renaissance - ISSUE 10

issue #10 : spring 2023 renaissance

PORTRAIT

issue #10 : spring 2023 renaissance

PORTRAIT

photograph (top) Minsuh Park

photograph (bottom) Sharon Nahm

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executive board editor-in-chief content editor creative director publicity manager lead producer launch liaison treasurer

writers / project leads

Alyssa Gu

Am Chunnananda

Ambica Kale

Assel Omarova

Caris Lee

Eaint May

Janus Wong

Jay Chiu

Kai Yung

Katherine Lim

Katherine Wu

Kiran Rudra

Lavanya Manickam

Katherine Lim

Janus Wong

Sharon Nahm

Assel Omarova

Stephen Han

Kiran Rudra

Jiaqi (Julia) Peng

Leslie Lim

Luke Chiang

Mia LaBianca

Miley Lu

Minkyo Han

Sachika Joo

Serena/Soren Liu

Sohyoung (SJ) Jeong

Taylor Gee

Ulysses Bergel

Wyejee (Sara) Jung

Xiaohan (Grant) Wu

Zoe Mueller

spring 2023

designers

Am Chunnananda

Aspen Wang

Elaine Yang

Eunice Loh

Gracie Chang

Irene Kim

Jay Zhang

Jill Wong

Jillian Lin

Kai Yung

Karen Mogami

Kiran Rudra

Lavanya Manickam

social media

Kathleen Chang

Miranda Liu

producers

Avery Kim

Christian Wolke

Leela Khatri

Miley Lu

Mindy Nguyen

Miranda Liu

Sandro Lorenzo

Sarah Tung

Sharon Nahm

Tala

Taylor Gee

Tina Ai

Tina Ni

Tori Kim

Ziyi Che

Tina Ai

editors

Alicia Silva

Alyssa Gu

Brian Chun

Emily Tieu

Jade Hsin

Janus Wong

Joey Lin

Katherine Lim

Kiran Rudra

Lucie Ai

Natalie Junio-Thompson

Olivia Chang

Tina Ai

Tina Ni

Jiaqi (Julia) Peng media page and family portrait design Sharon Nahm photography assistance Stephen Han

Irene Kim

Taylor Gee

Tina Ai

Tori Kim

Ulysses Bergel

Wyejee (Sara) Jung

Janus Wong

Emily Tieu

Natalie Junio-Thompson

Caris Lee

Sohyoung (SJ) Jeong

Olivia Chang

Sachika Joo

Sandro Lorenzo

Sarah Tung

Serena/Soren Liu

Tala

Jay Zhang

Am Chunnananda

Alicia Silva

Xiaohan (Grant) Wu

Stephen Han

Miranda Liu

Minkyo Han

Mindy Nguyen

Miley Lu

Mia LaBianca

Lucie Ai

Assel Omarova

Avery Kim

Brian Chun

Alyssa Gu

Elaine Yang

Leslie Lim

Leela Khatri

Lavanya Manickam

Kiran Rudra

Katherine Wu

Katherine Lim

Ziyi Che

Aspen Wang

Ambica Kale

Alicia Hsu

Kathleen Chang

Karen Mogami

Kai Yung

Jiaqi (Julia) Peng

Joey Lin

Jillian Lin

Jay Chiu

Tina Ni

Gracie Chang

Sharon Nahm

Eunice Loh

Luke Chieng

photograph Stephen Han

O O T

一、

I repetitively write down words in Chinese—on the margins of my readings, on a piece of napkin, on my palm. I am taken with the physical forms of the Chinese letters—how the start of the stroke is a halt, a small dot of ink, a nail’s head; and how the end of the letter is a flying stroke that almost exceeds the boundary of the page, like a sparrow’s tail. I write down the name of the road, 凤起, a road wherein the legend of a phoenix had risen. I admire such words, and the poetry, “诗意”, contained in the roots of my language. I wish 诗意 could last long, be prosperous, proud, and honest, always making marks of the stories of their homeland.

二、

I get a feeling something is pulling between my collarbones, especially when I’m among the crowd. The pulling is itchy; it almost got out from my throat that I want to hum a tune. I feel the urge to say that I can play the song with my zither, a Chinese instrument with 21 strings. What does the zither sound like? Imagine you are under a deep ocean, with no light around. You dare not move forward because of the unknown surroundings. Your submarine could hit a cliff and that would be the end. The zither is the sonar. One note, then a dashing light runs forwards neatly fitting the landmarks, and you gain vision in another way. It’s clear, it echoes far beyond. When I stroke the strings, they vibrate and spread out, the notes swing under the roof and bring clarity like how sonar would. That is a bad metaphor.

I have to play it. It is the song that a thousand years ago people played on the tower of the high-fly geese, in Changan, the glamorous core of the prosperous Tang Dynasty. A tercet of silence, then a note strikes and I see wild geese flying towards the setting sun, amazed by their wings flapping to the vast sky, the pink and orange clouds shade the early stars. The fact that I could play that music using my fingers almost frees me as it frees the birds. My finger, my zither, with the hollowed wooden body and nylon strings, together they are the poetry and dances from that ancient heyday. I get the compulsion to replay that song all the time, with its rhythm and flow. I write it down here hoping you would hear it too. But words cannot describe the entire song. I think the most descriptive language that I can use is only applicable for the first three notes after the prelude—la, so, mi, without accompanying chords on the highest tune. Very simple. These three notes are like the moment before you roll open a scroll, seeing the inscription of its title. They are the forewords for something fluid, beautiful, and grand. Later the song accelerates, and words fail. No language could describe it—how unreliable and indirect are words! I wish I could sow the music into these sentences so that they are less feeble when trying to convey the sound.

I bought a zither here, seven thousands of miles away from its birthplace—it has a flying phoenix carved on the right-side headstock. It is my own 凤起. I play to let myself see that image of the flying geese once more, or to cover the noisy party of my neighbors. The compulsion is to say that I am still linked to the soil, with the wooden eaves and brick-red walls of the land where I was born. It is also a kind of resistance, a parade of my roots and my core.

I have a dream. I see a man in a cobalt-blue robe and a white belt, standing under the night sky. He is holding an erhu, a one-string instrument played like a vertical violin. The song he is playing is Racing Horses. The erhu is so coarse and drawly that most of its songs are saddening. But not with Racing Horses. The man is slightly nodding when he plays the long and impassioned melody, and the humming of the string is like the neigh of horses, coarse, but high-spirited, accompanied by the galloping wind. It is raining in my dream. At first, I thought the man was walking on waves, but when I come close to watch, I realize it is the grass. It is so long that in the wind the grass blades lower and rise like water—sometimes almost submerging him. The splintery tips of the long grass wobble at the peak of each wave so that they seem like foam in the ocean.

I cannot move my eyes away from this man walking in the grass. Something vast and timeless attracts me. It is like in the ancient songs of the Chile clan—the people who lived on the northern steppe. They sang it thousands of years ago to the eagles and night sky. 天苍苍，野茫茫, the sky is bleak, its color blue and deep; the wilderness vast and boundless.

风吹草低见牛羊, only when the grass is lowered by the winds can you see the cattle. From here I cry out in my dream with the steppe, with the neigh of horses. I now live in a foreign city crowded with skyscrapers. But this dream, this dream! I won’t feel like this anywhere else! The visceral sense shakes me: as if I belong here, on the grass, on the rise and fall of the horseback that the man depicts with his erhu. And everything is boundless. The man is holding his erhu, with his back facing toward me, walking forth to somewhere unknown. His clothes, damped and heavied by the rain, still flow after his footsteps. The rain drips and drops, and by the time I realize it, he has already disappeared into the morning fog.

Waking up, I realize that the man in my dream, when disappearing into the fog, had forever left this world. Great emptiness comes to me. The song that he played almost still lingers in my head, yet I know such vitality and freedom that I felt in my dream can never be retrieved. I envy him because his farewell has a prosperous prelude that can bring me back to the steppe, to hear the neigh of horses. I long for his freedom. I no longer want to be in this world that offers no such freedom, nor the ease that I felt in my dreams. I imagine my death with such grandeur that I sensed on that steppe. The Racing Horses my epitaph. I envy you, I also want to leave rightfully, to escape here with you. 五、

The unyielding souls on Mount Kailash–they roam on the plateau, a barren land exposed with stones and salt. Undeniable solidness, yet the land has patterns of waves made by snow and dust, flowing amongst the mountain fog.

A wild yak was given the name of Kunlun, 昆仑, after the mythological grand mountain of the deities in the west. When the wild yak lowers his head, his spine makes out a mountain ridge. When he roams on the plateau, the land becomes a tightened drumhead, his hooves make the sound as if someone is thumping on a war drum, launching the final charge at the enemies. He charges to the edge of the mountain foot, snow clashes, and ice shattered by his hooves, patterns of the salt and dust branded with his marks; he halts at the first sight of seeing a barren rock jutting out from the landscape, rising to the Kailash peak. He breathes out the heat inside his massive lungs, an engine fueled by keen air. The pounding of his heart runs out from his chest, his world fills with those unique drum rolls. The drum rolls of his wildest urge. But then he closes his eyes and bends his neck. In silence, he bows to the mountain that raised him. He is me. Beneath our closed eyelids are all that has been said and all that’s unsaid. Dashes of the aeon.

Written by Xiaohan (Grant) Wu

Edited by Alicia Salva

Designed by Ziyi Che

“Throw away when you get old”

Author: Caris Lee

Editor: Alyssa Gu

Designer: Sarah Tung

When I sift through the dust that shimmers in the dying afternoon light, motes rising and falling like a voice I faintly remember hearing in the thickness of the night, I pick up the box that is labeled “Throw away when you get old” and tear it open with my finger nails that have not been painted for years or held for more. Inside are objects that bear no resemblance to me, that have merely died an improper death. A shard of glass with strangers’ faces, a book with black blots inside, a rusted ring and a tarnished necklace—more strangers, more faces, looking out at me like a fish peers at a worm on a hook, puzzled by its presence but tempted by its familiarity. For some time, I sit while the dust braids my hair. For some time, I shoulder the weight of the soundless goodbyes that were whispered to me before I realized why. For some time (what is time?), I efface myself.

Under the blanket of forgetfulness, within its warmth and its heat, I’ve left artifacts of myself that I had meant to keep. Blame the storage company for mixing up my things or the pen for writing the wrong address. Blame time for making me grow old. Blame memory for my remiss. Now hollow objects stand still in cardboard boxes, waiting until someone discovers them years later, a stranger to their own things. For some time, I’ve lost the privilege of remembering. For some time, I’ve looked at the horizon when the sky roses and when the sky burns. For some time (is it time?), I’ve floated in the waters by the willow that grows aslant in the brook, letting my garments weigh me down.

Ten years from now, my head is resting on my hand, illuminated by the candle’s thirsty glow. My hair streams down my back, books without titles are piled, and photos of strangers litter the floor. For some time, I sift through the dust that shimmers in the dying afternoon light. For some time, the motes rise and fall like a voice I faintly remember hearing in the thickness of the night. For some time (is it already time?), I pick up the box that is labeled “Throw away when you get old,” and tape it shut.

photograph Stephen Han

Written by Katherine Lim

Edited by Joey Lin

Designed by Sandro Lorenzo

Photography by Jenny Javier

“Hey, I think you dropped this.”

I look up, surprised, to see a girl holding my pencil out for me. She’s small, around my height, with dyed pink hair that goes just beyond her shoulders. I can’t remember her name.

I accept the pencil with my left hand, but when my gloves close around it, two of my fingers don’t seem to close with the rest of them. I snatch my hand back and hope she didn’t notice before mumbling a quiet thank you that she may or may not have heard.

“I like your drawings,” she says. “You’re really good. How long have you been doing it?”

“Um, a few years,” I say, flustered.

“I wish I could draw, but I have no artistic talent,” she tells me. I don’t know how to get out of this conversation, but I need to get home. She opens her mouth again, but I cut her off, mumbling something about needing to go, before rushing out.

“See you next week!” she calls. ***

Once I’m back in my apartment, I yank off my glove. It’s just as I thought: my ring and pinky fingers on my left hand have vanished. This has been happening for a while now—parts of my body are disappearing. It’s not like the skin is gone and you can see my insides; the pieces are just… gone. It doesn’t feel like anything when something does disappear. My body still functions how it’s supposed to, though. A part of my jaw has disappeared, and I wear a surgical mask to hide it, but it hasn’t interfered with eating or talking. That was actually the first thing to vanish. I woke up one morning and couldn’t tell that anything was missing. I only noticed when I glanced in the mirror after washing my face. I panicked and spent the day trying to go back to sleep, thinking it was a dream. I considered the possibility that I was hallucinating, or that it was a sign I should drop out of school and become some forest hermit.

My fingers vanishing is a little annoying. I wish it had been some other part of me. I don’t talk much, but I’ve been learning sign language in case my mouth or tongue disappear. If I lose my fingers, then there’s no point, so that’s a lot of hours wasted. Writing shouldn’t be a problem, but if fingers on my right hand disappear, I’m not sure what I’d do.

I wonder if my vanishing parts are going to a different world. Like, I’m disappearing here and reforming somewhere else, though I wonder how reformed me is functioning, if she’s functioning at all. Probably not. What can she do with a few parts of a face and shoulder, pieces of a torso, and a couple of fingers and toes? Are they floating around roughly where they should be on an actual body? I wonder how long it will be before I’m dead. I don’t have a timeline. Will the moment I die be the moment she lives? ***

“God, I think I’m screwed for the test next week. How are you doing in the class? Can we study together?”

It’s a new week and new class, but the pink haired girl is the same one as last time. She sat next to me today again, for whatever reason.

I don’t respond, quietly putting my things in my backpack and hoping she stops talking. I don’t even know her name; why is she asking me to study with her?

This is my only class today, but I have to work, so that’s something to do. I work at the library so it’s mostly finding and shelving books.

“Um, hello? It’s a little rude to just ignore someone like that, you know?” the girl says, stepping in my path. I startle.

I open my mouth, but before I can say anything, a group of people walk by. There’s a chorus of “See you, Ella”s and “Bye Ella”s from them, and the girl waves at them and gives her own “see you”s, without moving. Before I can slip past her, her eyes return to me.

“Um, sorry,” I say.

“So, do you want to study?” she says.

“What about your friends?”

“They aren’t study buddies. Plus, I’m pretty sure they’re failing the class.”

“What if I was also failing the class?” I ask.

She snorts and says, “That would suck.”

I don’t know how to respond, so we stare at each other for a moment before I look away.

“I have work,” I mumble.

“Alright,” she says, and for a moment, I think she’s going to let me go. “I’ll go with you and wait until you’re done.”

I’m never going to get rid of her. ***

I’ve never dreaded finishing work. I’m trying not to use my left hand. I’m sure I can pick up books with three fingers, but I’m worried it might look weird. I bought these smooth wooden sticks and just put them in my gloves so that the fingers don’t flop around. It does the trick, but it’s not like I can move them.

“Should we just stay here and study, or do you want to go to my place or your place? Do you have roommates? Mine will probably be home,” she says as soon as I’m done. I’d rather not go back to my place; I don’t want her to know where I live.

“I don’t care,” I say, hoping she’ll somehow understand that I mean I don’t want to go to my apartment.

“Are you okay with going to my apartment?” she asks.

I nod. Thank god she understood.

We start walking. It’s cold; I think it might start to snow soon. I don’t want to trudge home in the snow. Ella’s chattering, complaining about class and her major and other obligations and life and she goes on and on like she’s trying to make up for not talking in the library. The librarian had already side-eyed her when I told her that Ella was apparently following me around for my shift instead of studying in the library like a normal student.

Her apartment isn’t too far, though, which means it’s not that far from mine. She yells an “I’m back” when we get there, and her roommate looks up from the kitchen table. It seems like she took up the entire thing—it’s full of textbooks and notebooks and snacks.

“Oh, hey,” the roommate says.

“I’m gonna study with my friend,” Ella says. Her roommate looks at me and startles, like she didn’t notice I was there, before giving a little wave. She probably didn’t; I’m a superhero with the power of invisibility.

“Sure. I’ll move to my room.”

“No, you can stay, I don’t want to kick you out.”

The roommate waves a hand and somehow cleans everything up in a few seconds. “I’m heading out soon anyway,” she says.

“Alright, thanks then,” Ella says.

The roommate leaves and Ella drops her bag next to the table before sitting down. I awkwardly follow, declining her invite for food and then staring at her notebook. I barely study on my own, and never with someone else, so I don’t quite know what to do.

