Cosmopolitan Practice, Asian Otherness, and a Localized Cosmopolitanism in Guy Delisle's Asian Travelogues

Guy Delisle's "Shenzhen, Pyongyang, and Burma Chronicles" are possibly the most outspoken and expressive single-authored graphic travelogues about contemporary Asia. Inventing his own caricature, termed the Delisle character or simple "the character" in this article, Delisle portrays the inside of lesser known Asian others' lives with a humorous and sometimes sarcastic tone. His travelogues do not always present entertaining stories as conventionally expected from the genre of comics. When the western gazer in the form of the Delisle character highlights sensitive issues for the Asian reader, such as poor working and living conditions, violations of human rights, failures of political justice, and the seeming strangeness of cultural differences, there is room to critique the simplification of local conditions and the articulation of a contemporary version of Asian otherness. Given the legitimacy of the above criticism, however, it should be noted that Delisle's Asian travelogues, "Shenzhen" in particular, are complex enough to provide an opposite interpretation as the character's struggle with local Asians creates an environment conducive to cosmopolitan mutual understanding. Mutual understanding is a focal point in the recognition of a localized cosmopolitanism in which a locality is not a supplementary element that ornaments cosmopolitan encounters but rather one that determines the form and content of cosmopolitan practices.