XinSai Edition 1: Growing Up, Growing Out

5-9 Editor’s Notes

10-12 Growing Up, Growing Out

13-17 Photographer features: Wiktoria Sadowska

18 Journal Entry of Girl Running From / Looking for Home

19 Photographer features: Joles Wong

20-22 Photographer features: Stella Liu

23 Growing Big by Subhashree Pattnaik

24-25 gou-shi-29 by Hans Yang, ‘Diwali Sparks’ by Luke Tan

26-27 Writer Feature: In Conversation with Hans Yang

28-32 Days Off by Alyssa Wong

33 to be consumed by Amber Zou

34-35 Willowed Belonging by Karizma Ahmed

36-39 In Conversation with Louisa Choi

40-41 Artist features: Sophie Schweizer

42-43 cave-man by Robert Gao

44-45 on (im)mortality in june by Gianna Voce

46-47 bloodlines by Luke Tan

58-51 Photographer features: Joles Wong

52-53 In Conversation with Joshua Karthik

54-55 Bleeding Tomatoes: A Golden Shovel

56 Variations On Supernovae. No.1 by Willow Kang Liew Bei

57 Photography by Chloe Brooke

58-59 Detached Home by Saptarshi Bhowmick

60-61 Cabbage Patch Kid by Róise Curran

62-63 differentiate by Dora Gan

64-65 Photographer Feature: Chloe Brooke

66-67 Acknowledgements

Contents

Photography by Stella Liu

‘Growing Up, Growing Out’

Life continues to push against the boundaries of existence despite enormous loss and tumultuous change – that is what we learn in Edition 1. ‘Growing Up, Growing Out’ embodies the collective sigh of relief as the world opens up amidst hopeless situations, as the parallels between the good and the bad run alongside each other.

It is both a shame and a relief to look back at places you’ve grown up and out of. We are built from the scaffolds of the memories we’ve left behind us. The places we no longer fit into but used to feel so, so comfortable in. For many of the amazing people I have met this year, this has meant an extreme shedding of the comfort zone, and through this magazine, I have learnt the potential that can be reached by simply doing things instead of dreaming about them.

Growing out, to me, is an ache or yearning for bigger things that are never satisfied.

Most times, we grow out of our old selves for the better. The voices in this issue are curious, restless, waiting to emerge from the soft white underbelly of the artistic world to bring us previously brushed-off perspectives and thoughts:

‘I did not realise that being strangled by the scent of gunpowder all my life made me unique, until I left Baghdad for Hong Kong’, Al’Awadi writes, showing us another side of growing out, but not necessarily growing ‘up’ significantly. He further captures this perfectly with: ‘growing up was a process that was already done; I’ve been hit by life so many times that I had been an adult since the age of ten’.

In retrospect, the notion of home can sometimes get confusing and undefinable: “I don’t think I’m the kind of person who can keep pretending to be my old self: a pretender”, Brooke Nind writes in ‘Looking for Home’. Luke Tan’s concept of home is a bit more tangible, as he writes in ‘bloodlines’: ‘let it flow / float back to a fish head (soup) and the homeland 阿姨 told me to circulate: raise my hands when i bleed’.

There is a confusing liminal space that is a common experience to most growing up, that unsureness in where you belong, the boundaries between your past and future a wavering line. Dora Gan’s ‘differentiate’ shows us the darker side of growing up and girlhood; Amber Zou once again explores this process of growth in ‘to be consumed’: “she has been thrown / into a safe / haven of floral blossom / begged to be immersed / into fig body”.

Photography by Stella Liu

Growing up often also entails leaving behind the people and places you’ve loved, but that doesn’t limit you from rediscovering them. Joles shows this to us through their beautiful series of photos from their home city Hong Kong. Through the alienation and sonder – the realisation that there are billions of people on this planet living their own lives – explored through Stella Liu’s nostalgic street photography, we realise just how large the universe is – of these people growing up and out, up and out, pulsing against the limits of life, creativity remaining amidst crises.

