Régis Lansade: Falling in love with China
- By Zhou Jin
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E-mail China Today, August 31, 2017
In mid-March, Régis Lansade met his Chinese readers in a Beijing comic book store specializing in stories about Western heroes. Meanwhile, the Chinese edition of Les Ignorants: Récit d'une Initiation Croisée [When a Comic Book Author Encounters a Wine Maker] by Étienne Davodeau, based on Lansade's life-story, had recently been published by China's Hinabook Company in late 2016.
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Régis said he had read a French translation of The Analects of Confucius and understood no Chinese apart from three simple words: nihao (hello), xiexie (thank you) and Xi Dada (a nickname for President Xi Jinping meaning "Uncle Xi").
From Combat Medic to Winemaker
Régis is good-natured, full of witty banter. He joked that his current image is no comparison with the younger him in pictures from Le Photographe (2016) [The Photographer] – now he is old and fat, minus his luxuriant moustache and hair.
In 1986, he went to Afghanistan as a member of MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors without Borders). He was an anesthetist in a medical team operating in combat areas. MSF is a neutral humanitarian organization that treats the wounded, rescues the dying, and provides assistance to those without access to medical help in developing countries.
Didier Lefèvre, a French photographer, accompanied Régis on this tour. They had to cross 15 mountains on the way north from Pakistan in order to reach the war zone in Afghanistan. Didier used 100 rolls of films and took almost 5,000 photos to record their experiences. Twenty years later, French comic artist Emmanuel Guibert retold this heart-stopping experience using cartoons and photographs, the result being his highly realistic graphic novel Le Photographe.
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Régis's at the book launch of the Chinese edition of Les Ignorants: Récit d'une Initiation Croisée. |
Régis was amused to appear in a comic book. He pointed out that comic book characters are usually either dead or imaginary, so for him, becoming a cartoon character was quite surreal. In the book, when asked about his plans for retirement, Régis said when he stopped being a doctor, he might consider becoming a winemaker.
After his tour in Afghanistan ended, Régis went back to France and really did buy a winery with the help of some of his colleagues. Their winery is in Bergerac, in southwest Bordeaux, the famous wine region, and it is called Les Chemins de l'Orient (Roads of the East). "The East" refers to Afghanistan.
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