Wanwan: She Gave Taiwan's Office Workers a Face, Then Nearly Lost Herself in Twelve Days

30-second overview:
Wanwan (Hu Chia-wei) is a founding figure in Taiwan's illustrated-writing scene. Before smartphones became widespread, the "bald-headed figures" she drew for MSN display pictures were the only outlet through which countless office workers could express "I want to get off work" or "I'm falling apart." Her first book, Can I Not Go to Work?, achieved astonishing sales of more than 1 million copies. Yet in 2014, an extramarital-affair incident that erupted just 12 days after her wedding instantly turned this "queen of illustration" into a target of public outrage. This article traces how she rose from a design assistant earning NT$9,000 a month to become one of the most influential and controversial visual symbols in Taiwan's internet history through an unconventional path, and how she sought transformation and quiet survival after the storm.

Hu Chia-wei was born in Taiwan on August 16, 1981 ¹. She graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at Taipei Fu-Hsin Trade and Arts School. When relatives and friends encouraged her to pursue further studies, she chose instead to enter the workforce directly, starting as a design assistant with a monthly salary of just NT$9,000 ^{2 3}. It is worth noting that "Wanwan" was not her real name. The stage name came from imitating Hu Chia-wei, the child actor who played the role of "Wanwan" in the 1980s Taiwanese television drama Stars Know My Heart, a fact that has often caused public confusion ^{1 4}. This "unconventional" career beginning foreshadowed the later story of her using creative work to rise from the grassroots. In October 2004, while still working as a design assistant, Hu uploaded her first doodle under the name "Wanwan" to Wretch.cc ¹. It was an era when broadband internet had just become widespread and MSN Messenger dominated office communication. The round-faced, bald-headed figures she drew casually, paired with simple phrases such as "I want to get off work" and "Do not disturb, working," helped her blog accumulate more than 10 million views in under a year ⁵. By 2007, it had surpassed 180 million cumulative views, becoming Taiwan's first blog to break the 100-million-view mark ^{6 7}.

Digital Masks in the Office and a Net Worth in the Tens of Millions

In an era before LINE stickers, Wanwan's animated gif display pictures became the "digital masks" of Taiwan's office workers. When employees did not dare speak their true feelings directly to their bosses, they changed their MSN avatars and let the bald-headed figure with exaggerated expressions shout on their behalf. In 2005, her first book, Can I Not Go to Work?, was published. It not only stayed on major bookstore bestseller lists for dozens of weeks, but also sold more than 1 million copies across Asia, breaking the stereotype in Taiwan at the time that illustrated books were "only supporting players" ⁸.

📝 Curator's note: The core of Wanwan's success lay in her ability to capture Taiwan's particular culture of being "stifled": the collective emotion of wanting to resist the system but being able to defuse it only through small acts of humor. Her work was a visual outlet for Taiwanese people's collective emotions in the early internet era, and a key bridge from the blog era to the social media era.

At the time, Taiwanese media called Wanwan the "queen of the illustration world" or the "blog queen" ⁹, and her market value rose a thousandfold in just a few years. She won awards including "Best Humor Blog" at the 2006 Chinese Blog Awards ¹⁰, establishing her status as a founding figure in online illustrated writing. Her commercial achievements spanned multiple fields: Wanwan magnets produced in collaboration with FamilyMart distributed more than 50 million magnets and generated revenue in the hundreds of millions of NT dollars ¹¹; she was among the first Taiwanese creators to launch LINE stickers, with cumulative downloads exceeding 10 million ¹²; and she was the first blogger to appear in television commercials, filming as many as eight advertisements for brands including Taiwan Fixed Network, Samsung, Kuai Kuai, and Vitalon ¹³. In film, aside from appearing as herself, Hu Chia-wei, in Giddens Ko's You Are the Apple of My Eye ¹⁴, she also took part in the 2010 round-the-island documentary Travel with Dreams and the 2012 film The Soul of Bread ¹⁵. Wanwan's face became almost synonymous with her bald-headed figure. She was not only a creator but also a successful commercial brand, proving that in Taiwan, "drawing really can put food on the table."

Her list of works is extensive and clearly serialized. In addition to her representative work Can I Not Go to Work?, it includes early office and campus-themed books such as Let's Skip Work Together and Can I Not Go to School?; travel and lifestyle books such as Can I Go Out and Play Every Day? and Have You Gone to Europe?; and later parenting and pet-themed works including Oh My Mother! This Is How I Became a Mom, Can We Stay Together Forever: Wanwan's Pet Diary, Wanwan's Dessert Notes, and Wanwan's Magic App, totaling more than 20 books ¹⁶.

Image Collapse and a Public-Opinion Tsunami After Twelve Days

Yet in May 2014, this precisely operating illustrated-content production machine experienced its most violent shock. On May 17, 2014, Wanwan married in a high-profile ceremony, walking down the aisle with Ho Chi-yuan, her partner of 10 years ^{1 17}. Just 12 days later, a weekly magazine photographed her kissing another blogger, Huang Ta-yeh (Huang Chien-ming), on the street ^{17 18}. This "newlywed infidelity" incident triggered a devastating tsunami of public opinion in Taiwanese society at the time.

For readers then, Wanwan represented an image of "innocence, goofiness, and the girl next door." The enormous contrast produced by the infidelity incident turned her instantly from a public favorite into a target of widespread criticism. Although she posted an apology on Facebook and received forgiveness from her husband, Ho Chi-yuan, her commercial collaborations were suspended one after another, and some internet users even launched boycott actions ^{19 20}. The storm exposed the almost obsessive linkage in Taiwan's internet culture between a creator's "moral conduct" and the "content of their work." It also caused her to fall from the cloud where the "blog queen" had stood, facing an unprecedented image crisis.

Aftermath: Quiet Survival and Transformation After the Label

After the storm, Wanwan did not disappear from the internet. Instead, she chose a quieter way of surviving. In a 2020 media interview, she stated explicitly that "the old Wanwan is already dead," and that her character style had changed with age and environment, no longer maintaining the goofy image of her early years ²¹. Her marriage to Ho Chi-yuan endured, and the couple have two children. Her creative focus also shifted toward parenting content, documenting everyday life with her two children and pet dogs, Pulo and FIFI, while continuing to share daily updates on Instagram (@cwwany) and Facebook (@cwwany.tw) ^{22 23}. She has also continued running her YouTube channel, quietly sharing creative work and life updates ¹³.

📝 Curator's note: Rather than saying the public forgave Wanwan, it may be more accurate to say that time made people realize the emotions we had invested in that bald-headed figure were real, even if the creator herself was not perfect. Her transformation also reflects how internet creators, after facing public scrutiny, redefine the relationship between self and work, shifting from a "collective emotional outlet" to "life writing about the individual and family."

Although her visibility can no longer compare with the glory days of MSN, library borrowing data from 2026 show that works such as This Is How We All Grew Up Bent still rank in the top three, indicating that her work remains vital among readers across generations ²⁴. Wanwan's story is a microcosm of Taiwan's internet development. She was not only an important bridge in Taiwan's illustrated-writing scene from blogs such as Wretch and Pixnet to LINE stickers and Webtoon, but also influenced large numbers of later creators. She experienced the rise of blogs, the evolution of messaging software, and the harshest moral judgment of online communities. She gave Taiwan's office workers a face through which to express themselves. Yet through her own real life, she also completed the most complex and least "bald-headed-figure-like" side behind that face.

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