DESCENT | ISSUE #2: develop // deconstruct

ISSUE 2

FALL 2021

WHO WE ARE

DESCENT

DESCENT is a student-run arts magazine at USC. We produce a semesterly online magazine featuring works by APIDA creators at USC. Our mission is to elevate and amplify APIDA voices by nurturing a space where they can showcase the their artwork, stories and other creations.

COVER BY: ALEX LAM & ANGELA RONG

OUR TEAM

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CO EDITOR IN CHIEF Nancy Liu

CO EDITOR IN CHIEF Long Le

FINANCE Charlene Huang

PARTNERSHIPS Angelica Boaquina

PUBLIC RELATIONS Connie Deng Isabelle Peng Sreenidhi Boopathi

PUBLICATIONS Mendy Kong Stephanie Shaw

VISUAL ART EDITOR Angela Rong STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Alex Lam COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Emily Chen Ethan Woo INTERNAL OUTREACH Cecilia Li

WRITING EDITOR Emi Ching WEB PRODUCTION Steven Gong STAFF WRITERS Ally Guo Jamie Ma Sophia Pelaez Alicia Luo Echo Tang

The theme for Descent Magazine’s Fall 2021 issue is “develop // deconstruct.” Our first issue represented our transitional status in a liminal space as we started this magazine. This issue is meant to represent our development as a magazine and larger community, and work to both develop and deconstruct the APIDA identity.

3 9 1 11 19 23 2 7 35 25 45 31 10 5 7 2 FROM LETTERITORS THE ED , IU NANCY L LONG LE

GROWING A FAMILY

ALLY GU

recollectionser from a moth twin beds

SEEKING ASIAN FEMALE

CHRISTOPHER

JAMIE MA

missed calls

SOPHIA PELAEZ

O

AAPI CREATIVES E COLLECTIV

ASHE

KAREN ABE, G ANNIE ZHEN

ALICIA

S

LUO

LIN

ER’S H T A E W GING CHAN TONG E

TRENYC

it come and goess

ECHO TAN

G

TORS

BU CONTRI

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L ETT E R F RO M T H E E D I T O RS Hi, all, and welcome to the second issue of Descent Magazine. Our mission is to elevate and amplify APIDA voices and to create a platform to showcase the diversity of artwork, stories and talents of APIDA creators at USC. As always, we’re proud to present beautiful and nuanced art and literature from APIDA students and creators within the USC community.

This year, we’ve expanded our team to include the works of staff writers and staff photographers, who’ve worked throughout the semester to create many of the pieces featured within the magazine. We always strive to grow and enact change within our own community, as well as the greater USC and Los Angeles community. The theme for this issue is inspired by this.

The theme is develop and deconstruct for this issue, which felt fitting as we, as a magazine and artists, have reflected on our organization and operations to expand to greater horizons. After a tumultuous Spring semester for all students and the APIDA community, we hope that we can all reflect on the established systems of the world and deconstruct and develop them to serve the world better.

This issue, and Descent as a whole, is a product of the passion of Asian artists at USC. It could not have been possible without the dedication, hard work and care of our amazing team. We hope that this issue provides a space for you to reflect on your own development and that you are able to be inspired while enjoying the works of your peers, friends and fellow artists.

We present, with great pleasure, the second issue of Descent Magazine.

Long Le

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DESCENT

Nancy Liu

D O S U

D E C O N S T R U C T DEVELOP

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SEEKING ASIAN FEMALE

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CONTENT WARNING: PROFANITY, SEXUAL HARASSMENT

JAMIE MA

One late Saturday night after coming home from a date, I forced my roommate to balance on top of her swivel desk chair and take a photo of me from the angle at which this 6’6” white man looked at me.

Both the angle and my LED desk lamp made me look ghoulish— with buggish eyes, flat lips and dark purple under-eye circles. We doubled over in laughter.

“Wow, this man must be really obsessed with getting an Asian girl if that’s what you look like to him,” my roommate joked. I paused. The photo wasn’t great, but it was me— in all my tapered monolid, nonexistent nasal bridge Asian-ness. Then again,

what possessed a white guy that tall and midwestern to want a little Asian girl seventeen inches shorter than him? What I heard was, He only likes you because you’re Asian. Regardless of whether or not this was true, I felt hurt.

Was it really so unimaginable that I could be attractive for qualities besides my race?

Then again, what possessed a white guy that tall and midwestern to want a little Asian girl seventeen inches shorter than him? Every time I saw him after that (let’s call him Mark) I felt an ickiness pulsing in my gut. Not to pity the white man, but the very foundation of our relationship had troublesome roots.

The majority of early interracial relationships between Asian women and white men began in the 20th century with the “military war brides” who immigrated to the United States as the spouses of American soldiers.

During the Korean War, over 6,000 Korean women married U.S. military personnel and moved to the States. This statistic does not tread lightly. Through a system developed by the US military and Republic of Korea, over tens of thousands of Korean women (estimates run around 26 and 39 thousand) were forced or manipulated into prostitution specifically for the recreation and “morale-boosting” of U.S. soldiers.

Derogatorily termed “ ” or “western princess,” these women became heavily reliant on prostitution and/or relationships with the American GIs for survival.

I focus specifically here on the Korean experience as a Korean-American woman, but parallels can be drawn all throughout Asia as interracial relations grew alongside American globalization during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. For instance, over 8,000 Vietnamese women immigrated to the U.S. as war brides during the Vietnam War, a number which precluded the growing rate of marriage between refugee women and white American men.

For many of these women, marrying American men offered a new life outside of forced prostitution or violence in war-torn countries. However, the fact that many of these relationships arose from American military control and the sexual “availability” of Asian women suggests an unsettling truth—these relationships were borne out of the occupation of both the Asian homeland and the Asian female body.

I couldn’t help but wonder what my relationship with Mark would have looked like just a few generations ago: a different world with the same characters. When Mark touched me for the first time, I wondered what she must have felt like being touched by a foreign man with a foreign tongue who took up twice the space she did.

When Mark and I walked side-by-side, holding hands or brushing arms, I wondered what she must have felt like coming to America, walking side-by-side with no family, no friends, no English—only her new white husband and his distorted perception of her. When Mark lay on top of me, either not knowing or not caring that he was crushing me, I wondered what she must have felt like in the same position once, twice, ten times a day—smothered, trapped, frightened, comforted, disgusted?

“I honestly can’t tell if he’s fetishizing me or not,” I told my roommate one Wednesday evening on the train ride to our home city. My tone conveyed hopefulness, but tugging at the back of my mind: His traveling hand woke me up. “Hey,” he said. He could wrap his entire arm around me and still have forearm left over. “You’re so cute and dainty. I love it.”

Suddenly, she grabbed my knees and burst into laughter. “Holy shit, I have an amazing idea. Say you want him to roleplay as a soldier who saves you from your wartorn country.”

If he was down, he for sure was fetishizing me.

“Oh, and ask him to call you Lotus Blossom or some shit like that.”

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The rising influx of these military war bride marriages combined with certain pieces of media, heavily perpetuated the submissive, helpless, yet sexually receptive trope almost all Asian American women grapple with today.

Pop culture, history, and even online discourse hypersexualize Asian women— rarely granting the opportunity for us to exert control over our own bodies, sexuality, perception. Whether the story is of a hyper aggressive temptress or prostitute (Kill Bill, Full Metal Jacket), or the helpless, docile damsel in distress (Miss Saigon), these characters one-dimensionalize and eroticize millions of women, subjecting them to racialized sexual harassment and violence. While some may find this “desirability” a privilege (“Oh, at least men want you”), it ensconces Asian women directly within the virulent intersection of white supremacy and misogyny.

This “desirability” stems not from genuine desire of Asian women ourselves, but of the power and control over our bodies.

The Atlanta shooting in March 2021, in which six out of eight deaths were Asian women, exemplifies this disturbing fact. The perpetrator’s defense included overcoming a “sex addiction,” zeroing in on a place of “temptation”— the place being an Asian-owned massage business. The gunman’s sexual desire of Asian women neither protected nor pedestaled them; it painted them as oriental Jezebels to be eradicated.

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A recent Stop AAPI Hate national report revealed that from March 2020 to February 2021, Asian women reported 2.3 times more hate incidents than Asian men— making up 68% of all reports. When the prevailing perception of the Asian woman is that of a meek, vulnerable exoticism, an exoticism which also poses a threat to white American purity, this gender disparity is unsurprising.

From personal experience and anecdotal evidence from family and friends, almost every case of sexual harassment, misogyny, and racism is inseparably intertwined.