“Are you cold? You can take off your gloves,” Ella says.

“I’m fine,” I mumble. For a moment, I wonder if the disappearances are just in my head. I could take off my gloves and she’d see two hands with five fingers each, or I could take off my mask and she wouldn’t see that I’m missing a quarter of my jaw. A few of my toes are missing, but I doubt she’d be able to notice unless she was staring under the table at my socks.

She doesn’t comment more, about my gloves or my mask or my socks, and I don’t bring it up. The rest of the time we spend half studying, half me listening to her talk. ***

“Do you think our lives would be different if the color green didn’t exist?” Ella asks. It’s been a few weeks since she asked me to study with her and she won’t leave me alone now. Today, I got roped into having lunch with her, though I’m not eating. We’re sitting on a bench under a tree, and I refuse to take my mask off where people can see me. I can’t remember the last time I had lunch with someone else. Probably before part of my face disappeared.

“What?” I say.

“You know, like what would change?”

“Why would anything change? Wouldn’t it be like color blindness and we’d just perceive green things as gray or something?”

“So do you think that what we see as gray is just a color we all can’t actually see?”

“No.”

She doesn’t respond, continuing to eat her sandwich, eyes staring off somewhere. She does this sometimes, asks the most random questions and then gets lost in her thoughts. I never know if I’m supposed to answer.

Today, I feel hyper aware of everything. It’s been a few days since any part of me has disappeared, but it feels like a good day for it. I wonder if my stomach already has because I’m not hungry, and then I wonder if my internal organs have been vanishing without me being able to see them. Maybe there’s nothing inside of me, and if someone were to skin me, I’d fall apart and see that I was just an empty mass of skin.

“Are you really not going to eat?” Ella asks, snapping back from wherever she was.

I shake my head.

“Skipping meals isn’t very good for you, you know,” she says, eyes full of concern. I stare at the ground and pretend like I don’t notice. My hands are in my pockets, and I open and close them, feeling the difference between five fingers and three.

Some guy comes up to us with a little wave at Ella.

“Hey, you want to come over later?” the guy asks. “Some of us are gonna hang out, then grab dinner tonight.”

“Oh, sorry, can’t. I’m studying with my friend tonight.” She gestures towards me and I peer up at him. I don’t think he’s that much more interesting than the ground. I hope I’m not supposed to wave because it’s cold and I don’t want to take my hands out of my pockets. Maybe I should invest in a pair of mittens. They might hide my missing fingers better.

“I didn’t realize you were hanging out with someone,” he says, frowning. The guy gives me a quick glance before looking back at Ella and I wonder if he’s already forgotten me. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve already disappeared. Maybe I’m just a sentient hallucination of Ella’s.

He walks away and she glares at his retreating figure.

“Was he ignoring you? I can’t believe he did that,” she says. I glance over at her and shrug. It’s not like I know who he is. “Used to it.”

She turns her glare at me. “Don’t be. I can’t believe he did that.”

“You already said that.”

She scowls and I look away, suddenly not able to face her.

Another few weeks go by and though the weather is starting to warm up, I refuse to take off my gloves. I never bought a pair of mittens, but I might need to get some thinner gloves.

That’s what I’m thinking anyway, but she probably isn’t because it’s night time and we’re breaking into a biology lab. Neither of us study biology, but Ella says one class is studying jellyfish and they have a tank full of them. She wants to see it, but I don’t know why we have to sneak in at night. Surely she knows someone who could take her during the day?

For a second, I wonder if we’re doing this now because she knows that while I’ve been agreeing to let her hang out and walk around with me, I’d never agree to do so with other people.

It’s a stupid thought and I push it out of my mind. I have other things to worry about. Like walking. The heel of my right foot disappeared last night and I’m trying to walk by putting the balls of my feet down first. Walking this way is odd, but it’s odder to do it with only one foot. I hope Ella hasn’t noticed. I don’t know if I can walk properly; I’ve been doing this since I got out of bed and noticed the missing part. It hasn’t affected my balance, so maybe these pieces of me are just turning invisible and losing feeling. Though if that were the case, I guess I wouldn’t need the sticks in my gloves.

I wish this would hurry up. I don’t think I’m getting my body back and I don’t know how I’d hide it if more of my face disappears. Can I get away with

“I think we go this way,” Ella whispers. She doesn’t even know which way

Thankfully, we aren’t walking up any stairs, but we are passing by various classrooms and Ella peers inside all of them, so it takes a while. I should probably

“HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” a voice calls out. “YOU CAN’T BE IN HERE!” We both jump; there’s a guard at the end of the hallway. I don’t think he was yelling that loudly, but his voice is echoing and it makes me freeze.

“Come on!” Ella says. She grabs my arm and yanks me back the way we came. I’m trying to focus on how to place my feet while running, but Ella is dragging me too fast and I’m mostly just stumbling behind her. I don’t know if the

As soon as exit, Ella starts laughing. We’re running to who knows where now and she’s breathing hard and trying to keep it in, but the sound still slips out. I watch her as we run. By the time we stop, I have no idea where we are, but Ella is bent over, half laughing, half panting. I’m thinking about how I can barely breathe in my mask when she looks up and catches my eye. Since it’s dark, I can’t see much, but I think I can see the laughter in her eyes and for some reason, I’m almost tempted to take off my mask to breathe easier.

“That was terrifying,” I tell her.

“But it was fun,” she says.

“We didn’t even get to see the jellyfish.”

She laughs again and as I listen to the full sound of it, I feel my lips twitch

***

After I get back to my apartment, I lay in bed and I hold up my left hand, staring at the empty space where my ring and pinky fingers should be. It’s hard to look at it; my eyes keep wanting to slide away without registering the gap. I wonder if this is what it’s like for other people when they look at me. Once I’m gone, will Ella’s thoughts slide over me, barely registering I was here? The way most people don’t seem to notice I exist, even if I’m standing right next to them?

I drop my hand and roll onto my side. It doesn’t matter, I guess. It’s not like I’ll be here to see what happens. I squeeze my eyes shut and hope I fall asleep soon.

***

“I can’t believe you ditched class without me yesterday,” Ella says. “Were you sick?”

It’s been a few days since our break in into the biology building. She seems to be pretending like it never happened, but now she’ll sometimes smile at me when our eyes meet. I don’t know what that means, so I try to keep my eyes on the ground and not look at her.

“Something like that,” I say, though really, I was too tired and wanted to stay in bed. Maybe instead of my physical body disappearing, it’s now my overall energy level. What if my emotions are next?

“You okay?” Ella asks.

I shrug this time.

“Class was boring without you.”

“Why?” I ask, scowling. She can’t see my expression, but it might have bled into my voice.

“It was boring,” she repeats. “And lonely.”

I stop walking for a moment and look at her. She doesn’t notice for a few seconds, but then glances back at me and I can’t quite read her expression.

I spend the next several days trying to understand Ella, but I don’t know where to start. I’m exhausted, going to class and work and watching her eat and hearing her talk. I manage to make it back to my apartment every day, but after a week, I’m sitting on the floor in front of my bed sobbing and I don’t know why. I want to grab my pillow to muffle the sounds but there isn’t anyone around to hear and the pillow is far. Ella doesn’t make any sense. She decided to be my friend after giving back a dropped pencil. Who does that? Who follows some random person around and talks to them and convinces them to break into biology labs and misses them when they’re not in class? It’s cold, and I’m shaking, and my head is spinning, and I’ve always hated the sound of me crying.

It’s only then that I understand I don’t know what it means to disappear from life. The tears flow down my cheeks. I don’t want Ella to forget me. I don’t want to vanish without a trace now that I’ve left traces in the world. I’m afraid she’ll cry over me and I’m afraid that she won’t.

I’m curled up on the floor, sobbing, and I don’t know what to do. ***

I don’t remember falling asleep, but when I wake up, there’s light streaming into my room. I wonder if it’s worth it to get up. What if I just stay here until I’m gone? How long will that even take? Days? Months? Years?

I barely have the energy to sit up and lean my head against my bed. I think about last night, and suddenly I have to know why. Why did Ella talk to me, of all people? Why did she choose me to study with and eat with and have pointless conversations with and break into buildings at night with? I get up, hastily grabbing my coat and mask and gloves, before I hurry out. ***

I’m running around campus, trying to think of where she might be at 11:38am on a Thursday. Does she have class? Is she going to get lunch? Has she gotten out of bed? Why can’t I answer these? I think people are staring at me, actually staring and noticing that I’m there.

I see her walking alone—she’s wearing her big red jacket and jeans and she’s looking up at the sky while she’s walking. I wonder if this is what she does when she’s alone. I call her name and she turns, looking surprised.

“Why me?” I demand, out of breath when I reach her. She blinks in confusion. “What?”

“Why me?” I repeat. She can’t read my mind, she has no idea what I’m asking, but I can’t form other words.

“Why not?”

Can she read my mind, or was that an automatic answer to a question she didn’t understand?

“Why… why did you choose to talk to me?” I manage to get out.

“Oh.” She smiles. “Yeah, why not?”

I don’t think she’s lying, but I don’t think it’s the full truth either. I wonder if she asked herself the same question in class and came up with the same answer and decided to be my friend anyway. I wonder if she’ll ever tell me the real reason. I wonder if it matters.

I can’t help it, but I burst out laughing.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“I’m not,” I tell her. “I just…” I shake my head, smiling. She’s still confused, but I don’t know how to explain it to her.

Even though it’s cold, it’s sunny, and I think that today might actually be a good day.

Writer: Luke Chiang

Editor: Katherine Lim

Designer: Karen Mogami

As a minority in America, Asian Americans face a split identity, being both Asian and American, but, at the same time, neither of them. For some, being able to accept this strange dual existence comes easier, and they feel comfortable leaning far into one side or the other. For others, it becomes much more di cult, struggling to connect to who they are. Growing up as a Chinese Korean American, I was confused by my identity, never feeling strongly towards any ethnic part of myself. I resisted, even rejected, my Asian-ness. Even as the media and cultural elements I hid from my friends became acceptable and even mainstream in America, I kept pushing away. It was only when I found the deep social and political roots of Asian America that gave me not only something to be proud of, but also something to strive for.

My mother was born in Seoul, to (halabeoji), my poor grandfather, and (halmoni), my wealthy grandmother, as the middle of three children. At the age of 12, her family boarded a ight to Philadelphia and settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Her parents worked hard 7 days a week at the convenience store they owned. Halabeoji worked the night shi , giving free co ee to the workers every morning. Halmoni worked in the daytime, selling chips and candy to the local children. In a rural town with almost no Asian population, my mother struggled to adapt to the new country, having to balance school, helping out at the store, and learning English all at once. For my mom, being Asian was what set her apart. It was what made her teachers point her out for her good grades in math and science, but only to complain to their students about how much smarter kids from Asia were. But despite the obstacles she had to face, through hard work and e ort, she eventually found herself at the University of Pennsylvania.

On the other hand, my father was born in a Philadelphia suburb, the youngest of two children born to Chinese immigrants. His parents, my (yeye) and (nai nai), immigrated as young adults and found success in the growing computer science market. He grew up living as a second-generation immigrant surrounded by a decently-sized close-knit community of Chinese Americans, his adolescent life marked by the divide between Asian and American. ough still experiencing the troubles of second-generation children, my dad accepted being Asian American as a part of who he was.

He picked up bits and pieces of Chinese, but not enough to comfortably converse in the language. At his majority-white school, he wrestled and joined the marching band, befriending his white classmates while spending time with a group of Chinese American boys his age on the weekends. As his older brother headed to Cornell, eventually becoming an ER doctor, my father soon also found himself at UPenn.

It was at UPenn where these two stories united in the elevator of the dorm they lived in, my mother in her junior year studying linguistics, my father studying business and engineering as a sophomore. A er graduating, they lived separately in New York as friends before dating, then moved together to Cambridge for my father’s graduate program at MIT. ey returned to New York, then, months before I was born, back to the Philadelphia area in a townhouse tasked with the monumental feat of housing the entirety of my mother’s family. Soon a er, on a hot day in July, a new story was created: my own.

My journey to acceptance of my identity was long and complex. Growing up, my brother and sister seized the growing wave of Asian media to proudly share their culture and food with their friends. I resisted, trying to assimilate into white American culture and remove what made me distinct. It sounds silly, as, for the most part, I never had to face the same problems my parents did, at least not to the same degree. I was raised by conscious Asian Americans who understood the experiences of our identity. Everyone in my family spoke perfect English, I lived in a comfortable neighborhood of mostly liberal white people, and the worst racism I had to face was only microaggressions. But my identity as an Asian American never felt empowering or even benign, only su ocating. Even as my name was frequently mixed up with the Chinese exchange students by teachers, I feared that my Asian-ness would take over who I truly was, transforming me into nothing other than a faceless Asian body.

Saying I wanted to be white would be a stretch, but I certainly wanted to be colorless, able to blend into the racial background without standing out. In an attempt to assimilate, I forced myself away from stereotypes. I avoided math and science, pursuing the humanities instead. I diverted my musical background from classical to jazz, indulging myself in its freedom. I hung around a friend group of mostly Jewish stoners and musicians in the grade above me. is only led to self-hate, making me look down on other Asians who leaned into the typical Asian American identity.

As it turned out, I found my connection to my identity not through tteokbokki, K-dramas, or even when I visited Seoul and Shanghai. Instead, it came during the pandemic, when I found myself drawn to the growing Asian American political and social movements at the height of anti-Asian violence and hate. It started with Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings, a series of essays that captured my feelings so accurately in a way no other piece of media did. It sent me down a spiral of Asian American literature and essays, as I read through Ocean Vuong, Viet anh Nguyen, and Hua Hsu. Once I returned to in-person school, my outlook changed, motivated by the words and actions of the young Asian American community. Now, at Vassar, I’m taking classes in Asian American History and American Politics to learn more about the history of Asians in America. To my surprise, I’m befriending the people I meet in KSA and Portrait. I’m realizing that I don’t need to push myself away from stereotypes to defeat them.

I’m still not comfortable saying that I’m proud of being Asian, the same way my siblings do. Even now, I still wish I could hide among any racial background, removing what sets me apart. But I know that, no matter what I do, there will always be people who only see me as the color of my skin, my black hair, and my almond eyes. And instead of running away, I want to change and challenge the problem that I accepted as the status quo my entire life. Asian Americans should never have to feel ashamed or hateful of our identity, and I want to join the thousands of activists, educators, and authors who ght for this. And I want to start with these very words I write.

The onigiri in my pocket

Rethinking this beloved comfort food through people’s stories

written by: Sachika Joo | edited by: Emily Tieu

I was born in Hyogo, Japan. My parents lived in Tokyo at the time but were in Hyogo when I was born because my grandma, who lived there, wanted to support my mom and also knew a trusty hospital there. My parents, older brother, and I soon moved to Fukuoka where we lived for about 2 years, then lived in Nagoya until we moved to Colorado. After 5 years of living in a suburban town called Superior, Colorado, where I attended a public K-8 school all throughout, we moved back to Japan. While my dad lived in Nagoya by his workplace and my brother lived in student dorms in Kyoto, my mom and I lived in Tokyo with our beloved dog Leo. It was so that I could attend the middle-high school that I decided to transfer to, Tokyo Gakugei University International Secondary School. It is a public school that is attached to Tokyo Gakugei University, a university for fostering teachers. It isn’t a conventional international school or a conventional public school in that most classes were in Japanese but about half of the student body had lived abroad for a few years at some point in their lives. I attended there from ages 13 to 18, graduating there amidst covid restrictions.

Since then, I have been studying at Ochanomizu University, majoring in sociology and minoring in psychology in the Social Sciences and Family Studies department. I am currently at Vassar as an exchange student from August 2022 to May 2023.

Before I start with the interviews, I will briefly promote my home institution Ochanomizu University (or as we students call it, Ochadai)! What I love about Ochadai is how I get to be surrounded by other motivated and thoughtful women and choose my classes flexibly with an extremely high probability of taking all of the classes you want to take (unlike private universities, where certain classes are disproportionately overenrolled and many students lose the lottery). Thirdly, I love that there is a nursery, elementary, middle, and high school, all affiliated with Ochadai, within the Ochadai campus. I get to see cute children go on little walks around the campus during the daytime and there are opportunities to gain first-hand knowledge or real-life experiences in education classes. One of Ochadai’s initial goals was to not only increase women’s access to higher education but to also foster more teachers, so its characteristic of having attached nursery to high schools has historic roots. The start of Ochadai dates back to 1875, when it was established as the first government-funded university to provide higher education to women, although under a different name. To this day, it is one of the only 2 public/ national all-women’s universities in Japan, the other being Nara Women’s University. If you are interested in studying abroad in central Tokyo (which will be mindblowingly fun), whether it be during the summer break (men are eligible for Ochadai’s summer programs too) or for a spring semester or an entire school year, you can look up “Ochanomizu University” on the Vassar website or consult with Associate Director of the Office of International Programs!

