PORTRAIT issue #5 : fall/winter 2020 ( )connect
cover model Chanata Chaivaivid design Am Chunnananda
Table of Contents
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Offertory Aidan Fry
Gaming Across Generations Arelene Chen
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November 13th: An Ode to Homesickness
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Matcha Green Tea
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Internet Connection
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A Tour of a Japanese Mystery World: Yokai
Dear Stephanie Annie Xu
Ziyi Che
Jenny Yuan
Zoe Mueller
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Elena Furuhashi
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Beauty and Asian American Women Isabelle Paquette
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Abu Vivian Xu
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On Board the Panda Express Johnson Lin
Autumnal Embrace Heejae Jung
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Observing Flames
The Fashion Show That Never Happened Gabor Fu Ptacek
Mason Dao
曖昧 (ambiguity) Kanako Kawabe
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Space Between Tamika Whitenack
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Instagram Assel Omarova Ji Won (Alex) Kim Frances Tian Jenn (Xin Rui) Ong Linh (Klaire) Pham Mason Dao
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Am Chunnananda Jenn (Xin Rui) Ong Karen Mogami Phoebe Jacoby Ziyi Che
Designers Alexander Pham Ceci Villaseñor Joy Yi Lu Freund Lauren Yung Sandro Luis Lorenzo
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Alexander Nguyen Arlene Chen Emma Chun Heejae Jung Janus Wong Josephine Man Kaylee Chow Phoebe Jacoby
Editors Aidan Fry Annabelle Wang Ceci Villaseñor Gabor Ptacek Jane Ahn Johnson Lin Katherine Lim Linh (Klaire) Pham
Annie Xiyang Xu Elena Furuhashi Heejae Jung Johnson Lin Luwei Yuan Tamika Whitenack Ziyi Che
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Writers Aidan Fry Arlene Chen Gabor Fu Ptacek Isabelle Paquette Kanako Kawabe Mason Dao Vivian Xu Zoe Mueller
Emma Chun Jane Ahn Am Chunnananda Ji Won (Alex) Kim Grace Han Frances Tian
Editor-in-Chief Content Editor Creative Director Publicity Launch Treasurer
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illustration Lauren Yung
Offertory By Aidan Fry Edited by Ceci Villaseñor Designed by Lauren Yung
As Isaac walked out of his lola’s house and Renata limped into her bedroom, neither looked behind them, but both were trying to figure out what went wrong. Isaac’s gifts lay untouched beside the old box TV in the living room, and the food prepared by Bikbik in the kitchen had gone cold. Maybe Renata should’ve offered him some. But she figured he wouldn’t have liked it, given the “food” he claimed to eat back on Mars. “Well, not exactly food,” Isaac said. “It turns iron oxide into a sort of protein powder. Like a dietary supplement. It’s not a meal by itself, but it’s still pretty nutritious. You take those sometimes, right, lola?” “Absolutely not,” Renata replied. “I have a cook that makes real food. And not using iron oxide, mind you. Using real ingredients. Where on Earth would I find iron oxide anyways?”
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Isaac thought for a moment. “Rusted metal,” he said. “The brown stuff is iron oxide.” “I don’t keep rusted things,” she said. “I’m not a hoarder.” “Keep it, at least.” He tried to lean the contraption against the glass TV stand, next to the rest of his gifts. “I’ve already told you I don’t want your machines, Isaac,” she spat. “I’ll get Bikbik to throw them out if I have to. I will not have them in this house.” Isaac didn’t reply or meet her eyes. He simply dumped the last gift on the floor and went back to sitting on the armchair across from her. “By God,” Renata said. “Didn’t your mother teach you to have some respect?” Isaac wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so
he didn’t. But thinking back to that moment as he walked past tightly-packed houses, most decrepit and abandoned, surrounding thin streets made thinner by dozens of parked cars, he recalled his first and only concrete memory of Renata before today. He was young, though he wasn’t sure how young. His grandparents had come to America to visit, back when they were still well enough to fly in planes. His mother had briefed him before they arrived. “Isaac,” she told him, “Remember to speak up when speaking to your lola. She can’t hear very well. So speak up. OK?” He stared up at her and nodded, and when his lolo and lola arrived they were kissing his face and pinching his cheek and muttering things in a language he didn’t understand, so he didn’t feel the need to speak. Juli picked up the slack for him. “Isaac has been interested in chess lately,” she said once they had settled in. “Why don’t you and your lola play each other?” In truth, Isaac had stopped being interested in it ever since he lost three times in a row to Caspian and refused to show up to the chess club the day after. But his mother still gave him chess books and chess boards for his birthday and for Christmas, so he nodded. Renata beat him. It wasn’t even close, in fact. All Isaac’s chess strategies and instincts had eroded into nothing, and even though he told himself he didn’t care about the game anymore, the embarrassment from that defeat still stung. Because of the loss, yes, but also because of the look on his lola’s face. How she glared
at the board after he made careless move after careless move, any sense of hope for her grandson vanishing in minutes. When the game was over, neither said a word as Isaac left the guest room, not bothering to bring the board with him. That sole memory of her was why he thought his second gift would be a good idea. “It’s a puzzle game. Very popular back on Mars. You just tap the button here and you can start playing whenever. Also, very energy efficient.” “I have no need for video games,” Renata replied. “Technically it’s not a video game. There’s no controller, I mean. It uses a telepathic connection. So you see the image in your head, and you think of what you want to do, and that controls it. You don’t need to move around at all.” How quickly a few generations can suck out any sort of excellence, Renata thought. The fierceness that she had so carefully taught to her daughter was nowhere to be found. Was this all that wanting the best for her child got her? Out of the living room now, she had managed to climb into her bed, but her room’s flatscreen was refusing to turn on. She squeezed on the power button with all her might, thrusting the remote towards the TV with each press, but to no avail. She huffed and admitted defeat, laying back on her pillow. She’d probably forget to ask Bikbik to replace the batteries later. Yes, luxury was both a blessing and a curse. Renata wondered if her hard work had been in vain. Her mind wandered back to her days in the University
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of the Philippines at Quezon City. This was back when the entrance fee was so low that getting in said something about one’s intelligence instead of one’s wealth. Slum boys walked side by side with sons of politicians as scholars of the nation, and everyone wore flip flops as a reply to the designer clothes of the elite universities next door. During the many sitdown protests against President Marcos, she recalled a line from an American song being played over the speakers: “We don’t need no education…” Renata saw her first American at an awards ceremony for Garcia Hibionada, her lolo and Isaac’s great-great-grandfather. He had been the mayor of a now-dead town when he was killed during World War II. The Americans told everyone that he resisted the occupation by the Japanese and would be remembered as a brave hero, but in hindsight, Renata surmised that the real reason for the medal of honor was because he died and the Americans felt sorry for him and his family. In any case, the medallion wasn’t made of anything valuable, so the family decided not to sell it. But they still ended up losing it thirty years later, when Juli’s brother, Manang Rodrigo, placed it around the neck of a stray dog and tried to take a picture but ended up scaring it away with the flash of the camera. “It recharges when you put it out in the sun, see?” Isaac pointed to the grey panel on the device’s back. “Just don’t leave it out for too long.” “I don’t like to stay out in the sun for too long,” Renata said. “It’s not good for my skin.” Isaac suddenly became aware of how much his chance of skin cancer was increasing with each step he took under the sun. He pressed a button on the left arm of his spacesuit, and a clear, UV-resistant visor swivelled to cover his head. He was nearing his ship now, parked in the middle of an open field. It was the only suitable landing spot near Renata’s house; the rest of the surrounding area was covered in cramped homes and dense forest. Renata thought that she had failed to impart her fierceness into Juliana, which resulted in the sorry state that Isaac was in today. In reality, the opposite was true. Stamping through tall grass, Isaac recalled shouting match after shouting match with his mother after school, some over forgotten homework assignments and others over skipped classes, each one ending with Isaac whimpering to hold back tears and Juliana pulling him close and apologizing over and 10
over, but in her head lamenting that her worst fears had come true, that she was the mother of a son that would never amount himself to anything. For Isaac, each fight solidified the thought that it was better to be loved by no one than to be loved and be held responsible for the inevitable disappointment of his loved ones’ expectations. And so, as commercial trips to Mars began to fly out, he boarded the first spaceship he could and never returned. That was, until he received news from his parents that his lolo had died in his sleep. Isaac had so little memory of his grandfather that the death didn’t shock him at all, but thinking about it more, his lack of shock over the death eventually made him very shocked indeed. Determined to not let that one embarrassing chess match be the only memory he had of his lola, he took a year after the death to build up the courage to return, then another a year to save up enough money to buy a spaceship, then another year to learn to drive the spaceship before finally making the trip to Earth. And as Isaac finally reached his spaceship in the middle of the field and climbed up the ladder to the entrance hatch, he surmised that the critical mistake may have been when they were discussing languages. Maybe he shouldn’t have given his first gift at all. “At least Juliana had the good sense to teach you Ilongo,” Renata noted. “Ha ha. Um, no,” Isaac said. “I’m not actually speaking Ilongo.” He pointed to the small white box attached to the shoulder of his spacesuit, and that was when she realized that the words he spoke were not coming from his mouth. They instead were emitted from a speaker that was filtering his voice through and translating it. Renata looked at the machine, then back at her grandson, then back at it. “And I actually have a second one of these to give to you, as a gift. I think you might find it useful.” Renata found her words again. “Oh. Yes, a gift. I see. Well, that’s very generous of you, but you see, I don’t need a translator. So I’m afraid you’ll have to keep it.” “Well, that’s alright,” Isaac said, putting it down beside the TV. “I have other things.” When Renata realized that her son was using a translator, the first thing that came into her mind was not disappointment, but a memory of her lola Isabelle Hibionada, Isaac’s great-great-grandmother.
