Check out this interview with Understanding China Through Comics series author, Jing Liu as he discusses with Germany's DW about the importance of bring the history of China to a larger audience and what the fundamental difference is between Eastern and Western philosophy.
Here are some highlights from the interview:
“With his graphic novels, author Liu Jing aims to introduce China's history and culture to the world. He told DW about challenges he faced condensing 5,000 years of history — and plans for a fifth volume.
Q: Who is your intended audience for these four volumes? Chinese or non-Chinese readers? Adults or children?
A: The history of China deserves a larger audience, because it is rather interesting. Every country has its own unique way of becoming a modern nation. In China, different factors played out together over a long period of time to make China, China. I hope that by reading these books and also understanding the driving forces behind history, readers from other countries can use the same framework to look at their own country.
Q: After dealing extensively with Chinese history for nine years, what did you find at the heart of Chinese culture?
A: In Western philosophy or religion, people are born with sin — the starting point of a human is not perfect, not good. In Chinese philosophy, people are good at birth. Even though there are many troubles, many sacrifices, even though so many bad things happen, at the end of the day the nature of this world and also the people are still good. That is a very, very fundamental difference between Chinese and Western philosophy. And from that stems a really big difference between the two civilizations.”