城尾紗知花 Sachika Joo

20!

illustrations by: Eunice Loh

Ami lived in Kyoto, Japan until starting university at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, Japan. She lived independently in Tokyo during her university years except for during her year-long study abroad at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, starting the second semester of her junior year.

Aoi was born and raised in Australia until age 2 between Japanese parents. Subsequently, she lived in Sendai, Japan until age 7, Chiba, Japan until age 8, and Singapore until age 13. She visited Japan every year, either in winter or summer, during her time in Singapore. Then, she transferred to a middle-tohigh school in Tokyo and lived there until age 18. Since then, she has been attending a university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and visiting Japan at least once a year.

I met Ami online (in fact, I don’t think we’ve actually met in person to this day) through a professor at Ochanomizu University who assists with and coordinates exchange programs. In getting ready for my study abroad, she kindly provided me with a lot of helpful information. For example, I asked her what the dorms at Vassar will be like, what I should bring, and how to attain an English immunization record (I actually direct messaged her freaking out about not having my immunization record ready 1 or 2 days before my flight departure to NY and I had not told my parents at that point, so thank you for bringing comfort amidst the chaos).

I met Aoi when I transferred to Tokyo Gakugei University International Secondary School in the middle of middle school, a semester after she transferred there also. Initially, classmates would say that we look alike (which we don’t really agree with anymore but there exists that one selfie where we actually kind of seem like sisters). We were always close friends throughout high school, but interestingly, I feel that we became even closer since we went our separate ways in college with her in the states and me in Japan. She’s my go-to and I cannot be any more thankful to have someone who I feel so at ease with and who adds so much fun to my life.

大谷碧 Aoi Otani

20!

Hidemi lived in Tokyo for the majority of her life, excluding the times when she lived in Moscow, Russia from the middle of her first year to the third year of middle school due to her parent’s work and in Poughkeepsie, New York when she studied at Vassar College as an exchange student for the school year. Currently, she is back in Tokyo, continuing her education at Ochanomizu University.

As with Ami, I also met Hidemi online when my professor introduced me to her as someone who could help me with preparing for my study abroad at Vassar. We also have not met in person (but hopefully we can change that and have lunch or something once I go back to Japan). She gave me thorough advice on helpful items to bring, such as tick-repellent bed sheets, and items I can probably just purchase once I arrive. She also calmly helped me out while I was freaking out over immunization records last minute, offering to send forms that might be of use.

Karen lived in Osaka, Japan, until age 10 and then in Brazil for about 6 months. Since her grandma lives in Brazil, she visited Brazil during the holidays, every summer and sometimes winter when possible, during her time in Osaka. Afterward, she moved to Queens, New York, and has been living there since, except for when she lives on campus at Vassar during her school days.

I met Karen through Portrait last semester. She was assigned to be my designer for an interview piece in which interviewees are asked to reflect on their Asian identity. I really love her artwork. It’s funny because for some reason we never spoke in Japanese during the fall 2022 semester when we were working together. Then, at the first or second Portrait meeting in the spring 2023 semester, I was telling her about my potential writing piece idea. Within my English sentences, I pronounced the names of Japanese dishes in Japanese. Then, she brought up that she can speak Japanese, and there was a flash of excitement of meeting another person I can have full conversations with in Japanese. Since then, we’ve been speaking in both languages.

最上佳連

Karen Mogami

22!

三瓶秀美 Hidemi Sampei

21!

I chose to write about onigiri for this piece because it is one of the foods I miss the most living in the states during my exchange program at Vassar. I still remember when my friends made onigiri and invited me to have them one weekend after I repeatedly whined about craving plain white rice and how much I miss onigiri (Gaku Aihara and Ricky Kurosawa, thank you so so much). It made my day because it was nice to wake up to something I was craving for a while.

Onigiri is a simple, portable, and delicious source of energy, a staple for many Japanese people and their everyday lives. Onigiri is made of steamed white rice formed into an intact triangular, cylinder, or ball shape, and usually wrapped with nori seaweed on the outside. The name onigiri comes from the verb “握る (nigiru)”, which means to mold/hold/squeeze, as onigiri is made by molding rice with hands. The roundly shaped nature of onigiri (and their common covering of common plastic wrap, aluminum foil, or other materials) makes for easier mobility and the outer nori allows people to hold it without touching sticky rice while eating it on the go. They are often made at home to be packed for their children, friends, or themselves, and can also be purchased in pretty much every konbini for less than 200 yen (less than 2 dollars).

While some people may prefer a simple lightly salted white rice onigiri, people put different kinds of fillings in the middle of the rice for more nutrition, flavor, and variety. Popular fillings include shake (salmon cooked and salted), tuna mayo (tuna mixed with Japanese mayo), mentaiko (spicy salted cod or pollack roe), konbu (seasoned kelp, which is often used to make broth), ume (sour and salty pickled Japanese apricot), and okaka (bonito flakes seasoned with soy sauce). These fillings tend to be well seasoned because the saltiness and other seasonings help to preserve the rice while it is being carried around in different conditions. In addition, people also mix seasonings, such as furikake, and/or other ingredients, such as shake, konbu, seaweed, edamame, and cheese into and throughout the rice.

Sometimes, people cook rice with those other ingredients for dinner, and shape the leftover rice mixture into an onigiri form. Also, there are unique variations such as yaki onigiri, which have crisped-up soy sauce on the outside, tenmusu, which have tempura inside, and spam onigiri, which have sliced spam and egg, more common in Okinawa. More recently, there have been various new creative ideas to spice up onigiri, such as incorporating cooked and seasoned meats, mixing in pearl barley, or even putting inside an entire nitamago (marinated soft-boiled egg, often served in ramen)!

Onigiri has always been a staple, but since my freshman year of college at Ochanomizu University, I began eating onigiri more often again, especially the 赤飯 (sekihan: rice, usually glutinous rice, cooked with red beans) onigiri. The chewy texture of the rice, the cozy flavor of red beans, and the subtle salt and black sesame seeds on top… it’s just so addicting. Anyways, I started buying onigiri more often as a college student, because I had started buying my own lunches, and onigiri were a portable, yummy, and easily accessible source of energy.

If you go to a コンビニ (konbini: convenience stores located everywhere that sell foods and other everyday items) in Japan, you will never not find a decent variety of onigiri, and they are always delicious, well packaged, and really affordable. During my winter holidays at home in Tokyo, Japan, I ate white rice and onigiri pretty frequently. By the time I came back to Vassar after winter break for my spring 2023 semester, onigiri and rice in general had become essential to me. My recently developed affection for onigiri inspired me to write about them in this piece. Looking back, I have a lot of memories with onigiri prior to recent days. During my childhood years in Tokyo, Fukuoka, and Nagoya, I was often served and enjoyed 給食 (kyushoku: school lunches provided every day in public elementary and middle schools in Japan) on school days. I’m pretty sure my mom made my brother and me onigiri for school occasions that required on-the-go lunches, such as 運動会 (undokai: annual school event where children and their families gather to participate in or watch a series of sports games/physical activities) and 遠足 (ensoku: learning excursions to places such as zoos and parks).

When I moved to Colorado at age 8, I brought onigiri for lunch to school the first few days. I remember feeling alienated because everyone around me either got school lunch or brought prepackaged food or sandwiches, and my peers reacted as though they had never seen anything like it before. Maybe, they were just curious about a new kind of food but did not know how to ask about it in a neutral way (neutral, as in not acting like you’re examining an exotic animal at the zoo, type of way). Later, in my second year of high school, I remember coming back to Japan from a school trip to Vancouver, Canada in my second year of high school, and having onigiri bought from konbini with my friend Aoi first thing at the Narita airport. We were laughing because she was struggling to get the onigiri out of the packaging and it was just such a nice moment of getting to eat onigiri after a trip abroad where we only ate non-Japanese food.

interview responses

How frequently do you have them? In what settings do you eat onigiri?

Frequency of consumption varied from person to person, starting at about once every 4 months up to every other day. Also, it usually varied between different phases in each interviewee’s life. For example, Ami, Aoi, and Karen mentioned that they rarely ate onigiri during their time at U.S. universities, less frequent than their average of about every other day, every 4 months, and twice a week, respectively.

There was some overlap in the consuming settings. Ami and Hidemi recalled eating onigiri after their extracurricular activities pre-college in tennis and nagauta shamisen, respectively. Ami reminisced about bringing onigiri that her mother made or bought at konbini to tennis matches. Hidemi ate onigiri from konbini when she would get hungry after her nagauta shamisen club practices. Additionally, several interviewees answered that they had onigiri while traveling, such as Aoi on the 新幹線 (shinkansen: bullet train) and Karen at the airport, both of which I can relate to. Further, some responded that when they were younger, their parents made them onigiri as a part of their お弁当 (obento: packed lunches for school days), including Ami, Hidemi, and Karen. There were distinct answers also. For example, Ami explained that she brings onigiri to the dining hall on the Ochanomizu University campus. Further, she told me that the Japanese language fellow at Vassar, Mizuki Yoshihashi, made her delicious onigiri. Hidemi told me that in middle and high school, she would sometimes buy onigiri from konbini for lunch. This was when her parents were both busy with work and would hand her about 500 yen in cash to buy herself lunch (I remember sometimes doing this too). More recently, she brings onigiri to go hiking, which is often with her hiking club, and occasionally alone. Karen told me that she recently always makes onigiri for herself whenever she goes out to picnics or the beach.

Do you associate a specific memory or event with onigiri?

If so, can you describe it or me?

Personally, this was my favorite question. Most respondents started with a “Hmm…” or “うーん” (the Japanese equivalent of hmm). Interestingly, most respondents reminisced about a memory involving interactions with other people. For example, Ami told me about how her mother would experiment with a wide range of variations when packing her onigiri and gradually learn what she liked. Her mother prepared various common fillings but would also wrap the outside with eggs or meat. Hidemi shared a similar experience of enjoying the onigiri varieties that her mother made. She recalled that her mother made her onigiri for undokai, an annual school sports event. She would get excited to find out which filling each onigiri was, as they were all entirely covered in seaweed. Also, Karen told me about the time when she went cycling on Governors Island with family friends and ate onigiri that their mother brought. It left an impression on her because their mother brought an onigiri with spam inside in a rolled form, which was different from her usual fillings and round form. Lastly, Aoi and I took a trip down memory lane talking about our shared memory at the Narita airport after our trip to Vancouver. Neither one of us remember what filling we each got, but we were laughing together.

What is your favorite onigiri?

The most common answer among the interviewees was tuna mayo, upheld by Ami, Hidemi (when she was younger), and Karen. Besides tuna mayo, Aoi cited the sweet and salty shoyu (soy sauce) flavor for liking the konbu variation the most, along with the shake variation. More recently, Hidemi currently likes mentaiko because the salty flavor of mentaiko goes well with the sweet glutinous flavor of rice.

Also, I did a quick survey on my Instagram stories of people’s favorite onigiri fillings and why. There were 30 responses in total. Interestingly, two respondents had different answers for store-bought and homemade onigiri. The most popular answer was ume (sour and salty pickled Japanese apricot), with 8 proponents with varying reasons for liking it. Second, shake (cooked salmon flakes) was chosen by 7 people. The third most popular was mentaiko (spicy salted cod or pollack roe) and tuna mayo with 4 supporters (although one person answered tarako, which is the non-spicy equivalent of mentaiko). Less common responses were wakame with 2 votes, as well as okaka, ikura, nitamago, and konbu, all with 1 supporter.

Reasons also had varieties and similarities. For example, ume was liked for being refreshing, sour, energizing, “you can’t go wrong with it”, pairing well with rice, or making rice less likely to spoil thus relieving. Many answers included the relationship between the filling and the rice, saying that their favorite filling tastes good and goes well with rice. This illustrates how foods are viewed differently when it is incorporated into onigiri, that onigiri can be a point of “rebirth” for foods that are used in it.

Do you eat (the ingredient of the filling) on its own or in other dishes? And if so, how are they prepared?

Regarding tuna mayo, Ami answered that she eats tuna and mayo together in tuna salads, which have other vegetables, such as Japanese mustard greens. Hidemi answered that the only times she eats tuna and mayo mixed together is on sushi, including the temakizushi (hand-rolled sushi) form. Karen also talked about how she sometimes eats tuna mayo in temakizushi, as a side option. [Note: Typically, when having temakizushi, people can choose and load whatever and however much toppings they desire and roll the seaweed, rice, and toppings into a bouquet shape. People prepare different kinds of toppings on the table, including various raw seafood such as tuna, crab meat, ikura (salmon caviar), and tuna mayo and other additions such as cucumbers, shiso leaves, and natto (fermented soybeans), and tuna mayo.] Aoi told me that she does not eat konbu on its own or in other dishes very much, but that she eats shake in other forms. She mentioned eating tuna on its own as sashimi (raw fish served with soy sauce) or grilled salmon. Hidemi answered that she eats mentaiko with pasta. To make mentaiko pasta, she mixes butter, pepper, and mentaiko with boiled pasta. She also sometimes relies on prepackaged mentaiko pasta sauce.

Where do you get onigiri? Do you make them? Do you have someone make it for you? Do you buy them from somewhere?

There was variety in the details, but for the most part, most interviewees tended to have a parent make them onigiri when they were younger and purchase from konbini or make them themselves more often as they got older. Also, onigiri is not easily accessible everywhere. Store bought onigiri was not an option for interviewees during their life outside Japan.

What would you say is the biggest difference between that ingredient in an onigiri as opposed to other forms? Do you notice a difference in the way that the ingredient tastes or makes you feel or the experience of eating the ingredient in onigiri as opposed to other forms?

Ami expressed that tuna mayo stands out the most in onigiri than in other forms. She mentioned how tuna mayo balances well with rice and that tuna salad holds well in onigiri, unlike tuna salads which can get watery.

Karen told me that tuna mayo is the main character in an onigiri, whereas it is the secondary / supporting character in temakizushi. She explained that when she bites into a tuna mayo onigiri, she anticipates and looks forward to the tuna mayo, wondering “When will I reach the filling in the middle?” (I relate to this so much). On the other hand, when having temakizushi, she chooses other prominent toppings such as raw tuna for her first few rolls before reaching for the tuna mayo topping.

Aoi described characteristical and contextual differences. She explained that shake is typically in a flakey form in an onigiri, unlike other forms. Also, she noted that when she is eating tuna in other forms, she is usually at home, but that she tends to be traveling with onigiri.

Hidemi told me that mentaiko onigiri is good on its own. She remarked that she has to add butter and pepper when making mentaiko pasta, but that there is no need for additional ingredients in mentaiko onigiri.

Although not mentioned as their first and foremost difference, all interviewees agreed when I asked if there is a difference in convenience. Since I had to bring up convenience myself instead of it coming up naturally, it seems that onigiri transforms the ingredients of the filling into something more portable and convenient, but in a secretive and unnoticed way.

What is onigiri to you?

This abstract question seemed to be a struggle for most interviewees (and honestly, I would need a moment to think of an answer as well).

Ami told me that to her, onigiri is a source of 元気 (genki: energy, vitality). She explained that in addition to being a good source of nutrition, eating onigiri energizes her mentally, from within. Aoi prefaced her metaphorical response with “This sounds kinda cringy but…” and began to explain why onigiri is like family. At any given moment, regardless of whether she wants to eat onigiri or not, she knows that onigiri is always there for her. They are always readily available at konbini and can be easily made at home. For example, although she does not talk to her brother often, she knows that he is always there and is open to talking if and when she wants to. Similarly, onigiri is always there. In a similar yet different way from Aoi, Karen expressed that onigiri is a comfort factor in her book. Once you have made or been made onigiri before leaving the house (as she does with picnics, beaches, and airports), it is comforting because you know that you wouldn’t need to purchase other things. By having onigiri with her, she does not have to worry about or have to resort to buying foods she does not necessarily want, like pizza slices, which are more accessible in New York where she is located. Lastly, Hidemi expressed that onigiri is a delicious food that becomes special when made by someone’s hands. She notes that when an onigiri is handmade, you can tell that it was made from the heart, which delivers you warmth.

