Tchang Tchong Yen

Tchang Tchong Yen (in French editions, Tchang Tchong-jen; in traditional Chinese, 張仲仁; pinyin, Zhāng Zhòngrén), or simply Tchang, is a fictional character from the comics series The Adventures from Tintin, by Belgian cartoonist Hergé, based on Zhang Chongren, Chinese artist, real friend of the author.

Apparently, he is Tintin's first true friend. He saved him from drowning in a flood during the trip to China in the adventure The Blue Lotus. A teenage Tchang introduces Tintin to Chinese culture, and upon his return to Europe, Tintin sheds some of the few tears of his life due to the separation.

Despite this, contact apparently remains. In Tintin in Tibet, the protagonist receives a letter from Tchang in which he announces his trip to Europe. The immense joy that the news brings him is immediately cut short when he learns that his friend's plane has crashed in the Himalayas, and that apparently there are no survivors. Convinced that Tchang is alive, against all evidence, Tintin undertakes a complicated journey through Tibet to find him, reluctantly followed by Captain Haddock.

The latest news from Tchang appears in The Castafiore Jewels, in the form of a letter from London.

Character history

In 1934, Hergé was about to start working on a story that would take Tintin to China. Until now, it had taken and reflected a very stereotyped and clichéd view of the countries Tintin visited: a Russia of starving peasants and brutal commissioners, a Congo of simple and rude villagers, an America of gangsters, cowboys and Indians, and an India of fakirs and maharajas.

In the process of planning his story, Hergé was contacted by Reverend Gosset, chaplain to Chinese students at the University of Leuven, who suggested that he do some actual research into life in China as it really was. Hergé agreed and Gosset introduced him to Zhang Chongren, a student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels.

The two men, aged 27, hit it off and fraternized, and Hergé decided to include his new friend in the story. Zhang supplied and wrote much of the Chinese text for the posters that appear in the album's panels and, like his fictional Tintin double, introduced the cartoonist to Chinese culture, telling him many things about it, the history and drawing techniques. Hergé was then making the sketches for The Blue Lotus, and Zhang will give him numerous indications that will make the album far from the European stereotypes of the time about China (such as the inevitable one of the pigtail) that Hergé had captured in his first notes. He also provided a detailed description of life in China in the 1930s, which included the occupation of the eastern territories by the Japanese, British, Americans and other Western powers. Zhang's intervention allows Hergé to make fun of himself by showing Hernández and Fernández trying to go unnoticed in China, to the laughter of passersby, with a stereotypical outfit of robes printed with dragons, feathered hats and ponytails: possibly not far from those that would have appeared in the work if Zhang's criticism had not mediated.

The result of their meetings was The Blue Lotus, published in 1936, which left a great mark on the development of the Tintin series. From that moment on, Hergé would document the themes of his scripts thoroughly. He also changed his attitude about the relationship between the native inhabitants and foreigners. Previously, he had reflected a positive view of imperialism in Tintin in the Congo (1930), while in The Blue Lotus he criticized the Japanese occupation of China and the corruption of the Shanghai police and Western businessmen.

Tchang and the Yeti

Tchang was not named in the stories again until Tintin in Tibet, published more than 20 years after The Blue Lotus, in 1958. In this story, Tchang sends Tintin a letter announcing his imminent transfer from Hong Kong, where he had been living, to London to work in an antique store owned by Wang. However, the small plane in which he is traveling crashes while flying over the mountains. from Tibet. Tchang survives the disaster while all of his accompanying passengers perish, and is rescued by the yeti, the mythical creature said to live in the Himalayas. The yeti takes care of Tchang, providing him with food and shelter, but when rescue arrives, he takes the weak and feverish Tchang as far away as possible.

Tintin is convinced that Tchang is not dead, after seeing him in a dream asking for help. Against all logic he sets out to find him, with the help of the reluctant Captain Haddock who, like almost everyone, believes that Chang has died.

Eventually, Tintin and Haddock will manage to find Tchang and get him out of the cave where he was with the yeti. Although he has to leave him, Tchang is very grateful to the yeti for keeping him alive and describes him as a "poor snowman" instead of " abominable". When Tintin wonders if he could ever be captured, Chang objects to this, saying that the yeti should be seen as a human and not a wild animal.

Tintin in Tibet was perhaps Hergé's most profound personal work. When he wrote it, he had not seen the real Zhang for several decades.

The real Tchang

The character of Tchang is inspired by the Chinese painter and sculptor Zhang Chongren (whose name, in the French transcription of the time, is identical to that of the fictional character).

Zhang Chongren's influence on Tintin is very great and marks a before and after: the meticulous work of documentation that will characterize Hergé's work from now on is due to his criticism of the initial script of The Blue Lotus, the first documented album, and also freed Hergé from a good part of his Eurocentric prejudices, linked to the bourgeois and ultra-Catholic environment in which he moved. The fact that Hergé created a character and gave her the same name as his real friend is revealing, since he had not done it before nor will he do it later.

Hergé lost contact with Zhang Chongren in 1937, when Japan invaded China, and he would not be able to reestablish it until 1981, shortly before his death, when Zhang, after many vicissitudes, became a prestigious artist in China—and internationally known through his comic book double—visits France at the invitation of the French government, since the French media managed to find him in China and organize a trip for him to Europe so he could meet with Hergé. In 1985 Zhang received French citizenship and settled in Paris to teach, where he died in 1998.