Catcalls always include “yellow” or “China doll” or “Chinese/Japanese/ insert-ethnicity-here princess.” Just two weeks into COVID, racists had gotten disturbingly creative with their remarks. I remember walking through my neighborhood, enjoying the spring sun. Normally I’d walk phone and keys in hand, but it was Orange County suburbia and I never had reason to keep my guard up. A gray Honda Civic pulled up next to me, and a middle-aged white man who eerily resembled Kevin Spacey stuck his head out the window and yelled: “Keep that mask on and that pussy tight!”

Kevin rolled away laughing, leaving me feeling totally depersonalized—a sexualized, coronavirus-diseased hole for his consumption, his entertainment.

Under the guise of Asian American solidarity, MRAsians vilify Asian women as white supremacist eugenicists who, through sexual relations with non-Asian men, either inadvertently or purposefully eliminate Asian men from the human population.

The harsh white light of my laptop cast a menacing glow, the words “shameless Asian woman loves colonial white dick” throbbing, pulsing, burning my eyes with its fluorescent sting. I sat criss-crossed, my dorm mattress stubbornly stiff below me, frantically scrolling through Reddit threads saturated with degrading and violent comments targeting Asian American women romantically or sexually involved with white men. The screen jeered shameless Asian woman. “Annyeonghaseyo,” Mark began greeting me after learning I was Korean. He drew it out, the ‘s’ harsh like in the word ‘scent,’ the unfamiliarity dribbling off his tongue. I initially found it endearing. Shameless Asian woman loves being colonized.

With general AAPI hate on the rise, an interesting gendered dichotomy arises with it. As Asian American women navigate sexual objectification from white men, we simultaneously grapple with vicious accusations from a very loud few Asian American men.

Coined “Men’s Rights Asians” on the internet and emboldened by explicit instances of white supremacy (ie, the aforementioned Atlanta shooting), MRAsians take it upon themselves to “dismantle” white supremacy by attacking Asian women “race traitors.”

One Redditor wrote that if a “Lu,” a derogatory term used towards Asian women who “worship white men” entered his home, he’d “shoot her dead on sight.” Redditors upvoted graphic sentences of Asian women dying of cancer and AIDS from their white partners. Men of our own c ommunity wanted to shoot, choke, murder, rape us to death.

I stumbled into this triggering internet spiral as my relationship with— and doubts about Mark grew. (“You can just call me ‘pretty,’” I told him several times. No, no, he insisted. . From his tongue, yeh-POH.) My psychoanalytic self dove into the web, googling “white man asian woman bad”, “am i being fetishized asian girl white guy racist”, “am i racist for liking white men.”

Under the guise of Asian American solidarity, MRAsians vilify Asian women as white supremacist eugenicists who, through sexual relations with non-Asian men, either inadvertently or purposefully eliminate Asian men from the human population.

They tell me that by dating a white man, I reject an Asian man. They say I am a “mentally colonized boba liberal hack,” and if I don’t like that, I can go “pray to [my] white god.”

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DESCENT MRAsians pose as the perfect example of the need for intersectionality. In their fight towards anti-racism, they perpetuate violent, destructive misogyny. Their philosophies— rather, the entitlement they feel towards our bodies— ironically promote the exact behavior they claim to despise. Instead of acknowledging our own agency, they argue for ownership of the Asian female body not by white men, but by Asian men.

The YouTube comedy sketch “Yellow Fever” by the popular and prolific channel Wong Fu Productions provides a lighthearted, yet effective example of these behaviors in an everyday, normalized context. A couple Asian men wonder “why white guys are getting all our girls.” The characters, upset that they apparently attract neither white nor Asian girls, study what their white friends do to “get” Asian girls.

Maybe they’ll “even get a white girl!”

All their white friend has to do is point a finger at an Asian girl and beckon her over.

Immediately she looks up, runs over to him, and asks for his number. This scene yields problematic implications. The sketch highlights the white man’s “power” to essentially trap Asian women, erasing all consciousness and agency from the Asian girl. As the Asian guys scoff in jealousy over said power, they idealize whiteness as the standard of attraction, that whiteness—white masculinity, rather, is the quality that attracts Asian women above any other.

We can trace this back to 1875 with the U.S. Page Act that barred all “Oriental” women from entering the United States, drastically skewing gender proportions amongst the Chinese American population— at 48 women per every 1000 men.

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At the end of the sketch, a friend explains that Asian men can’t attract women because they are “too pansy” and “don’t have the confidence or assertiveness” to initiate relationships or conversations. WongFu Productions, in an albeit self-deprecating way, raises another issue within the Asian American community. While members of almost all minority groups regardless of sexuality experience rejection from white America, Asian men face it in unprecedented and disproportionate numbers. While I do not agree with MRAsians in the slightest, I can sympathize with their attempts at overcoming that feeling of constant and continual rejection.

When highly racialized and gendered standards strictly establish the concept of masculinity and ultimately, personhood, anything perceived as further “rejection” (even if it’s based in deep seated misogyny) stings.

We can trace this back to 1875 with the U.S. Page Act that barred all “Oriental” women from entering the United States, drastically skewing gender proportions amongst the Chinese American population— at 48 women per every 1000 men (the reasoning for this ban: Asian women were viewed as unclean prostitutes who’d ruin young America). Working “feminine” jobs such as cleaning or cooking and cultural expressions such as wearing long hair further ostracized this population of unmarried, working-class men. The effeminization of Asian men, similarly to that of Asian women, still permeates our culture now.

OKTrends, dating app OKCupid’s research blog, reported in 2009 that Asian men received the lowest rates of response of any gender or racial group on the app. This rejection transcends heterosexuality, as the Journal of Sex Research found in September 2021 that on Grindr, Asian men also received disproportionate rates of rejection compared to any other racial group. This suggests that the white standard of masculinity continues to be a significant factor in dating choices.

We come full circle with the realization that white men, out of all men, are most desirable on all dating apps (heterosexual or not), and Asian women are most desirable out of all women.

A 2017 Pew Research study on interracial marriage reveals that Asian/white couples make up 15% of all newlywed interracial couples; yet over 70% of these marriages were of white men and Asian women.

Interestingly, Hispanic/white couples made up 42% of interracial marriages but were evenly split among gender lines. The skewing of interracial coupling along gendered lines is specifically unique to Asian Americans (this skew also existed, to a lesser extent, between Black men and women). These statistics beg the question— do we Asian women play a part in this? Do Asian women have “white fever?”

A short PBS special “Seeking Asian Female: Do Asian Women Have ‘White Fever’?” examined this question. Many of the interviewed women cited “personality” and “looks” as the reason they preferred (or exclusively dated) white men.

There is a certain attractiveness in whiteness. We’re force-fed whiteness as the ideal of beauty, success, knowledge, and power until the ramifications choke us, until we can’t breathe a single, uncomplicated sigh of relief free from the highly racialized world we live in. It’s not white fever or a fetish; it’s a reverse power dynamic stemming from our own objectification.

No matter how much or how little sexual/ romantic experience we’ve had, we still are in the developmental stages of our sexual identities. I’m not suggesting we, as young Asian Americans, need to strictly police our dating habits or over analyze our relationships. However, it’s worth taking a second look at our choices, how we desire others and how we frame that desire. Is there a feeling of pride at “getting” a white partner, like in the WongFu sketch? Perhaps that sense of safety or comfort with a white partner is actually an attachment to the podium of whiteness? I don’t know. This is a conversation that’s been had hundreds of times before, and yet the subject matter remains complicated, the right path elusive. I really don’t know.

If I find myself attracted to a person of a different race, am I betraying my own? Am I perpetuating the emasculating idea that Asian men are unattractive and effeminate?

Am I being “mentally colonized?” Am I being unfair to Mark, for almost eagerly labeling him racist, for hyperfocusing on the colonial implications of the relationship?

I wonder if these questions are another response to socialization— that I’m responsible for the emotional security of other people over my own, yet another internalization Asian American women must unlearn. But looking inwardly, things don’t get less complicated. Am I hurting myself, defaulting myself to victimhood and unreasonably blaming someone else? Am I degrading myself, succumbing to the fear that outside of my race I am inherently unlikeable or unlovable?

I never asked Mark about the roleplaying scenario. I ended things with him instead. I don’t know if this was the right decision, and I wonder if there even was one. The tricky thing about a relationship with colonial implications is just that— they’re implications. Dating as an Asian woman today follows decades of exploitation, but nothing’s clear-cut: there is no one villain or victim, and labeling him and myself as such is highly problematic.

Nonetheless, this decision produced a small sense of power, a privilege withheld from almost an entire history of Asian women. I imagine that the women who came before me would want the privilege of choice, the privilege of happiness, to revel not necessarily in the ability to break up with someone but in the pursuit of freedom, happiness, joy.