Meet the designers

Eunice (24) is a dreamer before anything else. As an urban studies Junior, Eunice loves to try new things, appreciate the beauty in the little things, and aspires to uplift others. Eunice also loves watching films and re-watching her favorites. (Her current record? Parasite - 9 times) If asked, Eunice loves to cook with and for people.

I met Eunice during the first few days of the spring 2023 semester. She is also an exchange student, from Yale-NUS in Singapore. Vassar places almost all exchange and transfer students in the same area of Cushing, so that is how we got to know each other. Honestly, I don’t remember much details about the moment we met, but I enjoyed doing schoolwork in the piano parlor of Cushing while talking about random things and doodling on deece paper cups and plates together. She has shown me her works on Blender and they are extremely cool!!

This is Tina (19). She’s a history major at Vassar. She likes carrot cake, earl grey, lounging in bed, and walking around campus. She does not enjoy windy days, humid days, going to the dining hall at 6:30pm, and in person written essay exams. Tina always buys two kombu onigiris and a Oi Ocha at Katagiri Grocery before getting on the Metro North train back to Poughkeepsie. Tina highly recommends this grocery store (it is very close to Grand Central).

I met Tina in one of the Rocky classrooms during Japanese speaking lessons. Tina takes Japanese class 5 days a week (from 9:30AM!!) and I’m her instructor for weekly 30-minute afternooon drill sessions where we practice speaking Japanese. She is always eager to improve her Japanese and learn more about its real-life quirks, which I am always happy to elaborate on. It was really funny when we were talking in the hallway after our drill session and this random guy woke up from his nap in a random classroom. Also, she is planning to study abroad in Tokyo at Ochanomizu University next spring, which we are both super excited about!!

Behind the scenes...

Eunice was sick on our last day of editing... so our last day was asynchronous

Character Sheet

written and designed by Mia LaBianca edited by Alyssa Gu

I’ve moved away from half-elves.

Instead, I’m with the tieflings, demonic and feral; I like that they’re approachable, misunderstood, and cool, and hot. But the half-elf is still there, behind the page I stare at the Player’s Handbook.

Some people think infinity is an arrow shooting towards a tree, ever halving the distance forever never— they don’t get that sometimes, twice as much is nothing at all.

So I am unsettled, and it comes down to me to choose. I know I am something, and does it have to be one of them?

In 2004, my mother and my father had a child with chubby cheeks and thin brown eyes. This is all that I see.

And I remember what my mother once told me, when I asked her for the infinity-th time what I looked like to her, Asian or White, and her answer had changed. She had looked at me, considering, and said, “You look mixed.”

And her words rang in my head, and I looked in the mirror And I did.

Idream of chrome gleaming under neon lights, cities that glow under the night sky, and an era of innovation and discovery. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that the cyberpunk genre is something that fascinates me. The genre holds a mirror up to our anxieties about technological progress and how easily we can forget why we fear the future. There’s a problem with the genre though, one that intrigues and repulses me in equal measure. That problem, of course, is how Asians and our relation to the future is handled.

It’s a new era of orientalism, described by many as techno-orientalist. Where orientalism casts us as knowledgeable of deeper truths and unsettlingly unknowable, techno-orientalism dresses us up as emotionless harbingers of the digital age. We’re no longer mystical and mysterious in ways that gave birth to the Ordo Templi Orientis and Theosophical Society. Instead, our influence is felt through Blade Runner and the looming corporations of Night City1. We traded the silk robe for the satin suit, and our mystique now lies in code and pop music. How many people call tech support ‘magic’? How many people at the same time associate tech support with Asians? How many Asian pop stars have been described as ‘cloned’ or the industry called ‘machinelike’? Similar perception, different era.

So often, these visions of a future lit by neon lights are images of a fallen West. It’s almost like the rising of an Asian star spells the doom of the rest of the world. Technological superiority is the terror of the day, and we get to be the heralds of the cutting edge. Or, well, we’re seen as such. But, perception is just as powerful as reality (or might be reality, depending on who you ask), and we’ve been wounded by it either way. Cold cruelty with a touch of the ‘esoteric’ is attached to the old and new perception. We are made out to be machines capable of processing calculations en masse, playing music with precision, and denied from college for not being ‘likable’ enough. All the while, people gawk and wonder ‘how can they do so much?’ I wonder, did we become the model minority because of these expectations, or did these expectations appear because of this?

With this in mind, I’m not too sure that the Aeon of Osiris1, the aeon of patriarchy and dying gods, deserves to keep on going. Referencing Aleister Crowley wounds my soul, but sacrificing my pride is fertile ground for playing in the mystical or technological.

Jack Parsons, a rocket scientist, mystic, and incredibly early participant in Chaos Magic3 (without even realizing it); once devised the Babalon Working4 to bring about an era of the material, liberation, and passion. There’s quite a bit of analysis on the topic, but, to me at least, it’s a celebration of embracing what is denied and seen as abominable. The working is said to have failed, and Parsons quite literally blew himself up some years later. But, there is something beautiful in it regardless of its outcome.

Believe in it or not, there is a lesson here. Mystical, technological, and beyond, why shouldn’t we embrace what we’ve been assigned? Instead of allowing ourselves to be called abominable, what if we co-opted it? Why shouldn’t we make our exalted position as high priests and priestesses in the cathedral of screens and data our own?

I don’t see any reason not to. There is a power in naming things, in claiming things, and in becoming things. The era of the model minority, the pallbearer of the West and herald of a technological future, can meet its end at our hands. The Babalon Working can be one of our own minds, and it can give way to an era where we stop being told what we are and take control of the narrative.

This isn’t a nihilistic moment of rage against stereotyping; this is a metamorphosis. The future gleams like chrome and steel before us, and the glow of the neon lights is an invitation to us - to the world. The future could be so sweet if we’ll allow it. If we make it so.

I dream of chrome under neon lights. I dream of an age where technology isn’t intertwined with stereotypes that root themselves in magic. In this new, networked aeon, we can be arrayed in fluorescent color and adorned in screens and precious knowledge and data, holding in our hands a chrome cup full of innovations and progress of our unabashed hope.

1. The fictional city and main setting of the Cyberpunk franchise.

2. A period of time imagined in the religion Thelema that centers on worship of a patriarchal god and is said to span the classical age to recent times.

3. A newly developed mystical practice that focuses on using personal symbols to alter the inner world.

4. A Chaos Magic adjacent project given that he designed it himself using a book by Crowley meant to mock oter magicians.

photograph Stephen Han

my ticket and went up. My parents were watching me going up. The escalator was very slow, and they stayed anyway.

I was not looking for a place for myself, not anymore, but I started to get tired of my dyed blonde hair. One day, my friend took me to a magazine meeting, and I felt strangely relieved to see so many people with dark hair. They understood some parts of me. Some understood my language. Some preached my religion. Some understood that parents brought you cut fruit because it was love. Was it home? No, but it sure felt nice.

I thought that the moment I brought my favorite coat from home marked history. It was always too heavy and took up too much space in my suitcase, but I was not running or living on borrowed time anymore. I was just living here.

The barista in a nearby coffee shop learnt my usual order. She also knew me by the name Estelle. At some point, I just figured that saying my name was Estelle was much easier than explaining where Kazakhstan was for just a matcha latte.

Every Wednesday, I left the same building and walked the same path to my house, and I always met the same boy. One day, there was no awkward “Where are you going right now? Can I walk with you?” anymore. We just walked together and talked. My body fit perfectly in the space next to him. After four years of run-ins, there were no more accidents. This was my space now.

People fall in love when they feel safe. I heard my friends talking to their long-distance boyfriends every night. Loving someone from home seemed easy. It meant never having to lose parts of yourself in translation. The real moment that meant I could stay here was when I came home wearing his borrowed coat.

People always said that I would meet someone when I did not expect it. “Love always catches you when your guard is down.” Could I believe that my guard would finally be down? After years of loneliness, confusion, filling out documents I did not understand, getting lost on subways, and getting lost in brands of detergent, I finally felt safe here. I felt so safe in this strange country that I would even risk heartbreak.

Here he was, a person who did not remind me of home, not even a bit, but I could fall asleep next to him. Somehow, complaining about my day in English was not so exhausting anymore. He never pronounced my name right (he wanted to learn), but it did not bother me anymore.

I fell in love, I became an exposed wire. No armor, no shield, no fake smiles. I wanted to be as much me as I could. I was carefully unveiling every part of myself, whispering “Do you still love me” and holding my breath until he smiled. I dusted off parts of myself that I threw away overboard to stop my ship from sinking in foreign seas.

I didn’t have the strength to put the armor back on.

I remembered I was once shiny and better and alive.

This was how I knew that

Now I come home from dates with him, I hang the borrowed coat in my closet, I brush my black hair while giving my friends a verbatim account of the night, and I drink my favorite brand of tea from my favorite cup. I’ve had this cup for four years already.

I am home. I am not really home. I think I will actually never be home again. Pieces of my heart are forever scattered around the world, but I can build a life here.

Take the first deep breath. Open your eyes, your heart.

photograph Stephen Han

jay chiu, writer

taylor gee, writer and designer tina ni, editor

Taylor Gee: Like so many other great ideas, this piece came out of a spontaneous discussion and a TedTalk. In Barbara Sher’s “Isolation is the dream-killer, not your attitude,” she highlights achieving impossible dreams begins with voicing the dream and what’s preventing you from it. With graduation comes new beginnings with perhaps new dreams. Inspired by Sher, Jay and I sought out three seniors to chat with. Each conversation began with What is your dream? What is your obstacle? What follows intertwines our dreams and experiences with our interviewees.

Taylor Gee (she/her)

Jay Chiu (he/him)

Arshia Iqbal (she/her)

Sophie Wood (she/her)

Kai Yung (any)

Jay Chiu: Ever since I was little, I’ve always had dreams of becoming someone important in the world. I’ve always wanted to be a rock star who mesmerized the world with my voice, but as I got older, my goals became more realistic. is is why I resonated with Sophie Wood when she talked about her “unrealistic” dream of becoming an actress on Broadway. She talked about the lack of roles for POC and how it was hard to nd Asian representation and role models on Broadway. She mentioned how even at Vassar, the reality of the drama department was that most of the shows featured white characters in white-based shows.

TG: It can be overwhelming when people ask me what I plan to do a er graduation. I don’t really know what I want to do, because I’ve never really had career aspirations. In Kindergarten, I remember drawing a picture of myself as a teacher, but nothing much came out of it. at’s why I’m so impressed with Arshia Iqbal, who has dreamed of being a writer ever since she was little. In many ways, I think she’s currently living her dream. Wedding Scraps, Arshia’s thesis play, went up February 24th and 25th with great success. ough, her big dream is having her own TV show. When asked about her obstacles, Arshia answers “myself.” And oof, I felt that one. Finding time to write wars with FOMO– there’s a balance in dedicating time to working towards your dreams and enjoying life in the moment. I have a lot of admiration for people with long-standing dreams, but not all dreams revolve around a career.

JC: Kai Yung dreamed of becoming a video game concept artist in high school. However, Kai was confronted with the harsh reality when he saw the tuition cost of art school. is along with the low prospective salaries of video game concept artists, changed the path that Kai embarked upon as he entered college. However, in the end, he believes that being happy and ful lled just means being in a healthy and loving relationship, a job with a salary you do not hate, and just being open to new experiences in the world. Of course, there are things that he would want to do, like being a niche Instagram fashion icon. But that is just a side quest in his journey through life. Not necessary for ful llment and happiness.

TG: In addition to Kai’s criteria for “happy and ful lled,” I want to continue creating and making things, having a close support network, and traveling to new places. As for obstacles, they pose the question: What is an obstacle? He grapples with “distinguishing an obstacle from part of the journey.” If life is this straight track and the dream is the nish line, “ e whole distance is an obstacle.”

“I would chase my dreams if only I could believe in them”

JC: When we face the world and the obstacles that are in our way, we can keep charging onward or shi our goals to meet more realistic standards. I do not think that this is a sad or bad thing. I do not think that we are settling because our goals were unrealistic. Our goals are just milestones that we set for ourselves when we are striving for ful llment and happiness. We make decisions in our lives and we make compromises due to our circumstances. I would love to hold on to my “unrealistic” dream but I keep asking myself if it is smart or even worth it to go down the uncertain path. I would love certainty and safety but am I settling for less because I am afraid of failure? ese are all questions that we ask ourselves and there is no right answer. We just choose a path and live our life. I admire both people who never give up on their dreams, no matter if they ultimately achieve their goals or not. I also admire people who come to terms with reality and make the best of their situation. We just do the best we can do and continue with our lives.

TG: Dreams are ever-changing. For Arshia, currently it’s enough “to be able to write my stories and have people like them. ere’s nothing concrete in what kind of writer I want to be.” Kindergarten Taylor wanted to be just like her favorite teacher, but current Taylor dreams of taking her (hypothetical) black tripod cat on walks about the park. My dream tells me that I want the stability to care for another living being, to have a good enough work-life balance to teach my cat how to walk on a leash.

JC: Now, my goal is to have a stable, stress-free life where I can work to make the lives of the people around me better. But who knows, maybe I’ll become a rock star one day.

Credits: Clouds by Shutterstock user grop. Cat by Freepik. Font by Gartype Studio and hptypework on dafont.

Paper Plate Full Moon

Written by Serena/Soren Liu

Edited by Lucie Ai

Designed by Jill Wong

I finally feel pretty now, and what of it? I need more stories. I need more than the stories my dreams bring to me. I need to make up my face all perfect and then transfigure into something else under the full moonlight and rip up the pretty girl that isn't me. Something else with claws and hair, and hair— I wish I could grow so much hair (hair to cover me, envelop me. Hair on my legs and arms, hair to kiss my belly)— and tear that pretty face apart.

Sunset brings with it the taste of bitterness. I am alone, so I cry out into the ethernet, into the fiber optic cables, their roots snaking deep underground. I want to chew them up and spit them out. Look down and watch the moonlight bounce off my tiny rat claw nails so pearlescent.

Dig and dig and dig with my little claws searching for something so elusive so whole in itself. Yes, yes there it is: a perfect pizza crust, yes, yes. Chewed through to where your lips' ghosts can meet my raccoon teeth and nothing else matters. I am kissing you, critter to human, and you don't even know.

The rabbit in the moon palace watches me and we are free from your human notions of beauty. Girl beauty, boy beauty… I don't care. I am rabbit beauty and my eyes glow so bright red under the midnight sky. And I let the wolf know it's time to howl and wake the neo zodiacs and we will sharpen our claws and fangs to rip your face while you sleep, girlboy boygirl, and you can join me in the moon palace and be so far away from it all. And you can stop feeling so uncomfortably weightless because weightless you will be!

