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- [00:01]
Bryn Quick
So good, so good, so good.
- [00:02]
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- [00:11]
Bryn Quick
How did I not know Rack has Adidas?
- [00:13]
Shawn Tan
Cause there's always something new.
- [00:14]
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- [01:32]
Bryn Quick
Network welcome to the Language on the Move podcast, a channel on the New Books Network. My name is Bryn Quick and I'm a PhD candidate in linguistics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. My guest today is artist, filmmaker and writer Shawn Tan. Shawn grew up in Perth and now works in Melbourne, and he's best known for illustrated books that deal with social and historical subjects through dreamlike imagery widely translated throughout the world and enjoyed by readers of all ages. Sean is the recipient of an Academy Award for the short animated film the Lost Thing and the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in Sweden and the Kate Greenaway Medal in the uk. Today, Sean and I will be discussing his award winning 2006 book the Arrival, which is a migrant story told as a series of wordless images. In the book, a man leaves his wife and child in an impoverished town seeking better prospects in an unknown country on the other side of a vast ocean. He eventually finds himself in a bewildering city of foreign customs, peculiar animals, curious floating objects, and indecipherable languages. With nothing more than a suitcase and a handful of currency, the immigrant must find a place to live, food to eat, and some kind of gainful employment. He's helped along the way by sympathetic Strangers, each carrying their own unspoken history. Stories of struggle and survival in a world of incomprehensible violence, upheaval and hope. Sean, welcome to the show and thank you so much for joining us today.
- [03:03]
Shawn Tan
Thanks for inviting me.
- [03:05]
Bryn Quick
The Arrival is such a powerful story about immigration and the concept of belonging. Or what inspired you to write and illustrate this particular story and what was your creative process like?
- [03:17]
Shawn Tan
Well, it was inspired by a number of things. I wish I was one of those writers that could give a nice little anecdote about walking along and something happening and the night you're intrigued, but it never works like that for me. It's more like an accumulation of different ideas and trying to get something to work. So at the time I was doing some research into the history of Chinese immigrants in 19th century Western Australia. Um, and I think part of that is because of my family background and, and being my father's Chinese, I don't have a strong connection to that side of my heritage. So we're, you know, we're pretty Anglicized family. My mum's a British Australian, so. Yeah, and, and, and I, I've never traveled to China. I've been to Penang a couple of times where my father's from. But I was curious about, you know, my lineage. You get to a certain point and I was Maybe in my mid-20s starting to think about, you know, who am I? Where did I come from? So I was doing some research into that and doing these sort of paintings of Chinese migrants in gold fields and market gardens and places like that. I just found this sort of quite haunting. It's like I was haunted by these, these images. At the same time I was doing all these little picture books about stories, people having adventures and so on. And in my sketchbook I had some sort of cartoon like characters going on a journey. One of them was like a creature with a parcel and in a strange landscape. And I sort of often start with drawings and then try to figure out what they're about. And in this case, I kept thinking, there's something in this image, but it's wr, but there's something in it. And once I started to sort of cross it over with some old photographs of migrants that I was looking at and I might have had pinned up on my pinup board in front of my desk along with thousands of other things, it kind of came together. And I drew this picture of a man in a 19th century style three piece suit and hat, holding a suitcase and looking at a weird sort of dog, like small dog like creature. But not quite a dog. And it was sort of regarding him in a. In a friendly way, but he was looking at it with a trepidation. And I thought, okay, so what's this image about? And. And I thought, is this guy arriving somewhere or leaving? And I thought, well, maybe he's both. He's. He might have left from somewhere and gone somewhere. And, you know, then a whole bunch of other images started to attach themselves. So there's a. There's an image early on in the book of these dark serpents swimming across the rooftops of a fairly abandoned looking town. And that was something that had been in my sketchbook for years. And I thought, well, that feels like part of this story. And. And then there were other images of strange birds and so on, so they kind of seemed to