Along with Garcia, she had moved from Spain to the Philippines to follow her merchant husband. But she was stubborn. Even after she had birthed children and sent them to public school, she refused to speak the dirty Ilongo dialect, instead only speaking Spanish and forcing all those in her presence to do the same. This was why Renata’s mother, Rose, grew up speaking fluent Spanish, and why when Rose had her first crippling stroke, the only trace of language left in her for two months after was a babbling, murky mess that her children could only understand the proper nouns of. After two months of her mind’s forced isolation inside her body, Rose’s first order of business after recovery was establishing immediate Spanish lessons for the children. None of them were able to do the same for their own children. Instead, what Renata did for her little Juliana was instill a sense of purpose. The country, as she saw it, was dying a slow death under years of dictators and complacent populations. She saw no hope in staying. So she let Juliana grow up to be suffocated by the walls of their home and be drawn to the thrill of adventure so that when it came time for her to leave the nest, she would go far, far away. To a place that would give her the future she could not have here. And it worked. For when Juliana reached a certain age, after a few years of accounting during an economic slump had successfully worn her down, she left the Philippines to work as a flight attendant. Renata didn’t see her leave, but she imagined her flying away on a Dreamliner, and saw in her mind that she wasn’t looking back at her, and smiled and thought that was the end of it. That she wouldn’t be returning. But then what was this that she saw, standing at the foot of her door as she hobbled into the living room? A little boy wearing a spacesuit too big for him. His face was just barely visible at the top, like a monkey peeking out from behind a tree. The eyes of Renata’s daughter had come back. “Hi, lola,” he said. “It’s me, Isaac. Your grandson.”
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Gaming Across
Generations
Written by:
Arlene Chen Edited by:
Katherine Lim Designed by:
Sandro Lorenzo
Growing up, I always looked forward to family game night. There was a certain exhilarating ambience in the air that I have never quite been able to put my finger on. Some nights, my sister and I would huddle around the kitchen table, listening to our parents explain the new card game we were about to attempt. Others, we’d sit cross-legged on the ground, furiously trying to destroy each other in whatever board game we could find, whether it be gomoku or Chinese checkers. Each tabletop or card/board game I learned was deeply rooted in either culture or memory. For example, my parents explained that “斗地主 (doudizhu),” a classic card game literally translating to “fight the landlord,” claimed its name from a time in Chinese history when society was split into economic levels: landlord, upper, middle, and lower-class peasants. There was a general sense of resentment towards the landlords, who exploited the peasant class—hence, the birth of a game designed to knock the “landlord” off their pedestal. Other games such as “争上游 (zhengshangyou),” meaning “fight for the upper hand”, or “升级 (shengji), ” translated as “level up,” led to endless tales of my parents’ childhoods as they sat and watched their parents play so many games they’d forget to study, or participate in the intense family Chinese New Year’s battle for the moneypot. After learning the story behind each game I was taught, I had ample opportunities to practice. For one, I’d play with friends at local Asian parties, where my friends, too, had learned from their parents. We’d argue over specifics in the rules, as different regions differed slightly in their playing styles. Of course, I also continued playing games with my extra-competitive family at home, desperately trying to hone my skills and beat my parents (still working on this). When I visited China, I’d watch and learn as my parents joined family card games, using games as a tool to bridge a generational gap that, though not completely closed, felt narrower from a bond formed over hours of playing. Partaking in my culture through these traditional games felt almost like I’d been through a rite of passage; once I learned the tricks and clever maneuvers, I could carry on the legacy of each game I’d been taught. My mother also describes tabletop games as a phenomenon crucial to Chinese social life. No matter what’s played, Chinese people love enjoying the experience most. Drinking tea, cracking sunflower seeds, and engaging in lively conversation are all vital aspects of these beloved tabletop games. While the games themselves are of course intriguing, more importantly, many problems and relationships find themselves solved over the length of a game. The very act of sitting down together is an important step, she explains, in strengthening bonds between people.
