As Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off a three-day state visit to Malaysia, a lesser-known link between the two nations—Shanghai-born cartoonist, painter and scholar Huang Yao—is being given his due with an exhibit at Kuala Lumpur’s National Visual Arts Gallery.
Huang Yao is best known for his series of cartoons featuring the character Niubizi, which enjoyed popularity in China from the late 1930s to the mid ‘40s.
Niubizi—the name means ox’s nose in Chinese but can also mean to tell someone off—was a humorous Chinese man with a big, round face, two lines for eyebrows, one for a mouth and four strands of hair planted on his crown. Five circles completed the character: two for his spectacles, two for his ears and one for his bulbous nose.
While Niubizi is largely unknown by China’s younger population today, he still is remembered by some older generations and animation historians, according to his granddaughter Carolyn Wong, who heads up the Singapore-based Huang Yao Foundation.
Through Niubizi, Huang gently poked fun at life in China as seen by ordinary citizens. But the cartoon character also had political dimensions.
Huang’s writings reveal the deep-seated sense of frustration that inspired the cartoon character’s creation.
“…The simple and innocent Chinese persons (sic) is indignant that [we] have been barred along with dogs from parks in our own country, by foreigners that have used force and opium to conquer us. The people most slighted are the ordinary citizen. We need to stand up to them [foreigners] and to be noticed…” Huang wrote.
Tired of the constant struggle between the Communists and the Nationalists, he decided to leave the country in 1946.
“He couldn’t stand to see Chinese fight Chinese,” Ms. Wong said.
So he headed first Hanoi, where he practiced his art while venturing into business with friends, including setting up a bank. But again, he found himself caught in bloody conflict, this time in the war against the French. After a period back in the mainland, he took to the road again, settling in Hong Kong and later Bangkok and Singapore before finally going to Malaysia in 1956.
At the invitation of Malaysia’s then-education minister and prime-minister-to-be Tun Abdul Razak—also father to current Malaysian leader Najib Razak—Huang stayed in Malaysia to help with the fledgling nation’s adult education policies.
Huang even created a Malay-style Niubizi set, in which the character appears in Malay dress engaging in kampung, or village, life.
In later years, Huang branched out into scholarship, completing in 1967 “Ma Xin Hua Ren Zhi,” or the first written history of the Chinese in Malaya and Singapore.
His painting “Riding the Dragon,” fetched $95,955—not including auctioneer’s commissions—last year at a Christie’s auction in Hong Kong, according to the Huang Yao Foundation’s website.
Huang also expanded the range and styles of his art, incorporating paintings based on Chinese characters, a form he referred to as wenzi hua, as well as abstract works termed ziyou hua, where ziyou means “freedom.”
Huang died in January 1987 in his home near Kuala Lumpur.
“In Malaysia, my grandfather found the time and quietness to practice his art,” Ms. Wong said. “In this regard, he was very fortunate. He got to paint what he wanted.”
The Remarkable Guest of Malaya, an exhibition of Huang’s work, is on display at the National Visual Arts Gallery in Kuala Lumpur until Oct. 6.