With each and every assertion of my own agency I commemorate my sisters, mothers and their mothers; I yearn for their happiness, I ache for their agency, I hunger for their joy. Transcending MRAsians, colonization, injustice, the Asian female body is a sacred vessel— to our value, our worth, our humanity.

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DESCENT

home was a walk to school in the sun the wet air beating upon her back she remembers home was a bowl of rice stuffed in her cheeks spat out onto the concrete behind the house the brief moment of recollection, a chance to remember a life passed yet still alive home, a fairy tale told to a sleeping child unable to understand their parent now i carry her home in my memory; her story, she has become the foundations of my dreams

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re c olle ctions from a mother CHRISTOPHER LIN

twin beds

two twin beds pulled apart, separated but pushed together; old blankets stuffed in between the cracks so that I could lay atop like a king soft cotton catching our bodies; my brother and i, the blankets swaddling us on those ikea bed frames but i learned too soon that without him there was no home and without him i was no king

CHRISTOPHER LIN

for my parents i became a white sheet for their lives to be projected onto; onto a broken child, forever a machine

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Growin

BY ALLY GUO

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DESCENT

aF

ng

The earliest memory I have of my mother— just mā-ma, nobody else at the fringes of my mind—is of her cooking in the kitchen when I returned from Yellowstone.

My dad, bà-ba, had taken me and both sets of my grandparents on vacation. Mā-ma had stayed behind: 1) to look after my younger brother, Ethan, and 2) because she was supposed to take me to China right after we got back.

As soon as the laundry room door opened into the main hallway, my 6-year-old body spilling back into the house, she turned around and smiled.

Her hair was tied up in a bun and a blue apron was wrapped around her waist.

“啊，已

回来了?”1

It’s a strange memory to have.

She didn’t cook very often, and the image of her in the kitchen seems out of place.

But that’s the way I remember her anyway.

Family 1. “Oh, you’re back already?”

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Allium tuberosum

garlic chive

Solanum lycopersicum

tomato

柿

I’ve long hated garlic chives, jiǔ-cài, as my family calls it. The taste is strange, way too strong, and tiny little pieces always get stuck in my teeth, leaving the unpleasantness lingering for hours afterward.

Unfortunately, nǎi-nai uses jiǔ-cài in everything: jiǎo-zi, hún-dùn, hé-zi, bāo-zi,1 and filling for bǐng. Somehow, despite my best efforts, it ends up on my plate at least once a week—usually more, because nǎi-nai tends to make more food than anyone can eat.

Complaining to her never works.

She’s always quick to tell me just how expensive jiǔ-cài is, how jealous people are of our never ending supply. “别人 买不到呢!”2 2 dumplings, wontons, pocket pies, steamed stuffed buns, and filling for bread 3 “Other people want it, but they can’t even buy it!”

My paternal and maternal grandparents alternated the time they spent with us, one pair staying for the first half of the year, the other pair arriving as soon as six months were up. My maternal grandfather, lǎo-yé, cooked when he was around, and my paternal grandma, nǎi-nai, cooked when she was. Mā-ma sometimes cooked when she wanted to but never often enough for me to recall what she made.

A lot of our food came from nǎinai’s garden. The eldest of five surviving children, she’d come from a farm, and she’d spend hours each day planting, weeding, and watering enough food to feed multiple

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DESCENT

Of course, I always respond, “Well if they want it so much, you can give it to them!”

But one thing I won’t give to others is tomatoes. There are two types in nǎi-nai’s garden: the big fat ones so smushed they look like pincushions and the small circular ones that resemble oversized marbles. The big ones always wear crimson, but the small ones don scarlet or gold, depending on their mood.

Combined with eggs, tomatoes are my favorite soup ingredient. I like tomatoes and eggs in a lot of things, but the soup is always the tastiest. In fact, I wouldn’t hesitate to call it nǎi-nai’s best dish. I think most members of my family would agree as well.

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generations of family. I didn’t like most of the plants she grew, though. Tomatoes and cucumbers were great, but jiǔ-cài, dōng-guā, and cōng3 were revolting.

My favorite meal was probably the McDonald’s chicken nuggets Māma bought after my Monday swimming lessons. Those were a rare delicacy, flavor bursting in my mouth after a hard day of paddling. In contrast, my grandparents’ cooking was smelly and commonplace.

4 garlic chives, wax gourd/winter melon, scallion

--Cucumis sativus, , cucumber Summer is the time of cucumbers. When I was a child, nǎi-nai would harvest 80 cucumbers a season, and I would eat three a day.

It was a ritual of sorts. I’d come downstairs after sleeping half the afternoon away, and nǎi-nai would call me lazy before pointing to a plate of sliced cucumbers on the table. I’d thank her, promise to sleep and rise earlier the next day, and scurry into the dining room to feast. I always started with the middle pieces, avoiding the discolored and disfigured ends but gorging on them anyway once the centers had been eaten.

We usually gave away cucumbers, too.

Every summer, nǎi-nai would approach me on three separate days, a cheeky grin splitting her face as she handed me a plastic bag wrapped around two of her longest cucumbers.

She knew I hated going to the neighbors— hated awkwardly gesturing to the bag as I babbled on. No matter how many years I made deliveries, I never lost the string of dread that wound in my gut as I approached the front porch next door. Even in recent years, when the pests invading nǎi-nai’s garden have ruined most of her cucumber crop, she still makes sure to send our closest neighbors two each.

However, nǎi-nai’s generosity does not extend to these pests, which she hates with a burning passion. The summer before my junior year of high school, she caught four possums in traps when they dared step too close to her arbor. Bà-ba and I released most of them into a forest, but apparently, nǎi-nai threw one down the sewer in a rage.

I always thought that was a bit cruel, but

whenever I brought it up, she’d scoff. “它们是害兽. 活得了.”4 The pests, combined with generally unfortunate weather and disease, mean we’ve been getting fewer cucumbers since I started high school. There’s still a decent amount, but I can’t eat three a day anymore—sometimes not even one.

Which is why most summer mornings these days, nǎi-nai can be found cheerfully informing me (because she loves seeing me squirm), when I finally drag myself out of bed, that there are no cucumbers to eat today.

--I don’t remember what mā-ma’s cooking tasted like, and my maternal grandparents stopped coming after she passed away. Then, my paternal grandfather’s health started failing, and eventually, nǎi-nai was the only one living in our house. It didn’t take long to get her a green card, and soon she was staying in the U.S. year-round.

Every day, nǎi-nai made breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Xī-hóng-shì-chǎo-jī-dān, dòu-jiǎo-chǎo-jī-ròu, yáng-cōng-chǎo-niú-ròu.5 The ingredients were different, but the style of every meal was the same: two to three stirfried dishes to complement the rice, followed by a large pot of vegetable soup. Sometimes, there were dumplings or steamed buns to spice things up (though I didn’t like them very much), but the stir fry, rice, and soup were dependable staples.

I liked what we ate, so whenever someone asked me what my favorite cuisine was, I always said Chinese.

5 “They’re vermin. They can survive.”

6 tomatoes with eggs, green beans with chicken, onion with beef

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DESCENT Brassica rapa var. parachinensis / Brassica chinensis var. parachinensis, 心, choy sum Basella alba, 木 , Malabar spinach Pyropia yezoensis / Pyropia tenera, , nori

because vegetable soup is vegetable soup, and we chomp on the leaves and slurp up the broth, whether it tastes like anything or not.

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Vegetable soup is a complicated affair. My family has it every day, but every day, the vegetable soup experience is different.

If you asked me to name the plants drifting through the broth, I’d tell you it’s impossible.

Whenever I ask her what something is called, nǎinai responds with some colloquial name nobody outside Lián-yún-gǎng, Jiāng-sū understands.

But that’s to be expected—almost everything that ends up in that old soup pot comes from her garden. Even the tiny bits of bug trapped in the floating nets of wispy egg whites are 100% homegrown.

I used to avoid vegetable soup after every meal. Everyone else in the house drank it religiously, but Ethan and I always refused. I’m not sure what caused me to change my mind, but one day in middle school or early high school, I randomly asked for a bowl after a heavy dinner.

One sip and I was hooked.

Alongside eggs and fish tofu, three of the most frequent visitors to the soup realm are càixīn, mù-ěr-cài, and zǐ-cài. I usually like all three, but their potential depends heavily on the amount of salt nǎi-nai sprinkles in.

The way nǎi-nai uses salt mirrors the way she cooks in general. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her weigh or measure ingredients. She just lifts her hands and begins ripping, chopping, stirring, and steaming so naturally it feels like she’s guided by some invisible being. Her means always seem arbitrary, but the food still turns out exceptional.

