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The Wave Jerrica Li (Editor-in-Chief ) Eric Zhou (Alumni Chair) Vanessa Hu (General Manager) Albert Zhang (Design Lead) Margaret Sun (Design) JuHye Mun (Social Media) Andrew Siyoon Ham (Business Lead) Grace Cen (Business) Jason Zhou (Editorial Lead) Julianna Kim (Editorial) Simone Chu (Cover Artist) Website Instagram Facebook Twitter Issuu Email
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waveartsmagazine.com @waveharvard @harvardwave @waveharvard @waveartsmagazine wave.arts.journal@gmail.com
Welcome.
We, The Wave Team, may not know you, but we are so glad you’re here. That is the delight of this virtual zine. For the Quaranzine, we invited anyone in the Pan-Asian diasporic community to contribute to this virtual time capsule. During a global pandemic and reckoning with racial inequality, we wanted to forge an open platform for our community to convey what they’re thinking, feeling, noticing, grieving, and cherishing. That’s why this issue is raw. It’s clear that our community is processing, struggling with, and fighting against anti-Asian discrimination during COVID-19. And even more, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement urges us to deepen our belief in being active, meaningful allies to BIPOC communities, and strengthens our resolve to showcase stories that need to be heard. This mission is solidified in all the labor and love that has culminated in our beloved Quaranzine. But, it is strange to think that you may be reading this alone on a digital screen, rather than perusing a physical copy in a lively room, like at our inaugural launch celebration. On one browser tab, you may be seeing images of frontline workers combating a pandemic, on another, clips of people partying in quarantine. How do we stay grounded when our virtual windows into the larger world quickly become biased or fragmented? There is now a strange dissonance in our physical perspectives, which have suddenly contracted to the little universes inside our quarantined walls and Zoom windows. Our world shrank to the home, the grocery store, and the radius within walking distance. What does this do to our minds, our hearts, our memories of bustling streets, our sense of spontaneity? It can feel like our ability to emotionally connect and tell our truths degenerates living in a world like this. So please, go through this zine slowly. Read every piece. Use this as an opportunity to actively listen, reflect on the world, and empower yourself to speak your truth. We hope the voices in this issue restore your creative reserves, stretch your empathetic muscles, and strengthen the core of what makes you human. Here it is, the Quaranzine. With love, The Wave
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a navigation I. family and honestly anyone other than my zoom friends
Masked Celebration ........................................................................... Erik Zou 08
Intimacy in an Era of Social Distancing ................................... Aditi Desai 09
Acts of Service .............................................................................. Emily Hong 11
Time Lapse .................................................................................... Grace Wang 12
Reunion Season .......................................................................... Shirley Chen 13
Life As We Know It ...................................................................... Payton Kim 14
A Girl’s Dream ................................................................................... Alissa Tu 16
A Taste of Home ................................................................................. Vicky Xu 18
II. the inertia of my solitude 1
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summer haze .............................................................................. Erin Rairdan 22
pause button ................................................................................... Yooni Park 23
Life Underground ..................................................................... Wen-hao Tien 24
Virtually Social ........................................................................ Saffron Huang 26
Just A Position .......................................................................... Michael Baick 32
Inside ................................................................................................. Alison Xin 34
quaranzine poetry .................................................................... Hayoung Ahn 36
III. the political, the personal
Eye Piece ........................................................................................... Anonymous 40
Traffic Light ................................................................................... Stephanie Hu 44
The Sin .......................................................................................... Valerie Zhang 45
Normal ................................................................................................... Kai Song 47
The Plight of Chinese Restaurants ........ Grace Cen, Mina Lee, Jessica Wu 57
The ‘Chinese’ Virus ........................................................................... Tina Gong 59
Welcome to the War .......................................................................... Grace Hui 60
black sugar and honey .................................................................... Sharon Lin 61
IV. implosion, outburst
Her Heart Beats to the Crunch of Shrimp Chips ..................... Audrey Cui 64
Zinerapture .......................................................................... Kat Pongtornpipat 65
Cigarettes, Coffee, and Polaroids ................................................ Woojin Lim 72
Silicon Suburbs .................................................................................. Karly Hou 74
red ....................................................................................................... Vanessa Hu 76
I Shed Tears on the Beach in Kamakura! ............. Alexander Zirui Zhang 80
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a video
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When I came back home [to Bangkok, Thailand] ... I decided to create a zine during quarantine be physically mail to my friends... Using comics, collages and illustrations, ZINERAPTURE is a person acceptance) about it all.