This love for tabletop games is not a uniquely Chinese experience—card and board games are a popular phenomenon in all Asian countries today. Though virtual games such as League of Legends, World of Warcraft, and Fortnite are extraordinarily popular and reach a broad spectrum of people, there is still a certain longing and thus large demand for the banter and social presence that comes with these tabletop endeavors. Taking off around 2010 in areas like Korea and Hong Kong, board game cafés spread across Asia, creating a new space for people to socialize face-to-face.¹ Though many of the games at these cafés tend to be modern, non-traditional games such as Monopoly, Jenga, or Sorry!, it’s clear the love for sitting down and creating meaningful connections through games has not completely diminished. While many older Chinese tend to stick to what’s most familiar to them, such as mahjong, Chinese chess, and other more traditional card games, their younger counterparts play modern, ever-changing games in local and virtual cafés. Interests vary between generations, and so it’s no surprise that different generations are drawn to varying genres and formats. There are, however, signs that this generational gap can be easily bridged. The digitalized era we live in has provided a perfect way for traditional tabletop games to continue past as well as with older generations. In China, many games are available online and can be played with friends just like other video games. On the QQ Games website, one of China’s largest gaming sites and one with a younger audience, the top three games on the “热门排行榜 (Hot Chart)” are all actually virtually adapted tabletop games; they are, respectively: “欢乐斗 地主,” “夺宝斗地主,” and “ 欢乐麻将全集.”² The top two games on the chart are both versions of “fight the landlord.” In third place is virtual mahjong, which has been popular in China since at least the late 1800s.3 Even in the face of newly created video games and ever-improving technology, it seems many still find great comfort in playing these more traditional tabletop games, whether it be virtual or face-to-face. Especially in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the virtual presence of these more traditional tabletop games has valuable potential in strengthening bonds. While I have enjoyed many intense card games with my parents over these past few months, there’s no denying the difficulty I and many others have still experienced in trying to maintain emotional connections with our friends and distant family. Though there is nothing quite like the face-to-face social experience of a Chinese tabletop game, my parents have begun weekly game nights through websites and concurrent Zoom calls with their friends. Even now that I’m away at college, when I’m bored or missing family bonding time, I’ll pull up a single-player card-game website and immerse myself in family memories through a digital platform. The allure of these traditional tabletop games has stayed potent in recent years, and with that appeal comes a simple, entertaining way to keep cultural traditions alive. Though tabletop games are primarily seen as trivial, lighthearted activities, they have a powerful reach across multiple generations as well as the potential to cultivate long-lasting, worthwhile relationships. ¹ Patti Waldmeir, “Board Game Cafés Break Internet Monopoly,” Financial Times (The Financial Times Ltd, December 23, 2010), https://www.ft.com/ content/c61b9a42-0eb5-11e0-9ec3-00144feabdc0. ² “排行榜,” QQ游戏_QQ游戏大全_游戏下载_QQ游戏官网 (Tencent, 2020), https://qqgame.qq.com/. ³ Ashley Walters, “From China to U.S., the Game of Mahjong Shaped Modern America, Says Stanford Scholar,” Stanford News (Stanford University, July 15, 2013), https://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/july/humanities-mahjong-history-071513.html. 13
November 13th: An Ode to Homesickness
Glancing at the recipe, I slice the poblanos from end to end, the emerald skin limply unfurling beneath the knife’s edge. Sifting my fingers through the shredded asadero, I contemplate how generously to fill each chile with cheese. Since the directions caution against overflowing, I suppress my tendency for overabundance - a gluttony that blossomed at the White Swan Hotel in 2003. Only in agnostic melancholy do I recollect the orphanage in Guangzhou, its bland monotony of smog and gilded red books. To celebrate a belated Gotcha Day this year, I may attempt to bake our chocolate raspberry cake. Every November 13th, my parents and I would reminisce over my corduroy overalls and the tangerine farewell gift. Toted across the Atlantic Ocean to New Mexico, I tumbled headfirst into southwestern culture. Food became my serotonin, measured in bowls of frito pie school lunches and honey drizzled sopaipillas. After separating 6 large eggs, I hand-whisk the egg whites until they resemble renaissance clouds (emulating Michelangelo’s cherubs). When I was younger, I would perch on the granite counter, my mouth open for the occasional spoonful of cookie dough. Despite salmonella risks, Mom and I would scrape out raw dollops for nibbling, much to the chagrin of my father and his cookie addiction. Our ritual recreated the baking scene in Mommy Far, Mommy Near, an adoption story that I still revisit when experiencing an existential crisis (e.g. my imposter syndrome, signing up for the ASA mailing list, Chinese character tattoo of my middle name, etc.). My favorite passage will always be “So I lie on my mother’s tummy. Our faces touch. I wait until I can hear my mommy’s heart beating. I say, ‘Look.’ We look. No songs, no kisses. Just look. In a deep voice, I say, ‘My mother.’ Just as deep, my mommy says, ‘My daughter.’”
Tangled in these thoughts, I combine the egg yolks, ½ cup of flour, and ¾ tsp of salt to form the batter. I beat the mixture lightly until the batter is thick enough to coat the chiles. In a heavy metal pan, I heat four inches of vegetable oil to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. I coat the first chile (seam side up) in all-purpose flour, my inner Virgo affectionately patching up the bald spots. After dunking the chile into the batter, I tug its stem to allow the excess to ribbon off, which seals in the asadero. The chiles fry for about 4-5 minutes until evenly golden and crisp. I prefer the shade of Honey Stars and the crunch of Milo cereal, my favorite Nestlé brands my father purchased in bulk from the nearest 7-11. It was always over food (either Sonic onion rings or post-movie paninis) that we discussed life’s enigmas in earnest. Infected with an ascetic god-complex, my father obsesses over Rolexes and hoards Swiss chocolate in the pantry. Driven by impulsive pilfering habits, he would surreptitiously stuff travel-sized jars of Italian jam, hotel shampoo bottles, and breakfast pastries into his pockets. After draining the chiles on the baking rack, I transfer them to a heatproof platter. I pour extra handfuls of asadero over the chiles before they reheat in the oven. Steam rising in delicious tendrils, I cut into the chile rellenos. It’s nearing winter, but I can recall the pungent smokiness of hatch chiles roasting in steel tumblers. Both native and foreign, the colonially imported chile pepper veils indigenous slaughter, a history commodified as souvenirs in pueblo tourism. Sometimes I wonder who chopped off Juan de Oñate’s stone foot, the “desecration” of the conquistador’s statue serving as symbolic redemption. Perhaps, as a Chinese adoptee living in New Mexico, my fingertips are also stained the colors of an overripe, bruised plum. Inheriting guilt from historical trauma, yet detached in cultural ambiguity, I lament another year severed from tradition. I miss bakery cakes (“Happy Gotcha Day”), movie lunches with dad (usually rom-coms), and baking chocolate chip cookies (tip: brown the butter).
Written by Zoe Mueller Edited by Annabelle Wang | Designed by Phoebe Jacoby
Recipe: https://www.newmexico.org/things-to-do/cuisine/recipes/homemade-in-hatch/
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Dear Stephanie Dear Stephanie, You have written many a times, Saying that I have changed, For better or for worse Indeed, I might have Yet, I could also say I have not
Dear Stephanie, You were stunned that I pierced my ears Without you Holding my hands Without you Putting the back of the studs on for me Maybe shed a tear or so Whining about the pain
Annie Xu
Edited by Heejae Jung | Designed by Joy Yi Lu Freund Dear Stephanie, You said I grew assertive I talked with a sharp mouth About a problem without a name About colors that have refused to be seen — About a lot many things You thought I was never interested in Or I would have never Had the means to be interested in Dear Stephanie, You marveled at the tank top I was wearing Sleeveless and not complimenting for my skin “Are you not scared of people staring?” — I was always scared Though never of the stares But of the ignorance The judgement that hid behind the Looking away Dear Stephanie, You called me out when I talked about schoolwork You laughed gently when I dived into theories You said you fear you would never find a job That you are constantly in agony with your parents You said I was living in a foreign bubble And the bubble has enchanted me I kept dreaming while you are wide awake
Dear Stephanie, It was never just the place Or the distance That has changed me It was never thrill chasing Or attention grabbing That has prompted me to write to you I wasn’t trying to be different To get ahead Nor was I bragging When I said I have found Something or some place that speaks to me
Dear Stephanie, It’s not a shame to dream It never was Not for me or for you It’s not a shame to be realistic either It never will be Not for you or for me It’s often times the nuances That have been exaggerated by distance That were mistakenly attributed To a certain culture, To a piece of foreign land Because otherwise, We would have to Arrive at the conclusion that We are different To begin with But We are Not the same And there is not one way to Be me Or to be you
Dear Stephanie, In the last letter You said you will always be my friend No matter how I change — I was grateful For I was touched by your generosity I was tearful For I have never entertained the thought that you won’t before — As though to be different was bad And to be accepted Was a show of mercy
Dear Stephanie, I wish you know I always smiled when I got your letter And I smiled again when I sent you mine This is not an accusation Nor is it an overreaction This is just me Writing to you To maybe the many who could have been you Saying I don’t need validation for what I have become For whatever I am today was somewhere in me before I don’t need exclamation for what I have done For whatever I did was not to impress or to assimilate Dear Stephanie, Thank you for always bearing with me I wish you all the best Over the mountains Across the seas
*I knew Stephanie since middle school. We studied in the same high school in Shanghai for seven years. She now studies in Japan.
nostalgia heavy like Shanghai heat, impatient tongues stuck to ice pops; a sweet sharpness that slices through the thickness of age settled into the creases of the mismatched wooden chairs, the lines of her soft face. a feeling of estrangement in this place I can never call home, a clumsy right hand that grasps chopsticks like two forks, a tied tongue that only unknots to say xie xie, a culture I wear on my face but hardly know. I stand in the small bathroom and look in the small mirror. who am I, really?