Random Thoughts

Written by Minkyo han

Edited by Janus Wong

Designed by Miranda Liu

I had to say goodbye to my friends. a bittersweet goodbye- bitter because i loved my two friends i had in korea, sweet cuz i hated my fucking school, hated the place, and was so ready for a fresh start. i had paid a visit to my future home about half a year ago to take my entrance exam to this high school, but i did not know a single thing about this place. i am entering unknown territory. the day after i land, without even any time to unpack, i get on the school bus. i was expecting a yellow bus, as one fantasizes, but it’s a big brown bus that spelled my school’s name in chinese - 中心学校. i come with high hopes, only to realize that it would be the same.

my mom sent me to a summer golf camp. i don’t know what my other friends were doing, maybe visiting family in essex or vacationing somewhere in the suburbs of england. golf was boring, but someone made it fun. i was probably 7 and he was 15. my tiny self at that time thought he was so old and mature, but looking back he was a regular teenager himself. his blonde hair and lanky body, the way he would tease me and play with me, but only because i was a baby in his eyes. at the restaurant, i would ask for the same thing he got, in front of everyone. i asked to change golf teams to be on the same side as him, betraying my own brother. how confident and reckless i was back then, i could never do the same now.

my mom had just bought me this bright blue puffer vest. she was so excited for me to start middle school. my korean literature teacher told me to take it off on the first day of class. apparently it was too disturbing and i shouldn’t wear bright clothes to school. i still have it at home, untouched for years.

my friends and i run around in church. Eunsoo nuna is always in charge. she assigns to everyone who gets to be who. one week it would be avatar-the last airbender, next power rangers and next the powerpuff girls. after church, we would go to nando’s or this burger place, or sometimes this jajangmyeon place, which was the only good korean place in a country full of fish and chips and beans

after school, i would go to 텬고 with my friends, our favor ki place right outside of school. we order a regular tteokbokk um spice level and afterwards we get rice topped with cheese. around aimlessly for the remaining 4-hour-long tutoring classes. my mom made me go to these classes every day, hoping I would get into one of the best high schools in the country. she regrets it now.

maybe i knew all along this would happen. i would come to a foreign country, a country i have only dreamt of, all by myself. i overpacked two big suitcases, filled with clothes, electronics, skincare products, and plenty of underwear - they told me to bring these because apparently Korean ones are better and also cheaper. the 14 hour flight almost killed me, but i arrived. i was abandoned on the floors of jfk, waiting for the school pick with no cell, no internet, no nothing.

ex-friends.. i have so many of them i think i’m doing something wrong. the day before the SATs that i’ve been practicing for for weeks, two friends called me saying they couldn’t do the senior page with me. they said they have too many memories they made before they became friends with me. understandable, but couldn’t you just wait a day to tell me? my hands wouldn’t have been uncontrollably shaking during the test, or maybe i was just nervous anyways.

as soon as i found something real, it disappeared. i was holdin until i had no strength to even let go. how naive i was to giv my everything only for it to be nothing. i kept looking for som ilar, adjacencies, and synonyms. but as ’real’ and ’authentic’ don’t mean the same thing, i was only to be disappointed. now i’m left wit water and no plant to give to.

dimsum dates with my mom were my favorite thing about shanghai. two barely chinese-speaking koreans trying to order a shrimp scallion pancake, a shanghainese fried rice, and shrimp & pork shumais. my mandarin was slightly better than my mom’s, so i would always order. at least i knew the important words like 虾, 猪, and 面 so i could point to the menu items, but still, google translate was my best friend.

on sundays, my dad would drive the entire family to grandma’s to go to church in ansan, an hour away from where we lived. i hated waking up early and going to church where i knew no one. but grandma would always make me my favorite 닭도리탕, korean spicy cxhicken stew, which helped me get through the long long day of god’s blessing and repentance. once we settled into our new neighborhood, we stopped going to grandma’s and found a new church. i liked that it was a 10 minute walk away, but i missed seeing my grandma every week.

push, push! grandma visited england for a month or two. i didn’t know how to ride a bike back then, even the tricycle ones would scare me, so my 7 year old self nagged my grandma to push me down on the streets and keep me safe. grandma would always recall this story, saying i kept shouting ”pushi, pushi”. her korean pronunciation of push makes me laugh all the time. i wish i could remember this moment more clearly.

ntil i, or you, probably we, got sick of it. and tired and anxious and overwhelmed. feelings replunge.

est bit, i think of the worst case scenario that could ever happen in detail. if my friend says they’re about to board the plane back to new york, my anxious ass thinks about the plane crashing, my friend dying, and their family crying over the phone with the police watching the breaking news from cnn. i attend the funeral with all their friends and family, wearing a black dress suit. i forget if wearing a tie is disrespectful or if i randomly made that up, so i do a google search. i vaguely know how funerals work in korea. you get down on the floor and bow to the deceased, burn a candle thing, give the family an envelope filled with money, and eat food that they serve, while the adults also drink and sometimes get into alcohol-in duced fights. so i wonder how funerals work here: do they serve food? do i have to give my friend’s family any money? if so, how much? i get too caught up in my trail of thoughts that i realize this will never happen, and this is how i get out of my imaginary world of anxiety. i think of the most extreme impossible, so it cannot ever be possible. i get trapped in this world once again this time, thinking about how things might be in the near future. i think of all the possibilities, the worst ones of course. yet, my imaginary world doesn’t help. the worst imaginations feel too true to be my world of anxiety, more so predictions of the imminent.

i wonder what people think when I post something in my language. do they think i’m too exotic? maybe they think it’s cool that i’m bilingual. am i reminding them once again that i’m different? or do people just not give a fuck.. probably the latter. i’m so wrapped around my inner thoughts of wanting to get along that i forget my own words. this poem too, written in one’s language that is not mine. one’s language so convenient, but oftentimes incapable of conveying my feelings truly.

i did something bad. i actually do it so much, everyday of my life, every second i do it. i am it. every breath i take, i will be it. something bad, and my mom hates me for it. i wish i could undo it, un-be it.

am i too asian, or am i not asian enough? what is the right amount of asian? asianness is difficult for me, most of my life i was never the minority. in england, my tiny pre-school in the suburbs was as diverse as nyc. in korea, everyone was korean and i was one of them, them being everyone. here, i don’t know what i am. can asianness be quantified? i think i’m more asian than my asian friend who doesn’t eat asian food and doesn’t speak their asian mother language, but who am i to measure and diminish their asianness? i always end up trying to be asian, but not too much. i post in korean every once in a while, but i’m somehow embarrassed of my spotify wrapped full of k-pop songs. i make sure everyone knows i’m from korea, but i won’t shove it up someone’s face. it does come with both excitement and disappointment when i match with someone and find out they listen to k-pop. great that you embrace different cultures and music but coincidence? or do they only like me because i’m korean? if i am not my race, would people still like me for who i am? am i even myself if i take out my race? because i am asian and asian is me. i guess i should just keep up with my race so they like me for whatever fucked up fantasies they have, but not too much to the point they find it exotic and unbearable.

honestly xxxxx i don’t think u even realize how much you hurt me.. the way you would say things that make me feel like we are more than friends and then you blame me for feeling how i feel. i actually hate you so much for making me fall for all those words and then turning it on me and saying how my feelings are stronger than yours and all those mean things.. maybe if u didn’t want me to feel that way and express it to u, you shouldn’t have crossed whatever boundaries u made yourself. but also maybe that’s just who u are u say shit that you don’t even mean when u feel like it and don’t care how that makes me feel. i was so willing to give u my everything even if that meant giving up so many things but you clearly weren’t and maybe that’s why it just makes me really sad. but at the end of the day i was being honest with my feelings even if i made a fool out of myself and i don’t know if you can say the same. or maybe you were actually speaking from your heart and i just had a completely wrong perception of the kind of person

renaissance photoshoot

PHOTOGRAPHY / VIDEOGRAPHY:

digital photography Stephen Han 35mm and instant film photography Sharon Nahm videography Christian Wolke

MODELS

Eunice Loh right polaroid, sixth photograph

Ziyi Che center & right polaroid, first & fifth photograph

Katy Wu left polaroid, third & fourth photograph

Alicia Hsu left & right polaroid, second & third photograph

CONTEXT

On 3/27/2023, we invited Portrait contributors to Sunset Lake to celebrate the beauty and richness of our cultures and backgrounds through the medium of photography. The following pages exhibit several of our favorite photographs from this renaissance photoshoot.

behind-the-scenes video footage can be found in Portrait’s renaissance recap video.

रक्त आहे - This is My Blood

Written by Ambica Kale, Edited by Katherine Lim, Designed by Leela Khatri

The image is imprinted in my mind: we went from burning women to burning dolls.

The intelligentsia are no longer shrouded by delusion, I think… I hope.

I see a light through the window and there is a shift in the air Caused by embers, by reverberations created in the depths of Bengali halls, There is a kinship between states, So, there is a shift in the air over here, in my home

As heat begins to spread And sweat covers every inch of skin, It infringes into space, But it never broke our will

For there is power in the flame but also in the word In the print, we willed power –Into the object – a bar of soap, an umbrella Now made by us

By our craftsmen, we reclaim what once was previously lost

And so, the doll was thrown into the fire, a doll once loved But it is foreign, and doesn’t share the same blood as us Its cotton perishes while its owner

A little girl, choosing duty over joy

An iron head-of-state stands tall For this is the blood

That seeped through the veins of those who came before, For this is the blood

Of those who jumped in front of cars

Remains splattered all over the road

This is the blood,

Of those who shook the ground beneath their feet

Earthquakes all around, the seismic endeavor to break free This is the blood that runs through me.

We went from burning women to burning dolls

The rubble of goods, the ashes of elders Soot covered faces, we make our mark

Years from now, they will call our resistance passive Years from now, they will call us supine. But our history is marked with defiance and rebirth And it’ll echo through generations: Carry on through our voices, carry on in our blood.

I see their faces in the flames, Raging with fire, soot covered eyes, I hear the screams in the wind Echoes through hallowed halls, broken ground –Open air.

The light’s aglow I hear the voice

“Arise, arise”

I feel the pain

Marigold flames I hear the voice

“Arise, arise”

Blood streaks down my face.

“Arise, arise And do not stop, till the goal is attained”

The light’s not gone I hear the voice, I feel the pain.

* The smoke runs amok in our present-day stories

For education is dictated by fear

But the intelligentsia will no longer be shrouded by delusion I think, I hope, I hold this thought dear:

That we persisted, we resisted, we reformed And we went from burning women to burning dolls.

You came to my house once, in the summer. We had spent the past week running around your neighborhood, singing songs from musicals in your front room, and eating peeled fruit with chopsticks. No one was ever home, except us. I remember lying on the floor of your bedroom and wondering if it was just me, you, and the crack in your ceiling for the rest of time.

Unsent Text Messages

I love you, Elle, but you’re a snob.

We spent a lot of time being dramatic that year.

At my house, there was a game console to fiddle with and a cool basement to play around in, but we sprawled out on the floor of my bedroom, a mirror to the day before in yours. Just like the day before, we played the similarities game. The rules were simple – name something the two of us had in common – but the concept was formed on the basis of our friendship. You often called us “platonic soulmates” because of how similar we were to one another. Now I think we must have just recognized the same pain, the familiar hunch in the burdens we carried.

I mention one thing about Atlas holding up the sky and then you’re off, going on about misrepresentations and getting lost in translation.

Trust me, I know all about things lost in translation. I know you had good intentions. I should have told you that in the moment, instead of going quiet. You didn’t know I was hurting.

Anyway, we’d been playing the game for a while. On my turn, I said that we both had an odd number of letters in our first names and two-letter last names that began with letters found in the middle of the alphabet, which meant that our friendship was destined from the start. The way I delivered it wasn’t even that funny but you rolled away to laugh your shriek-y, high-pitched laugh, which made me laugh.

Chief Complaint

And then you quieted and turned back to face me for your turn. You said, hushed, “We both do the petal thing.” I remember the initial confusion. The “petal thing” was a game we played during lunch while talking about my crush – he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me –but you had never mentioned anything like that for yourself.

Doctor, fix me, I’m in pain. It’s my back, yes, my back. Here, and here, and all over here. Yes, it hurts when you touch it there, and there, and right there, too.

Doctor, how long have you been working here? I don’t just mean in this hospital–how long have you been on shift? It’s two in the morning. I convinced my roommate to drive me here, and now she’s sitting out in the waiting area half-asleep. Are you tired, Doctor? I seem to feel tired all the time these days, except at 2am when I’m in the ER.

Do you love what you do, Doctor? Be honest with me. Please. My mother says I’ll love it when I become a doctor. She says things now like, “You’re going to be a great doctor,” and “I always knew you would love this kind of work.” I don’t mean to complain, Doctor, but it’s pretty awful to have words shoved into your mouth.

I bet you were one of those kids who always knew, who played with the stethoscope and listened to pretend heartbeats. Parents love your kind, they’re always proud. Choosing the right destiny will do that.

Well, Doctor, I chose a destiny, but my back still hurts.

You said you did it with your mom’s love – “she doesn’t really, you know, say things like I love you, you know?” – because language was hard for her and even though her actions could be loud, it wasn’t the same as being told, you know?

I said, I didn’t know, sorry. My mom says I love you. She says it a lot, actually, like when we say good night and when I cry.

You smiled then and asked, sadly, like you already knew the answer, “Does it make it better?”

And you didn’t need to hear the “no,” before you were reaching out and we were hugging, gangly and awkward, on your bedroom floor.

These days, when I miss that one summer, I remember that hug the most, the way our hurt came together and for a moment was easier to carry.

Miss you.

Why We Broke Up

Here’s something you’ll never know: I cried at your dad’s funeral.

I was late getting there. I’d never been to a funeral before, and I wasn’t really sure what I was doing at this one. We had been broken up for months at that point. I hadn’t spoken more than a few words to you in that time. I didn’t know if you were okay or if you had moved on. I just knew that your dad had died.

I remember stopping myself outside the funeral home, and then again in the doorway to the service. I saw your mom, seated not at the front with you and your brother, but in the back row. You used to tell me about how your parents, banned from dating in high school, would have their dates in the back row of their town’s tiny movie theater. They kept it up, even after they got married and had kids. And here was your mom honoring it one last time.

When you first told me their love story, I went home and told my mother. She liked it. She liked how your parents had grown up in a town we could visit by car and how your dad had raised you to bring a girl flowers and how your mom had raised you to be courteous to other mothers. She liked that you were different from us. I liked that about you too, because it meant you didn’t carry all the weight I did.

And to be fair to you, you did try to help me with it. You asked me lots of questions, about why I was always so worried about failing, why my voice went so high and quiet when I spoke to my family, why I was so angry at that woman in the restaurant, when really, she did nothing wrong?

You never stopped asking those questions. I loved and hated you for it. Don’t you understand? I wanted to scream towards the end. It’s all here, here where it hurts in my neck, in my back, in my arms. I’ve been carrying it for so long all your questions feel like roaming hands too soft to take it – some of it, any of it! – from me. And besides, I didn’t want to burden you with the knowledge of how it feels, to hold the weight of someone else’s world on your shoulders. That’s why I cried when I saw you at your dad’s funeral. Yours is a different kind of weight, but heavy all the same.

Written by Alyssa Gu

Edited by Alicia Salva

Designed by Elaine Yang

You were being nice and it irks me.

What irks me even more is that the situation hardly warrants all the yelling and crying I want to do. But the problem with carrying all this weight is that my body is always trying to get used to all this hurt. Hurt makes me irritable.

I spoke to you in English. I acknowledged your original thank you, the one in English. Did you think I didn’t understand? Did you want to be nice? Do you want a medal for your work in connecting with an alien girl?

You meant no harm. Maybe that’s what makes it so bad. That you meant it with all the goodness in your heart, and I still feel like I’ve been spat on.

“Wo ai ni” is another one. My mother never understood my hurt. “I say ‘I love you’ in English!” she’d say. “What’s the difference?”

One year, me and my best friend at the time liked to be melodramatic. We would call anything a “chasm”–a chasm of want, a chasm of emptiness, a chasm of pain.

A chasm exists between you and me. Sometimes, I fear, an even bigger one lies between me and my mother.

“SHYEH-shyeh nee”

Icarus

Thank God you’re the eldest daughter. I could never do it. There’s a reason I spent so much of my life trying to copy you.

Even now, I steal all your good jokes and ideas. Once, you compared yourself to Icarus, set afloat by parental sacrifice, flying ever so close to the sun, but this time, never falling. That last line–you made me cry.

If I was a better younger sister, I might have left my compliments at that. Maybe added an “I love you” at the end. But I have never been a very good little sister, so I’ll take your best idea for mine.

I love you, my Atlas who holds the weight of the sky.

I worry one day your fingers will slip, and I won’t be able to help. I worry about how you carry more than me, and I can only just handle mine. Mostly I worry about how you’re still standing, when I still can’t lift my head high enough to see ahead.

The truth is, I saw you once, the only time you’ve ever sunk to your knees. When I saw you, I thought of a character I’d read, who wore the scars of their trials in a gray stripe in their hair. By the time I made the connection, you were already on your feet. But I remember. It was all gray.

I know what I have now, too. When you see me, don’t be mad. Don’t cry. And don’t try to take it away. You carry your burden, and I will bear mine.

Maybe I was meant to be your copy. In other words, your companion.

The therapist you didn’t want me to have at first says that I should talk to you more. Not like the daily, check-in text messages we send or the brief exchanges on the phone, but the kind of talk that first requires both of us to change. You’re neutral on the therapist now, and I’m talking to a void named you. The therapist has asked me why it is so difficult for me to say how I really feel to you. I’m reluctant to answer the truth, which is that you won’t understand, because then she’ll ask me how I know that. That is a question without an adequate answer, in the same way that when you look at me, you fail to find any adequate answers about your daughter.

Why? You’re always asking me. Why can’t you stand straight? Why don’t you do more? Why won’t you call?

I tell the therapist, my mother doesn’t understand me. The therapist says, okay, is there a reason why you think this?

Because my mother gave me all this love. There’s so much of it, it crushes my neck, my back, my arms under its sheer weight. Everyday it grows. Everywhere, I ache. My mother loves me, and it hurts.

I say to the therapist, never mind, I guess I’ll try it.

To you (the real you), I say, I’m fine, how are you?

I say, I have to go, talk to you later.

I say, Goodbye now.

(Okay, goodbye.)