work. So I was sort of trying to create a story out of multiple paths. And then once I realized it was a migrant story, I thought, okay, I should research this subject. Cause I'm not a migrant myself. My father is. And I sort of had some awareness of his transition to living in Australia, which was quite a peaceful transition. My partner at the time is Finnish, so she's from another country. And I knew a lot of stories of cultural misunderstandings from, from her and, and language things and sometimes funny, sometimes scary stories. And I realized a lot of my friends, you know, being an Australian, they are immigrants or have parents who are immigrants, whether they're Italian or Greek or Japanese or whatever. I guess realizing that this was a subject that I did know something about, even if it's in a secondhand way, I thought, well, maybe my story could be about that. But it was a very. To answer your second part of the question, it was a super long process because I really wasn't sure what the book was about. Maybe that's why it ended up being such a good book in the end, like a good project that was well received is because I had very little preconception or presumption as to what it was about. And so I really had to study hard and, and wrangle with this thing for years before I realized, okay, it's a. It's a wordless book. That was the first realization, just because my sketches worked better without words. And also I went in my research, I was looking at all these old photos of migrants getting off ships and starting up shops and laundries and the gold fields and so. And I thought, there's something in these images. I kept cycling back to the images. I'd try something, it would look not so great. It'd look a little bit absurd, a bit silly. I come back to those images and those. Those have gravity, you know, I want that gravity. So at some point halfway through the project, and this was a couple of years in, I had to do a big shift in style and realize even though it's going to take me maybe three years, which was dreadful, I'm going to have to draw this book as if it was an old photo album. And that was a decision where it finally clicked. And I thought, okay, this looks like a book I would be interested in reading myself. And so then it was just a matter of knuckling down and sketching out the story as very cartoon like storyboards, and then figuring out ways to render these images into something more realistic. And I ended up using. I discovered the best technique for me was using a video camera and filming myself and friends going through the actions. And I was renting a house at the time, and I had one spare room and I basically built cardboard sets in that room. So really rough. So just like this is a bed, this is a fridge, this is a door. And I would just have objects as stand ins. Like really crude filmmaking or what they do in theater before they do a theater production is they often have cardboard props just so people can respond to things. And I would film myself and friends doing the actions. You know, it's something simple like putting on a coat. It's not as easy as you think to draw. So I film it. Putting on a coat, putting on a coat. And then I'd go through frame by frame and I'd pick out the images that go. That's a quintessential still of someone putting on a coat. And that would then be transferred into the computer. And I'd work with it digitally. I'd print it out, I'd trace over the top and I'd use that outline as the basis for my drawings. So it was kind of like a very meticulous filmmaking process. And that's probably why when you look at the book, it's got a cinematic feel. And I think that could be one reason why it connected with readers also is because they understood the language. And it was a silent cinema language that I was using. So, yeah, then it was this, like years of shading with a graphite pencil. So it's all hand drawn and then the colors added digitally. So I figured out that I could add color, but I had to make it black and white in the first instance because my publisher was not very confident about the project. And because I was used to doing smaller picture books, which are 32 pages. This was 128. They weren't sure if it would work or not because I was a bit experimental. And so I said, look, to keep costs low, it could be black and white. So if it comes to it. And that's a whole other conversation to have about publishing considerations and commercial considerations. It's not all about creative artistry. It's about making something exist in the real world. So all of these factors sort of came together to produce the book that.
- [10:22]
Bryn Quick
You see that makes so much sense that you did it in that cinematic way. Because that's exactly how the book reads to the reader who's looking at these wordless pictures. And I think that it's really important to emphasize what you just said. That because it's wordless and because it is so cinematic, anybody can understand what's going on in the book.