Abu By Vivian Xu Edited by Emma Chun Designed by Lauren Yung
I wonder if she looks at my clothes and thinks I am too American; I wonder if she looks at my long hair and her hands itch for a pair of scissors to cut it clean off, as she did her daughter, my mother, when her hair was long enough to need braiding. spoiled child sitting at the life-hardened table, dumplings served fresh every noon. I murmur xie xie and eat and hope my name won’t slip from their mouths, their eyes searching mine; hope my flushed face won’t lower sheepishly and my soul suffer the silence as i wait for them to say, ta ting ve dong. out on the balcony, I stare down the long bamboo poles and their sunbathing shirts, and I wonder: if I followed that spot in the distance, unknown miles and years away, crawled past the traffic and the steady thrum of cicadas, would I know then what they were asking me, would I know how to reply, would I finally be able to tell her, Abu, I love you, even though we are almost strangers ?
Heejae Jung
Kaylee Chow
The crinkling of blood- and honey-colored leaves accompanies every step I take. I find comfort in the pattern of a route revisited, in tracing my past self down a familiar dirt path. My childhood home, Tenafly, NJ, at the tip of my tongue, awaits my permission to overflow into a ready self-introduction, a natural part of my identity that needs no conscious effort to conjure. Automatic, like seeking comfort in warm sheets or reaching for arms to wrap around your body upon the scare of a slamming door. Ten-uh-fly: a geographically liminal space where many NYC commuters reside to enjoy the white-picket-fence suburb aesthetic. Tee-fly: a place where I don’t know the names or faces of neighbors I’ve lived next to for twelve years—all privacy and no community, the double-edged sword of small town living.
Karen Mogami
The whispering wind paints soft kisses on my cheeks, hushing me into complacency, stirring within me a slumber that evades sleep and seeps its way into the broad daylight gaze. To think I had a home before this one—a space my baby fingers reached out for, where walls bore the staccato chattering of Korean television, almost a crude contrast to the sleepy slush of American jargon my ears are now more attuned to—leaves me saddened by a hidden self I can no longer uncover. Friends before me have complained about the hassle of moving, as if pieces of them disseminated across all four corners of the world. They tell me about feeling chased, about the insecurity of not having a constant place to return. I empathize, I nod, I listen, I care: How can I tell them I feel lost in familiarity? My silent words fall on deaf ears, the string of phrases I cannot bear to muster, not when Tenafly bears its trace in everything I say. A streak of red overwhelms my line of vision, as a flurry of crimson leaves takes flight and rushes towards me in a sweeping embrace—a shade so brilliant, so revealing, I shiver. A surge of warmth sprays across my face, as I grow lost in the foliage’s visual effect. An unnerving stillness spreads throughout my body, stemming from deep inside. I feel tainted, as if my hometown has carved its name all over my skin, like the red that seeps through and corrupts the once green tint of these fallen leaves. If I were to bleed, which country’s blood would it be?
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y
曖昧
m (a bi gu it )
The myth of the Red Thread of Fate, which originated in Chinese mythology and was popularized throughout various East Asian cultures, states that destined lovers are connected by an invisible red thread that is tied to the individuals’ pinky fingers. My hope in creating this piece is to explore forms of relationship building that celebrate ambiguity and multiplicity in connection rather than attempting to categorize and define. By translating the invisibility and uncertainty of interpersonal connection into a visual medium, I attempt to question the privileging of sight as a more truthful or objective form of knowledge. What would it mean to trust in what we feel in the same way that we trust in what we see?
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Internet Connection Author: Ziyi Che
Editor: Arlene Chen
Designer: Jenn XinRui Ong
At 8:55 on a Wednesday evening, I clicked the blue join button, entered the meeting code, watched the little blue line above “Connecting…” chasing its tail, and waited. I could not remember how many times I had been through this process, for I was so used to using Zoom, using the Internet, to connect with others. However, operating Zoom, I sometimes feel like a magician, able to talk to people from various parts of the world as well as from the past and future. The Internet has seeped into every corner of people’s life through smartphones, computers, and televisions. The world shrinks to a size measured in hours due to transportation and to one measured in seconds because of the Internet. The Internet connects people to immense seas of information, and one can learn about everything that they are curious about. A day without phones will drive people crazy because the latter will be on the verge of disconnecting from the world. Most people always remember to keep their 6-inch-long best pals at their sides, from the moment that their alarm clock sets off to the last second before they close their eyes.
Class started at 9:00, but I was still looking at “Connecting…” I realized that my WiFi was on strike. I had taken its existence for granted, not realizing its contributions until the moment that it stops functioning. Being in a room with faulty Internet made me feel like a shipwreck survivor sitting on the beach of a deserted island in the middle of the sea though, in reality, I was in a bustling city. I apologized to my WiFi for not finding it helpful when I was disconnected from the world, but I secretly damned its mercurial temper and suppressed my impulse to smash my router and computer. Rolling its eyes, the WiFi accepted my sincere apology and finally displayed the blurry faces of my professors and classmates. 33
Although the Internet connects people across time and space, improving communication and information delivery efficiency, it exacerbates psychological and physical isolation. Being able to get in touch with celebrities that one will never communicate with in person makes everyone on the Internet seem so far away. I felt unacquainted with my former classmates each time that I saw their posts despite that I know that they are in the same city as I am. I used to know their hobbies, like and dislike, and tempers and characters, but that sense of intimacy dissipates because, on the Internet, they look like superstars on the runway, impeccable and unreachable. My “LIKE”s for my former classmates become perfunctory and comments formulaic, and my genuine affection for them turns into a mere appreciation of their appearance and living conditions. Visually connected but spiritually separated, nobody can make true friends on the Internet, and Internet being intangible, unstable, and short-lived, no virtual friendship can last. More people become less enthusiastic about offline social interactions as the Internet makes life so convenient that people can sustain their lives without stepping out of their houses. They opt for the Internet as their sole connection to the world and spend their days at home alone. Some living alone in strange cities have been found dead for days and even months because of their lack of stable connections to the physical world—no family, no friends, no nothing. Such incidents happen frequently in countries, like Japan, with a large aging population who have neither Internet nor physical connection to the world. Japanese call such a phenomenon “kodokushi” (death in solitude), and the government has established a team to bury the bodies of those who die in loneliness. Young people barely set foot out of their house are also facing the risk of kodokushi because their virtual friends see only the logging-off status on social platforms and online games. No one knows why their temporary friends log off.
In September, I left my hometown, Guangzhou, China, and flew to Shanghai to attend Fudan University’s TEAN program, during which I lived alone in a small apartment for three months. In these months, I experienced the Internet’s advantages—connection to other parts of the globe—and drawbacks—Wifi instability and physical isolation. I realized that I craved company, a strong physical connection reminding me of my existence in the world. I missed the time when my family gathered during the Spring Festival. After finishing the family dinner at a nearby restaurant, my family walked in groups—kids running around together, moms chatting about anecdotes, dads discussing international issues—to my grandparents’ house. Settling down in the house, the adults pulled red packets out of their bags and handed them to the kids who yelled in thrill because they would have pocket money to buy comic books and snacks after the Spring Festival. I loved red packets, not because of money but because of the love and solicitude from my family that they contained. Putting the packets under my pillow, I often fell asleep smiling because I knew that my family was with me.
We sat before the decade-old television broadcasting the Spring Festival Party, ate fruits and sweets prepared by grandma, and chatted some more. The convivial singing and dancing on TV became the background music of my family’s conversations and laughter that did not cease until midnight. Warmth surrounded me on those cold February nights because the physical connections and love between my family members heated the air. It was these physical connections that created the unbreakable spiritual bonds within my family. Our love for one another would last, and the transitory Internet connections could not take it away. John Donne, a seventeenth-century English poet, the author of the poem No Man is An Island, did not expect that more modern people are becoming isolated islands. The Internet connects these islands, but it is not the bridge that pulled neighbors closer to each other. It is instead an invisible force that turns the globe into a glass ball. People can glimpse other parts of the world due to the glass’s transparency. However, what they see is distorted because of the glass ball’s convexity, and the neighbors slide away from each other bit by bit on the slippery surface till there is no possibility for physical connections. Two old Chinese sayings go “ 树欲静而风不止,子欲养而亲不待” and "天下没有不散的宴席” The former means that trees desire tranquility, but the wind will not stop, and when children finally grow up and want to repay their parents’ love and care, their parents are gone. The latter indicates that all good things will come to an end. Many of us have left or will soon leave our home countries and will not meet our family for months and even years. We will meet a lot of new friends in college and at work, but we will eventually leave each other as well. So, drop your phones when you are with your family and friends. Cherish and enjoy every second and every aspect of these personal connections before you lose the chance.
A Tour of a Japanese Mystery World: Yokai Jenny Yuan Edited by Josephine Man Designed by Am Chunnananda
It was an empty room with only a couple of traditional Japanese dolls sitting on the shelf. I stared at the dolls out of boredom: they had chubby faces, dainty eyes, and ruby-like mouths. I grew tired and decided to lie down. That was when I recognized the faded blood stains on the floor. Then I heard childlike giggles behind my back… Luckily that was just a dream after I watched one episode about Zashikiwarashi, a childlike Yokai, in ayakashi. It was truly a spooky story, but somehow I got fascinated by the Yokai character and their stories after watching it. Having spent most of my time in Asia growing up, my childhood was greatly impacted by Japanese media such as movies, anime, and TV shows. From 怪 ayakashi, Natsume’s Book of Friends, to the classic Ghibli movie Spirited Away, or famous fiction Onmyōji (陰陽師), Yokai were one of the most popular elements in Japanese pop culture. Yokai, which means monsters or spirits in Japanese, were intended to spook people in the ancient days. Interestingly, in modern pop culture, they don’t always appear as spooky or evil characters. More often, they are depicted as an adorable character. In the anime Kappa no Kaikata, Kappa (a spirit that lives in a river) appears as a chubby, short boy with a beak who is being kept by a human as a pet. These interesting depictions got me fascinated about the Yokai culture and started my exploration of the artistic and cultural background behind it.
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Yokai, written as 妖怪, could translate as ghost, spirit, or monster. More precisely, the character 妖 means bewitching and 怪 means mysterious. In Japanese culture, yokai can appear in many different forms: human, animal, or even natural phenomena. The appearance of the Yokai changes based upon the perception of the artist. Most of the images of Yokai we can see today are from the Edo period (1603 and 1868 ), and in the form of ukiyo-e. In the early 1600s, during the power transfer from emperors to shoguns, the Japanese merchant class became wealthier, which enabled them to spend money on fleeting pleasures known as ‘ukiyo’, or the “floating world.” The -e at the end of ‘ukiyo-e’ means drawing in Japanese. Then, a style of print marketed to the merchants started to bloom in Japanese culture. The technique of woodblock printmaking first originated in China and arrived in Japan during the 6th century. The process of producing ukiyo-e usually involved four people: an artist who designs the drawing, a woodcarver, a printer who colors it and presses it, and a publisher who sells it. One of the most famous yokai ukiyo-e is the “Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre,” drawn by Utagawa Kuniyoshi in the 19th century.
Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre by Utagawa Kuniyoshi and Santō Kyōden
The drawing depicts the scene of a woman using spells to call out a monstrous skeleton to fight two warriors. The woman is Princess Takiyasha who is also the daughter of Taira Masakado— the man who started a rebellion against the court in Kyoto. When the rebellion failed, her father was killed and the ghost of the soldiers still haunted Masakado’s palace. Thus, she vengefully summons the ghosts into an enormous skeleton to fight with the warrior, Ôya Tarô Mitsukuni, who was sent by the emperor to hunt down the allies of Masakado. 37
Examples of various yokai
There are a plethora of stories that feature Yokai in Japanese culture, and these interesting stories are recorded in the form of folklore, drawings, or books:
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Bakezōri (化け草履)
Kasa-Obake (傘おばけ)
Bakezōri (化け草履) are yokai transformed from the traditional straw sandals spirit. They sprout arms and legs from the body and have a large single eye in the middle of the body. According to Japanese folklore, Bakezōri were shoes that were neglected or lost by their owner for a long time that eventually developed their own consciousness. They are said to be harmless but may pester humans when they feel bored or frustrated.
Kasa-Obake (傘おばけ), the umbrella ghost, is one of my favorite yokai. In the anime Yamishibai, there is a classic episode about it, which is both scary and fascinating. This yokai used to be an old umbrella that was neglected. It has only one eye, jumps around using the handle as a leg, and sometimes is depicted to have a long tongue
Makuwauri no bakemono (真桑瓜の化物) Makuwauri no bakemono (真桑 瓜の化物) is the yokai with the funniest appearance. It is usually an oriental melon (Cucumis melo) with the body sprouting from it. According to folklore, this yokai comes from the river ferry in a village which is famous for its melon from Kyōto. However, the specific origin story is lost.
Ittan-Momen (一反木綿) Ittan-Momen (一反木綿) is a long sheet of cloth yokai. This yokai is usually depicted as white, long narrow sheets of cloth. They normally fly at night, attacking people by wrapping their bodies around a person’s face and neck. With their mighty strength and ability to mercilessly smother people to death through suffocation, this yokai is dangerous and deadly.
Enenra (煙々羅) Enenra (煙々羅) is a yokai made up of smoke. They usually appear around smoke, chimneys, and bonfires. As the smoke rises, human-like faces show in the smoke. They float and appear as a fragile silk dancing in the air. It is said that they sometimes take human form and could only be seen by the pure of heart.
Ittan-Momen is the white ghost-like creature in the left side of the tower. The Kasa-Obake is the umbrella with one eye right before the tower.
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Nowadays, Yokai culture inspires so many characters in movies, visual arts, games, and literature. The Exeggutor, from the popular video game PokĂŠmon, is a palm tree character who has three to six faces. It was based on Jinmenju, a Yokai first depicted on paper in 1712. Yokai culture not only made an influence in Japan, but also on Western pop culture. If you are a fan of Harry Potter, you may notice that a Kappa, a Yokai that lives in shallow ponds, appears in the movie Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. It is interesting to see that a large portion of modern pop culture is deeply rooted in Japanese culture and history. Yokai in Japanese folklore originated from everyday objects and natural phenomena. Much of yokai-based Japanese folklore is rooted in the ancient Japanese religion of Shintoism, a religion believes that everything has a spirit and deserves reverence. The masterpieces that depict yokai reveal its ambiguous and mysterious allegories, symbolizing the aspect of Shintoism that connects supernatural fear, awe, and reverence of nature with the earthly being and human daily life.
Different PokĂŠmon, stylistically illustrated
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Beauty and Asian American Women Written by Isabelle Paquette | Edited by Aidan Fry | Designed by Ziyi Che
G
rowing up, I was oblivious to how I looked in the eyes of others. I always knew I was different, that my facial features were “beautiful” or even “unique” as my parents or even strangers have pointed out, but I hadn’t yet internalized it in a way that impacted my self esteem. This was a benefit of adolescence itself, which protected me from direct exposure to the standards and privilege found in society, albeit for a short time only.
being confused; makeup was makeup, wasn’t it designed for everyone? That night I went onstage wearing nothing on my face. Since then, my exposure to Western beauty standards only sharpened the distinction between what I saw around me and what I saw in the mirror. Living in a white family, and growing up in a white community, the cultural standards of femininity became incredibly apparent. Part of it was the media I consumed as a teenager, including watching films or listening to music from mostly white female artists. The other part, however, was simply within the trivial discourse of adolescence: what girls talked about at sleepovers, or while getting ready for a dance, for example. At that age you’re very vulnerable to comparison and insecurity. I began to think of everything about me as a flaw: my hooded eyes, my flat nose, my darker skin, my sparse eyebrows. I saw none of these features in the media I watched or read. Not to mention, the community I was surrounded with left me hyper-aware of my Asian identity. By the time I reached highschool, most of my friends were white, and social status was decided by level of attractiveness, which consequently rested on racial discrimination. It was during those years that I found a sense of belonging with the Asian American beauty community on YouTube. Watching women like Michelle Phan or Jenn Im, who shared similar East Asian features, give advice on applying makeup or being confident showed me that I had nothing to be ashamed of in questioning my own appearance.
The first time I questioned my appearance in relation to being East Asian American was when I was twelve years old and in seventh grade. During the winter, I participated in my school’s musical performance of Mulan. Looking back, this was a red flag in and of itself. The school was and still is a Predominantly White Institution. On opening night, we went backstage early to begin changing into costumes and applying makeup. Older girls brought out large bags filled with tools and palettes I had never seen before. Some of them offered to apply makeup to younger students like me, which was exciting. Until then my mother rarely allowed me and my sister to have anything on our faces, besides the occasional lip gloss. One girl smiled at me and asked if I could sit down in a chair. She took out eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara and an eye-lash curler from her bag. As the girl applied the makeup, I could see in her face moments of frustration. She stopped well before the rest of my friends were done. I asked her if it looked good, and she replied yes, but that a lot of it wasn’t really “showing on my eyes.” I looked in the When I first started college, my mirror and tried to see what she meant. insecurities regarding my appearance grew even further. It was a time when “Your eyes aren’t that big, so this makeup I was ashamed doesn’t really work for you.” I remember
of my own cultural identity. Everytime I looked in the mirror and looked at how small my eyes were, how thin my eyelashes were, how I had no epicanthic fold, I convinced myself that I was ugly. There was just no way that in a mostly white community, where the normalization of European features was inevitable, that I could ever fit in. I remember constantly thinking about what I looked like to others. I resorted to purchasing eyelid glue and tape for myself, all in an attempt to present myself as the most Westernized I could. I felt beautiful when my eyes were bigger, more pronounced and had folds, but I also felt a tremendous amount of shame. Like I was hiding something, there was a guilt in trying to assimilate so desperately, so superficially. I hated how controlled I felt by the pressure of these beauty standards, but they were too ingrained in my sense of self worth for me to ignore them. I believe that there is a strong disconnect between Western beauty standards and the sense of belonging many minority groups in this country desire. Although I can only speak for myself and my experience of having East Asian features, I know that this is an issue that goes deeper than race. When we create a culture that indirectly tells adolescents that there is only one form of attractiveness, we can’t expect those who don’t fit that form to willingly support it. This can be seen with one of the more recent racially insensitive beauty trends to hit social media this past summer, known as the “Fox Eye.” Many influencers, makeup artists and even celebrities partook in this trend, which consisted of using makeup to make the eyes appear more slanted or “exotic.” Additionally, many posed for pictures using their fingers to pull their eyes, thereby exaggerating the result.
People were quick to point out the blatant racial undertones of these posts, highlighting the discrepancy between those with natural Asian eyes who get mocked and called slurs like “ch*nk,” and non-Asians who recreate it and recieve immediate praise. After seeing the backlash, a rush of bad memories flooded into my mind of all the times I tried to cover up the very eyes I was seeing people praising. Asian American beauty standards are continuously fetishized for their very sense of “otherness” in the world of Western beauty. Growing up, whenever I walked into a Sephora or other general makeup store, most of the models I saw weren’t of any Asian ethnicity. Similarly, even when I did start to see primarily East Asian models in makeup campaigns or advertisements, their aesthetic always looked stereotypically “East Asian.” It was extremely limited to straight black hair, fair skin, slanted eyes and overall a “mysterious” tone within the photo. To ignore the fact that not all Asians look alike feeds into this racial fetishization of only one ideal Asian woman to aspire to, if any. We’re teaching Asian girls that have darker skin, or curly hair, who are exposed to such media, that they are not beautiful, compounded with the fact that they are not white. It’s this scale of whiteness that perpetuates inequality, that pushes people farther away from an idealized “goal” of Westernized apparence. Even if you do “fit” the mold, there is still a distance between you and being born white, and that’s a privilege many white people don’t realize they have. I am now twenty years old and I am still insecure about my appearance in relation to my Asian identity. I can say I am much less ashamed of being Asian, but until everyday discourse and media
welcomes and appreciates diversity, I don’t know if the insecurity will go away. Some might call me sensitive, but I would argue that it’s hard to feel good about yourself when you are the one being overlooked. I’ve had people tell me before, “it’s just eyes, I don’t notice anybody’s eyes, they’re all the same.” But this comment’s significance isn’t about the benignity of the subject, it’s about how easily it’s interwoven and hidden in society as “normal.” Yes, no grown adult is going to go up to someone and say, “your eyes look weird.” What is talked about is how beautiful all the white celebrities are on every red carpet, or how pretty white eyes shown in beauty advertisements and commercials are.
appearance and beauty. I have a lot of hope that in the future social norms will be better, and we will not only recognize our physical differences but also embrace them. The first step I took was forming friendships with those who were struggling with the same things I was. I’ll always be grateful for the friends I have who help me see my own beauty and allow me to help them in return. It’s helpful to talk about it, I believe, which is mainly what I’ve done in times where I’ve felt insecure. Having open and vulnerable conversations about our experiences with each other has not only brought us closer, but given us confidence and a sense of solidarity in navigating a world where we’re not the majority. Knowing you’re not alone in your feelings of invisibility I don’t mean to sound cynical. My goal is powerful, and the first step, I believe, in writing this is to bring to light how in making this a conversation that much of an issue this is. Especially now, needs to be had. we are a society that idealizes, rewards and bases social status on appearance. If we can agree to that as a fact, we can then begin to understand the racial complications and intersectionality that comes with it. How Asian American beauty is still put under a microscope, how certain facial features aren’t celebrated enough. I think it’s a matter of recognizing that “normal” shouldn’t be “most,” and that we need to start relooking at how we talk about
On Board the Panda Express Written by Johnson Lin Edited by Alexander Nguyen Designed by Ceci Villaseñor Two and a half years ago, I wrote a final essay relating my Chinese American identity to Chinese takeout cuisine. A shortened version was adapted for Portrait’s first issue, titled “You Are What You Eat.” In the essay, I talk about the history of Chinese takeout cuisine, how the food changed to meet American standards, resulting in a food that is neither Chinese nor American, and how we as Chinese Americans similarly fall in that grey area. When I was writing that essay, I felt confident in my identity—although I felt that I was in between Chinese and American, I felt that I was closer than ever to bridging that gap. I had been studying Chinese for the past 6 years and I’d had so many meaningful conversations with my mom, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. I was set to study abroad at Peking University in Beijing and it was going to solidify my Chinese language skills even further, which is what I felt was the last thing missing for me to bridge that gap. I was going to be both Chinese and American. I am now a senior, back at Vassar College, a full year after spending five months in China. And I feel farther
than ever from bridging that gap. I used to think Chinese American meant being both Chinese and American. But now, I feel that Chinese is just an adjective to describe American. When I look back, it feels very apparent that I was naive to think that language is the only barrier that is stopping me from being Chinese. American and Chinese cultures are just extremely different. While I was there, I had friends who were locals and I realized that besides the difficulty of having meaningful conversations in a second language, we were just fundamentally different. We grew up watching different TV shows. We listen to different music. We have different ideals and morals. While I enjoyed the friends I made there, it was unmistakable that I was different from them. Even on a language level, it was clear that I was an outsider. My Chinese is obviously not perfect, but it took extended conversations for locals to realize I didn’t quite speak the same way. I’m more than happy with my level of Chinese at this point. But the biggest difference that never occurred to me was that to them I’m just American. There is no word for Chinese American in Mandarin. There is a word for Chinese diaspora. But to them, I’m just American. My parents are Chinese, but I’m American. In fairness, I was born in America. I was raised in America. I browse American sites and consume American media. I am American. But at the same time, they don’t even recognize how hard I’ve tried to be like them and be Chinese.
