DEARDEARCIS,CIS,

Here in Hong Kong, you grow accustomed to the city’s frenetic lifestyle. You rush through your day with an eye on the clock (or Google calendar; any fellow fanatics?), you take your shots of coffee and steps up the stairs two at a time, and you try your very best to stay afloat in a society driven by deadlines and deliverables.

What Asia’s world city––really, any metropolitan city in the world––suffers from is a devout adherence to ideals of productivity, achievement, and delayed gratification. We measure success in numbers: grades, service hours, absurd acceptance rates; we take superficial accomplishments and call it contentment. Such demands, of course, come at a cost, spawning exceptional quantities of busywork, unnecessary stress, and “meaningless jobs”, which Albert Hou eloquently covers in his article.

So: slow down. For Xiao Hua’s twenty-seventh issue, we’re hitting pause; if only for a moment. When we feel stressed or overwhelmed, it’s easy to become confined to a myopic worldview framed by arbitrary timelines and expectations, all while our little planet continues steadily rotating about its axis. Let’s rewind: time to reexamine the world around us, whether that be the ethics of community service (Elise Sze), the value of student debt cancellation (Ian Lam), or the wide-ranging implications of involution culture / 內卷 (Hanyi Zhou).

Our writers have also zoomed in on the big picture to explore the smaller details: enjoy an in-depth analysis of Cristiano Ronaldo’s career (James Guo), or a trip down memory lane to scrutinise the Dork Diaries series––this time through the lens of femininity, race, and identity (Charlize Chung). When we slow down, or “brake, before it’s too late” (Natalie Cheung), we gain some much-needed perspective. Issue 27 of Xiao Hua strives to do just that: offer a range of perspectives and a good read with which you can kick back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

To paraphrase Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet: “Honour the questions, and live your way into the answers.” What is success? How can we, as Lily Luo puts it, 放慢腳步，尋一份「清歡」?

Consider Leisure by William Henry Davies: “A poor life this if, full of care,/ We have no time to stand and stare.” Even if it’s just a Pomodoro break, go stand and stare; spend the five minutes you’d otherwise splurge on Instagram reels to go for a walk, chat with your friends and family, or learn a new skill.

Now, one more quote––the last, I promise––from Waymond (the best character) in the phenomenal A24 film Everything, Everywhere All At Once: “The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind. Especially when we don’t know what’s going on.”

Slow down. Be kind. Check out the magazine.