Europe the Wan Wan way

 Six countries and eight cities in 20 days: Taiwan’s “Queen of Blogs” Hu Jia-Wei, better known as Wan Wan, embarked on this European adventure in 2010 at the invitation of the European Union and turned it into a book – “Let’s Go to Europe: Wan Wan’s Travel Diary 2”.
 Wan Wan described the book as the most difficult of the 10 she’s authored so far.
“The timing was very limited and the content is very complicated, so it was very difficult to put together,” Wan Wan said through a translator during her recent visit to Bangkok to attend the 10th Bangkok International Book Fair.
Her books are translated into Thai and published by Nanmee Books.
Wan Wan became famous in 2004 when the MSN emoticons she posted on her Wretch blog caught on with readers. So many Taiwanese found it easy to relate to her real-life anecdotes through her cartoons that soon she turned the blog posts into a book.
Her first book, “I Hate to Work, But Enjoying My Life”, has sold 250,000 copies to date.
It normally takes Wan Wan three to six months to finish a book, but she only had a month to write the European travelogue because as soon as the trek was over she began shooting the movie “You Are the Apple of My Eye”. It turned out to be Taiwan’s biggest hit last year.
Her character in the film wasn’t in the book on which it was based, but she begged Giddens Ko to create one for her. In fact, Wan Wan plays herself, the lead character’s best friend.
“I posted a comment on Gidden’s blog asking him to let me be in his movie,” Wan Wan said. “It was a very funny, very interesting experience. Writing and acting are two very different things.”
She stayed in the countryside with the cast for a month and they bonded, she said, so “the movie came out very natural and very happy”.
She wrote about her experience as a “movie star” in the book “Please Do Not NG”, but still hadn’t finished the travel guide, and the publisher was piling on the pressure, wanting to get it on shelves by January 2011. That’s when visa-free travel to EU countries for Taiwanese nationals was announced.
Wan Wan covered six countries (England, France, Germany, Denmark, Czech Republic and Belgium) and eight cities (London, Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt, Berlin, Prague, Copenhagen and Bruges).
“It was the first time I’d gone so far from home, so I was very excited, but scared too at the same time,” she said. “I’d only seen Europe in movies and I kept imagining what kind of experience I would have at each stop.
“Unfortunately, what you imagine is far from what’s real. I also had bad experiences, like being tricked by street vendors into buying things. But I didn’t lose anything or had anything stolen – nothing that serious.”
Wan Wan had heard a great deal about the cities on her itinerary. Paris wasn’t supposed to be safe, for example, and a Parisian immediately confirmed that. “When we arrived, the guide was kind of scaring us. He told us to be careful with our purses, always keep them up front, not at the back, and don’t stand too close to the edge on the metro [subway] platform because someone might push you over, and don’t talk to people.”
Bruges was her favourite stop, a “very small, very beautiful city. I like the easy-going, small-city life.”
She also enjoyed Denmark, which she called one of the happiest countries in the world. “It’s probably because of the government policies towards public facilities and health. They have a lot of public benefits, so it creates a very happy society.”
Wan Wan embarked on a new project as she travelled – maintaining a video blog. In each city she did a little dance for the camera, inspired by the American whose “Happy Feet” clips became hugely popular.
“I wanted to do something special to commemorate the trip, but it was very embarrassing – the places we went to were all tourist attractions, so there were many people looking at us strangely!”
Back home, Wan Wan taught her dancing moves to the European ambassadors who attended her book launch in Taipei.
She’s already working on her next book, about more personal challenges she’s going to tackle, like applying for a driver’s licence. July is the date targeted for publication, but it depends on whether she accomplishes her goals. “There are some areas in life I want to improve,” she said. “I can't cook. I don’t exercise either.”
Wan Wan was asked to name the biggest challenge she expects to face, but her mother chimed in first. “Cooking!”
“No,” Wan Wan decided. “It should be dieting.”
Being so down-to-earth and “ordinary” is probably why so many people can relate to her, and not just her countrymen. Her books also do well in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea.
“I’m very honest with my readers, sharing my everyday life, my family, even the embarrassing things,” she said. “But when I tell people about embarrassing things or sadness, it’s not passing on the sadness or embarrassment to them – it’s sharing. That’s happiness for me.
“Of course there are times I also feel very down and emotionally bad and I want to let it out. But in the end I always think positively. I’m very optimistic. I can easily laugh at myself!”
     

GUIDE TO GO
- The Thai translations of Wan Wan’s books are available at Nanmee Books, which has a booth at the International Book Fair until Sunday at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre.