The comfort of the familiar
In terms of convenience, efficiency and orderliness, the corner store is no match for the modern convenience store. But its charm lies in the warmth of its atmosphere. This unique aspect is evident in the relationships between owner and customers. That human warmth also permeates the artistic representations of the world of the corner store.
Ruan Guang-min’s work is marked by a concern for the lives of regular people, and he prefers to tell stories through comics designed for young readers. His stories depict human relations and explore attitudes toward life. His experience working in his grandpa’s corner store led to the creation of Yong-jiu Grocery Store. The story examines the corner store’s struggle for survival in the modern society. He focuses on the interactions of ordinary people and how they navigate everyday life. Through the humdrum rhythm of daily life emerges the comforting warmth of familiarity that reflects the essence of the corner store.
Hsu Ming-hung, who wrote Baochun’s Grocery in first-person prose, has quite another opinion when he talks about his family’s grocery, which has been open for more than 60 years. “For me the store is a constant in my life, even with the difficulties that has brought,” he says candidly.
Hsu left his hometown to study and work in an urban area after high school, but occasionally returned home to help out in the store. On his first two trips home, he tried to convince his family to adopt more modern methods to run the shop, but this just led to endless arguing. On his third trip back, his attitude began to change. “I decided to stop being so stubborn, and as I fell in with my parents’ rhythms, I slowly discovered that the charm of the place was the human warmth,” Hsu says. “And that’s exactly why my parents continued running the place.”
After this change of heart, Hsu began to record daily life in the shop in a journal. Through these stories he realized that the vitality of the shop arose from the family’s willingness to help others. This caring atmosphere also broke down his misgivings about his family and made him more tolerant.
Others experienced a similarly complicated process in understanding the traditional groceries. Journalist Lin Hsin-yi struggled to adopt a more personal approach in her writing after spending years reporting from an objective standpoint. She initially set out to record the life of the traditional stores objectively and dispassionately. But the restrictive approach proved difficult. After many drafts, she decided to give priority to describing specific events, but occasionally letting the author’s voice emerge.
At first glance, The Good Old Groceries gives the impression that Lin succeeded in avoiding personal commentary in the work. But just as the perspective of a documentary filmmaker becomes apparent during the telling of the story, Lin’s affection for her subject is revealed through her loving descriptions.
He husband, Wing Tseng, says he decided to depart from his commercial photography techniques and adopt a new style for this book project, which he treated as a relaxing pastime. He avoided professional lighting, using only natural light and capturing his subjects in spontaneous photos. The portraits in the book reveal subjects who stare directly into the lens, rather than profile shots taken from a distance. The candid expressions of the shopkeepers reveal the warmth they feel for their customers, and the pictures complement the stories told in the text.
Ruan Guang-min’s Yong-jiu Grocery Store Vol.1: Leave a Light On won two awards at the 2017 Golden Comics Awards. Overseas publication rights have been licensed to a French company. (photo by Chuang Kung-ju)