflexive. It is probably not a stretch, however, to say that Coates's cartoons lampooning the United States are done with less humor, certainly (as Clifford says) less sympathy than that of the Hong Kong cartoons, where pure ire gives way more to equal parts befuddlement and bemusement.
Another Coates's strength is his ability to succinctly depict events: outsiders can thumb through One Hand, Two Fingers and feel they have at least a bird's eye view of recent Hong Kong political, cultural and business issues. One of the highest compliments you can give Coates is that his cartoons even seem to have terrible relevancy to those of us who live outside the city.
The best cartoonists have a distinctive signature in their statements and art. Many of Thomas Nast's depictions (like "Uncle Sam"), for instance, were turned into icons. Coates accomplishes that in the bulbous heads, and too wide grins of his Hong Kong and Chinese officials; his large and clumsy [Chinese government] panda, and his depiction of Hong Kong officials groveling at (or even licking the boots) of their senior counterparts: first the British, then post-handover, the Chinese government. Coates' caricatures of government and big business figures often loom over the shrunken members of the public, who are stepped on or silenced. The message is clear. You know where Coates stands -- away from institutionalized power, firmly on the side of the little guy.
Wayne E. Yang
24/02/2005
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Wayne E. Yang is based in New York, where he lives with his wife and two children. His web site is www.wayneyang.com. |
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