(Call me when you finish class.)

(I love you.)

Written by: Eaint May Edited by: Brian Chun Designed by: Gracie Chang

It’s a weird feeling coming to terms with the fact that I am my parents’ child.

It’s in those moments when I catch myself closing myself off from the world like my father does that I realize that I can be daddy’s little girl. Just like him, I find myself turning to TV, beer with friends, and an occasional punch in the wall for distractions from my thoughts. Running away from reality only to run into the wall of repressed emotions and problems. I know I am somehow just like him when I want to be cared for without showing that I care. Waiting for phone calls from my mom is something we both do even though we both know talking to her is the last thing we want to do.

It’s in those moments when I catch myself saying things people want to hear that I realize I am no different from my mom. Untrue to self, unable to draw boundaries, and people pleasers, you know what they say: like mother, like daughter. When I find myself fantasizing about the touch of someone who is not my partner, I know I am the product of my mother. Drowning in the intoxication of infidelity and immorality and unable to escape. The only difference between me and her is that I have managed to keep my head above water but she has completely sunken, with an anchor attached to her foot.

It does not help that I see them when I look at myself in the mirror. My eyes look just like my father’s with their piercing dark orbs but soft gaze and my cheekbones raised high just like my mother’s. My nose flattens out when I smile the exact way my mom’s nose does when she smiles. My eyebrows are the same shade of black and arched and unruly just like my father’s. My body curves out the same way my mother’s does: wide shoulders, wide hips, and thick thighs. I hear her criticizing and judging her body when I look at mine in the mirror.

I know I will grow into them even more as I grow up. My sister is a prime example. She refuses to move anywhere from her overpriced apartment in Dupont Circle just like our father refuses to move out of his parents’ home that he has lived in all his life. She is a split image of our mother in a maxi dress, our mom’s favorite casual attire.

My brother is even worse. His disdain for our parents is made apparent by him at every family reunion, but the moment he starts his long rants of judgments of other people, his similarity to not only our parents but our whole extended family jumps out of him. His eyes, wide and almond-shaped like our father’s, get wider and wider the longer his rants go on. His similarity to our father becomes even more apparent when he starts listing the many regrets of his life in his 27 years of living: “Why did I go to a liberal arts college?” “I should have majored in Econ.” “Why didn’t I start piano younger?” “Why was I born into his family?” Although he is able to list his regrets sober, unlike our father who needs some beer and whiskey in his system to speak about his emotions, I can’t decide which is more tragic.

We all learn from our parents. The lesson I have learned from mine is that I don’t want to be like them. Although my mother’s business-savviness and my father’s diligence inspire me, their other traits don’t redeem themselves.

Good people but horrible parents, I am still learning to understand how their lives turn out the way they did.

writtenanddesigned by Lavanya Manickam

(her) to you: a love letter.

An interview with Zoe Mueller

What is important to you when choreographing a piece? What physical aspects do you consider, but also what emotions do you hope to convey?

editedby Kiran Rudra

How has beingAsian Ameri c a n , a nd y o u r d i s t a n ce/proximity to whiteness , shape your e x pe r i e n c e b e i n g a da ncer?

We a r e t a l k i n g a b o u t r a c e a nd perception H o w , a s a da n c er. e v e n i f y o u d o n o t c o n s ci o u sly engage with y o u r A s i a n identity, it is w h a t i s f i r s t p e r c e i v ed about you wh e n y o u a r e o n tha t s t a g e Z o e s h a r e d wh at it felt like to e x p e r i e n c e t his firsthand, du r in g h e r s u m m e r a t t h e S anta Fe Oper a .

…

Our theme for Portrait this semester is Renaissance. To me, Renaissance means beauty and revitalization, which I believe is present in both dance and being Asian American. How does this theme present itself to you in both of these worlds?

photograph Sharon Nahm

Snapshot of Me – My Thoughts

너 뭐 되세요? What are you? May I ask why you decided to conduct the self-interview?

Written by Wyejee(Sara)Jung

Designed by Tala

Edited by Tina Ai

빼며) 네? 뉴진스의 하입보이요.

(Taking off my earphone) Excuse Me? Oh! I’m listening to Hype Boy by NewJeans. Sorry if you are not familiar with this meme (It’s a surprisingly powerful answer that one can use anytime.). Well, it is not like I’ve had this planned for a long time to leave a record of the beloved me during the Spring of 2023. Simply, I just thought this would be fun! As I have grown older, I think I was able to diversify my thoughts, perspectives, and emotions from encounters with various people, locations, and foods. Recording them as I recount them sounded very meaningful.

Let’s get started with something light-hearted. What is on your mind lately? Are you addicted to anything?

가볍지 않네요. This is not light-hearted at all. I almost said what I want to do after graduation but, in reality, I know that’s not true. I simply think about what to do each day or what foods to eat (if Deece has anything I like). I’m severely addicted to YouTube. But now that I’ve realized, I’m trying to cut it down. (After a month, I’m still “trying” and I feel bad for even using the word “trying.” Am I really trying? Well…).

You mentioned that you’re (MAYBE) working on staying away from YouTube. On the topic of attempts and efforts, is there anything you are working on today as you did in the past?

Many things have changed, including my environment, values, and goals so far. They’re still changing and continue to have an impact on shaping who I am. So, it’s kind of hard to compare what I’m working on now versus before (especially when yesterday’s me and today’s me could be very different on one hand). The first thing that comes to mind is embracing myself as I am. Loving myself is so hard, and I’m still struggling. (인생에

There is not a single thing that is easy in life, even though that’s what makes life fun and interesting.) However, I know that it’s a required step to have some kind of flexible mindset in life - I could react totally differently or interpret the same thing in different magnitudes and directions depending on myself. Of course, many things are out of my control including, many times, my mindset, haha. Another thing is that kindness is very powerful. This was the message from “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which quickly became the best movie of the year for me (Yes, I only watched it in March 2023). I’m writing too much here but, anyways, if you see me forgetting things I’ve said here (which will probably be many times), please kindly remind me of what I said here so I can at least behave better at that moment.

What are some things that you have had changing feelings towards over time? Specifically, what is something that you disliked in the past but now love, something that you liked in the past but now hate, and something that you like to this day?

One of the biggest things that brings me happiness and motivation is food, so I’ll answer these questions based on my relationship with food (and it’s not that I’m lazy to talk about other things, not at all!). disliked → now love: tomato sauce pasta, mushrooms + I still don’t love peanut butter and eggplant, but I can tolerate them now. liked → now hate: I’m very forgetful of things that I don’t like. I’m sure I’ll remember one after I submit my answer. Liked → still like: grilled pineapple, 잔치 국수 Janchi-guksu = Korean (banquet) noodle soup

How would you define the following words: happiness, adult, studying, vacation, and future?

뭔가 확확 바뀌네요 The topic changes very quickly. Not that surprising, knowing who wrote these questions. Anyways, I’ll do my best to define these words:

- Happiness: 잡기 쉬운 듯 하지만 또 어려운 것이요. It’s something that feels both easy and hard to grasp. If I’m too focused on something else, I might miss it. On the other hand, if I try too hard to hold onto it, it seems to slip away like sand through my fingers.

- Adult: I used to think that being an adult, like a college student, meant being a very mature person who could handle everything efficiently and not use bad words. However, I’ve learned that this is not necessarily the case. I still make many mistakes (too many), use bad language sometimes (especially when I’m alone in shower or on bed), and use words like 그냥, 짱, 대박 oftentimes. But I’ve gotten better at presenting a more polished version of myself (maybe) and justifying my actions and feelings, particularly regarding procrastination and escapism (It sounds terrible after I’ve written it down here.). Anyways, to me, being an adult means becoming a more flexible person with better problem-solving skills and the ability to differentiate between things that are in my control and things that are not. I think/hope I’m getting better at it.

- Studying: It’s a learning process that seems to be 80% fatigue, procrastination, distraction, and difficulty, and only 20% intellectual, physical, and mental growth (Don’t ask me too deep a question like: don’t the former qualities lead to the growth of the latter?). Although these percentages may vary from time to time, the growth definitely accumulates over time. There was a time where I thought studying was the easiest. Not anymore though, because I’ve learned that it’s a 엉덩이 싸움 or depends on one’s stamina. It’s like a battle of wills. I know I should prioritize building up my physical strength to study better, but let’s be honest, that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon!

- Vacation: I used to see vacations as something that would just come to me while I was waiting around. Now, I realize that I need to plan and prepare for them in advance (at least to some extent) = 기다리다

보면 언젠가 오는 것이었는데. 이제는 (어느 정도라도) 내가 만들어

- Future: Many times, I felt like the first sentence of the next chapter of my life had already been written. I used to look forward to taking the next step, whether it was going to high school or college. However, now that I’m graduating (and yes I’m bringing this up again because I can’t believe I’m graduating already), the next chapter seems blurry and uncertain. I’m worried, but I also believe that it’ll sort out somehow in the end.

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. How did you find the interview process?

예상한 대로 흘러갔나요

Did it go as you expected? Would you like to share any final comments before we end the interview?

더 이상

말할

게

없었는데 다행이네요.

I was running out of things to say. I’m relieved. Thank you. Overall, I found the interview process to be challenging, as I was forced to confront my thoughts and articulate them clearly. 생각만큼 재미있지는

I don’t think it was as fun as I expected! I tried to write down what I have in mind honestly, but there’s a high chance that I’ve lied somewhere here. Despite this, I appreciate the chance to take a closer look at my own “everything everywhere all at once” thoughts and organize them into coherent sentences (I hope). As for my final comments, I would like to express my gratitude for the chance to participate in this interview to come up with the questions. Thank you for your time and attention. You did well, and more than enough!

Bye! Bye!

감사합니다.

않았어요!

i don’t think my dad would tell me if he had cancer. this isn’t speculation. overworked thoughts lifting up ridiculous, maybe obscene questions

he wouldn’t, and he tells me so every week i laugh, out of habit, why are you telling me this now just so you’re prepared, and it’s heartbreaking and kind of funny

my dad is a butterfly and i am a worm grubby dirt under my fingernails i remember when he got his arms tattooed

black ink on his tan skin, this tiger will keep you safe i think he meant the tiger on his forearm, and him the tiger i sometimes wish i could turn back the clock

before more hair was white than black before his wrinkles deepended like valleys before i realized he was old and i was older

old enough to take care of myself?

and that one day the tiger won’t be here anymore and it will just be me, the worm isn’t that funny? isn’t that heartbreaking?

but i think we’re both back where we started i’m back to burrowing down into the dirt and he’s flying and flying and gone.

leslie lim

edited by kiran rudra designed by sharon nahm

written by: janus wong illustrated by: tori kim edited by: tina ai

“If we were in an ice age, would we still need to descend to earth? There wouldn’t be any flower spirits to take care of, would there?” Chione wondered.

“Of course you’d have to! You’re a snow nymph! I’m pretty sure snow falls to earth regardless,” an exasperated voice rang out. Only then did Chione realize she had thought out loud again. Flustered, she said, “I just thought it’d be nice to stay in the clouds forever, although the Fall does sound pretty cool.”

“With all your fantasies, I’m sure you’ll have a great time down there,” the snow nymph said. “It’d probably be the opposite of cool though. The earthlings have baked too much heat into our habitat. At this rate, we’ll probably end up in a fireplace.”

“But fireplaces are warm and cozy! Wouldn’t it be fun to befriend a fire fairy?” Chione countered, fishing from her memories a videogame about ice and fire that she had overseen from an earthling’s place.

“You’ll melt in a fireplace! Like a toasted marshmallow! You can’t survive in that heat! Do you have a death wish?” the nymph exclaimed.

“I mean, I don’t,” Chione said in a hurry. “I was just wondering, you know, what would it be like to feel some warmth?”

“Personally, I wouldn’t want to find out.” The nymph said and leapt into the next passing cloud.

What would it be like to feel some warmth? The heat had always been a taboo topic for snow nymphs, but there was something about that delicate flicker of fire that had always captivated Chione. Since marshmallows look like clouds, perhaps they’ll also be wispy and fluffy, maybe with a hint of charcoal, and what if they taste just like home—

Chione snapped out of it with the incoming turbulence. Oh well, it was just another normal day of daydreaming completed by some snow nymph’s disbelief. She knew her imagination could not be stopped even if she had willed it to. It was just who she was. Head literally in the clouds, all Chione ever wished for was the ability to create and explore her dreams. It’d also be nice to have someone join her, but most of the other snow nymphs were too preoccupied with what they could achieve when they descended to the earth.

The process was what earthlings called “the first snowfall.” To the nymphs, however, it was a rite of passage that would allow them to fulfill their responsibilities on earth - to care for flower spirits they were matched to in their dying days. Up in the skies, everyone talked about how life on earth was going to be a snow nymph’s prime time, or a time when one would accomplish the greatest things in their life. As much as Chione found the idea intriguing, she often wondered whether her experiences on earth could compare to warming up by a fireplace. If fulfilling her duty meant giving up the many possibilities she could imagine just by sitting in her cloud, how great could it be?

Khloris knew he was near the end of his days. It’s been a good life, he thought, taking a moment to think about all the creatures he had befriended on earth.

The countless rain spirits he had encountered in the tepid summer months came to mind, for their lives were so very short-lived and sacrificial. He remembered the brief moments he had spent with the few rain spirits who had sought rest on his leaves, when he had listened to their fears about what they were set to do. Even with his consolations, they had always found it difficult to muster up the courage and take the leap into the soil. Instead, they had clung onto his leaves desperately, refusing to accept what was to come. Eventually, they had found themselves drying up under the sun and were forced to make the descent.

This was the procession of life as Khloris had known. He found the rain spirits’ call to purpose admirable, but he was also frustrated with the anguish some of them faced. Though he understood their powerlessness, he also wondered if their time on his leaves could have been more restful or even carefree. After all, he was very much a pit stop for them, and if there was anything he could do for their sacrifice, he had hoped they’d felt somewhat safe and comfortable. But what could he do? He was just a passerby in their lives. And so, at the end of his days, he could only wish for his snow nymph to live a fulfilling life. He could see how difficult it might be for the rain spirits to live for themselves in mere days, but for the snow nymphs who have several winter months on earth, something had to be done.

The descent to earth was smoother than what Chione had expected. She’d previously heard rumors of how bumpy it could be, with cheeky wind spirits and other cloud colonies in the way. Perhaps it was because the snowfall occurred when the sun was high up in the sky. Despite the smooth-sailing descent, Chione’s landing was far from graceful. She tripped on what seemed to be a rock, and before she knew it, she was tumbling with full force down a steep incline, halting only when she hit a dead-end that let out a startled yelp.

Her eyes widened at the sound. She pushed herself off the ground and frantically brushed the dirt off her dress and hair, all while struggling to make out who she had bumped into amongst a field full of flower spirits and snow nymphs who seemed to be matched already.

Her head snapped back when she heard someone clear their throat behind her. “I’m sorry I ran into you, I lost my momentum and—”

“Hey, take a breather okay? Don’t panic, you’re fine.”

She was taken aback by the smooth, honey-like voice of who she had bumped into. it was starkly different from the crisp, airy tones she had been used to as a snow nymph. This must be a flower, which means we’re matched now.

As she blinked away the dirt from her eyes, she was finally able to make out the flower spirit in front of her. The first thing she noticed was his short, silvery white hair and gray eyes. For a moment, she felt like she was staring into the eye of a storm, an inexplicable sense of peace creeping into her despite the unfolding chaos around her.

Chione was snapped out of her trance when the flower cleared his throat. “The name’s Khloris,” he said, averting his eyes all of a sudden and offering his hand out for a handshake. “You bumped into me, so I guess we’re matched now.”

Chione squeezed her eyes shut as a wave of embarrassment flushed through her. What kind of impression did I just give my flower spirit? And to a leucojum? A summer snowflake? She had always admired the leucojum, for unlike her, they had the ability to survive during the hot summer months.

Taking a deep breath, Chione stretched her arm out to shake Khloris’ hand. He only nodded slightly as he took her hand, clasping it tight in the handshake. Chione felt a shiver run up her spine. Here it goes.

Khloris had thought he was prepared for a snow nymph to enter his life by the first snowfall, but when she tumbled in all of a sudden on that clear winter morning, he realized he could only expect so much.

The original plan was to sit the snow nymph down the day they arrive and tell them that they could, and they should, go off and explore earth instead of taking care of him. But when he spoke with Chione, there was something about her childlike demeanor and timid rambling that quite literally froze him in place. He couldn’t bring himself to deliver a serious message to her. And so he decided to avoid her.