The process of growing up / growing out is not a linear narrative. It will be tucked between a billion lives before intersecting in this multitude of circumstances that have come together to form this almost unworldly experience: the first edition of our magazine.

Looking back on how there were so many places you’ve had to grow out of, the future selves you’ve grown into is a collective aching, a midnight hum that lies under the surface of our collective psyche. However, our collective aching ends here: for me, XinSai was a product of the built-up years of this ache. I’m pretty sure it started with a Snap to Jed, then came the meetings we had while speed-walking to KungFu Tea, impromptu rooftop discussions that devolved into more extensive plans, our imaginations running wild and that little spark of ‘I am finally doing something worthwhile’ burning inside my mind. I am so extremely, extremely grateful for our team, and it has been such an honour to work with such exuberant, passionate people who always seem to see the best in everything – the XinSai family is one I will always cherish. You can find my full notes of gratitude at the end of this magazine. (I guess what they say is true, guys, working with your friends is not work. Aren, Maja, Houda, Chloe, Rebecca and more – I love you guys <3). Most importantly, I would like to thank our contributors: it’s a privilege to be able to write this Editor’s Note alongside so much talent, as well as our hundreds of supporters for allowing us to have this platform. XinSai would not have grown this much without you.

Thank you all for everything, – Joy Chen :-)

A seed that continuously germinates as it is being sprinkled with creativity and fed with proper shines of primary colours amalgamated with words that are from the within — this is what XinSai is slowly becoming to be.

When we first started creating XinSai, we wanted to achieve a lot of things, things that people might consider as too ambitious. In a sense it really took tons of procrastination sessions and pure dedication to achieve these. Luckily, we were able to find ambitious people who, coincidentally, have some splash of quirkiness in their personalities, which really helped us work well together as a team. In all honesty and quirkiness aside, managing a whole team is and will probably never be easy. It takes tons of patience, eagerness, and love for craft. However, despite all the turmoil that happened in the making of this first edition, we have successfully finished making XinSai’s first petal – the first edition.

As an international student studying away from home and an advocate for the protection of Domestic Helpers, this edition’s theme travels back to my heart through my pulmonary veins into the left atrium, to the left ventricle and out to my body’s tissues through the aorta. In other words, this topic pumps my heart. Hence, my combusting excitement for everyone to see our first edition! However, I would not let this opportunity slide without thanking the first person who planted and watered this seed which is in the process of germination, Joy Chen, my co-founder. Joy’s palpable dedication to the arts and her reliable work ethic make this magazine work. I also want to send a whole bouquet of gratitude to Hailey Wong, our Managing Editor, for being the backbone of our magazine, especially when I.B. works start to consume us. Lastly, all love and thanks to the whole XinSai team who all made this first edition possible.

As we put an end into this Chapter, I cordially invite you to be part of our journey as we let XinSai grow another petal – another edition. Thank you for being part of this journey, and I hope to see you in the next one.

XoXo, Jed

Photography by Joy Chen

XinSai Magazine editions will come and go, but “Growing Up, Growing Out” will always be our first edition. It’s the edition where we found a sense of belonging in this newly formed team, and it’s the edition where chaos and order meet for the very first time.

To me, growing up and growing out means being comfortable with the uncomfortable. Being a student-athlete is exhausting (but rewarding). I’ve been playing squash for ten years now, and I’m still learning to be comfortable within the claustrophobic four walls. I’m still learning to juggle between academics, squash and mental health despite how impossible and daunting it is sometimes. Getting home by 9:30 PM and finishing assignments after I had taken a shower and had my dinner is something I’ve been doing since secondary school. However, I still have yet to be brave enough and strong enough to do it all without feeling like I’m always trying to catch up instead of being on track or ahead. But the best yet scariest part about growing up and out is never truly knowing what comes next. Just like how I had no clue that filling out the Google Form to be a part of XinSai was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I’ll be honest. I joined XinSai because the name sounded, for lack of a better term, very cool (and because it combines two things I am incredibly passionate about — English Literature and mental health advocacy). But now that I’m a part of it, it’s so much more than that. I had never met a more enthusiastic, creative and driven team of individuals until I joined XinSai. Our spare time in this hectic, fast-paced student lifestyle is spent attending online meetings, organising spreadsheets, and checking everything off the never-ending to-do list. On some days, our group chat notifications can start buzzing at around 7 in the morning and only start calming down at around midnight. Weekly Sunday meetings can go on until 11 at night as we try to fix every single issue we have in internal affairs.

