Qibao Ancient Town

This guide to Qibao Ancient Town follows a Belgian cartoonist who set out in 1934 to draw a Chinese city he had never seen, and the lonely art student from this small water town who set him straight. Zhang Chongren, born here in Qibao and raised by French Jesuit priests, met Herge in Brussels and spent a year of Sundays teaching him Chinese brushwork, philosophy and the real conditions back home. Herge later wrote his friend directly into a famous story, an act of gratitude Zhang met with characteristic modesty.