Each time, I get the same hand-wavey compliment that sounds something like “Wow, your Chinese is really good!” or even “You talk like a native!” that I would get at all points of my language learning career so I know they don’t mean it. And then I get asked about what it’s like to be American. “Do you own a gun?” “So Trump’s your president…” “I heard you can drive before you can drink. Is that true?” The worst is when your own family doesn’t recognize your efforts. Growing up, I visited China often because my dad was deported when I was in 1st grade. I didn’t speak Chinese. I was treated, rightfully so, like a small American boy. They fed me burgers, soda, and fried chicken. They would order fried rice for me. They’d have me try some more traditional dishes, but a small American boy was going to choose greasy, oily delicious fatty food over it every time. And that was okay.
This time was going to be different, I told myself. They were going to recognize that I speak Chinese now. That I understand our culture better now. That I love to eat our food now. That I’m like them. So when I spent Chinese New Year’s with them, I expected to be eating every meal with them. I expected to be eating delicious Chinese food. I expected to even eat some family recipes and traditions that belong solely to us. But, my dad took me to Burger King on the fourth or fifth day of the week-long celebration. He told me he was really craving Burger King and he’s the one driving, so who am I to say no? I oblige and we eat burgers in the car, out of fear for COVID. Afterwards, we head
to my uncle’s house where my dad turns food down because we already ate burgers. He tells them that we got burgers beforehand since today is the day we normally eat vegetarian food and he thinks I won’t want to eat that. He tells the rest of my family that we went to go eat burgers for my sake. That I wouldn’t have been able to eat a vegetarian Chinese meal. My father for some unbeknownst reason was, at least in his head, trying to protect me. The message was clear. I’m still a small American boy. When I wrote my essay two and a half years ago, I related myself to General Tso’s Chicken. I claimed that my identity was tied to these small family owned Chinese takeout restaurants. The same kind of takeout restaurants all of my aunts and uncles owned when I was growing up where every time my family visited (which was often) they would make me, a small American boy, my favorite dish, General Tso’s Chicken. Because of this personal soft spot, I think I really wanted to be like General Tso’s Chicken. But a recent headline has helped me realize that my analogy isn’t quite correct—“Largest US Chinese Restaurant Chain Panda Express Enters China.” I’ve never liked Panda Express. While I’m past my days of being purist about Chinese food, I find Panda Express to be overpriced and generally just worse than your local mom and pop Chinese takeout restaurant. As a Vassar student, this of course may also be tied to my hatred for capitalism and corporations in general. Regardless, Panda Express almost never crosses my mind. But when I saw that headline, I thought about it a lot because I was very interested in seeing if Panda Express would thrive in China or not. After a conversation with my girlfriend, I realized something funny. Chinese take out food is essentially Chinese food packaged a little nicer for Americans. It’s sweeter. The meat to veggie ratio is much higher.
They removed a lot of the spiciness. There’s no particularly strange ingredients to it. While it lost some of its culture, it successfully assimilated into American culture. Panda Express (and similar chains) is Chinese take out but packaged even nicer for Americans. They’re no longer dinky little mom and pop shops. They’re clean to the point where it feels almost sterile. Everything is standardized. There’s no longer a thirteen year old sitting behind the cash register doing homework. You have a significantly higher chance of interacting with employees who speak decent English. With more than 2,000 restaurants open across America, it has more than successfully assimilated into American culture. All of this is to say that I, a child of immigrant parents from Fuzhou, China, am not equivalent to Chinese takeout restaurants, even though I grew up with it. But that’s precisely why I’m not. My parents, like Chinese take out restaurants, had to learn to assimilate and adapt to American culture. And I am a product of that. I, like many second generation Asian Americans, am the “success story.” So when I think about Panda Express breaking into the Chinese markets, I wonder a lot about what the locals will think and how it will be received. But what I’m most curious about is how Panda Express will brand itself. How will Panda Express be marketed? Will it be known as Chinese American food? Or will it be just American? Note: A few days after this essay was written, the Panda Express CEO stated that they had no plans to enter China and that the store that was reportedly opened is someone impersonating the brand.
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THE FASHION SHOW THAT NEVER HAPPENED By Gabor Fu Ptacek Edited by Johnson Lin Designed by Lauren Yung Special thanks to Am, Ceci, and Kanako
T
he Asian Students’ Alliance (ASA) 2020 fashion show, titled Thread, was scheduled to take place on March 28th, only seventeen days after it was announced that Vassar’s Spring Semester would continue online until further notice. On that night, students would have walked up to the Villard Room from the Rose Parlor-side entrance and been surprised to find everything but the already-white ceiling to be covered in white butcher’s paper. These students would be handed a set of show notes, asked to take off their shoes (like in many Asian households), and step into the room. They would see lighting set up along the walls and tape on the floor to indicate the path the models would walk. They would sit on the floor— there would have been no chairs in the entire room— and wait while the room slowly filled up. After a short while, a representative of the fashion show point team would walk out and deliver an introduction to the show. After the representative would exit, an anticipation would fill the room before the first model stepped out on the paper. Let’s rewind and talk about everything that led up to that night that never happened. On March 30th, 2019, I helped Johnson Lin host another ASA fashion show in the CCMPR. The event was a smashing success, with more audience members than we had chairs for and outstanding outfits styled (and sewn) by Johnson himself. Only a few weeks later, I was elected ASA president for the 2019-2020 school year (on my birthday!) and I knew that I wanted to host another fashion show. Once finals ended in May, I began thinking about the theme of the show, the way I wanted the team behind the event to be organized, and other important details. I settled on a visual theme that the team helped me breathe life into many months later: black and white outfits with the only color being from Asian elements such as a patch of Asian textile or a character from a language written onto the clothing.