- [10:46]
Shawn Tan
Yeah, because you got limited as a book creator. You've got a limited license to get people's attention. Especially because my books are often marketed to children as well. You could do a lot of very interesting arty things, but. And I would love to, but it's got to communicate directly and immediately. And people have to get it. And even something like comics. I'm very interested in getting non comics readers to read comic, like, visual material. People who aren't interested in picture books to look at these things. So how can I make it accessible? And I did spend quite a bit of time looking at silent film and studying that. And I also. At the same time, I was working on an animated film, which was the Lost Thing, the Short. And I learned a lot reading storyboard handbooks and so on about how to move from one image to the next. Where do you do the cuts? Where should the camera be? Because it's kind of a camera in the book. You just don't see it. And you've got to pick your angles carefully, otherwise the spell of the flow can be broken. And the only way to figure it out too was I had lots of these drawings on bits of paper with sticky tape. And I'm moving them around. So it's like jigsaw puzzling or letters in Scrabble. And it's usually a grid in the book. You'll see of. I think it's 12, 12 squares. And I'd just be going, okay, this, this, this note, this, this, this. Okay, that's mostly like Sodoku or something. It's like, okay, that one's working. And now it's gotta connect with the next Page. Oh no, that's not working. So I have to redo all the whole thing again. So a lot of it was like. And you don't realize this when you're reading a book or watching a film or looking at a comic, that it's like a jigsaw puzzle or puzzles, general puzzle solving with words and images or just images in this case. And so I found that was very useful, the little bits of paper on sticky tape.
- [12:33]
Bryn Quick
Well, and let's talk about those images because something I just absolutely love about the way that you illustrated the arrival is like you were talking about its aesthetic similarity to old photos that we've all seen of immigration. And you know, for me, as originally an American, I think of it through the lens of like Ellis island into New York in the late 1800s and early 1900s. And as a reader, we see these images and we simultaneously understand what's happening because of our historical knowledge of this real immigration history. But also as the reader, we feel just as lost and overwhelmed as the main character that we're following. And a lot of this has to do with the system of writing and symbols that exist in the book, which we, as the reader cannot understand. There isn't, you know, a particular language in the book that we can read, but we can understand that the character is trying to read in this new language. So how did you come up with this idea and what connections do you see these ideas having to real life immigrant stories?
- [13:32]
Shawn Tan
Well, I mean they, they all stemmed from researching real life immigrant stories. So I had a filing cabinet and with lots of notes and pictures in it. And I would have certain categories, so food, housing, work, reasons for leaving, and I'd have these in a very old fashioned kind of way of organizing material. I mean, I started this book almost in a pre digital time too. Like, so I first thought of it around 2000. And so everything was done in a very analog way. And one of the files was language because obviously that's a big one. And that was actually one of the easiest parts to imagine because all of us have traveled to another country where we haven't seen the language. And that's kind of like for those of us who aren't migrants, that's probably the, the biggest clue to what it would be like, that level of confusion and all the things that you take for granted have it pulled away from you. And I've just been to Finland recently and I know some Finnish. But the most basic things, like what's the expiration date on this food item? I can't sort of easily get things that I would just in my normal life, I just go, yeah, yeah, this, this, this. And I'll go here and then I'll just, I'll turn left here and there. It's like every single thing is exhausting. So that was quite easy. And fake languages, I've played with them a lot. So I have quite a history of making up languages because I'm a visual artist interested in visual experience as primary experience where you don't have words to guide you. You must look at the pictures. And a lot of my preceding picture books, I guess in the genre of science fiction and fantasy, and I'm attracted to that genre precisely because it's a genre that tends to pull the rug out from under you and say, okay, everything you thought you knew, you don't. And for me that's interesting as an experiment because it determines our true nature. Like when we're surrounded by a culture that we know, I think we use those tools of meaning and we become part of that fabric, but our true self really comes out when we're extracted and plonked somewhere else. That's very strange. And, and then it's like, well, how does your imagination work in that case? And you know, as an artist, I'm also interested in what uses the imagination. Obviously that's my skill, is imagination. But how is that useful? Which always worries me. How is being an artist useful? And I think I realize everybody's an artist, everybody has to do creative decision making. But especially when you're traveling to another country and you're having to figure out stuff where there's no reference points. So your only tool then, without references or existing meanings, is