Yang Liu, who was born in Beijing and moved to Berlin at 13, took on the challenge for East meets West (Taschen), a pocket-sized book of pictographs showing how values (respect for elders, treatment of newcomers) and practices (fever remedies, popular pastimes) vary across cultures (via).
Her depictions are hilarious, and spectacular.
I love these illustrations, but even as I laugh and nod in agreement, the beautiful Chimamanda Adichie's words come to mind: "the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story."
These stereotypes of the East and West are indeed true, but they are also completely incomplete. And I love that.
Liu has published three books with a similar feel: East Meets West, Man Meets Woman, and Today Meets Yesterday.
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