Unfortunately, salt-sprinkling may be her only weakness. More often than not, the soup ends up too bland, with nǎi-nai having forgotten to put in any salt at all. But we drink it anyway,

Bà-ba got married a second time sometime during 2013. At least, I think it was 2013. They never actually told me they got married; I found out a year later when I discovered photos from a porch wedding I wasn’t invited to in his camera roll. But my half-brother, Eric, was born in 2014, and I went through a brief stint of hiding their wedding rings around this time, so I’ve always assumed it was 2013. Ā-yí was a weird presence in my life. We were always friends, but I was never quite sure I was supposed to be friends with my stepmother.

Lots of things changed during this time, but a small yet noticeable shift was that suddenly, nǎinai wasn’t the only one cooking.

While ā-yí didn’t cook often, it was striking when she did. As much as she liked Chinese food, she was always trying to experiment with new flavors, so at least once a month, some strange, unexpected dish would appear on our table: chunky barbecue chicken legs, golden slips of Japanese tofu, and vaguely croissantshaped bread. Ā-yí was probably the first person to use our oven in years (nǎi-nai doesn’t even know how to use it).

I usually tried whatever ā-yí made. I didn’t often like it, mainly because I don’t like baked goods, but she always looked so happy whenever someone ate her food.

So I did.

--Dioscorea polystachya, 山 , Chinese yam Ā-yí liked to say she had a refined palate, that she made and enjoyed good food. I think that sentiment is a Sì-chuān thing. That’s the province

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she was from, and all of China seems to take pride in the food there—in the dishes heaped high with fire red spices that sting more than they burn.

Personally, I don’t like Sì-chuān cuisine very much. It’s not bad, but nǎi-nai doesn’t really use spices in her food, so it’s not an acquired taste. Soy sauce, salt, and scallion are the extent of her accents. Ā-yí’s only child likes Sì-chuān food even less than I do. But, to be fair, Eric doesn’t like much of anything. Somehow, he subsists solely on unflavored noodles and pre-prepared cheese ravioli. They’re from some generic American brand, but we called them xiaojiǎo-zi, little dumplings, since he won’t eat real dumplings.

He’s awfully picky and will throw a tantrum if he sees even the tiniest green leaf in his noodles. Ā-yí took to mashing meat and vegetables into a paste just to sneak them into his mouth.

But strangely enough, one legitimate Chinese food he ate from a young age was shān-yào, or Chinese yams. I don’t know why; personally, I thought it tasted even worse than jiǔ-cài. Or maybe by the time I started high school, nǎi-nai had fed me so much jiǔ-cài I couldn’t hate it anymore.

--I don’t know if ā-yí ever realized how much nǎi-nai criticized her. But I think she did because she once tearfully told me that, sometimes, it felt like nobody in our household liked her. That wasn’t true, and I was deeply ashamed when I heard her say that.

But it was true that nǎi-nai wasn’t terribly fond of her. She never said anything to ā-yí’s face, but she whispered to me instead, with everything from ā-yí’s eyebrows to her parents coming under fire. In a way, it was almost a cultural difference: ā-yí liked shopping and fine dining and all the expensive things nǎi-nai, and even mā-ma, had no interest in. If ā-yí liked spices sprinkled over her food and life, nǎi-nai preferred to taste the simplest flavors instead.

On the other hand, ā-yí was always sweet to nǎi-nai.

She had a fiery temper, sure, but nothing worse than hushed concerns was ever directed at nǎi-nai. In fact, one of my fondest memories of ā-yí was related to nǎinai’s tomato soup.

It was a normal dinner, and everyone in my family who drank soup was sipping on it when suddenly: “哇，奶奶 柿汤 好 1 喝呀!”

I don’t know why that one throwaway line has stuck with me, but it always made me happy that ā-yí loved something I also adored. But that was just one of the many things about her I always 7 “Wow, nǎi-nai’s tomato soup is so amazing!”

16

DESCENT

took for granted.

I think one of my deepest regrets is not letting ā-yí know how much we appreciated her before she passed away.

Luffa acutangula, 丝

, luffa

If you pass by my house in late summer, you’d see an enormous green gourd tied to the side of the garden fence by a ragged cloth, like some bulbous arm in a sling. Even if you recognize it as a luffa, or sī-guā, you’ll still be surprised by how massive it is—as long as my torso and much thicker than a baseball bat.

According to nǎi-nai, big sī-guā usually don’t taste good, so while she dumps the majority into soup and stir fry, the chunkiest of them all is strung up to be utilized as next year’s seeds.

Nǎi-nai has a use for everything.

The food waste from the kitchen goes into her multiple compost bins; the spare bags and netting from grocery stores are made into fences and flags; the spare sīguā she doesn’t want to eat become the progenitors of next year’s generation.

Most sī-guā taste the same to me, no matter their size, but I trust nǎi-nai’s palate and know-how more than I do my own.

--During my sophomore year of high school, I was invited to my first ever grad party. It was for the senior who drove me home after volunteering. Her family was from Egypt, so when the food was served, I piled my plate high with Mediterranean dishes I’d never seen before.

Before I ate, I sent a quick snapshot to bà-ba.

He responded in his trademark mild manner: “Looks good.”

There was some sort of meat, some sort of bread, some sort of cheese, some sort of everything. I made sure to try a little bit of it all.

When I got home later that night, I sat in the office with bà-ba, chattering about the party long after everyone else had gone to bed. But when I started talking about the food, he suddenly interrupted me. “好像你挺喜欢尝外国 , 但你不太愿 意 新中 .”1 It wasn’t accusatory, more amused if anything, but I immediately became defensive, words spilling out of my mouth incoherently.

But in hindsight, he’s totally correct.

Going to any Korean, Indian, or Mexican restaurant or party has me picking off a bite of every dish, but when Chinese food is served, I’ll cower in my seat, grabbing only the things I already know I like.

I guess I don’t like Chinese food very much after all. I just like what nǎi-nai makes.

8 “It seems you’re always eager to try other types of food, but you never want to eat new Chinese food.”

17

I l v a n

I guess I don’t like Chinese food very much after all. I just like what nai-nai makes.

18

DESCENT

missed calls you’ve reached the voicemail of _______ i’m unable to take your call at the moment please leave your message after the tone. september 21 at 1:35 p.m. so today was my first day at work, and i transferred to a new location, so it’s technically not really my first-first day at work—it’s just my first day at a new location. technically my like, 200-and-something-th day of work, but, like, it doesn’t feel right at all? (don’t worry no one’s being mean to me or anything) like, everything is the same—i know what to do and how to do it and i do it fast and i know everything i’m supposed to say and what i shouldn’t say—but, i don’t know, it all feels so different? like, ok, so today, my whole body would be moving, i’m like in the moment of doing something that requires urgency—like getting this done is the only thing standing between me and this customer whose mask isn’t covering their nose and doesn’t know how to read a menu getting out of the store—but then i’ll just start thinking. i’ll be like, thinking, like, about just everyone at home. what are they doing? i wonder if they still laugh at the same jokes, listen to the same music, have the same coworkers, if they’re happier. i don’t know, this probably doesn’t make sense. i’m the one who moved miles away but it feels like i’m the one who got stuck and left behind. dramatic right?

19

september 30 at 4:47 p.m. isn’t it so exciting how i’m in college now? my friend was talking about how in their international relations class they literally watch lord of the rings extended edition movies and i told them about how obsessed you are with lord of the rings. did you know we can see the actual sword frodo used—like it’s somewhere in spain? okay all of that made me want to go rewatch the two towers again—that one’s definitely my favorite. i don’t think i ever asked, which one is your favorite? october 2, 11:08 a.m. my week has been kind of rough, i hope yours is going okay though! december 18 at 8:23 p.m. today it’s my sister’s birthday!!! she’s literally so old it makes me upset like i’ll literally go up to her and be like “uhm there’s something wrong with you. why aren’t you three years old.” she’s almost ten now, isn’t that messed up? since the last time you’ve seen her, her head is even bigger—mom says her body caught up to her head but that literally isn’t true, it still isn’t proportional. also her legs are really long and she’s lost like all of her baby teeth. also she’s really into softball now and she did swim—she didn’t make the swim team but honestly i still want her to try out again—and she does piano but she wants to try drums…? also, it’s crazy, now she cuts her own nails and gets her own water and makes her own sandwiches—and she does it all like she’s done it a million times before. and she’ll do it all without me, sometimes it just feels like i’m a piece that doesn’t fit. december 19 at 1:57 a.m. you know she keeps wondering where you are?

january 8 at 12:02 p.m. it’s been a minute—and i feel like, if we ever run into one another again, you might not know it’s me.