your imagination. So you have to sort of figure stuff out and project. Maybe it's this, maybe it's that, maybe it's this, maybe it's that. And so my firstly, getting rid of text in the arrival was very helpful because automatically the reader is then told, okay, forget about words, they're not going to help you here. And then when you throw in the weird language, that just underscores that even more. It's like not only do you not understand everything here, other people do and you don't. So all of these things mean something, you just don't know what it is. And so that was kind of. That really helped drive the narrative and direct the reader's attention to the visual elements. Because our culture is very word dominated. When we see a news item, there might be a picture, but we read the caption and the caption is the truth, less what we're looking at. So I find it is difficult as an illustrator to remind people that pictures can carry meaning. And sometimes you just have to remove things or confuse things in order to get people to look more carefully, you know, to frustrate the reader actually a little bit. But then all of those things are. I started to realize more and more the strong parallels between being an artist and being a migrant and also being a child. And so these are all areas of interest to me. What's the world like to a child? What's it like to an artist? What's it like to a migrant? They all have one thing in common and that is they don't really know existing meaning and they're having to figure it out. And so, yeah, the idea was taking an adult man from one place and reducing him to a child in a sense, in another place.
- [17:52]
Bryn Quick
That's such a good point. That's exactly what it feels like when you look at the images. Because like you said, almost deliberately pulling the rug out from under the reader and saying like, hey, words are not going to help you here. You don't know any more than our main character knows. You need to go on this journey with and, and it does. It reduces you to those feelings of helplessness and not knowing what this sign says, not knowing what this fruit is, not knowing what this creature is or this animal. And like you said before, it's all exhausting. It's exhausting to do this as a migrant.
- [18:28]
Shawn Tan
Yeah, totally. As well as that, you have to like find a job and there's very high level activities, find a, rent a house, you know, so it's, it's full on. And then you're dealing with the, the emotional issues of your family not being there, not knowing what's happening to your family. So this story is based on a world set roughly late 19th century. Even though it's not clear when or where it is, it's in a, in a fiction, entirely fictional universe. But there's enough there to give us a sense that there is no easy communication in this particular era. This is when the era a lot of our ancestors did travel between countries and it'd be like going to the moon. But even without radio, you know, there was no easy way to communicate. And everything was sort of speculative and very risky. And you're in a world where there's, there's constant, very much like now, political upheaval and uncertainty. Like, you just don't know if your country's gonna exist over the next year or so. You know, in some cases. And so you're dealing with all this, plus you might be traumatized. That's a whole other thing. I didn't really get into that so much in the final book, but that was something that I played around in drafts, is that you've got PTSD from, from the experiences that you've just been through. So yeah, it's, it's a pretty full on subject. I mean, the more I research, the more I realize any story about migration is a story about every single human challenge that you can have. You know, it's health, it's work, it's literacy, it's, you know, just existing and surviving.
- [20:02]
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- [21:33]
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- [21:55]
Shawn Tan
There.
- [21:59]
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- [22:28]
Bryn Quick
It's existing and surviving and like you said, trying to do those things like, you know, get healthcare, figure out what food is, and find work. And a really particularly poignant part of this book shows our main character trying to find work. And there are several for the people who haven't had the chance to read this yet, but I hope everyone does. But there are several illustrated panels that show potential employers telling our main character that there's no work available for him. And then when somebody does finally offer him work, the job is plastering posters with writing on them to walls around the town. However, we soon realize, as does our main character, that because he doesn't read this new language, he he's plastered the posters upside down, like in the wrong direction. And then in the next section he finds another job delivering mail. But again, he can't read the language. He has a really difficult time doing the job, and then even has a close encounter with a dragon like creature because he can't read a sign that's on the letterbox that presumably says something like, you know, beware of dragon. And then we see him get a factory job where he doesn't need to be able to read. But the job itself is long and tedious and at times physically painful. And I just find this part so striking because it really shows what often happens to immigrants in real life, even today in 2025, when they try to find work, especially when they don't know the new language. So what did you want the reader to understand, particularly about finding work as an immigrant in this section?
