Tchang

Apart from the notable exception of Al Capone, Chang is the only person to appear as himself in the Tintin universe. The real Tchang Tchong-Jen was a young art student studying in Brussels.

Father Léon Gosset was a reader of Tintin but also chaplain to Chinese students at the Catholic University of Leuven. Having learned that after Egypt and India, Tintin was going to visit China, he warned Hergé against reproducing Western prejudices about China common at the time and invited him to meet a young Chinese man. That man was Tchang. For Hergé, it was like opening his eyes. “I discovered a whole new world,” Hergé explained.

Of course, Tintin had always been on the side of those who defend justice and fight against tyranny. But the genuine discovery of a real civilization through the simple contact with a young man whose country was experiencing war, occupation, and famine would change Hergé's storytelling style. Henceforth, the Tintin tales would become more systematically focused on denouncing war, trafficking of all kinds, and the manipulation of peoples.

The Blue Lotus is a story in which humour is scarce, where stronger emotions are present. Tintin cries for the first time... Even more surprising is the fate of the real Tchang. The war severed contact between the two men for 35 years, and Tintin in Tibet was written more than twenty years after they had met. Tintin refuses to believe in Chang's death, just as Hergé refused to believe in the disappearance of his friend. A belated reunion, two years before Hergé's death, bridged the gap that Tintin had already filled by going to rescue Chang in the heart of the white mountain...

Symbolizing the brotherhood in humanity that Chang and Tintin established immediately after the rescue from drowning, the two characters remain inseparable until Tintin's departure from China, with tears in their eyes and waving white handkerchiefs of peace. After their encounter, Chang immediately becomes Tintin's double, enlightening him about the pitfalls of his own country and managing to return the favour three times over. First by saving him from the clutches of the Thompsons, then by helping Tintin escape an attack with a booby-trapped fake camera, and finally by literally saving Tintin’s head from Didi's sword thanks to an audacious plan involving hiding along with troops of the Sons of the Dragon in barrels of opium.

Same height, similar age, same resilience, same courage (“together, we will be stronger,” says Chang), same skill in dealing with pirates (the substitution of Thomson and Thompson’s assignment letter), same lack of family (neither has any apparent relatives); their destinies seem so intertwined. Even beyond plausibility: in what language do these two characters exchange their points of view? While the real Tchang learned very good French in Belgium, it is highly unlikely that a young Chinese orphan lost in the floods of the Yangtze River would speak French or English...