Likai Chen's Page

An Interview by a U.S. journalist with me about my book in August, 2007

1. Tell us a little about yourself, your family, and where you live in China.

My name is Mr. Chen Likai or, according to the western custom, Mr. Likai Chen. I write it as Mr. Chen Likai as Chen is my family name, and in China, we often put our family names in front of our given names. This shows the tradition that Chinese people see their families and family life as the most important part of their lives.

There are three people in my family; my wife, my daughter and me. My wife has been out of work for over ten years and now stays at home doing the housework. My daughter is a company clerk in my small city. She’s going to get married early next year.

We live in a small city, Cangzhou. It is a town about 200 miles southeast of Beijing, the capital city of China. It is located near the Bohai Bay to the east, and if you take a ship traveling to the east, you’ll soon get into the Pacific Ocean.

My city has over a 1,000 year history, and is a very interesting place. It is well known for its acrobatics, because a lot of famous acrobats in China were originally trained here in this city. It is also well known for its marshal arts, such as swordplay, Chinese shadowboxing, qigong, etc. In the western world, the Chinese marshal art is usually called Kung Fu.

Farmers around my city every year produce a lot of dates; a very delicious, rich and nourish egg-shaped fruit. There are a lot of different kinds of dates in China, but the dates produced in my area are unique. When they are ripe in the fall, they have a red color, as big as two centimeters long and one centimeter wide, oval like an olives. They are very sweet like candies, and when you open them, you can see gold-like threads inside, in fact It is part of the pulp.

2. When did you learn to speak English? Why did you choose to learn it?

I began to learn English when I was in middle school about 30 years ago. But I only learned the 26 English letters and not more than 5 sentences! At that time China was having the so-called “cultural revolution.” It was when I entered the university that I began a true and systematic learning of English. I chose English as my major in the university because the first day I heard English I was fascinated by it! It sounds like beautiful music. The lady of Voice of America, a radio program of the U.S. State Department, used English as she was singing a beautiful song! This radio program tells us a lot about American culture with wonderful voices.

3. Tell us briefly what this book is about.

Shuisheng the Mallard is the first adolescent storybook I wrote in English. It tells the story of a group of wild ducks flying from the north of China to the south for the coming winter. They encounter a lot of difficulties and dangers on the way south, but will they manage to arrive at their winter home in the end and have a happy life there?
They meet difficulties, dangers, thrills and love on the way. Not only that, while the ducks are heading south and passing different places, I put some beautiful Chinese folktales in these situations to accompany the ducks' journey.
I have made more than 30 illustrations to match the chapters, and I used the traditional Chinese method of making the illustrations so that readers can appreciate both Chinese legends and traditional Chinese-style illustrations while reading the story.

4. What inspired the story of “Shuisheng the Mallard” and his family?

There’s a small park near my home in my little town with a man-made pond in it. I go to the park every morning walking around the pond for fresh air and for morning exercises. One morning in October in 2004 when I was walking on one side of the small lake I found some people standing on the other side, pointing to the water and talking about something. I wanted to know what was the matter, so I went to them quickly and looked at the water. Wow! A few beautiful wild ducks sat on the water. We rarely see wild birds in recently years, especially in cities in China, as over the past years, a lot of wild life has been hunted because of more and more human activities in China. I still remember very well when I was a little boy, I often saw eagles floating in the sky, wild geese flying to the south overhead in a V shape, hares bounding across the fields, etc. But now we rarely see them! And then there were ducks in the pond! They were swimming here and there, diving into the water to catch small fish and get water lilies. They were having their breakfast, not knowing that some people were plotting to hunt them! They wanted to have the meat for their dinner, caring nothing about protecting them! I overheard their plot and I thought I should try to do something to protect these beautiful ducks. I walked up to persuade them not to kill them and got only dirty looks from them.

A few days later, when I came to the park again and tried to look for the ducks, they were not there swimming and quacking! I asked an old lady, who was selling drinks by the lake, where the ducks had gone. She told me that they were not seen for some days. “Maybe they have gone, but I don’t know” was the answer. I felt quite sad. Probably they had been hunted, or they had gone to the south. No matter what had happened, they were missing any way!