ecause it was a fast and easy way for me to express words/images and to produce something I could nal zine that reflects existential angst in uncertain times while maintaining a sense of humor (and 71
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everything in and nothing out, nothing everything in and nothing out, nothing comes barreling out like the blinding comes barreling out like the blinding river styx unleashed to flood away, river styx unleashed to flood away, let rust the oh-so tender fingers and let rust the oh-so tender fingers and burning autumns and close breaths burning autumns and close breaths and magnifying glasses that brand and magnifying glasses that brand my skin like cowhide. my skin like cowhide. you have no choice you have no choice now, but to fight fire now, but to fight fire with fire: any spark with fire: any spark you can muster. you can muster. i’ll nurse tiny flames, light i’ll nurse tiny flames, light small temples in the night small temples in the night for you. i’ll set a bonfire on for you. i’ll set a bonfire on the scarlet glitter, fahrenheit the scarlet glitter, fahrenheit decrees, and feverish embraces, decrees, and feverish embraces, send smoke streaming up to mingle send smoke streaming up to mingle in the supernovas of stars past. in the supernovas of stars past. strike, strike, strike again strike, strike, strike again that match, til your hands that match, til your hands are marred with leathery are marred with leathery amber calluses and amber calluses and softened by baby pink softened by baby pink peaches that fill my belly peaches that fill my belly and stretch you whole. and stretch you whole. maybe, maybe, you’re not you’re not a painter. a painter.
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but it’s enough to smear cloud and war paint on your cheek, close that bloodshot eye, and let the arrow cut through your thumb and strip through the air with wound as its escort. you’ll miss the heart, and i will bleed for it. because i’ve shot down nine suns, but you could never shoot down the last one.
In Chinese mythology, there were ten suns that would take turns lighting the Earth. One day, they decided to all come out together, scorching the planet. Hou Yi, a skilled archer, saved humanity by shooting down nine of the ten suns, the last one remaining to maintain balance and life in our world.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS One of the reasons why our zine exists is to amplify voices from a Pan-Asian space, so we are thankful to the organizations who have helped us in our mission to make these voices heard. Thank you to Harvard TAPAS (Task Force for Asian American Progressive Advocacy and Studies) for working with us to run an intercollegiate workshop on AAPI zines. Thank you to the Harvard Gazette and Watercress for writing about our story and bringing our platform to a wider audience. This project takes a village. Our thanks extend to our small, but mighty core team. Thank you for the labour, and thank you for the love. Thank you and thank you and thank you to Eric. You are The Wave’s guardian angel and North Star. A billion more thank you’s to Margaret for ideating the Quaranzine, being generally awesome, drafting much of the layout, and helping The Wave grow now and in the future. A warm virtual hug and all our gratitude to Albert for designing and placing every piece in this publication, which is itself a work of art. And to Simone, thank you; your beautiful cover art began this whole journey. We bow down to Vanessa, keeper of the google calendar, who runs a tiptop ship and a stunning website archive for our magazine. And who inspires us with her creative mind. A heartfelt and deep thank you to our editors: JuHye for your inspirational tunes and your witty Zoom chats; Jason for being a rock and for timely thumbs up reaccs; Andrew for your patience and for waking up for morning meetings; Grace for always taking initiative and dreaming up more; Julianna for your energy and bringing your opinions. Of course, none of this would have been possible without Jerrica, who wrote all of these wonderful acknowledgements but neglected to write one for herself! She is an amazing beyond words, inspiring, and fun bean curd of a president. We love you Jerrica! Thank you, finally, to our contributors, our artists, our readers, our support network, our human beings. This zine is yours now. 82
ENDNOTES
The title of this section, “the inertia of my solitude,” comes from Saffron Huang’s piece “Virtually Social.”
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Pages 6-7 image sources Photo 1 | Photo 2 | Photo 3 | Photo 4 | Photo 5 | Photo 6 | Photo 7 | Photo 8
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Pages 26-29 image sources Photo 1 | Photo 2 | Photo 3 | Photo 4
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Pages 32 image sources Photo 1
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Pages 36 image sources Photo 1
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Pages 38-39 image sources Photo 1
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Pages 40-43 image sources Photo 1
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Pages 44-45 image sources Photo 1 | Photo 2
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