SO, let me give you a brief overview: i am, contrary to popular belief, much taller than i was the last time we met—i am, in fact, uhm, an approximate three inches taller, also i no longer have braces—actually i can’t remember if you saw me when i had braces—but i no longer have them and i cut my hair really short— again, contrary to popular belief, i did not do it to look like my mom—and also uhmmm … wait no i think that’s it actually. i’m pretty sure you’d be able to spot me on the street … … ... … … i’m not sure if i can say the same, though, i’ll be honest. my memory isn’t the best, and, you know, pictures… pictures only do so much, you know? and it’s not like i look at them everyday— so maybe if you’re ever in the los angeles area— i live here now by the way— maybe just try walking a little slowly. according to my calculations that will increase the chance of our paths crossing.

20

february 9 at 9:33 a.m. i’ve always hated going to mass, it’s something my attention span is not built for, and i’ve always had like a weird relationship with the capital C church— but, like, when it comes to praying, like, i’ll do it when i just don’t know what else to do. like when i guess i really feel like god hates me. sometimes i’ll pray like when there’s a wildfire a mile away from my house or when i just threw up so much chicken noodle soup i feel like i can’t breathe—wait that reminds me of how one time my sister told me she prayed for me after i told her i was always picked last in kickball, that still gets me every time. but my sister she’s always praying and she does it every night because she goes to catholic school still and because my mom tells her to not forget her prayers before she goes to sleep. and like, my sister is so intentional about it like she’ll drink her milk and then she’ll clasp her hands together and put them on her forehead and she’ll squeeze her eyes shut— like just in case you thought she might have been peeking— and she’ll sometimes do it so hard her forehead has those like indents and she’ll mouth the words of whatever she’s praying about ……………… and you know what she’ll do? she’ll ask god if she can see you one more time. i don’t think she knows what you look like anymore. i don’t think she sees anything. i don’t think there’s anything she remembers about you that hasn’t been spoonfed to her i don’t think there’s anything she remembers about you that isn’t in a picture i don’t think there’s any point in talking to someone you’re not even sure is there and i don’t think she should bother even trying. but it seems like we all bother anyway

421 2

DESCENT

july 11 at 4:00 p.m. do you remember the white bicycle on that corner by all the lemon trees? the one that they hung up on a chain link fence. they put it up for the kid who got killed in a hit and run while he was riding his bike. i can’t remember when they put it up. it used to have a bunch of colorful posters and pictures of his face. but now it’s just the bicycle, and if you drove past it without knowing the context, you’d just think it’s some weird abstract street art. it sits there everyday. it’s less lavish, and i wonder if it means anything to anyone else in the neighborhood these days. it’s just become part of the way things are. when i come back from the grocery store, when i back home from a good day at work, when i back home from a bad day at work— whenever i turn the corner onto telegraph, it’s there. and then i’m home.

SOPHIA PELAEZ

22

Weather’s Ch Weather’s Ch Weather’s Ch We We TRENYCE TONG This piece, "Weather's Changing", reflects the breakdowns of climate systems across the globe, and the visceral, abstract ways they manifest in communities (ie. through displacement, panic, and loss.)

This video aims to convey the fear I felt when evacuating from a local forest fire by placing an endearing mascot in a threatening scene.

23

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hanging hanging hanging Weather’s Chan Weather’s Chan

WATCH FULL VIDEO HERE

24

KAREN ABE ANNIE ZHENG @PROD.KA

R AAPI C E COLLE

In June 2021, we (Karen & Annie) started off creative projects for the summer. But, of cour sharing about our experiences growing up as we had the inspiration for this virtual installatio AAPI experiences.

When creating this virtual installation, we w with the inclusion of the AAPI community in m east Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific Islands in gender and geographic location, but also h every-day AAPI youth who utilized art for thei 25

DESCENT

with one Facetime call trying to brainstorm possible rse, we ended up chatting for the whole hour, just s Asian youth in two different countries. This is when on-- creating a space for individuals to storytell their

FEATURING ART BY

EATIVES ECTIVE

@NAILPIXI.E @BYDANENAKAMA @PROD.KA @KATIECHAAN @LILIKA__K @VYILIN @SOCIALJONATHAN @MEGANNYEH @KAYSERIFSERIF @YAT.FU @QUUANP @ALLYWEIPHOTOGRAPHY @BRIGETTELEEE @ANNIEZHENGG @MARIANNE.ZHOU

wanted to ensure that the collective was created mind--representing cultures from Far East, Souths. This installation aims to not only capture diversity has a mixture of both well-known AAPI artists and ir creative expression and outlets.

26

(As tall walls crash down, narrowing your field of vision, you dimly note that someone in the crowd has become a human torch, igniting waves.)

Pavane Thump.

Thump.

You swear there are ten suns in the sky again. The Jade Emperor has given you a bow and arrows to shoot them from the sky. But, the monstrous heat, that eternal light, they fade before the dark, gyrating depths of her eyes. Like wings, they pulse with the wind, beating out waves of sirenic fervor.

Somehow, you’ve stumbled to her side. She laughs at the arrows in your hand, plucking one and throwing it at a sun. As it plummets towards the Earth, you nock an arrow and fire. A second supernova comes crashing down, and she and you are giggling, tossing bolts into the sky.

The fall of suns looks like a meteor shower, wishes tossed up to the massive giants, toppled from their lofty throne.

Sorrowfully, the lone sun starts to move again. , Feng Kuang, Wildly THUMTHUMP. THUMTHUMP. The inferno spreads in waves, a rainbow of colors. It jumps, flying off in showers.

It sings. It calls: Come. Come. Come home to me.

28

Your eyes meet again, and as one, your hands reach for each other, fingers interlocking. Together, you race towards the firestorm, moths against the tide.

Sparks jump at you, tingling before disappearing. You’re knee-deep in fire before you realize the pleasant heat isn’t just from proximity. Wind swirls in her palms as a thin cocoon grows around her, sending the rising flames your way. Somewhere within, you see a flicker of devouring cyan, hungrily subliming steel rafters.

Cantabile Thump. Thump.

Cheery lime and roaring azure contest for your favor, twirling and shifting in turn. Patting each, you gesture towards the raging conflagration in the distance. Neck-and-neck, they race, like streaks of stray embers, tumbling with each other into the fray.

Feasting ravenously, lime and azure cut wide swathes of space, exposing the violet heart of the blaze. In tandem, they compel the sullen violet towards your awaiting palm. Whirling into your body, the violet darkens, merrily shooting tendrils at the others.

As violet chases lime gleefully, azure returns to nudge your arm. You probably spoil it too much, but you still give it your shoulder, where it pops out and runs along, happily crackling. It stumbles a bit, letting out a little gurgle, and you wonder yet again how this flame could be the same as the raging cyan core of a fallen sun that had so furiously tried to reject your first touch.

Vivace THUMP. THUMP. Little funnels of multicolored flames happily spin around your fingertips.

As one starts veering out of control, you look up to see her beckoning you over. “Come on,” she says, smiling. “We’ve got fires to catch.”

29

DESCENT

It was white, the ribbon. Or at least you think it was. But by the time it’d reached your eyes, it was stained with reds, scarlet and vermilion crowding for attention. You find it funny how the ribbon, of all things, was the one that you recalled most clearly. You can still see it tied around her wrist, a flamboyant bow always a little too long. Her hair still wild, her body so still. Cruelly, it was all they’d let you keep. The stuffed panthers, the little drawings, all of them, left to collect dust in that shrine of a room.

Clenching your teeth, you try to paint the outlines of her face but are stuck with a rough sketch. How did the light shine in her eyes again? What was the exact shade of brown that you had spent hours trying to paint? You curse at your motionless hands, unable to replicate the mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

With a swift, heavy stroke, you slash through her eyes, CRACK. The pencil shatters in your fist. Glancing down, broken shards of lilac dripping with crimson glare back at you.

The purple narwhal tape smiles like she did when she’d put it there, so everyone will know it's yours, silly. My favorites for you, my favorite. Crude profanities line up inside your mouth, eager for a taste of cool air, as the warm tones taunt you. It is more art than you’ve done in ages, your creativity gone with her. All that escapes your mouth, locked by fear from her scoldings, is a quiet sigh. You have no colorful curses to make her giggle. See, she‘d say, if you’re going to be vulgar, do so with style, leave your mark.

Get a bandaid, she says, you’re bleeding. But her voice doesn’t sound like hers anymore.

Still, there’s a box of bandaids--her special chibi panther bandaids-- in your hand. Don’t you dare, she hisses as you reach instead for the ribbon. You’ll get an infection. Brushing off her concerns, you tie a messy knot around your palm. Air, you need air.

One foot on your balcony, then the other. One step. Two. Four. Eight. Ni-The scent of spring, of green and purple freezes your foot. In this season of life, has she begun her next? Garlic flowers, which you’d planted together after much begging, are finally blooming. Bring me some, she pleads, and you pick a pot for her.