Day after day, Khloris would leave his homebase early in the morning and return late at night. Most of the time, he would go on solo walks to admire the new scenery. Other times, he would meet up with some of his other flower spirit friends and their snow nymphs. It was interesting to see different levels of closeness his friends had developed with their snow nymphs. Many had business relationships: The nymph would tend to the spirit’s home base, and the pairing would not talk about things that were irrelevant to the nymph’s caring tasks. It puzzled Khloris how these flower spirits seemed to take their snow nymphs for granted, as well as how the nymphs were perfectly comfortable with delivering their duties. What he found most confusing, however, were the tight bonds a few of these pairings had formed. What’s the point of becoming inseparable? The end is near, and the least any flower spirit can do is to give their snow nymph room to explore what they want to do in their remaining days.

The best way to do so is to avoid her. Maybe she’ll find something to do outside of her typical caring tasks. That way I won’t have to confront her.

It didn’t take long for Khloris to realize that things rarely go as planned. Every day, Chione would be spotted perched on his stem in some sort of trance as he returned home, and she would only break out of it upon seeing Khloris. It was almost comical how she reacted each time—she would always fall off slightly from the stem, before she scrambled back up, clinging on for dear life in the most sheepish smile, scrambling for words as she tried to explain what happened, all while slowly sliding down to the ground.

“Sorry, you startled me!” she said once, plopping on the ground in front of Khloris. “I was thinking about toasted marshmallows!”

“Toasted marshmallows? Won’t you die with that much heat in your mouth?” Khloris was bewildered. He did not imagine her daydreaming in her free time.

“Dying from a toasted marshmallow would be a sweet and noble death!” Chione spluttered. Khloris could almost feel her make all sorts of hand motions behind him frantically. That’s endearing. Then she said, “I’ll survive a toasted marshmallow in my imagination.”

Khloris turned to look at Chione. He wasn’t going to say anything more, but at that moment, he felt his petals droop slightly at the sight of her sulking. His mouth gaped open, searching for the right words to say.

Then, all of a sudden, Chione’s head snapped back, her eyes crinkling in laughter. “I was just messing with you! Don’t worry about it!”

Once again, Khloris was frozen in place by Chione’s words. A sudden warmth flushed through his cheeks. Okay, so this is the game we’re playing. “Well, you’ve got to bring me into your imagination some time, or how else would I know whether you’re just bluffing about that marshmallow?”

“Anytime.” She flashed a toothy smile and moved past him. Khloris was stumped. It wasn’t like he had never dealt with cheeky flower spirits ever, but to have a snow nymph leave him speechless in his own house?

After that day, Khloris felt like something had shifted in the air around them. He didn’t feel like avoiding Chione as much anymore, instead, he felt obligated to one up her cheeky comebacks. It was a friendship that leapt across stages of small talk into neverending bickering, and Khloris found himself spending more time with Chione at home, hooked by her latest ideas. Even so, he still wondered why she preferred staying at home to exploring earth. Yet with this thought came his struggle between giving her more space by avoiding her versus sharing her dreams, something that Khloris found comforting himself. And so, he shoved the thought to the back of his mind. For now, he would indulge himself in her dreams.

From tumbling into Khloris to settling into a new form of living, Chione had been overwhelmed with all the things she had to get used to. To cope with the change, she shut herself out from befriending Khloris or exploring earth and resorted to a comfortable spot on the porch, crafting the most elaborate storyline in her mind of time travel and the midnight sun. Truth be told, as much as Chione enjoyed being with her thoughts, she couldn’t help but feel lonely each time Khloris left the house. The temperature at home always dropped several degrees along with her mood, and even as a child of winter herself, it began to feel a bit too chilly. This all changed when she embarrassed herself in front of Khloris a second time (the first being her grand introduction on the day of the snowfall). It was the first time the two had a full-length conversation, and when looking back on that day several weeks later, Chione could only remember it by a feeling akin to warming up by a fireplace. The temperature at home seemed to go up several degrees, and a voice at the back of her mind told her that Khloris was this fireplace. It would be nice to toast marshmallows near it.

Gradually, Chione noticed that Khloris stopped going out often. Awkward silences at home were replaced by lighthearted bickering. What warmed Chione the most was how Khloris would always only look at her in awe when she talked about the most abstract of ideas, something she had never experienced back in the clouds.

“Have you heard of the butterfly effect? Or chaos theory?” Chione said in the middle of one lazy afternoon.

“Yeah, I have. Something about how the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings could create small wave currents that might propel a big event, like a tornado. Why?” Khloris said. He tilted his head sideways, slowly sitting up from the sofa.

“I’ve always wondered why they call it chaos theory. It’s just an unnecessarily dark term for something that doesn’t have to be dark. Great outcomes can come out of random or unpredictable behavior!” Chione exclaimed.

“Well.” A pause. “Have you heard of the alignment chart?”

Chione was not expecting that response. With all the time she had spent prying on the lives of earthlings from her cloud, of course she had come across D&D. Even so, she was at a loss for words. She knew where the conversation was heading to, but she also could not wrap her head around how Khloris’ mind worked.

“Are you trying to say we can have a butterfly effect that’s chaotic evil, chaotic neutral, and chaotic good?” Chione squinted at him, holding back her widening grin.

“Why not? As you said, the butterfly effect doesn’t necessarily have to be bad. Likewise, chaos doesn’t have to be something negative.”

“In that case, there must be a rainbow-colored butterfly!” Chione put her fist on the table dramatically. “That has to be chaos in its purest, most beautiful form! A kind of chaos that brings only good news!”

Khloris seemed intrigued. He opened his mouth but closed it immediately, lost in thought. “It’ll fly in with a disharmonious anthem, but once it lands somewhere, the dissonance will come together into a perfect melody.” Chione said. She closed her eyes and could almost hear a lone tune somewhere in the howling winds high above. Head in the clouds, she was only brought back to earth when she heard the crescendo of a sweet, melodic humming. She turned around, making eye contact with Khloris as he fell silent in a deer-in-the-headlights moment.

“Something like this?” Khloris said. He smiled sheepishly, his eyes crinkling up. And once again, Chione was at a loss for words. Growing up in the clouds, she had always sought someone to have these discussions with. Never had she thought she would find them on earth. At that very moment, she felt like the snowfall had made everything fall in place. Even if it meant she was losing touch with the chilly atmosphere she had been used to, it meant she was orbiting closer to the fireplace she had dreamt of. She felt a warm flush creep up her neck and flood her face. This must be how toasted marshmallows feel. And if she were to melt from consuming a toasted marshmallow, or if this sweet death were to be her greatest accomplishment on earth, she knew she wouldn’t mind.

Khloris felt weaker as the months dragged on. Instead of going out energetically as he did in the beginning of winter, he found himself making the conscious choice each day to stay at home to rest. The voice at the back of his mind also never failed to remind him that he was making this choice for reasons outside of his failing health, but he silenced it by focusing on Chione’s tinkling laughter. After the winter solstice, however, he started suffering from migraines. The voice at the back of his mind also became harder to control. It was at moments like these that he recalled the conversations and encounters he had with the rain spirits during summer. The procession of life had never felt as palpable as it did during the depths of winter. It is the transience of life that gives reason for making every moment worth it for oneself. Every time these thoughts flooded through his mind, he would, coincidentally, see Chione doing something clumsy from the corner of his eye, and his petals would droop a bit lower. These were the times he would be reminded of how he had wanted to avoid her when they first met. But what has come out of that now? Why do I feel the need to share all her stories? Why can’t I give her the space she needs to make her life worth it?

He didn’t realize he had let out a long-drawn sigh until he heard Chione clear her throat.

“You’re drooping,” Chione said.

Khloris didn’t know what to say. For the many times the snow nymph had driven him to the verge of losing his vocabulary, he had always found a way to fish out a witty reply after mild hesitation. But this time, utterly consumed by the pounding thoughts in his head, he didn’t want to dance around the subject anymore.

“I’m not going to be here for long,” he said. A pause. “Well, I’m not going anywhere for as long as you’re here.” She said it so very softly that anyone else would have missed it. But Khloris would not. He could not. He felt his heart wrench at the thought of her, along with all the potential she carried, dissolving into the void along with him on the eve of spring.

“You know you’re going to leave with me, right?” Silence. The temperature in the room dropped several degrees. The gentle wintry glow around her faded slightly as her face fell, her eyes gazing at a spot in between her bare feet. It was then that he realized she was clueless about her fate.

“You’re going to leave with me very soon, and so will your dreams. All of them, unless you leave them on earth.” He didn’t know how he mustered the courage to break the news to her, but as he had started, he felt like he couldn’t bring himself to stop. He took a deep breath. “I befriended these rain spirits in the summer. They knew that inevitable death was their fate. Yet I always wondered how they could have suffered less had they decided to make the most out of their time here. Sometimes it’s not about accomplishing something greater than the self. Your species, and the many spirits I’ve met before, have always been about fulfilling some greater purpose, but what about yourself? There’s so much to see outside of this meadow. You’ve got to live for yourself before you leave earth.”

Khloris felt drained after his speech. Somewhat anxious of her response, he resorted to staring at an undefined spot off her left shoulder as he sat up from the sofa.

After an excruciating silence, Chione said with conviction. “I just told you that I’m not going anywhere for as long as you’re here. Dreams last forever.”

An overwhelming, prickly warmth started rising up Khloris’ chest. It felt so unfamiliar that Khloris had no idea whether he was going to be suffocated or energized by it. His instinct was to fight against it.

“How can your time with me compare to the possibilities you would achieve if you lived for yourself? There’s no forever for you or me. That was why I tried to give you space when we first met.”

“Why are you insisting that I do that?” Chione snapped back. The warmth that initially flushed through Khloris’ cheeks subsided immediately. He held his breath.

“Who are you to say that there is no forever? Or to say what should really matter to me? Of course I care about my dreams and other things bigger than myself, bigger than you, bigger than my supposed purpose. But it hurts me that you can’t see how all of this includes you. It hurts me that you thought giving me space, or whatever it was, was what I even wanted, when all I ever wished for was for someone to share my dreams with. That’s what matters most to me.”

Her eyes were tearing up now, and Khloris could hear her voice shaking despite her raised tone. The warmth ebbed and flowed. His heart skipped a beat.

“Even if we are to fade away soon and the dreams are to become obsolete?” Only after saying this did Khloris realize this was the very first time he challenged Chione in her dreams. Again and again, he had indulged in her wildest abstractions, and he had found solace in sharing those dreams. But this was the first time he decided to lock himself out from the warmth, and he felt his insides go cold instantly.

Chione stuttered briefly before she spoke again. It was as if she, too, grasped what Khloris had just said.

“I like to believe that you are in all of my dreams, and you share all of the ones you’re not in with me. I dream that they last forever. Perhaps they will cease to exist soon, but at least I’d have believed in them. Believing in forever is all that matters.” With that, she stood up and moved past him into the bathroom.

The comforting glow of the setting sun trickled in from the curtains. Is that how she would feel if she were to die as a toasted marshmallow? It would be a slow and agonizing death, but at least it was her choice, and it would be sweet towards the end.

It was then that he realized he had overlooked the very intentions of her dreams, and most importantly, her very being, filled with love, hope, and possibilities. As much as Khloris found it hard to believe in forever, he was once again swept away by her bold statements.

As Chione emerged from the bathroom, the forgiving sunlight had reached its rays further into the house, casting a soft glow on her reddened eyes. The sun’s trail drew Khloris to his feet as he moved over to wrap her in his arms. Chione stilled for a moment before gently snaking her arms around him. The warmth flooded in.

“Can this be forever?” Khloris asked.

“Hush,” Chione said softly. “Close your eyes. Believe in it, even if just for a moment.”

Khloris closed his eyes, burying his head into her hair. “I couldn’t continue avoiding you. You were too warm.”

“Like a fireplace,” Chione whispered, tightening her hold.

“A fireplace?” Khloris asked, running his hand down her back in a soothing motion.

“Mhm. You,” Chione mumbled. The rest of what she said was incomprehensible as she started sniffling.

The pair stayed like that for a long while, until the sun’s rays receded into the night. It was a moment that lasted forever, or so Khloris liked to believe. A moment that would last through that night and the remainder of the harsh winter.

Weeks later, the land is barren with the passing of the snow nymphs and their flower spirits. The cycle of life continues as spring graces the glade.

In the middle of the glade where the snow nymph and flower spirit spent their last days together lies a blooming snowdrop. A wistful yet cheerful birdsong breaks the dawn, as if it is announcing the arrival of something beautiful. Moments later, a rainbow-colored butterfly finds its way to the snowdrop and perches on a petal. Its wings flutter gently as it searches for nectar. The air currents around it vibrate ever so slightly, a culmination of both the butterfly’s current beatings and the remnants of a decision made in the depths of winter.

Spring, rebirth, renaissance. Sweet warmth simmers, and forever ensues.

but i didn’t. i thought i did. times where my ribs punctured my lungs and filled them with tears. in fact, i’ve died several times before you did. but when you died, it was the first time i realized what it meant to be alive. if i died with you, then everyone was right. but they’re not. who are you to me, but a body? this ribcage, nothing but a cage. and i want to snap each piece off, so brittle. it’s not like my ribs have not been mangled to find a home in my (lack of) breath.

i do not know how to stop destroying us. sometimes i wonder how light i would feel once i no longer hold this weight on my chest. my mind and body are unrequited lovers. i stare from across the room, but i’d never have the courage to love them like they were my own. and they would never love me back, anyways. my bones are every locked room i find myself trapped in. you’d only care enough to kill someone you love. maybe i love you. but i do not love this body.

until i do. until this body is no longer the casket i found myself lying in but the hospital bed in the delivery room. i lay here, naked and wet and exposed and crying, dripping from my mother’s cavity. there is a hole left in her body from everything i took from her. i tore her life and her flesh. she lost her body so i could have mine, and i still mutilated it. was her pain not enough? i don’t know if either of us could ever forgive me for it.

i come home from college. in other words, the monster returns to the closet. i look in the mirror and i see fractals. i am both the little boy hiding in bed with his family, and the monster that they seek refuge from. sometimes i look in the mirror and see my abusers. others, i look in the mirror and see all the reasons they abused me. victor frankenstein beckons. i am the unnamed beast, self-made man, torn, mangled, and towering, ready to wreak my havoc. frankenstein and his monster are often confused for each other.

but not everyone saw me as a patchwork beast. there came boys who loved me. and taught me to love like boys love boys: like an ocean. i learned that i could be a boy. not like mutilated monster, but like water. i am a boy in the way water is a lake, but also an ocean, and a waterfall. whatever shape my boyhood takes.

we loved like boys did: in waves. lips crashing like fists, he washed over me, and i was drowning. boys loving boys tastes like salt, sea breeze, dutches, and spf. oh, love me. play me like a piano. suck the marrow out from under me. love me like a boy. love me love me love me. crack me open and drink my milk. i want to be open for you. boys loving boys feels like the sun melting you into a dagger to carve yourself out of the sand. breaking yourself down into something beautifully destructive.

loving girls felt different. softer, more of a tender ache than a thrashing storm. loving girls was melting, not like a dagger but like the glass was once the sand. to be stretched and blown, to i am so malleable under your arms. watch as i take any shape for you. burn me, burn me, burn me bright red so i can forever be altered by your love. a glass blown vase. water fills the vase to house me. as a girl, i took drowning lessons to prepare myself for the future. i did not dare dream of becoming the waves themselves.

but love and bodies have no time. especially with trans love. we just love and i loved outside of my body and outside of this timeline. there are so many ways to love. each love burns differently, made up of different chemicals. sometimes i can still see love that died lightyears ago. my lovers stretch around me like a belt of stars in my universe.

i should have died with you. when you died, they cremated me. now all i am is falling. i do not know what to grasp because i am nothing but dust. did i ever learn to solidify? pick me up and i just fall right through your fingertips. maybe the wind has space for me, but even then, i’ll scatter.

i have taken many forms for my lovers, but when you died, i learned the true joy of being water. i take my own form. i fill this body even though it can’t house me. even if i feel myself dripping out from where i stitched myself up. patchwork beast can be soft, too. i can shed tears from my whole body. i am both the running river of the ganges and the ashes that flow through me.