Joy, Jed, thank you for making XinSai what it is today. Imagine what we would have missed out on if you never took the first step into building something so creative and beautiful.

The best part about XinSai is knowing that this is our personality on the table, laid out as a Magazine edition. Everything you’re about to read in this Magazine is a collaborative work between the Executive Team, writers, artists, photographers, editors and designers, who all have their own interpretation of growing up and growing out. We all collectively agree that this Magazine is as good as it gets, despite it being our first try, and we hope you will enjoy reading this as much as we do.

Saul Bellow once said, “art is order, made out of the chaos of life”. We proudly present “GROWING UP, GROWING OUT.”

Thank you for being a part of the beginning of XinSai.

With love, Hailey

“Returning from battles, I had no clue; why I wasted my life in the struggle.”

A line from a medieval Arabic poem that I felt represented the deluge of growing out.

I did not realise that being strangled by the scent of gunpowder all my life made me unique, until I left Baghdad for Hong Kong.

Leaving was difficult, more than I ever thought possible. I was appreciative of the opportunity to go abroad to study, but I had so much here at home, so much that departing felt like leaving a piece of myself behind. It wasn’t just the friends, or the food, or the culture, or the family, or the nature: it was the souls. I felt I was betraying the souls of dearly departed friends by leaving. What would they think of me? So far away from them and so forcefully detached, what if they thought I had abandoned our common dreams? What about my friends and family who are alive? How would I simply let them go when we had shed so much blood and tears together?

In truth, all of these questions to myself were rhetorical: I knew I had to leave, but the sense of guilt around leaving everything behind haunted me well into my journey in Hong Kong.

My body had left, and I could sense that even with my eyes closed; the air felt nice and no longer smelled like tar and dust; the sun didn’t naturally dry my hair after my morning shower, and I didn’t wake up every morning to the sound of Quranic recitations. In Hong Kong, sometimes I felt like a child, there were days when I’d wake up, and my biggest concern was an innocent crush and not trying to manage the lives of two dozen starving families, or having to explain to my parents why they’re getting death threats in the middle of their shifts. It was new for me, I had never felt so free. But while it’s true that you can leave Iraq, it’s very hard for Iraq to leave you; things kept coming up, and responsibilities I thought I had concluded kept creeping up on me like demons creeping their heads through the gates of hell, summoned by my misery.

In our glorious Arab homelands you could not be a child, at least not mentally. I had my childhood stripped away by artillery shells and tank tracks; on them were the first words I learned in English: “MADE IN USA”. My misfortune was not just being born at this particular place, but also at this particular time; I routinely spoke with people ten or twenty years older about their childhood, and there’s always a moment where they realised I could not relate to their memories. “Ah, you didn’t even have a childhood” was what an acquaintance I met at Baghdad International Airport told me.

Growing up was a process that was already done; I’ve been hit by life so many times that I had been an adult since the age of ten, already bragging about how nothing could phase me;

Written by Al ‘Awadi

Photography by Wiktoria

Sadowska

As one of my favourite modern poets, Samir Sabih, put it: “Who spent his life no man’s land, sleeping in mud with barbed wire for a blanket, what cares he if the flowers are blooming or not?” I felt a sense of dissociation that stemmed from misery, as if I wasn’t supposed to enjoy what other kids enjoyed. The hard part was growing out, I don’t think I stood out that much, but I had been struggling to reconcile. Am I now just another teenager concerned with parties and movie nights? Where did the old me go? How could I just be the same as everyone else when my past still stood like a nightmare over my present? And when I had to be reminded of it every single week.