Largely inspired by brands such as Needles, Broke City Gold, and Cote Mer, I began to visualize different ideas and excitedly shared them with anyone who would listen. Another important aspect of the show that I wanted was to have a team of people working behind the scenes that shared the workload and the credit for its success. I did not want to be any sort of “lead designer” or “team leader”. I wanted ideas to flow freely and for any member to feel comfortable sharing their ideas or critiques. I also wanted anyone to be able to participate, and by 2020 the team had grown to nine wonderful human beings, all of whom I deeply appreciate for doing everything they could to help make this event a reality. To Angelica, Ceci, Formosa, Griffin, Kanako, Lauren, Jenn, and Evelyn: thank you, and I’m sorry that so much of our hard work ended up being for nothing. The behind-the-scenes work for any event is unglamorous and tedious, but it is always that time spent worrying about every last detail that can make or break something as hectic and scattered as a fashion show. I regularly would lay in bed, unable to sleep, thinking about the show. I would think about photoshoots, makeup, the actual event, whether we should do a speech, making sure the models and point team had time to eat throughout the day, how many volunteers we would need for the butchers paper, whether we would be able to get the show notes drawn and written in time, and whether we’d be able to make a video about the show afterwards. If I was alone with my thoughts, I was thinking about the fashion show. It was the single most important creative outlet I have ever had in my life. I have always been a STEM oriented kid, and I’ve often struggled to find an outlet for any artistic or creative ideas I had that I enjoyed or found fulfilling. The more time passes since the intended date of the show, the more I realize that the fashion show was (and still is) a vitally important part of my development as a human being. It taught me important lessons about working with a team, and taught me a lot about myself. As I look through the shared drive we had to organize and plan the event, I feel weighed down by an overwhelming amount of sadness. So much work, from so many people, was put into this idea. There were many meetings, in the Deece or in Main, and I had an
uncountable number of excited outbursts at ideas put forth from the team. All of their hard work deserves to be seen, but any attempt at recreating our plans would only be a shallow and hollow fragment of the greater vision. For a long time, I didn’t allow myself to truly come to terms with how crushed I was by the show being cancelled. I’d respond to reassuring texts from my friends with my go to line: “such is life.” I told myself that I should just be thankful for the fact that I had a home to live in, food to eat, and that I wasn’t sick. I told myself that people across the world were fighting for their lives against the pandemic and that this project was a small loss relative to so many others. While I still believe these things in part, the weight of all the things going on in the world during this time did eventually get to me and I finally did allow myself to express my emotions after many months of keeping them bottled up. I screamed and cried and yelled. I curled into a ball and took the time to mourn the loss of a project that had given me an enormous amount of joy across the span of a year. I took time to recognize that I wasn’t the only person who had put in hours and hours into the show, from the rest of the point team to all 25 models who were supposed to walk in the show to the people who volunteered to help with makeup to the rest of my ASA executive board, everyone had been committed to making a dream of mine—a dream of ours—a reality. This experience helped me understand that being able to be in touch with the full spectrum of emotions is that much more important because of COVID-19, social distancing, and the weight these have on our mental health. This semester, I was certainly tempted to host an altered version of the show to try and preserve some version of our ideas, but to even host a photoshoot to replace the show in current events would likely be an unwise and unsafe choice. Makeup would not be able to be applied by the volunteers, clothing would not be able to be shared (many of the outfits involved clothing shared by our stylists), and trying to organize all of this without more than 10 people being in the space together, all spaced 6 feet apart, sounds like a nightmare. I’m largely resigned to the fact that all of this hard work likely only gets to be expressed as this small article and perhaps some 50
accompanying images, and I honestly still don’t know how okay with that I am. I have been obsessed with fashion since sophomore year of high school, starting as a sneakerhead and moving into streetwear before eventually trying other styles. People talk to me about fashion all the time nowadays. I find that even people not particularly interested in fashion still ask about certain pieces or how I would currently define my style and that those conversations often are the highlights of my day. I just know that I love trying on, seeing, and touching cool and pretty clothes. I love the way I feel when I put on an awesome outfit, and I love being able to share that with people either by styling them or giving them advice on pieces to cop. I have watched countless runway shows from designers I look up to and I had hoped that this would be my chance to pay homage to them as well. It’ll take more time for me to grapple with my feelings to come to a real conclusion about that, and honestly that’s just life. Sometimes your work doesn’t get any recognition and goes up in a puff of smoke. The least I can say is that I am still grateful for all the support I received on my dream and that I associate many good memories with the organization of the fashion show. What follows are the show notes written as a collaborative effort by the point team of the show. The themes we wrote about are even more relevant now, in a country that has seen a frightening rise in the number of cases of anti-Asian violence and racism. I hope our country can grow more connected and do a better job of supporting not only Asian American voices, but the voices of all those marginalized and mistreated. Thanks for reading.
Thread \ ˈthred \ Noun “a filament, a group of filaments twisted together, or a filamentous length formed by spinning and twisting short textile fibers into a continuous strand.” A thread is a vital piece of every garment that holds together all other elements. Numerous, distinctive identities came together to form America and numerous, distinctive Asian countries came together to create this show. This show’s visual theme is black and white outfits with colorful accents from Asian cultures. Whether it be fabrics sewn onto garments, 3D printed accessories, or simply colorful pieces from Asian cultures, each outfit has these elements. Similar to how Asian people are but one of many groups necessary to the existence of America, these elements are a required part of each outfit. Gary Okihiro once wrote “Asians… did not come to conquer and colonize America; Americans went to conquer and colonize Asia”.1 It is important to remember that Columbus “discovered” America seeking Asia, and that America later colonized the Philippines. America’s existence today is predicated on the existence of Asia, and Asian people have since remained a vital group in America. From building the transcontinental railroad to Asian American workers on Hawaiian plantations to the cohort of Asian American small business owners across the country, it is impossible to deny how influential Asian people have been in America. It is also impossible to deny America’s many failings to the Asian people— Japanese internment, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the millions of tons of bombs dropped on Southeast Asia, and the murder of Vincent Chin, just to name a few. We want to recognize that while Columbus landed in America to seek Asia, it was the indigenous people who endured the atrocities of the colonization. We also want to acknowledge that similar to America, this show is not as diverse or holistically representative as it could be. Increased representation from South Asian, Central Asian, and other peoples is an important step to creating a more culturally conscious America. This show is our commentary on the need for Asian bodies in America, while simultaneously attempting to share the experience of being Asian in America with the audience. Taking one’s shoes off is an important part of entering spaces such as homes and temples and the blank room brings the audience out of the Villard Room and off of Vassar’s campus. This room will soon return to its former state, the paper ripped, crumpled, and eventually removed, but for this brief period, we hope you appreciate the time, energy, and hard work spent preparing for this event and enjoy joining us on this exploration of what it means to be Asian in America.2
1 Okihiro, Gary Y., and Moon-Ho Jung. Margins and Mainstreams: Asians in American History and Culture. University of Washington Press, 2014. pp. 2 The ripped pages in the background are made of the brainstorming and designs for the fashion show, hand drawn and hand ripped by the show’s team.
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• space between • composed by Tamika Whitenack edited by Emma Chun designed by Am Chunnananda The practice of letter writing is a practice of connection for me. Since the start of my time at Vassar, I’ve used letters as a way to stay in touch with family and friends in other places. I cherish the surprise of a carefully addressed envelope in my mailbox, and usually save my letters to read at bedtime. There is something special about letters as a form of communication; I feel more deeply touched, comforted, and seen when I read letters than when I read texts or emails. I feel more connected. Like many others, I’ve spent the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic searching for meaningful social engagement without the ability to share space in person. Letter writing has been one of my attempts to find connection, seeking to recreate tender moments across space through shared words and sentences. I’ve written letters to friends from study abroad, trying to build relationships that were truncated due to our COVID-induced return to the United States. I’ve written to old friends from high school, checking in and reflecting on the changes of this year to our lives four years ago. I’ve written letters for birthdays, accompanied with stickers and art projects. I’ve written to friends at Vassar, hoping to maintain close ties as I remained home in California for fall semester. I believe the magic of letters lies not only in the words written on the page, but in the journey that a letter travels from sender to recipient. This space between provides a time lag in which we grow, the world changes, and when the letter is opened and read, it is something new from its original creation, the same words but in a new context. It is this idea of distance and meaning-making that inspires my found poem project for Portrait. The following poem is constructed from phrases and lines taken from nine letters, each contributed by a different person. In composing a poem of letter tidbits, I wanted to consider how the proximity of words makes meaning, even if those words have traveled great distances in order to connect. This poem is a practice of connection built from a collective practice of connection through letter writing.
contributors: Jane Ahn, Kanako Kawabe, Emma Chun, Mason Dao, Johnson Lin, Spencer McGrath, Am Chunnananda, and Gabor Ptacek
I know this is a bit out of the blue, but I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing recently You asked what I take comfort in Autumn leaves fall as we grow i love you as mellow as the sunshine warms up the winter of november “i’m not writing bc you haven’t responded to me in a while. Over the summer, it felt like I had so many things I wanted to say, but there was no space inside me to say them. So close yet so far I’m curious about the scribbles in your letters
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this semester really is from Hell. at this point i treat your emails more like a gift from god.” It almost reminds me of my first semester of freshman year, adjusting to this new and strange environment. there is also loss, and I grieve for it all simultaneously, regularly—and there is also abundance, there, here. Now there’s no space left even for the things I wanted to say, and I can’t tell if that’s better or worse. it’s weird to see how right as I’m getting used to campus life, I have to leave I cannot wait for more good times together i love you so much, and I hope you love me the same way i have been and are loving you
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Am Chunnananda