- [23:59]
Shawn Tan
Well, I guess all the things that you were just saying. My problem was how to Show a few concise examples. Because, I mean, I would have loved to have a much more expanded section, you know, because there are so many different work situations and so many interesting things that could. That could happen. And so I had lots of different sketches where he was working in some more industrial job where. Where there was a real danger there of not understanding how do these things connect or where do these pipes go. There's the problems of social relations with co workers, which I didn't get into. Although you see in the last story there is an interaction with a coworker and it's actually quite a positive experience. And then there are other things involving creatures, like if you have to transport creatures in a container and they keep hopping out, all these sort of funny things. So there was some humor in there as well. And I think those examples you show are meant to be a little bit humorous. You know, like you're spending all day posting up these posters. Oh, such hard work. And. And then the supervisor comes over and says, well, they're all upside down. Which of course, you know, how would you know? And the reader is in that position because the reader's watching him. Yes, doing a good job. They don't realize. And that was based on some stories of that. My dad, when he, as a student, he got some. Some work in. In. In different places. He was a tram conductor in Melbourne. He was at a weighing station in the wheat belt in Western Australia. There were different things due to language or lacking knowledge in geography that were quite funny. Like he would direct people very confidently down the street, which was completely wrong, and things like that. I mean, this. I think, you know, to summarize my approach to this book, I basically did drawings of things that. That scared me. And I find the whole. The whole experience, the idea of being a migrant, but especially a refugee, where you're going to a place and you don't choose to go there and you don't know much about. You haven't chosen the destination, you've just sort of ended up there. I find that terrifying. And the thought of. It's hard enough going out looking for work in a culture that you've been born and raised in, but somewhere else. Yeah, I think. Oh, you know, I just find the whole thing just like a. Like a nightmare. And I actually based a sequence you described. I based a lot of it on Bicycle Thieves, the Italian film. So that was actually a key reference for the Arrival. And if you go back and watch that film, you probably recognize there's a few elements, you know, referenced back to that, that film and I mentioned it in the back of the book as well. So it's not, it's not kind of illegal stealing. I found that movie was quite a good parallel that someone looking for work during a depression era Italy. And the moral challenge in the case of that story of just trying to keep it together and be an honest person in a world that's actually all of it's working against you, which is a whole other angle you could take. The part of the problem with making a book is you got a million different angles that you can take and you have to pick one which is always a bit sad. You know, it's like, okay, well this is the story I'm telling. I'm just going to. Conversely, what I try to do then is keep it quite minimal and open. So I have ideas about what's happening in the book, but I try not to express those ideas because I know readers will have their own interpretation. And I try to keep it very open. So I check the pictures. Could it be read this way, that way? Lots of different ways. And this particular format and style I found was very good for that open ended reading. And that's worked because I've had a lot of migrants from all different backgrounds. They talk to me about this book and they say how real it feels to their experience. So that. And they'll describe a particular sequence and I'll say that's exactly like when I was looking for this job. Even though that it's quite different. But the pictures are open enough that you read into, you put your own experiences in and there's no text telling you to read it one way or another. So it's very open that way.