Artist Statement: As imitative nonfiction, this short piece is inspired by the magical realism of Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez. Intentionally incomprehensible, my writing attempts to romanticize the closure of no “story”. The underlying tone invokes the helpless and precarious sensation of lucid dreaming. Through this abstract approach, I aim to capture the uncomfortable complacency of my privileged experiences as an Asian American adoptee. In the past, I had no racial literacy to articulate this dissonance - a passivity that was conditioned during my colorblind upbringing. Retrospectively, my efforts to assimilate reflected desires to be “normal”. As a typecast perfectionist, I would (un)consciously lean into the Model Minority Myth to claim belonging under the white gaze. Still, the fog of this self-realization is prone to slippage - rendered tenuous by guilt, complicity, and apolitical leniency.

Inhale 1 … 2 … 3 …

Exhale 1 … 2 … 3

Early evening light slanted through the bathroom window, funneling shower steam and winter vestiges into strangers mouths. Perched on the wooden sill, chamomile flowered within the soil spillage of broken pottery. An homage to swimming pool architecture, her feet slipped against the uneven tiles. The perpetual mold of outdoor gloom offered solace from well-lit exhaustions. It was a special kind of soup day — for ripened tomatoes, unlaundered shirts, and a candle’s languid burning. A day devoted to those in need of mending. Although a temporary reprieve, these rituals sacralized the gestures of liminal existence. A placeholder from reality, time suspended on conditional terms - functioning as disposable razors or a single-serve, blueberry muffin. She felt tangible in the gray monotony, satisfied by the brief and quiet joys of fairy toast and imaginary play.

To be rendered in noiseless color, she dutifully read from The Script. Often capitalized, the mythological imperative could be in italics or bolded: a significant font to rest unanchored. Her lines were rote memories since childhood, dulled at the edges from tireless repetition. As if an IV threaded words like embroidery, forcing her to gag on intubated plastic. Spoonfed desires for her aching jaws; the honey soothed, held, and cradled. Enveloped in a shroud for warmth, she remained safety-pinned in surrender … tongue bitten and arms splayed. She pulled at the white fabric that limned her sleep, scraping the callouses on her eyelids. A frayed loose end, her body unspooled as it sank further into a narcoleptic reverie. Her dreams spilled into the damaged excess of blue acetone, subway scuffs, and bruised hairlines.

Exhale 1 … 2 … 3 …

Inhale 1 … 2 … 3

Your / My Favorites

Walking through the Chinese supermarket, I watch 媽媽 as she diligently chooses the 菜 for this week’s meals.「爸爸在 哪裡?」she asks, even though we both know the answer. She grabs a bag of 白菜 before we make our way to the snack aisle. I skip over to him, wanting to know what goodies he’s already got - Hi-Chews to leave in the car, shrimp chips for the ride home, and penny candy that gets left in the pantry until we remember it’s still there every week or so.

Walking through Chinatown, I’m hungry for 皮蛋粥 and 油條. There’s nothing like warm comfort food on a gloomy winter day. After eating, I’m prepared for my favorite part - a cup of 芋頭珍 珠奶茶. I love purple and I love taro and I love chewing on the pearls, as we walk back to the car for our drive home.

The weekend is when I get to watch movies and play wii with my siblings. We sleep in so that means late but 簡單的 lunch - instant noodles. In a big pot, we watch as the crunchy noodles become soft and bouncy before it’s poured into a bowl with a MAMA spice packet, creating orange dotted soup, and all topped off with a 煎蛋.

As the only 春節-celebrating student in my grade, my parents want to share our culture with the rest of the community. My whole class is wearing red; 媽媽 and I wear 旗袍. 爸爸 brought a lion mask for 舞獅 and chocolate coins to put in everyone’s 紅包. We sing「恭喜」and eat 媽媽’s homemade 水餃.

Back again after summer break, I reunite with friends from last year’s class and meet new ones. I’m shy but I socialize well enough and I try to be nice to everyone and I want people to like me. But my eyes are too squinty? He pulls his to mimic me. She laughs and does the same.

It all seemed to happen overnight. Suddenly, it was raining Hi-Chews; people were throwing them from the second floor balcony down into the atrium of the middle school. It was so silly – everyone was trading flavors in class. “Have you had these before, it’s so good! I love Hi-Chews!” “Yep, since I was a kid – my favorite is green apple, but there’s another brand that makes soda ones, I highly recommend.” Before this, I had to go to Chinese supermarkets and H-Mart to find them. All of a sudden, the white kids go crazy and they’re in Stop and Shop?? Who would’ve thought. And in the mall, in the suburban Suffolk County, Long Island mall, there’s a GongCha. Here and there it was “Boba, boba, boba, OMG I loooove boba!” When they got sushi, when they got Chinese takeout, just because – it was like the new Starbucks. And ramen? Restaurants were popping up everywhere… It became so convenient to get a delicious bowl of warm miso broth and noodles – but westernized? Instant noodles lined supermarket shelves and they all had English names or spellings – Top Ramen, Shin, Cup of Noodles. It took some time to get used to small parts of my childhood becoming mainstream so quickly. Wasn’t seaweed disgusting? But now my friends are more willing to try these foods because everyone’s eating it and they’re not just some random dishes and snacks I told them about. I sit at the table, eating with them, happy to enjoy it with them, but how did they so quickly change their minds, did they just not want to be left behind? Then, scrolling through Instagram, influencers were wearing 旗袍 or 旗袍-inspired tops and skirts and chopsticks were in their hair. And their eyes, THEIR eyes, why did they look like MY eyes? The fox eye trend? My eyes are not a trend.

You recognize what you think is cool, what makes you feel “culturally-connected,” what makes you “exotic” for a meal. If you love it and appreciate it, that’s that. I agree, ramen is delicious and long noodles mean long life. But dressing in my culture’s traditional clothing without understanding the importance, the meaning of its existence, just to put it on some fast fashion or even “high-end” t-shirt? We are not a culture of things for you to use at your own disposal. We are not trends for content or clout or whatever it is you think you’re gaining.

I love the culture I’ve grown up with. My Taiwanese and Chinese heritage is something I’ve always been proud of and will share with anyone. And I looove food. It unites me with my family sitting around the dinner table and on the other side of the world. These help to define who I am and seeing people mistreat- ing or disrespecting it is hurtful. Yet, if they understand and recognize the history and significance behind each, it’s merely another way WE can connect.

Glossary

媽媽 - Mom

菜 - Vegetables

爸爸在哪裡 - Where’s Dad

春節 - Lunar New Year

旗袍 - QiPao (traditional Chinese dress)

爸爸 - Dad

舞獅 - Lion Dance

紅包 - Red Envelope

恭喜 - Congratulations (LNY song)

水餃 - Dumplings

皮蛋粥 - Preserved Egg Congee/Porridge

油條 - Fried Breadstick

芋頭珍珠奶茶 - Taro Bubble Tea

簡單的 - Simple

煎蛋 - Fried Egg

Suffolk County, Long Islanda predominantly white area

photograph Sharon Nahm

ALUMNI PORTRAITS

To celebrate the historic tenth issue of Portrait, Renaissance, we decided to collaborate with past Portrait contributors. The executive board reached out to graduated students who were a part of Portrait during their time at Vassar to contribute something, and we are excited to share with you the works from Kara Lu ‘22 (or Father Koi) and Alex Kim ‘21!

edited by: Katherine Lim and Janus Wong designed by: Sharon Nahm

featuring Kara Lu ‘22 and Alex Kim ‘21

Spotlight: Kara Lu ‘22 (or Father Koi)

Introduction:

Kara graduated in the Spring of 2021 with a degree in math and music. She is currently trying to figure out what she wants to do. Kara worked in health tech for a while but is exploring other options. In the meantime, she is releasing her second album: everything is a dream, but it is your dream. It’ll come out on April 14th. Father Koi will be doing a small tour at mostly a few northeast based colleges.

interview conducted by: Katherine Lim and Janus Wong

photography courtesy of: Audrey Gretz

We’re really glad to have Father Koi with us today! Thank you for your interest in the EB Project, and we are excited to learn about what you’ve been up to since graduating a year ago! To start with, can you talk about your new single? How did it come to be?

My new single is called “Silk,” and it came out recently in early February. It’s the last in line of singles to come out before the release of this album. I started writing it around Thanksgiving of 2021. I like to describe it as a song with upbeat production but heavier lyrics. I don’t know how many people listen to the lyrics of my songs, but I’m very proud of the lyrics for this one — I just feel like it encapsulates a lot of the feelings that I was going through when I wrote it. Around winter of 2021 to 2022, I was going through a pretty rough time in a lot of areas of my life, and I was like “yeah, I want to make this into a song so I can remember it.” I was working with my producer Aaron and we both came up with this beat, and then I came up with these lyrics for it pretty quickly, which surprises me because it usually takes me forever to write lyrics, but these just flowed from me. That’s how “Silk” was born. It just felt right.

Katherine and I both listened to “Silk.” I really liked the lyrics. I think there is a lot of emotional depth to it: There are a lot of rhetorical questions and thoughts related to belonging. On that note, we’re just wondering how you think your music has evolved in the past years? It seems that there’s always some sort of electro pop undertones to the songs that you’ve produced before, but then, in terms of lyrics or production-style, how do you think, for instance, “Silk” could compare to “Dreamgirl” or anything from before?

I would say the definite shift in my music was when I was taking an electronic music class at Vassar, actually, with Drake Anderson. I produced and wrote “Dreamgirl” together with this guy I found on SoundCloud, Sev Archer, from a demo that I made in that electronic music class. It was actually an assignment that Drake gave us, and I was like, “wait, I like this sound, I wanna turn this into a song” This was fall of my junior year. Before that, I created a lot of indie bedroom pop—you can hear the difference in sound between my singles “Drown” or “Halloween Dancer”—there are no synthesizers, no 808’s, nothing like that—vs. “Dreamgirl.” Also, I think I’ve always had a love for nostalgia. Honestly, nostalgia is a huge theme of my work, and a lot of the sounds I use relate to the 2000s — those kinds of poppy sounds that I grew up on. But I think one thing that glues all my songs together are its lyrics. I’d like to say they’re honest, and they’re kind of raw at some points, and I like to think that that is a common point throughout a lot of my discography.

I’m someone who mostly pays attention to lyrics, so if I can’t understand the lyrics, I have a harder time connecting with the song. So, that was something I really appreciated because you have really good lyrics and I can feel the nostalgia in your songs. And so, I was wondering, is the past the only place you get your inspiration from? Or, if you need new inspiration, where do you turn to?

Ooh, good question. I think I get a lot of my inspiration from experiences that are happening around me. Sometimes they’re not even my experiences! For example, I have a really old song called “Smoke” that was about two of my friends who were dating each other and then going through a bad breakup. And it was kind of me observing that situation, like there’s a lyric that says, “it doesn’t bother me I’m like a cloud in the sky / watching weeping willows cry.” It’s just like, I don’t have to be experiencing that scenario in order to imagine myself in one of their shoes. I like reading a lot too, so I see a line that I read and I really like it, sometimes it’ll find its way into one of my songs as well.

Thanks for sharing that. And so, just to shift gears a little bit—relating to inspiration and where you turn to for inspiration, we were wondering how you came up with the name “Father Koi.” It’s really interesting and I’m not sure if there’s a backstory to it or what the inspiration for that was.

There is a backstory to it, actually. I think it’s funny cause a lot of people ask me that, and it kind of makes sense, because it’s kind of a funny name. I came up with the name when I released my first debut single, which was 2019 when I was a freshman at Vassar. I was actually in a band. It was a pretty small band: me, a guitarist, and a drummer who were all in the same music theory class. We were thinking of names and I suggested “Father Koi,” and they were like, “nah.” So I was like, “okay, I’ll just use it for my solo stuff.” (Laughs.) But the story behind that name is, I was really into Lorde at the time, and I was reading an interview about how she came up with her name. And she said that she liked “lord” and then she added the “e” to make it more feminine, so she’s using a masculine name even though she’s not a male. I’m the same way, so I was like, “okay, let’s just add father.” Cause it’s kind of funny, cause I’m not a “father,” so I thought that juxtaposition was interesting. The “Koi” part comes from my Asian identity. From what I’ve noticed—and I may not be getting the whole scope of things—but from what I’ve noticed, there are a lot of people who use Asian-sounding names in the music industry who are not Asian. And that just kind of rubbed me the wrong way because there already aren’t a lot of Asians being represented in the music industry. I’d see someone with an Asian name, and I’d be like “oh cool, it’s another Asian person making music” and it wouldn’t be, and I’d just get a little frustrated at that. So I was like, “I want to incorporate that identity into my name and actually be someone who is Asian making music.”

That makes a lot of sense, and it’s a really cool inspiration for that. To talk a little bit about Vassar, and your experience here, we were wondering how Vassar influenced your decision to start producing music.

I think making music has always been a dream of mine that has never really come to fruition until I hit college. Vassar is where I formed my first band; it’s where I honestly first really started singing. Before Vassar, I knew I wanted to make music, but I would relegate myself to the background. For example, my childhood best friend and I would sing together a lot but I’d mostly sing harmonies because I didn’t think my voice was good enough to be heard as the lead voice. I liked to sing, but I didn’t really tap into that until I got to college when I joined my first band and we were like, “oh, we need a vocalist,” and then the guitarist was like “why don’t you just do it?” I was like, “oh, maybe I can do it, maybe I actually can sing” and so that’s when I started to actually hone my voice. The other milestone that I’m thinking of was when “Dreamgirl” came out. That is the biggest splash I’ve made publicity wise, to put it like that. It kind of gave me, not hope, but it was a nice reminder that I could actually do this and I could actually make really cool things from a variety of sounds.113

That sounds really cool because you also mentioned that you took an electro pop class in the music department at Vassar. So it’s great that college is a place where you can explore things you really enjoy. From my understanding, you were also a math major, so it’s really interesting how that came to be as a musical career. At the same time, we were wondering, cause you’ve been involved in Portrait and you were a past Portrait contributor, and we actually worked on a collaborative piece about food from different cultures in spring 2020… Can you talk about your involvement in Portrait and whether that has influenced you in any way right now?

I think that’s something a lot of people in Portrait can relate to… so in the same vein, you talked a little bit about this when you were talking about how you chose your name, but how do you see yourself as a young and rising Asian American artist? How has your Asian identity influenced your musical career?

Yeah, I was not involved with Portrait as much as I would have liked to be… when I was in high school, I’ve never really been involved with an Asian affiliated group, especially one that does creative stuff. However, I think I attended some of the meetings in the timeframe you were talking about, and it was very inspiring to me to see all these creatives who are part of the same identity who want to celebrate that all come together.

I think, to answer the second question, it comes out in unconscious ways. I don’t directly talk about it, but, for example, the lyrics in “Silk,” like I mentioned, they’re more on the loosely relatable side. So I definitely feel like my experience as an Asian American artist could come out in that song through lyrics that are not as direct about it. But in regards to being an Asian American artist, I’ve only been an artist for a couple of years, but it seems to be better than it has been in the past. I remember watching an 88rising video, and thinking, “wow, there are so many cool people here doing cool things, and it’s a space dedicated specifically for Asian people.” I found a lot of cool artists that way. So yes, the space is definitely better than it has been, but things could still be more inclusive—when I jam with people or attend shows I don’t see a lot of Asians there and it would be nice to see other Asians. I guess on another note that has more to do with gender. I don’t think people take me as seriously as if I were a male musician. If I’m at a concert and I say I’m a musician, I feel like the response people give me is a lot different than if I were a man, but yeah, that’s on another note.

Thank you for sharing all of that! I hope you’ve enjoyed our interview. Don’t forget to tune in to everything is a dream, but it is your dream, by Father Koi, out on April 14th, 2023!

the sentiments of the past

spotlight: Alex Kim ‘21

Introduction: Alex Kim, the founder, former editor-in-chief, and former publicity lead of Portrait, graduated from Vassar in the Spring of 2021. Following graduation, she received a master’s in learning design and technology. She is now currently working as a consultant in New York City.

During college, Portrait was my escapism. Portrait was my excuse to get lost in the dusty archives of the VASSAR COLLEGE EAST ASIAN CULTURAL CLUB from the 70s and 80s. But it was also a selfish attempt to leave a mark on campus, my quiet fight against a fundamental fear of being forgotten.

The launch of the tenth issue therefore makes me incredibly proud of how far Portrait has come. If I am being really honest, I am also happy about the possibility that I may still be somewhat relevant to the community that I so loved and cared for.

I am appreciative of this opportunity to contribute to the magazine as an alumna. Just like it did five years ago, Portrait once again gave me the time and space to travel through and reminisce about the past. I invite everyone to my mini exhibition of photos I took during my time at Vassar.

closing spreads Sharon Nahm | closing spread photography Stephen Han, Julia Peng, and Avery Kim | back cover Stephen Han