I Found My Motivation for Sir Fong 3!

Last night, at local film distributor Festive Films' invitation, I watched the preview of Le Grand Chef. The title sounded French, but it’s really a Korean blockbuster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPx422nK5qU

Food culture has provided many Asian artists with tasty material for movies and comics such as Lee Ang’s Eat Drink Man Woman, manga Shota-no-sushi ( 将太の寿司 ) and the Korean television phenomenum The Great Janggeum (sounds like The Great Chewing Gum, haha). Le Grand Chef is originally a comic too, and takes the genre to some wonderful new heights.

All the yummy elements are here: the youthful, talented (and good-looking) chef falls from grace, loses his confidence and drops out of the scene. Years later, he is drawn back into the fray by a competition, and his old archrival returns to laugh at, hate and fight him. The loving (occasionally scary as it featured a fish prepared while it was still alive! Eeek!) shots of food preparation are here in abundance, as every top-grade ingredient comes with an emotional backstory. Each subsequent backstory – how the best coal maker learns his craft, how the best meat comes from a life-long companion – builds towards the finale, which promises to transcend even the most heart-breaking personal story.

It is this final touch that really puts things in perspective for me. It is as a scene in Ratatouille, where a food critic whose heart has turned cold by a lifetime of tasting mediocre food was transported back to the moment that inspired him the most. I, too, was transported back to the moment that inspired me to create my own little comic Sir Fong.

It was 2001. I was a new teacher who was given the charge of a class of hopeful, bright and frightened kids. They are born in the year of the Rabbit. They looked to me for guidance, and in my inexperience and personal angst, I was unable to at first. My charges were at each other’s throats, bullying and hurting classmates and themselves.

Then one night, after a year of attending meditation classes at Kwan Yin Chan Lin Zen Centre, my anger at my students turned to acceptance.

The kids were as they should be! They were not supposed to be more obedient, better behaved or more docile. They were simply being themselves. And It is my duty to love and accept them as they are. Only then can they show their true potential! I stopped thinking of them as little devils out to hurt others.

The next day, I went to class. Again, the usual complaints about the bullying flew in my face. Instead of getting angry, I called them my Energizer Bunnies. The students looked surprised, because I was smiling warmly.

Little by little, I started converting their pranks to short comics. Instead of berating them, I started making fun of my own reaction to their actions. And I showed them my little comics on the projector. Our interactions slowly changed from sessions of Whodunits to shared joy and acceptance of everyones’ differences.

When Le Grand Chef ended, I left the theatre hungry for food (good food movies have that effect on the audience). But I also left the theatre with my soul refreshed.

I told my partner that I had re-discovered the reason for drawing Sir Fong 3. It should be a book that serves up my passion for teaching Science. It should be drawn with a conviction that it will be my best gift to all the students who have ever graced my life and made my eight years in Raffles Institution meaningful.

With that, I can begin drawing my bunnies and of course, my Sir Fong.

May your 2008 be a happy one!