I had to know who I was to be, and I struggled with that decision for the longest time. That was until I returned home for winter with this amicable Hong Kong experience with me. At first, I thought Iraq would rope me back in; how could I not when my friends greeted me like a triumphant, returning Napoleon? And when my family embraced me as if I had returned from war?

But it didn’t, leaving again was pleasant; I loved Hong Kong and wanted to go back to her, but I could only do that after making sure that I had satisfied every single dependency and responsibility I had in Iraq to the fullest, or else I’d live with the everlasting guilt once more, and oh did I manage to do that wonderfully! I went around more than eight cities in less than sixteen days and ensured that I had met everyone and discussed all my business or grievances with them, leaving no desire unquenched.

Al’Awadi is a student from Iraq at Li Po Chun United World College, aged 18. Loves poetry and political economy. Writes, sometimes emotionally and other times academically. Fluctuates between unfettered arrogance and emotional vulnerability, he seems unsure of what he wants but knows he wants it. If asked about his beliefs about anything, he’d tell you that his idols are dead and his enemies are in power.

Photography by Wiktoria Sadowska

Origin [Pochodzenie]

The project takes you to one of the Polish cities Łódź where my dad was born and brought up by his single and deaf mum. The photos were taken last year but at first sight they look like from the late 80s when my dad used to live there. As his daughter, I am strongly attached to all the places he used to tell me about. I was born in 2004 but thanks to his stories and the fact that his flat hasn’t changed ever since, I am able to feel the atmosphere of growing up in the post-communist times in Poland. His home is a true relic of PRL (the name of our country at that time). In his adult life, my dad has created a wonderful family and currently lives in his own house in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. Nonetheless, every time we travel to Łódź, it is a truly sentimental time for him as his life has changed so much and he has achieved so many things.

Photographer Feature: Wiktoria Sadowska

“It’s My Party and I’ll Cry if I Want To”

This is my first project consisting of autoportraits. It shows the two sides of turning 18 and officially becoming an adult in my country. Behind parties, freedom and all the glitter there is also the loneliness in facing the changes. You have to learn to be independent while starting an adult life. You will sometimes have to celebrate by yourself. In the end, it is time to create your own life.

By Wiktoria Sadowska

Journal Entry of Girl Running From / Looking for Home

December 2nd, 2022

I am tired of feeling like there is too much to write down, and I’ve already missed something. That I’m no longer a good writer, and that whenever I pick up a pen —like now—it must be to prove myself.

I am still thinking about that poem that slipped away from me while I was drugged up on prescribed codeine cough syrup, shadows shifting into spiraling tentacles in my dark room, looming from wall to wall. I tossed and turned, thinking, wow, I might be sweating to death and feeling like shit, but now I’ve finally done it. For the first time in forever: a raw, honest, and brilliant poem. Like my fever and plans to catch up over the past few weeks, it slipped away without fanfare as my drowsy thoughts spun away into more darkness.

Aside from sickness and an existential crisis, winter break is passing faster now—except for when I spend eight hours in a cubicle staring at a fabric wall divider with a pasted smile, working in an office to pass the time. It rained today, reminding me of home. A home, a place that isn’t here? This isn’t home anymore. I wanted to go for a walk and play in the slightly damp California we don’t see often, where almost everyone stays inside, with empty streets beckoning.

By Brooke Nind

It was so nice to be at school and forget about the loneliness I’d always experienced here. I come with new lonelinesses now, crashing into the old.

Brooke Nind is a first-year student at Dartmouth College, originally from Southern California. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and the UK Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network. When she isn’t reading or writing, you can find Brooke stressing over the news, trying new Mexican food places to find the best burrito, or listening to Taylor Swift on repeat.

I cuss a bit too much now. I laugh loudly and often until my stomach hurts, a benevolent pain bleeding from the sides into the center. I tell people the truth about things that make me uncomfortable— my dad and I don’t speak much and yes, I sweat more than usual, especially when I’m anxious. I even eat foods I’m unsure of. I do things alone without even thinking about it, and it feels good—sometimes.