- [28:01]
Bryn Quick
Well, it's something that. And I'll just give a little bit of my history with the book. I moved to Spain from America in 2008 and I lived and worked there for a while and I was all by myself and I was young, I was in my early 20s and it, it was great but you know, it was an immigration and it was really scary and it was sort of before we were able to just immediately, you know, be texting internationally or anything like that. So I would sometimes be able to Skype with my family, but that was it. And I just remember calling my mom one day from like outside my apart apartment and just sobbing and just saying, you know, it's just so hard. I speak Spanish, I read Spanish, but everything just feels exhausting and hard and everybody seems to know what they're doing and I am, you know, I I walk into the store and I realize that I need to order meat, like from the deli in the metric system. And I don't know the metric system because I grew up in America, you know, and it was just all these little tiny things. And so one day I opened like my post and my mom had sent me this. I'm holding up for the casseroles, had sent me a hard copy of the Arrival. And she inscribed in it and she said, you know, with love from mom and dad. And it was exactly what I needed in that moment.
- [29:26]
Shawn Tan
Right.
- [29:26]
Bryn Quick
Because just like you were saying about other migrants and other readers, I was able to look at the pictures that, you know, like we said, aesthetically look like they're from the late 1800s, early 1900s. But I was able to say, oh, I've experienced this, you know, in trying to find a job in figuring out what this food is. I ended up eating cow intestine at one point because I didn't know, you know, what this food was in Spain. And, and I've, you know, since moved to many other countries and I now live in Australia as an immigrant and I still still had those same experiences. So it's something that even now in, you know, the, the 21st century, I think, as any migrant would be able to identify with everything that's happening in the pictures.
- [30:12]
Shawn Tan
Yeah, it's sort of funny. I've also found over the years illustrating other books that you're able to relate to things also when they're more removed somehow from you. So firstly, setting it in the distant past because I could have set this story in the. There's a lot of stuff going on. At the time I was producing the book, there was like a big refugee crisis. And I mean, there's always one. That's the thing we forget is there's always a refugee crisis. And then there was a lot of my research was in the post war Australian immigration. So a lot of Mediterranean people coming and from Britain and you know, in the 50s and 60s and that that could have been a reference point, but I found that it sort of helped to make it more personal, oddly by setting it further back because it removed some of those more recent historical references and focused on the personal struggle. And then of course, setting it in this very hand drawn and I wanted it to look very pencil made so it doesn't look like photographs. It looks like this funny sort of dream space and with, with characters that are nameless. Nobody has a name or identity. It's just all this, you know, we're Watching from a distance, like someone's old photo album that you found in an op shop. That's what I imagined. And it's just got these pictures in it. That kind of distance actually really helps you connect because you're not distracted by other things. Yeah, And I think that's what I would. And also the surrealism, I should add the fact that all these strange things, like those stories, particularly where people come from, they're pretty weird. Part the thing there was just trying to make it so that people would be able to identify with those stories broadly. And you do that by keeping it quite strange.
- [31:55]
Bryn Quick
Well, and not only, I think, do you know, actual people who have experienced migration identify with the stories. What I think it also does so well in being set, you know, more or less in that sort of past is that I think that sort of maybe globally, or at least in places like America, Australia, et cetera, which are places that do have a lot of immigration now and in the past. For the people who don't understand what it's like to be in that new environment, in that new land, new language, I think that they tend to look at past immigration, you know, that Ellis island time period, and they might think of that as the, quote, good immigration or, like, the correct immigration. And so I think that by visually representing it that way, we're also challenging those readers who are looking at it and saying, like, okay, yes, understandable. This character is going through struggles. So did my great, great grandfather when he came through Ellis island, and he did it the right way. But then challenging them to say, okay, but then what's the difference between how your great great grandfather felt and experienced the struggles of migration and how people are feeling the struggles of migration? And I think that that setting it in that past challenges readers who might think that way to say, how can I relate this to today? And the answer is, there's no difference between how people feel in that surreal space of migration.