Four stumbles, one mistaken ghost, and an impulse purchase later, you’ve arrived at the swings. Setting down the flowers, you carefully arrange the incense, sketch and massive egg tart. Hey, you say quietly, I know you’ll scold me for ‘wasting’ food, but you haven’t… hadn’t tried one yet. Shakily, you burn your offerings, ashes to the winds.

The breeze unfurls your bandage and takes off, a playful thief. Your fingers can only brush the fluttering end as it flies off. Leave it to me. The ribbon winds into a heart, grey with ash--or was it always grey--and disappears into the lavender sunset.

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DESCENT

Echoing through your head, the shout resonates and booms. Across the canvas of your neck, ЯAI⅃ sears itself boldly.

Tugging at the slate, stray threads of your scarf, you yawn. You really need to get more sleep. But, the dark is where the most fingers come to point. You cannot close your eyes without being left to that wicked word. You are not a liar. You cannot be a liar.

It hurts. Your growing ribs have shifted into your nerves, your shoulder blades flutter, desperate to break through the prison of your back, your head won’t shut up, screaming utter nonsense, it hurts.

The disks are back, they’re floating across the wall lazily. Looking down, the dancing hands on your watch have fled ahead of you. Sometimes it feels like time runs for everyone else, and you’re just drifting in place or drilling into the ground, perpendicular to it all.

An embarrassing moment… hm, let me see… oh, once I was in class, and suddenly my body went limp so I fell out of my chair and hit the floor loudly. That was pretty embarrassing.

You don’t mention how much it hurt, crashing into the ground, a legion of millipedes crawling along your back, every step stabbing bloodily. A tiny fall shouldn’t hurt like that. Even a loud one. They’d just tell you to stop exaggerating and start using your “overactive” imagination properly and go study more math.

How do I feel? Okay, I guess. I’m not too sure, honestly. Can I say good if I was only ten minutes late today? Or is that bad? I skipped breakfast, but I ate a large lunch. So I’d say it averages into okay.

It was alright, but the world was also so heavy today, your stomach rebelling against food and the lack thereof, but what word could encompass all of that? And your brain would lose the race to explain to your mouth, and something’d come up, the moon’ll drift too far, the stars peek out and you’ve rambled away.

There’s nothing wrong with you. Indeed, there isn’t. You just feel the world powerfully, running erratic currents through your legs, thrumming, thrumming. Your foot taptaptaps, your desk starts shaking. The world is spinning, the world is spinning, the world is spinning. Nothing is still.

Pain. You are in pain, your eyebrows sear lasers, boulders crashing in a torrential downpour onto your head-You are not in pain. Spin. Wobble. Oh, the world is spinning again. Crash.

Suddenly, the threads of your scarf merge with the slashes of cerise on the carpet.

31

樽 斗十千／ 河冰塞川／江 太寒 ／多歧 今安在／

万 ／停杯投 不 ／拔剑是故心 山／先来垂 上／忽复乘 梦日 ／ 会有时／ 挂云帆济沧 1

／欲

Streaks of burgundy dance fluidly, coalescing into a humanoid form, called by your incantation. As though chiseled by a novice sculptor, features appear on the spirit’s face, hauntingly familiar, but wrong. Who is this? Why haven’t you been greeted by a crooked pinky and flaming eyes, the quiet smile of your zhiyin? Who is this figure with slit pupils and icy threads circling spindly fingers?

Falling to your knees, head in your hands, you howl. Oh mighty universe, is this how you find my plight? Whose face have you so lovingly gifted to this fae? The universe, cruel as ever, deigns to reply.

Sighing, you turn to face the spirit. You scour your memory to no avail. There’s not even the slightest trace of familiarity. Who bears this face, which the universe says you miss the most?

The spirit stares back at you, blankly. You wonder what would bring those eyes to life. Please find traces of my zhiyin. Dipping its head in a shallow nod, the spirit flies off, trailing crimson, garnet.

云

时 别亦 改/夜吟应

/ 东 无力 残 / 春 到死丝方尽 / 成 月光寒 / 山此去无多 / 殷勤为探 2

泪始干 / 晓

但愁

It’s barely been any time, four months, no, five, but your hands shake as you finish the last strokes of your pentagram. Fragments of that face, those hands, that form, they pop into your dreams, haunting your every step. A plum materializes. … A plum materializes?

Plums, you remember frozen plums, sweet on a winter’s day. Juice ran down your hands, cold and sticky, as you glided together across the barren ground. Spindly fingers procured eggplant juice, laughingly offering you a cup. Atop a cloud, you sipped hesitantly, as a blurry form calmly drank.

The plum opens like a lotus flower, and the spirit unfolds, hovering before you. It presents a magenta medallion to you. With trembling hands, you accept the medallion, noting the intricately-folded wing design.

Only swordmasters carried medals like these, like the one that she’d never taken off. The nights of endless swings, the infinite amount of running, always holding a sword as you practiced casting nearby, attacking the dummy by the light of your fireballs, all for those wings.

1.

(The Road is Hard) by 李 2. Untitled by 李商 (Li Shangyin)

(Li Bai)

32

Thank you, you gasp out to the spirit. It tilts its head curiously at you.

No, don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Would you mind searching for traces of someone who looks like you?

The spirit nods, chancing a quick glance back at you before vanishing into mahogany mist. 原上 / 一岁一枯 / /又 孙去 / 别情 3

不尽 / 春

吹又

/

侵古

/晴

接

城

Eying your make-shift teleportation circle, you sigh. From the sticks you’ve set for the outer ring to the leaves you’ve hastily sprinkled, the entire structure seems to be waiting for a gust to change the spell. Counting the seconds, you wait for the telltale signs of activation.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. … Finally, the monstrosity rattles to life, glowing an eerie pink. A light breeze passes by, lifting the circle as a ghostly hand appears. Grabbing the hand, you drag your spirit out, just before the breeze departs, sending the circle crashing messily to the ground.

A scrap of a uniform-- a viridian sleeve and ragged, grey tie-- thrust before you. You know that uniform. How could you not, when you spent so many hours looking at it, playing with that tie and forming ever-the-more convoluted knots. Looking at the spirit holding that fragment, you notice how similar the designs are to the uniform it is clad in. Had you just never noticed?

Why? So your suspicions were correct, after all. Whose visage runs freely through your memories, overlaying that of your zhiyin? How much of your memory has been manipulated? What part of you is actually you?

The spirit nudges you, pointing to the circle. Right. You carefully reshape the circle, manipulating it slightly to reverse the process. Then, tossing a wish onto a blade of grass, you activate teleportation.

Rough winds greet you ferociously, a snowstorm of pale, pink petals blinding your view. The spirit flies mournful circles above you, as you’re catapulted into-Green. Summer evenings remapping the stars, shivering mornings of fluid katas--red. So much red. You’d arrived too late, and what a spectacle they’d made for you. So still, so unmoving. Limbs bent at impossible angles.

So much red. Giving up on the swiftness of flames, you’d sent their knives back at them, faster, faster, but they were still smiling, even with the green so terribly darkened, so full it has started to leak and cry. Shards to black.

3.

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(Grass) by

DESCENT

居易 (Bai Juyi)

The world ended December 12, 2012, with a hiss, an empty whisper. Your temporary lease of life on planet x-36778 “Earth” has ended. Please prepare for termination procedures.

Some universes have collided together, or so it seems. There’s not enough space, not enough time; the residents have become too destructive. (There wasn’t that much time left anyway. The end will help other forms of life elsewhere.)

The frames that held up the world poke through, worn and sagging. Giant shadows of many-headed beasts, slimes, pens, boulders, feathers reveal their peeking counterparts. A moment stretches to eternity. Some reach for blades, attempting to trade other souls for their own, others run, towards anything bright, others cower from the sight of the giants, still others will stand.

Everything fades to grey.

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DESCENT

it comes and goes

Hey! This is Echo, the writer of this piece “it comes and goes.” This overarching theme of this work is the constant moving of people and in and out of our lives as a result of our circumstances, and all the heartbreak and bittersweetness that comes from it. The first and third sections titled “Beijing 1989” and “Hong Kong 2014” are based on the experiences of my family. The inclusion of these political events is merely to give life to my family’s experiences and as a backdrop to dive into the relationships of the characters. They are not meant to highlight any political agenda, nor represent any of my personal political views. My intent was that these stories are snapshots of nameless, faceless people in a moment in time that reflect the real experiences of my family. The history of these social movements is highly complex and nuanced, and I highly encourage anyone who is interested in these movements Hey! This is Echo, the writer of this piece to look more into them.