So I thought when I got home I should write a story to further persuade people to learn to protect wildlife. I first wrote it in Chinese, and when I submitted my manuscripts to publishers one by one, no one was interested in such a tale.

Later I thought, why not try rewriting it in English? Maybe westerners appreciate the value of gently teaching wildlife conservation. So I began to try to draft it in English, and after many changes and corrections with the help of some American writers Shuisheng the Mallard is now available.

5. Does the name “Shuisheng,” or do the names of other characters in the story, have special meaning?

All the names in my book are typical and common names in China, and with some special meaning and uses. Shuisheng, in Chinese, means “born on or by the water,” and is a boy’s name. As Shuisheng is a boy duck, I give this name to him to represent the traditional Chinese culture.

Other names, like Aunt Yawen, Aunt Chunhua, Lotus and Lily, and so on, are common ladies’ names in China.

6. Describe the main character, Shuisheng. What makes him unique?

Shuisheng, as one of the ducklings of the group, is handsome and strong and shows more wisdom, wits, and knowledge than other ducklings. He is also very brave and is not afraid of dangers and often tries to overcome troubles. For instance, in the fight against the falcons in Chapter 9, Shuisheng led Feifei and Taotao to fight bravely against those vicious falcons who plot to take the ducks as their rich meal. Will he finally drive the falcons away with the others?

7. What prompts Shuisheng to transform from group follower to their leader?

His bravery, wisdom, and the feeling of responsibility for his team make his members realize that they should choose him as their new leader when their old leader, Aunt Chunhua, has an accident. Besides, Shuisheng knows how to do things for the group---how to serve his team and make his comrades happy.

8. Name some important qualities of leadership which Shuisheng learns by his experiences.

Bravery, wisdom, wits, ability to lead others to overcome troubles, and most important of all, the feeling of responsibility and service of others.

9. In the Shuisheng story you encourage protection of our environment, and of wildlife. What led you to weave in these specific concerns?

Well, that’s a good question. My idea to write this adolescent storybook came from my observation of the wild ducks in the pond. Some of my local people wanted to hunt them for their meat, and my persuasion failed. So I decided to write the story, to remind people, especially kids and young adults, there are a lot of other lives on this earth, and the earth belong to all of us, not only to human beings. We must learn to live in harmony with other beings in this world.

10. In your book, which you have both written and illustrated, you weave ancient Chinese legends into the story. Where did you learn these stories? How deeply are the stories a part of modern Chinese culture?

I put some famous Chinese legends in the book because these legends are well known in China and are part of the Chinese culture. Take the legends “Houyi shoots down the nine suns” and the “Chang’e flys to the moon” for instance. They are so well known for thousands of years that they have been told from generation to generation till today, and already have become part of the Chinese culture.

I put them into my story with the idea that this excellent culture belongs to the whole people throughout the world, not only to one country. People of different nationalities should enjoy this good culture together.

11. What age of young people did you intend this story for? What other ages might enjoy this story also?

Anyone, from kids to adults, I believe, may read and enjoy my story.

12. Describe who or what first inspired you to draw.

It is my own idea to make my story even more readable, more interesting and more instructive that inspired me to draw. I plan not only to encourage readers to read a story itself, but also to let readers know something about how traditional Chinese illustrations are made.

13. Did you draw the characters and scenes in “Shuisheng” from live, from drawings in books, or from your imagination? Or a combination of all three? Please describe.

A Combination of all three. When I was a little boy, I tried to read every book I could find. Even though I spent my childhood in a very poor village during the “cultural revolution.” This time was a disaster in the history of China, because during this period, no one was allowed to read any books, and all books were burned or destroyed!

However, I tried to read everything I could find, secretly, and step-by-step, I had accumulated some scenes in my mind. These scenes have been a great benefit for my writing of Shuisheng. Thus “reading brings you knowledge.”

I also went to the zoo several times and came very close to the birds’ area in order to see the details of wild ducks, cormorants, and eagles. I drew some other pictures out of my own imagination after a lot of practice of drawing pictures.