Here I am, back in a box, wondering if the last couple of months were just a fever dream, wondering if everything has to change again. I simply need to keep writing through it without worrying about being perfect.

I’m going to sleep now that the rain has stopped drumming on the roof.

I don’t think I’m the kind of person who can keep pretending to be my old self: a pretender.

Photography by Joles Wong

Stella Liu is a student studying in Hong Kong who is passionate about street film photography and exploring the city where she lives in. When she is not kicking footballs on the pitch, she is avidly listening to rap and RnB or catching up on politics, or eating at the newest hip restaurant. Born in the US, she identifies with the multiculturalness of Hong Kong and has a background in Spanish from her parents who lived in South America.

Stella Liu Photographer Feature

Growing Big

I want to grow from each of my nerves, my roots And every drop of my blood.

I want to grow so big I don’t appear small. I want to grow so badly, till I am big enough to outgrow The fatal walls of my parent’s house, until I don’t fit in anymore.

And then, I will move out staging an act of ever longed Liberty. Venturing into a city casted with city lights Gleaming of fluorescent warmth, unlike the gloominess Of flickers that remain here, synthesising a home I know I will certainly fit into no matter it’s size, Unlike the house that has almost suffocated my breaths Of patience,

Where every season wouldn’t be hued sombre On my grieving skin, where every day wouldn’t feel like A fight to survive in the ruins of an aftermath, Where I could have my untameable heart discovered through Endless wilderness and not squeezed in supposed warm, Soulless hands

And can go fishing, trekking, riding bi-cycles with perfect strangers, Dissect coffee over random dates, get wasted with wine When solitude surrounds my shadow with overwhelming ecstasy Simply just gaze at the silver light perched on my rooftop, Go running in the vast meadows that call out my name divinely, Have my hands and my heart softly healed and my heart Surrendered to the newfound tranquillity

By Subhashree

Where I won’t have to wake up every passing day

To find hatred collected in me, disguised rage

Where I won’t have to wake up with my frozen dreams Crawling on my numb palms,

Where I can have a cat rested on my lap

Where I can love freely and be loved without the consequences. Of constraints.

Subhashree is currently an eighteen year old literature student from Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. She admires Sylvia Plath. And considers herself as a hopeless romantic, finds peace in coffee and books just like any other hopeless romantic. She has previously been published in orange peel mag, The Black Sheep and Livewire as well.

Pattnaik

Photography by Stella Liu

gou-shi-29

gou-shi-29

(dog at traffic stop). by hans yang

gou- in Chinese, ‘dog’. ta-ma-de- cursing one’s mother gou-shi- double meaning: 1, (dog, ten); 2, (dog, shit) erzi- son

boboji- a cold pepper-marinated chicken dish gou-shi-29 (a play on atomic isotope names)

hey, officer.

do not blame gou. (two- tongued one- eyed.) his muzzle salty from a journey he can only recall on sundays. there are certain things/a taxonomy of a good face/ that you can only see when kissing kneecaps to fly-strewn dirt in frame, in frame.

def. chink: a measure of depression, of angle/the derivative between dog -snout prostrate to white man suit/fuck-faced on blue-collar leash.

dipthonged rage; taa-ma-de, taa-ma-de, divorcing meat-patty from dog-skin (the only invertebrate as mammal). fur domesticated from napalm–hammer & sickle; isotopic.

hey, officer.

gou tried to hang himself yesterday with his son’s jump rope but gou no can get on oak-stool. nor kick it with trampled paw. he go work next day, say stop stepping on tail/no pussy or feet-free-of-high-heel gou need. give bone. they no listen. you must go back transcontinental railroad they speak. attila da hun is a-waiting. gou no

understand; ask taxi driver (big big European) what mean. driver only belly-laugh; whale. no stop. gou think of Tianjin sweatshops all way home. hey, officer. second time gou learn. strung up by plaid-tie like andouille sausage. protein casing/gunshell. shepherd from grave; strewn as if to dry-age/and watch foyer from birds-eye-view erzi, come get me down. come down/dumplings and boboji/oracle bone for dinner. erzi, don’t wag tail no more.

hey, hey, officer.

gou think hopper make mistake in painting nighthawks since in the dark we all look the same.