ECHO TANG

“it comes and goes.” This overarching theme of this work is the constant moving of people and in and out of our lives as a result of our circumstances, and all the heartbreak and bittersweetness that comes from it. The first and third sections titled “Beijing 1989” and “Hong Kong 2014” are based on the experiences of my family. The inclusion of these political events is merely to give life to my family’s experiences and as a backdrop to dive into the relationships of the characters. They are not meant to highlight any political agenda, nor represent any of my personal political views. My intent was that these stories are snapshots of nameless, faceless people in a moment in time that reflect the real experiences of my family. The history of these social movements is highly complex and nuanced, and I highly encourage anyone who is interested in these movements to look more into them.

35

I. Beijing, 1989 You come back to the apartment at two in the morning. It’s quiet except for his snoring. There’s a faint light on in the bedroom; you must’ve forgotten to turn off your desk lamp before you left.

Careful not to wake him, you tiptoe to your desk. There are papers everywhere: pamphlets, protest posters, everything in between. You rummage through them, the words blurring. Democracy, justice, liberation. It’s 1989 and your boyfriend is asleep while your mind runs a million miles a minute.

You open the frayed shoebox on your nightstand and straighten the papers before stacking them neatly inside. It’s almost full, and you make a mental note to look for a new shoebox later. When you close it, your eyes flicker to your desk. It’s the first time in a week since you’ve seen the actual wood of the desk; you think it’s been years since flyers haven’t littered its surface. There’s a paper you missed, and you blearily reach out to take it.

It’s not a political pamphlet, but a concert ticket. It’s for Jacky Cheung in Shanghai, from over a year ago. Your heart squeezes. You don’t remember ever having this.

Then you think back, your boyfriend holding your sweaty hand in the late spring. The cicadas were chirping and all you could remember was how annoying they were. “I got my hardworking girlfriend a present,” he had said.

And then you think some more, when you saved up enough money for a student demonstration in Beijing, and he held a plane ticket for Shanghai while you held your suitcase. That plane ticket might’ve been two plane tickets. One of them might’ve been for you. But you only had your eyes on that suitcase, and your mind on that eight hour train ride to Beijing.

That night, you don’t sleep. You lay on the mattress, eyes fixated on a crack in the ceiling. The room smells like mosquito incense and your boyfriend’s shampoo. You hear a homeless man piss outside and curse loudly before the sound of his footsteps disappear. Surprisingly, you feel contempt for him, because his brain isn’t muddled with democracy and freedom and Jacky Cheung.

When he wakes up, you’re already packing. He takes his time to yawn and stretch before scrutinizing your backpack. Reaching over, he plucks a flyer from the top as you try to stuff the rest of the papers down. He scoffs, hand clenching around the paper so hard you can see his veins. His knuckles distort the word “justice,” and you itch to pry his fingers off.

“Are you gonna bring them all back again like yesterday?” he asks sarcastically.

“I’m sure people will take them,” you shoot back.

36

“Forget it.” He rolls the flyer into a ball angrily, throwing it across the room. You scramble away from your backpack, bending down to unfurl it. You know you look pathetic, and he knows it too. He knows you look more pathetic handing out papers with strange words on them to strangers. He knows you look the most pathetic when you soak your feet in hot water after bringing back the same size stack of papers you left with.

“Look at you trying to be a martyr,” he taunts. “You’re always trying to solve things you don’t know how to solve.”

You don’t have time for this. “At least I care, asshole.”

“You can’t even figure out how to cover your rent and groceries and here you are, trying to save the world.”

“I’m not trying to save the world,” you hiss back at him. He knows you hate it when he says it like that.

“Why?” he explodes. “Why can’t you just be a normal twenty-one year old? Why can’t you just care about if your clothes match your shoes or something like that?”

Why did you have to go to Beijing?

It’s so ridiculous, the way he says it, that you can’t help the laugh that bubbles and bursts out into the air. You forget about the concert tickets, and your mind zeroes in on your boyfriend on the mattress who destroyed the colored flier you spent your utilities money on. “Normal twenty-one year old? You just want me to stop caring. Go to hell.”

“That’s it?” he says incredulously. “We’re breaking up? Because of fucking politics?”

“It’s not politics,” you reply stubbornly. “They’re my beliefs.”

He punches you in the chest, hard. You stumble backwards, feeling your back graze the wall. You almost forgot how much stronger he was than you physically, with his broad shoulders and wide arms. Come to think of it, how long has it been since you’ve seen him awake like this? You have half the mind to hug him from behind, rubbing circles into his back and asking him if he still listens to Jacky Cheung. But you don’t say anything, and he sees it.

“Go die in prison,” he seethes. “Or go die on the side of the road. Since you don’t give a shit about your life.”

He leaves you just like that, just like how you left at sunset for Beijing while he waited outside your classroom to go to Shanghai. You silently put the flyer back into your backpack and lock the apartment door.

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II. Tokyo, 2019 Waseda is beautiful in the fall. There’s a crisp breeze I wished for all summer long, watermelon juice running down the side of the futon. He was there with me spitting watermelon seeds into the cracks between the floor planks.

“I miss inaka, the countryside,” he told me. “My grandpa used to cut watermelon for me in the summer.” I smiled, half content because I cut it for him now, half bitter because I didn’t cut it for him then.

“You must really love your grandpa.”

“Yeah. He always called me Ta-ta. My friends stopped calling me Tatsuya because of him. I don’t think he’s ever said my full name.”

And I don’t think I’ve ever said Tatsuya’s full name either. It was the handsome speaker at freshman orientation first, then my partner from psychology class, and then it was you. I’ve known him now for three years and I’ve never said his full name aloud.

No, that’s a lie. I’ve never known him.

There were things about him that I memorized early on: his favorite drink from Lawson (Ito En black milk tea), his dream travel destination (Prague), his lunch order (fried rice without green onion). There were things about him that I’ve come to learn: his hometown in Kyushu (“No one goes there anyway”), his dream job (“I’d drop everything and open up a bookstore if I could. I hate political science.”), his weak lungs (“My doctor hates me. He hates bastards who smoke.”). Tatsuya talked about everything like it was nothing.

I bought him fried rice without green onion religiously only to catch him in line with his friends, telling the cafeteria aunties he wanted ramen. I always carried two milk tea bottles in a Lawson bag until I caught him with a girl, sharing a Sapporo instead. The sheen of watermelon juice flowing down his fingers seemed like decades ago, the smoke from his cigarettes a fog from a distant past. He laughed with her, a face I’ve never seen on him, eyes disappearing into crescents and crows feet blooming at the corners. I didn’t know he had crows feet.

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I drank both bottles of milk tea alone on my futon that night.

I learned her name the next day at lunch, eating fried rice without green onion while Tatsuya slurped from his ramen bowl. “This is Aiko,” he said. “She was in our psychology class.” He scooped the green onion from his bowl and put it in hers. I felt a momentary triumph; I knew something about him that she didn’t.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” she told me. “You must care about Tatsuya a lot.”

Tatsuya. That fleeting second of victory disappeared into nothing. She was light years ahead of me.

“Same here,” I returned. That wasn’t true. I had to find out about her with my back pressed against the grimey wall of Lawson while they shared a beer just around the corner. I wondered what other secrets he only told her.

“I’m going abroad with Aiko next week,” Tatsuya said suddenly. The fried rice fell off my spoon. “We’re studying abroad in Edinburgh.”

Edinburgh? Was Tokyo not far enough from Kyushu? Didn’t he miss inaka? All these questions and I could only manage, “What about Prague?”

Aiko broke out into small peals of laughter. “That was when he was still in his Kafka phase. You moved on now, didn’t you?”

I really wanted to hate Aiko, but there was no malice in her voice, only the sweet tinges of banter. The corners of Tatsuya’s lips turned up a little in a futile attempt of a smile.

“I wanted to tell you before we left,” he offered. “I felt like that was only right.” We? I swallowed the lump in my throat and willed the tears away.

“Congratulations,” I managed. “I mean it.”

He didn’t say anything because I didn’t mean it, but Aiko chirped out an enthusiastic “Thanks!” on his behalf. Instead, he grabbed his bowl and turned his head towards the tray disposal, motioning for Aiko to follow.

“What about your bookstore?” I quipped, as softly as I could. Tatsuya froze, chair scraping against the floor as Aiko continued on to the disposal area. I focused my eyes on the Nike swoosh on his foot, the lines blurring as I urged myself not to cry.

“I want to open it in Edinburgh,” he replied. That was the first real conversation we had in weeks.

I blinked hard. “And the name?”

He inhaled sharply, then sighed. “Don’t know yet. Aiko’s better at those things.”