14. Have you written or illustrated other books, or contributed articles or illustrations to magazines or newspapers?

Yes. I have finished my next book Love Stories in Ancient China: Meng Jiang Nü and the Great Wall, and I also made the illustrations for this book. The illustrations in this book are more difficult to make than the ones in Shuisheng, as the ones in Meng Jiang Nü and the Great Wall all have different people in them. In my experience, the most difficult part of making pictures is drawing people.

I had a short story published in an e-zine in California in 2005. It tells the story of how an author finally had his books released after so much effort. And as a teacher of English in China, I also had some essays on English teaching published in magazines in China.

15. How would you encourage young people who are interested in writing and illustrating?

Well, writing and illustrating are both hard work and time consuming. One may often encounter a lot of difficulties in doing so. But, nothing in the world is hard if you put all your heart into it. I firmly believe that a person can learn anything well if he really wants to. Don’t give up when meeting difficulties, even the most troublesome difficulties. Consult everyone who knows more than you. Keep on trying and the final success will be yours.

16. Where can folks purchase a copy of “Shuisheng the Mallard” published April 2007, by Mill Creek Press in Salt Lake City, UT (www.millcreekpress.com)?

If you’d like to have a copy of Shuisheng to read, please go to http://www.amazon.com/Shui-Sheng-Mallard-Chen-Likai/dp/0974015814 or in the search box, type in “chen Likai.” “Shuisheng the Mallard” will appear on your screen. You can order one online. Or go to www.millcreekpress.com, the publisher’s Web site, and order one there. See how a Chinese person who has never had the chance to live in an English-speaking community writes a adolescent storybook in English!

17. What book are you writing now? Are you also illustrating?
What is your purpose for writing this book?

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve planned a series of romances set in ancient China, and I have completed the first one, Meng Jiang Nü and the Great Wall. It tells a love story, a legend, about 2,000 years ago when the Great Wall was built. Meng Jiang Nü, a young, beautiful, and learned lady in the south of China who had never been to the far north of the country, traveled on foot more than 1,000 miles to the construction site of the Great Wall in the far north to bring winter clothes to her husband. The journey took her over three months, and she bumped into countless hardships and dangers. When she finally arrived at the site, she found that her husband had died of exhaustion a few months before! Meng Jiang Nü was very sad. She cried and cried and her wailing toppled sections of the Wall! Meng Jiang Nü finally jumped into the sea and she and her husband together rose out of the water and flew high into the sky as two beautiful birds.

This story, like many others, is also well known in China. There are many different versions of this legend, but no English versions. I wrote it in my own English style, and I made 15 illustrations, including the color cover for the book, as I did for Shuisheng the Mallard.

These stories are part of the Chinese culture, and my purpose for writing them is to introduce such Chinese culture to people worldwide, because I believe excellent culture should be shared, enjoyed and appreciated by all people around the globe.

18. What are your other interests/hobbies?

I like to observe nature in the mountains, at the seaside, at the riverbank, and so on. But I can’t do it now because I have had a stroke. I like reading, because reading makes a fulfilled man. But I’m not able to read quickly and to read a lot, because my stroke severely damaged my eyesight! My other hobbies now include surfing the Internet, mostly because I cannot go places because of the stroke. I have to stay at home and the Internet has become one of my goods friends. It can tell me a lot of things about the world.

19. Have you ever traveled abroad?

No, I've never been abroad. It costs a lot of money. Besides, my stroke has been the biggest barrier and has stopped me from doing a lot of things I really wish to do.

20. Anything else you'd like to share with your readers?

I hope to share with my readers the joy of success, the sadness of failure, and encouragement from friends and others.

I have 4 other color illustrations and 7 black-white ones I made for Shuisheng, but they were unused in my book, and maybe I’ll send them to any kid, with my autograph on them, who has read my book and can answer a few questions. If any of you want one for your kids, please send an email to me at: clkai88@yahoo.cn, and I’ll send you the questions to your email for you to answer. I’ll choose only the first 4 and then the 7 who’ll send me emails first.

And I’ll prepare the questions in two weeks’ time.

The pictures will be sent to you through email.

Thank you for graciously sharing your time and knowledge with us, both in the book and throughout the interview. God’s great blessings on your continued success!

Thank you.