- [33:29]
Shawn Tan
Yeah, that's right. And there's one part of the story which I didn't have the scope to put in the book. And because the book ended up not being much about it in the end, and that was. I wanted to show an element of how, you know, in the 19th century, how much resistance there was to migrants and how much racism and. And also disinformation. So there's a lot about that to do with diseases and stuff like that, where it was like, all these are brought in by, and this just wasn't true. And so there was. I wanted to have some scenes where the main character is harassed by a certain group or obviously an organized group. And so I had all these sketches to that effect, but in the end, I felt that wasn't in the scope of what I was trying to show. Interestingly, too, I found that when I was reading Migrant Stories because I really wanted to do it from the point of view of migrants, what mattered to them rather than the political issues that most people imagine. And many of them did not. They didn't really talk that much about those negative experiences. I mean, they would mention them, but they were more interested in the positive experiences and talking about the positive things and people who helped them. That was more interesting to them than these people because the people who hated them kind of didn't really understand and didn't empathize. So almost wasn't. Didn't bear much thinking about. And for whatever reason, the anger wasn't retained. It was more about just, oh, you know, but these people. I'm so grateful for this and that. And so that was quite interesting. I found that it didn't figure as it was still in the stories, the racism and. And the vilification, but it wasn't as prominent as things as I just needed to figure out how to catch a bus, you know, And I think a lot of migrants, they just. They almost like they got bigger problems than these. These sort of political issues, although obviously they have a huge impact on their lives. But they're. They're got these immediate sort of personal problems that they're trying to deal with. So I really wanted to zero in and focus on that.
- [35:31]
Bryn Quick
I'm so glad that you mentioned that, because that, I think is. Is also a huge part that really sticks out, at least to me, it did in this story, because we see this theme of the connection that immigrants make with each other based on their shared experiences. And we see the different immigrants, you know, telling their backstory, saying how they got to this new land, what forced them out of their old, you know, homes and everything, and what I just love. And I. I'm not kidding, I weep every time. It's been, what, 18 years since I first got this book, and I still cry, and I'll probably cry as I say this, but in the final image of the book, we see the main character has reunited with his wife and daughter. They're in the new country together. They're settling in. They've made these friends amongst other immigrants especially. And we see the main character's daughter, and she's now giving directions to a new immigrant who's just begun her own acclimation process. And we see the daughter herself, an immigrant, extending her knowledge and help to a new fellow immigrant. And I just think that that, like you were just saying, I can remember almost every single time that somebody helped me, you know, when I was that stranger in a strange land. And of course there would have been, you know, bad things as well, but. But those moments like literally telling someone how to get on a bus, you know, showing someone how to use the metric system, those stick with you. And then you. As a migrant, you know, I find myself in daily life when I can tell that someone is, you know, new to Australia. It's almost like this like chain that connects us. You know, it's like someone reached out to me, they extended a hand to me. So I extend a hand to that next person and. And I think that that is such a poignant and relevant part of the book, especially now in 2025. You know, like I said, I can't believe it's been nearly 20 years since this book came out, but.
- [37:35]
Shawn Tan
Yeah, that's right.
- [37:36]
Bryn Quick
What types of messages kind of like that do you feel are particularly relevant today in 2025 with this state of global migration and sometimes this anti immigrant sentiment from people around the world?