Hans Yang is a poet, prose writer, and screenwriter. He is an alumnus of the residential Iowa Young Writers Studio’s Class of 2022, and a 2023 National YoungArts Finalist in Novel. He is the founder and the prose Editor-In-Chief of the Metaphysical Review, an international literary magazine showcasing exceptional and complex work from writers of all ages. His work is published in the Cloudy Magazine, and forthcoming in Bullshit Lit and Fleuri Lit.

Photography: ‘Diwali Sparks’ by Luke Tan

Quick Questions

Favorite book at the moment- Soft Science by Franny Choi

Favorite book of all time- Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Favorite author- This is too tough. K-Ming Chang, Dostoevsky, Murakami, and more…

Favorite poem- really difficult question, almost impossible to fully answer but either

“INTRODUCTION TO QUANTUM THEORY” by Franny Choi or “Golden” by Daniel Zhang, published as the winner of the Kenyon Review’s Patricia Grodd Poetry Contest. The former is just so technically and experimentally brilliant, and the latter’s aesthetic and imagery is just so (may I say,) hot. Favorite place to write (ambiguous)- at home in my room, or at my local coffee shop, usually in the earlier or later hours, since in between I find it hard to concentrate due to all the energy in the day.

Favorite thing you have written so far- ‘constant flux’, I’d say the combined enjoyment in the pride from its completion and the satisfaction of the process was the most out of all the poems I’ve written so far. It’s a piece on the fleetingness of experience, how a college boy meets a Favorite place to find poetry- Honestly, much of the poetry I find is from my friends, whether it’s their poetry, or if it’s another poet’s. I’m lucky to have such good friends with such a high caliber of writing ability– their taste is immaculate.

Slower Questions

How did you become interested in creative writing in the first place?

It was dissatisfaction from reading YA novels. I would come across a poorly written novel, and frustrated, I would try to fix it (to some degree). Of course, at first I didn’t have the ability to do so. But as I grew older, that ability became adequate. At that time, however, I had moved onto my own trademarks and ideas.

Who or what would you cite as your main inspirations for writing?

God, this is difficult. Uh– when I was young, I had a huge affinity for action fantasy. I was super picky then, and I didn’t care much about realistic fiction. Christopher Paolini’s Eragon and John Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice series were my whole world. I wrote crappy fanfictions about their characters going bonkers against Minecraft characters or just generally being badass. I still hold both series dear to my heart today.

Your most recent work that you posted ‘hivemind’ is really beautiful to read, and the form of the poem is something I’ve always wondered how to do. Would you be able to share your process with this and do you have any tips for creative such evocative images?

Thank you. ‘hivemind’ is an intriguing piece in terms of process. The origin of pieces for me are first, the form, second, the image, and finally,third, the execution. The beginning of hivemind was a peculiar, grainy definition in my mind– hivemind as both a hurricane-like bee colony of immigrant diaspora and also a vain techno-orientalism, a reach for sentience and understanding. The motif of the collective pronoun, we, and the breathless lack of punctuation was an attempt to render the tone ominous and the pace overwhelming. I thought about how the lines overlap with each other in theme, which was a major part of the piece. For example, the line “we the closed xian restaurant on thirteenth down past the strip club replaced by pancake parlors” refers to tragic gentrification, and combined with “the workers are out in the bay area” and “the drones are dancing in the dark” refers back to the central theme of a ‘hive’- worker bees, working themselves to death, and drone bees, whose only role is to mate. There is more to it, but it would take far too long to explain everything.

Regarding evocative images, when experimenting don’t force yourself to manufacture authenticity. This is the most important part, and often fatal. However, this is not to say that concentrating at all is bad, and that you should just daydream. I’ve tried that before, and it’s really time inefficient.

