Mulan
Editor/Illustrator: Cai Gao
Publisher: Hunan Children's Publishing House
Teenage: What kind of opportunity led you to start creating Mulan?
Cai Gao: I planted a magnolia on the roof, so I went to understand the history of flowers. Magnolia is a Paleozoic plant with a very tenacious vitality and has bred many plants of the Magnolia family. I looked at it, atmospheric and airy. Then I wondered, why is Mulan named after a Paleozoic flower?
When I painted "Mulan", I really had something to say. The story of Mulan is well known, but everyone does not necessarily know the Northern Dynasty folk song "Mulan Poem". "Mulan Poem" is a folk song that is constantly being enriched, not the work of one person, "Mulan" may have a specific object, or it can be said to be a group portrait - at that time, when fighting, women in the army may not be in the minority.
As a heroine who defends her family and country, Mulan has always been praised. The adaptation of Mulan's story is mostly based on the word "Qi", and her martial arts and how she defeated the enemy on the battlefield became the focus of the story. Few people see Mulan as an ordinary girl and see the simple and simple power in her heart.
"Teenage": What do you understand Mulan like?
Cai Gao: Mulan is the most simple girl. Simplicity does not mean that she dresses plainly, simplicity is a person's original intention.
She loves female red. "Chirping and chirping, Mulan is the weaving." In agrarian societies, women also participate in farming, and only when they are idle do they weave cloth. I think Mulan likes this kind of life and likes to weave!
She loves her parents and her hometown. "Dan resigned from the Yellow River, twilight to the head of the Black Mountain, did not hear the grandmother calling the female voice, but heard the Yanshan Hu riding and chirping." The call of parents has always been on the ears. If she doesn't love, where does she have the strength to return to her hometown? But where there is vanity, the power of glory and wealth cannot be resisted. The hardest enemy to defeat is actually one's own vanity. Mulan is very transparent. "Twelve turns of the strategy, reward a hundred thousand strong." Khan asked what he wanted, Mulan did not need Shang Shulang, willing to gallop thousands of miles, send his son back to his hometown. "She's homesick!
She loves her feminine identity. "Open my East Pavilion door and sit on my West Pavilion bed." Take off my wartime robes and wear my old clothes. When the window is cloudy, the mirror is yellow. "With so many verses depicting the joy of her returning to her hometown and restoring her daughter's body, don't you think it's beautiful and sweet?"
"Teenage": From the boudoir to the battlefield, from the battlefield back to the life of ordinary people, you see the ordinary side of Mulan, which is also her bravest side.
Cai Gao: There is no hesitation in "Mulan Poems". "Grandpa has no eldest son, and Mulan has no eldest brother." Without consulting her family, she had already decided to join the army for her father. You say this girl is not simple? Honest or not? Tough or not? I said she was the cutest girl. She is responsible for everything in the family, and she is used to it!
Mulan's hometown was conscripted with many soldiers. "The car is rutdy, the horse is Xiaoxiao, and the pedestrian bow and arrow are at the waist." Ye Niang's wife walked to send each other, and the dust did not see the Xianyang Bridge. He cried in the middle of nowhere, and the cries went straight up into the dry clouds. (From Du Fu's "Soldier Carriage Line") The picture I painted of Mulan setting off is this. So many erlang went out, all died in battle, and the remaining few people came back, and the children in their hometown did not know each other. I painted a scene where when Mulan returned, it was some old and weak people who came to greet her, and she knelt down to her parents, which was also a kneeling to her father and fellow countrymen. She was back, and she didn't feel proud.
Comrades-in-arms still have some discussion! "After twelve years together, I didn't know that Mulan was a girl." She explained herself very clearly: "The male rabbit's feet are fluttering, the female rabbit's eyes are confused; the double rabbit walks on the ground, can Ann distinguish that I am a male and female?" "War is so cruel, who cares about gender? She didn't say, "You guys are so stupid, we've lived together for so long that we don't even know I'm a woman!" She answered from the other side's standpoint, from the standpoint of war. There is also a deep meaning behind this sentence - in the era of war, can there still be a clear distinction between men and women? What a hero!
Teenage: What do you think of the relationship between your picture book Mulan and Mulan Poems?
Cai Gao: The Mulan I see in movies and dramas is not as good as the Mulan I saw in the Northern Dynasty folk song "Mulan Poems". So in the picture book, I want to use the original poem, and I can't move at all. When I painted "Mulan", I was referring to the moon, and this moon was the Northern Dynasty folk song "Mulan Poem". Through my "fingers", you have to see the sky and the beautiful moon of that era. The "moon" here can represent women, but also for gentle, clear things. What a beautiful thing hanging high in the sky, if you can't see it, it's a pity!
Cai Gao: Picture book painter, BIB "Golden Apple" award winner. He has been teaching in rural primary schools for a long time, and later worked for publishing houses. After retiring in 2001, he devoted himself to the creation of picture books. Representative works include "Fox Spirit in the Wasteland" (now known as "Bao'er"), "The Story of Peach Blossom Garden", "Mulan", "Meng Jiang Girl Crying on the Great Wall" and so on.
Teenage magazine reporter: Liu Qiuxiang