- [37:49]
Shawn Tan
Well, exactly, exactly what you say. I think it's. I was just trying to drill down and there's no real message in the book. That's the first thing to say. It's just like, here's some things that I think best represent a certain kind of experience. It's not complete. It may be biased in certain ways in showing some things and not other things. But all these things I'm showing are true. Like they're all based on every single section in the book. I could trace back to a particular anecdote from a migrant. Even the weird ones, they're usually based on something somebody said or a thing that's actually happened. I do believe that is when creating, there's a difference between fiction and making stuff up. And fiction is about a transmutation of truth into another form. So everything is true. But really trying to drill down and take it down to that personal level so that it's. Don't forget, it's about people like you. That's basically, if anything, the book's just saying is like you are one of these people too. Like the moment, from the moment you're born, you're migrating, you're moving through the space that you don't understand and you're learning and how do you get to be where you are now? Because people are helping you. You didn't do it by yourself, you know, and also that the people aren't hating you and stopping you and blocking you. And so it's kind of, you know, I'm just trying to remind and myself as well. So it's an education for me when I'm doing these books just to remind people that there's no such thing really as an alien human being. It's just people having different experiences. And yeah, I think ultimately with the book, if there's anything it sort of represents and this is. It does this in a very fictionalized way. It's trying to say that there's. There's two ways of existing as communities and there's this way that you see in the, in the world that the guy goes to. And it's not necessarily beautiful, it's confronting. There's things that don't work. It's a bit of a mishmash. It's kind of a mess, but it's a workable mess. Then there's the places where various people that he meets have come from. And you'll notice that those places often look kind of like quite orderly. There's obviously some kind of system in place, but it's a really sick system. So something's gone dreadfully wrong. But there's this element of intolerance and sort of forced uniformity that you see if you look at the buildings in those places and the uniforms and the things that people are doing and wearing as this kind of sort of resistance between some sort of order, imposed order and some kind of natural disordered state of people trying to figure things out and to be free. Yeah, I was trying to say, okay, the world, you know, if you're going to have to simplify things and there's always a risk in doing that. But as an experiment, let's say the world is simplified into two kind of states and also like, well, these are the two states. There's a tolerant state and an intolerant state is one or the other. And do you want a society where it's like these non evolving rules, this is right and this is wrong? Or do you want a society where it's a little bit more uncertain and people are figuring out by having conversations and interactions and meeting at the same level instead of fighting each other? Yeah, I think there's some deeper beyond the migrant themes. There's a deeper driving theme in the book and it's kind of the acceptance of difference and change, being accepting of things happening that you don't understand. You don't have to understand them. You just have to greet them with love instead of fear. Just try and help somebody. Try and be positive. Just give it a go. Instead of. I don't like that. Of course you're going to be scared. And I think in all of my stories, if you look through my picture books too, I'm interested in this idea of when you are faced with something you don't understand, do you respond with kindness or fear? We all are guilty of both of those reactions. I think that we do have to make a slightly more effort to be kind than to be fearful. Fear and hate is pretty easy. It doesn't take much effort. But being kind and the struggle to understand and actually put yourself in someone else's shoes and use your imagination, that takes effort. And that's a bit harder, but it's more rewarding. And so I guess that's always the theme underscoring all of my work is that this idea that the right way is the hard way, you know, and then the. The. The dark way is the kind of easy way. I mean, you know, it's sort of a bit Star wars, but not giving into the dark side sort of thing, you know, because it's. It's tempting. It's tempting to want to go that way. So I understand. Also, it's good to also extend some empathy to people who are racist and fearful and to just understand and have that conversation and try and draw them in and not. Not say, oh, you're a bad person for thinking and behaving this way, but just to try and make more connections. Unfortunately, we're living in a world where it's more profitable to divide people up and then exploit their fears and insecurities. It's just easy to control people that way. So that's a whole other discussion. But yeah, I think with art and literature, it's one way. One means that we have for almost like a democratic conversation, and especially with a simple picture book that's not really dogmatic or anything, and it's just sort of showing some pictures and people can take it or leave it. I think it's a great form for stimulating a conversation without having a message or telling people what to think.
- [43:16]
Bryn Quick
Well, I think that's such a beautiful place to leave the conversation. And I just personally thank you so much for this book that has meant so much to me for almost 20 years. And for anybody who hasn't had the wonderful opportunity to read it, please read it today. Sean, thank you so much for being with us today.
- [43:35]
Shawn Tan
Yeah, thanks so much. Really interesting to hear about your own experiences and and the parallels there. And yeah, good luck with everything in this kooky place called Australia.
- [43:46]
Bryn Quick
Thank you so much and thank you for listening everyone. If you liked listening to our chat today, please subscribe to the Language on the Move podcast. Leave a five star review on your podcast app of choice and recommend the Language on the Move podcast and our partner the New Books Network to your students, colleagues and friends. Till next time.
- [44:17]
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