How would you define ‘home’?

Honestly, I think that a true ‘home’ is a place where you’ll cry when you leave it. A place where you’ll grow attached to the people, the places, and the feel of the city, absorb it into you, that when you leave (or maybe don’t), it feels like you’ve lost something in your identity.

Do you think that ‘Growing Out’ of places is an inevitable part of ‘Growing Up’?

I wouldn’t say so. I feel that some part of ‘growing out’ is your own choice. If you’d like to let go, so be it. But in most cases I see traces of people hanging on. My friend Andrew, immigrated from Hong Kong, briefly reminiscing about noodle shops. My friend Krish, moving from the Bay Area to Texas, recalled a time he got kicked out of a community center in San Francisco. In everyone, I’d say, there is at least a trace of their past. Sometimes I revert back to the stupidity of a second-grader. (It’s kind of enjoyable in most cases).

What are some places / past selves / ideas / phases that you have outgrown?

I lived in Chicago for nine years before moving to the West Coast. I came back to Chicago last summer and a waiter at a Chinese restaurant we used to frequent was still working there and recognized me. It was crazy. It’s a bit sad, too– I don’t recognize a lot of things in Chicago anymore. Compared to San Diego it seems so flat and so concrete-bound. The people, too– my friends in third and second grade, have gone on to become amazing leaders and world-class musicians. It just seems quite surreal.

Description: These are the final 5 pages of a 15-page short story I wrote during my July 2022 Iowa summer program. I produced the following blurb for my own reference: ‘In the summer of 1963 in colonial Hong Kong, an expat girl [Elaine] strikes up an unlikely relationship with the sex worker [Sandy] her estranged father [Lenny] is seeing. Reminiscent of The World of Suzie Wong, this off-kilter coming-of-age is at once satirical and romantic, both a reexamination and reclamation of the orientalist and gendered tropes characterising Hong Kong and Asia in Western fiction.’ The short story follows the events of a day trip Sandy takes Elaine on in the city. I am currently adapting it into novel form.

Days Off

by Alyssa Wong

An hour later, having finished dinner early, they were standing on the walkway again. At Sandy’s suggestion, they had come to admire the harbour as it descended into the night.

Darkening slabs of buildings rose out from the shore, pinpricked with brightness. Distant embers of streetlights glowed a soft orange. To their right was the neighbouring Sea Palace floating restaurant, its outline traced in the same shades of neon as Tai Pak. The lights of both restaurants undulated in the water. If Elaine paid attention, she could pick out new shades in each flicker of colour. For example: A deep red in honey, wild and glittering.

The rustle of dining room conversation hovered quietly behind them. Dimly, Elaine wondered what these well-to-do locals and fellow British expats made of her and Sandy together. Perhaps they were classmates, or secretaries at a burgeoning multinational company. When, if, Sandy had brought Elaine’s father here, had they seen something more straightforward? Sordid, even? So many miles untied from her real life, Elaine no longer cared for answers. Instead, she watched Sandy lean over the railings, arms crossed like ribbons.

She wanted more days like this; she wanted Sandy to show her this city street by street, step by step. But that future had the quality of thin paper. There was something else lurking just underneath, shadows shed by a backlight. A pale view of who she was going to become. And what do we see there?

It’ll be July, then August. Sandy will take Elaine to the dancing hall she works at, Tonnochy Ballroom in Wan Chai. Spinning around the world of Sandy Lo, dizzy and devoted. Asking questions and getting answers. Until they know better. Until they let prismatic days shatter and reform into accepted lifestyles. Until hard feelings ossify into a new skeleton, heavy and solid. Good bones. It may be another year, another summer, before these scenes happen. They may play out in another way entirely. Nevertheless, Elaine continued running them through her mind, like unspooling film, like the clicking of a projector reel. Outpacing the future was the only way to avoid it, to avoid that feeling, which was not even one of following a set path, but of standing still with nowhere to go. It was the feeling you were growing up into a stranger’s world.