Bullshit, I wanted to say. You named my guitar Akira, after your grandpa. You even named that clock in my room, the one that ran five minutes late. You named it Lightning.

39

Instead, I settled for, “Okay.” I didn’t need to look up to know that he was looking at Aiko. He was going away, away from me and towards her, away from me and towards Edinburgh.

I played with my rice until he and Aiko returned from putting their trays away. Tatsuya’s eyes slowly met mine, pulling me in like a maelstrom. So foreign yet so intimate, so close yet so far. I caught glimpses here and there of wistfulness, guilt, and something I couldn’t name. It might’ve been love, but I don’t know for sure. If I could’ve named it, I would’ve asked him to stay.

“Goodbye, Tatsuya,” I said this time, and I really meant it. The syllables felt strange on my tongue for half a second, and then they burned so intensely I thought my mouth would catch fire. My heartbeat thundered. Ta-ta, Ta-ta. His grandfather’s voice chanted in the distance. Ta-ta, Ta-ta.

No. Tatsuya, the name on his plane ticket to Edinburgh. Tatsuya, the name of the handsome speaker at orientation, the name of my one and only psychology partner, your name.

He smiled so wide I thought his face would split. It was the first time he showed me his crow’s feet. In that moment, with the sun scattering shadows across his face, he could’ve been an angel. I couldn’t help but think that he was waiting for me to say his name like this. Probably not as a good-bye, but here we were in the middle of the cafeteria, and Tatsuya was leaving Tokyo and leaving me alone.

“Goodbye, and thank you,” he breathed. That was the last I saw of him.

Waseda is beautiful in the fall. There’s a crisp breeze that I hoped Tatsuya would enjoy in Edinburgh. I hoped he still ate watermelon, laying on his bed like me, wondering if either of us was on the other side of the sky. But he’s not like me. He was always going, going, going.

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DESCENT

III. Hong Kong, 2014 It was on that escalator in Central.

Raindrops like drums against your coat, Beating the minutes until work While he was on the opposite escalator going down, Holding a yellow umbrella.

The rain stopped pouring, Just for you.

“Are you interested in protecting our city?” he asked.

Umbrella in one hand, Defiance in the other.

“I put up a good fight before they broke my glasses.”

“I believe you,” you told him.

You took the left earbud, And he took the right.

It was Beyond.

You are falling, Falling, Falling off the stage, Falling into oblivion.

He never made a noise Even when assaulted by pepper spray, So you swallowed the pain too, Though it sliced your throat, Just to be a little closer to him.

“They got me this time,” you grinned, And he didn’t say anything.

“The police noticed me, Those motherfuckers.”

This time, he laughs.

Part of you is disappointed, Disappointed he didn’t ask if you were okay, Disappointed he didn’t kiss you on the lips and Tell you that you did well.

41

And the pepper spray moved its dirty hand Deeper into your eye, Because you really didn’t care about police Or yellow umbrellas.

You wanted his gaze, Like liquid fire, To meet yours and Melt you into Nothing.

They arrested him and you saw With one eye.

Your single iris celebrated him: Brave, strong, A ball of light pulsing with energy.

“I’ll be back.”

You trusted him and His yellow umbrella.

You mouthed the lyrics to that song, The first song that played in those earbuds When you took the left and He took the right.

会怕有一天只你共我 Even if there’s a day where it’s just you and me, I’m not scared What a tremendous lie.

Three months later and you have to Beg him to be A revolutionary again.

“No more.”

“Why?” “I’m tired of running And running And running.”

“What now?”

He shrugged and there’s Acid in your mouth, Because he was always The one with answers,

42

And here he was, With nothing at all.

“I want to settle down, Go back to school, Open a restaurant.

No more fighting.”

No more police.

No more yellow umbrellas.

Why did it sound like he was still running?

Running away from you?

Are you interested in protecting this city?

“This isn’t you,” you said.

He sighs so deep, Deeper than the stampede of This city.

“Yes it is.”

And just like that you fell, Off the stage, Into the abyss, Until you hit Your head On the ground Beyond.

You laid there, Limbs bent into a million pieces, While he was ahead of you, His dream to be ordinary So extraordinary, Yet he was a supernova ready to explode.

Flying to the edges of the cliff of the universe, Opposite of you, Riding his yellow umbrella.

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FRAMEWORK

reading guide

1. “You don't actually care about either you just regurgitate the Chinese talking point cuz its viral in the West” @ItsKingsBruh on Twitter. (2021).

Read here: https://twitter.com/ItsKingsBruh/status/1430754072148144130 2. “‘The West projects its own atrocities onto China, its government, and its people. This demonization manufactures (strategic) selective outrage from liberals and progressives in particular because the right is already very much won over.’

- Madison Tang, Code Pink” - @yaraxsh on Twitter.

Read here: https://twitter.com/yaraxsh/status/1439328453745074178 3.“to think that the cia fueled and funded anti-communist cultural war was ever for a second brought to a halt, is to admit an unawareness of contemporary academic scholarship & artistic production, lol. which clearly suggests the contrary.” - @queersocialism on Twitter. (2021).

Read here: https://twitter.com/queersocialism/status/1453044865663651844 4. “Why indeed do y’all only like the Asian countries that bow to western hegemony and what does that say about how you view the continent” - @chairgirlhands on Twitter. (2021).

Read here: https://twitter.com/chairgirlhands/status/1421533814933819394

HONG KONG 1. Ming K. Chan (1996). “Hong Kong: Colonial Legacy, Transformation, and Challenge.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 547, 11-23.

Read here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1048360 2. John Lowe & Eileen Yuk-ha Tsang (2017) “Disunited in ethnicity: the racialization of Chinese Mainlanders in Hong Kong, Patterns of Prejudice”, 51:2, 137-158, DOI: 10.1080/0031322X.2017.1304349 Read here: https://doi.org/10.1080/003132 2X.2017.1304349

TIANANMEN 1. Brian Becker (2019). “Tiananmen: The Massacre that Wasn’t.” Liberation News.

Read here: https://www.liberationnews.org/tiananmen-the-massacre-that-wasnt/ 2. A Note on the Tiananmen Protests (2020). “A Note on the Tiananmen Protests.” Qiao Collective.

Read here: https://www.qiaocollective.com/en/articles/a-note-on-the-tiananmen-protests 3. “Another year of fascist US lies about Tiananmen. The projection is particularly galling given the ongoing state murders of Black people. Thread:” - @jhal9000 on Twitter. (2020).

Read here: https://twitter.com/jhal9000/status/1268425640920772608 4. “I read the AP on Xinjiang “back to normal” & what irks me is they provide context/nuance that was largely missing in western media coverage for the last 4 yrs that u could only really find through advanced scholarship from ethnographers of the region. They prey on our ignorance.” -@KimCommie on Twitter. (2021).

Read here: https://twitter.com/KimCommie/status/1447899823336787968 5. “‘Neocolonialism is based upon the principle of breaking up former large united colonial territories into a number of small non-viable States which are incapable of independent development and must rely upon the former imperial power for defence and even internal security’~Nkrumah” - @realDrcabbie on Twitter. (2021).

Read here: https://twitter.com/realDrcabbie/status/1429550171831013382 5a. Full text: Kwame Nkrumah (1965). “Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism.”

Read here: https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/nkrumah/neo-colonialism/introduction.

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Contributors NANCY LIU

LONG LE

CHARLENE HUANG

My name is Chris, and I’ve been writing poetry for as long as I’ve been expressing myself authentically. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with structure in my poetry, informed by some of my biggest influences, including Pablo Neruda, Ocean Vuong, andrew gent.

ANGELICA BOAQUINA

CONNIE DENG

ISABELLA PENG

CHRISTOPHER LIN

SREENIDHI BOOPATHI

Trenyce Tong is an alumnus of the Orange County School of the Arts. She was an art editor for Hominum Journal and InkMENDY KONG ASHLEY HUANG blot literary magazine. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and Adroit Journal. She is studying art at the University of Southern California.

TRENYCE TONG

AUBREY KIM

45 DESCENT

STEPHANIE SHAW

HANNAH BAE

Karen Abe and Annie Zheng are two young AAPI artists studying Media Arts + Practice at the USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. Karen, as a transfer student to USC and Annie-- as a freshman, met through their major courses and especially bonded through their web design and web coding class in Spring 2021.

As Karen and Annie live an ocean apart (2703 miles apart to be exact), the two shared their individual experience of being Asian American in their respective homelands, Hawai’i and Canada.

During this process, the two found both similarities and differences in how we understand and connect to our identities as Asian American (Canadians). This discourse sparked this idea to create a creative space for individuals to develop or deconstruct their AAPI experiences through a variety of art mediums.

KAREN ABE & ANNIE ZHENG

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