around the time when we were reading beano and dandy, there were also the chinese comics which were very popular with the young and even not so young chinese children. these handy comics were arranged on a portable bookstall that stood by the five-foot way.
the bookstall was more like a set of shutters which could be folded. the mostly old and worn comic books would be displayed on the racks. you could rent a few at a time or you could also choose to buy them. the estall-holder even provided low stools for his customers to sit while they browsed or read the books.
the palm-sized comic books were slightly more than 1cm thick and the pictures were in black and white then. we would pay 5 or 10 cents and sat on the spot to enjoy the pictures in the story or the story with the pictures, depending on your ability to read chinese characters. for me, it was more pictures than chinese characters.
the stories in these comics always involved warriors skilled in martial arts and so there were a lot of action pictures. i think one of the most popular series was about the adventures of the monkey (sun wukong). this story was taken from the novel 'journey to the west'. in the story the monkey saved the monk from all kinds of perils. the other two characters in the story were pigsy and sandy, who like monkey, were disciples of the monk.
it was one way of assimilating a bit of the chinese culture, which would otherwise have been lost to us as we did not read chinese books when we were young or even today.
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