Meeting Tintin
The fictional Chang first appeared in The Blue Lotus as a young orphan whom Tintin saved from drowning. The first thing he asked was why a white foreigner like Tintin would bother saving a non-white boy at all (Tintin was to cause similar queries when helping Zorrino in Prisoners of the Sun). He and Tintin then exchanged notes on the prejudice that Chinese and non-Chinese have for each other and laughed it away. In his description of Western prejudices, Tintin includes a Fu Manchu-like character. (In fact The Blue Lotus features a Japanese villain called Mitsuhirato.)
They now became friends and Chang led Tintin to Hukow where he was on the trail of a kidnapped doctor. There they stayed with a friend of Chang's late father. They later encountered Thomson and Thompson who had arrived dressed as figures out of a Chinese opera and were being followed with amusement by half the population.
The Thompsons had been sent to arrest Tintin and took him to the local police station in order to start extradition proceedings. However, they had lost a document written in Chinese which instructed the local police to give them assistance. Chang replaced the paper with another one which claimed that the Thompsons were "lunatics and this proves it". When he read the document the chief of police roared with laughter and had the Thompsons thrown out and Tintin released.
Chang also saved Tintin from a Japanese agent dressed as a photographer who had been sent to kill him.
Tintin took Chang with him back to Shanghai in order to settle his scores with his enemy Mitsuhirato. Tintin was staying at the headquarters of the Sons of the Dragon, a secret society that fought against the trafficking of opium. Chang moved in with them and joined in the battle of wits against a major gang of opium smugglers.
Chang played a crucial part in the capture of the leaders of the gang and saving Tintin and others from execution. The crooks included Tintin's arch-enemy Rastapopoulos. After that Chang was adopted by Tintin's ally Wang Chen-Yee.
Tintin and Snowy then left for Europe amid a tearful and emotional farewell to Chang and his new family.
Read more about this topic: Chang Chong-Chen
Famous quotes containing the word meeting:
“There is no ordinary Part of humane Life which expresseth so much a good Mind, and a right inward Man, as his Behaviour upon Meeting with Strangers, especially such as may seem the most unsuitable Companions to him: Such a Man when he falleth in the Way with Persons of Simplicity and Innocence, however knowing he may be in the Ways of Men, will not vaunt himself thereof; but will the rather hide his Superiority to them, that he may not be painful unto them.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)