She had womanhood, women, on her mind. And womanhood was men, it was boys. Boys like Richie Knox, an American banker’s son, sweeter than a toothache and with upper lip perspiration to spare. It was easier to imagine a date with Sandy than Richie. It would, Elaine thought, be something like this day. Here was the most significant problem, the one that crept into every dream –– the expectation that one day the world would be different.

Alyssa Wong is a student, writer, and Barbie collector from Hong Kong. Her love of storytelling began in childhood, when she would use her dolls to enact complex family sagas exploring guilt, betrayal, and the suffering of outcasts. Since then, Alyssa has become less focused on fictional suffering and more focused on non-fictional academic stress. She has also lost all her baby teeth. You can find more of her absurdist statements in the captions of her Barbie fan account, @totallyspecialbarbie.

Photography by Stella Liu

While Elaine remembered the future, Sandy was remembering the past. She was thinking of the time the children at the Po Leung Kuk orphanage had been taken to Lamma Island as a special treat. She saw herself, thirteen years old, slipping away from the rest. A girl making it to the beach just in time to see raindrops splatter on the sand. It reminds her of Elaine, or, no, it’s Elaine reminding her of this day. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Elaine examining the sunset. It’s the same expression, Sandy thinks, that she saw from so far away the first time.

Back in April, Lenny had handed her a pile of photos he was discarding. They were out of focus, or taken at the wrong angle, so they couldn’t go in his collection. He thought Sandy might want to keep some. Many featured her, after all. Sandy obligingly flicked through and there it was. The photo he’d taken of her at the same time she’d seen the girl at the end of the road. Her photo self stared back at her, looking somewhere just ahead of the camera, just ahead of the real Sandy. Whatever, whoever, she saw, it was like she couldn’t look away. Not even if she wanted to.

Later in the week, she was trying to mimic that face when Jingjing appeared behind her in the dressing table mirror. A playful smile. She asked, Who’s got you looking like that? Sandy replied, I don’t know yet.

Again, that day at Lamma. She sees veins of lightning strike across the sky. As the rain begins to pour, she starts running towards the beach. She wants to drench herself before the storm can. Tides lap at the shore like the rise and fall of someone’s chest. Ignoring the rocks triangling into the soles of her feet, she ploughs through the water. By this age, she knows she is pretty, a pretty that can be taken and used. Pretty like the magazine features of each year’s Miss Hong Kong, the women whose shadow silhouettes she has traced so hungrily, achingly, even though she knows already that the body is a cage. A cage she is rising out of as air bubbles fizz against her palms, giddy. She waits for thunder, thunder like the grumble of boiling water. Just as she hears it, as sound catches up to light, she plunges into the ocean.

Sandy glances now at Elaine, her face dissolving in darkness. The darkness is tinged with the red flavour of the molten 太 sign illuminated on the roof above them. Usually, she prefers the jade or steamed egg colours, not the New Year’s red. Usually, she would never forfeit a leisurely meal to circumvent strangers’ stares. Because, usually, she’s not this aware of the fluttering weight of watching eyes.

Elaine’s fingertips touch the nape of Sandy’s neck. Sandy’s hand touches the curtain of Elaine’s hair.

The space between light and sound. Lightning cracking the sky open like a shell. Waiting to hear the pieces fall.

with her father. She found herself instead explaining how Sandy had taken her on a tour of the city, carefully dispensing most of the day’s events in a few summative sentences.

“So,” Lenny said, “you’ve met Sandy.” In a tone that was almost neutral, he added, “I figured you’d seen her around.” He paused. “I’m glad you had fun.”

Elaine felt a nudge of surprise that he would react even to this with his standard nonchalance. She was unsure of what to feel or say in response, but she didn’t have to decide; Lenny soon wandered out of the kitchen. Their conversations always ended like this, disappointed by their own communicational shortcomings. The experience was akin to reading song lyrics without ever being allowed to hear the melodies. As she thought this, Elaine walked across the room and picked up her father’s plate, intending to wipe and reshelve it. But it was already dry. Elaine realised with a start that he must’ve been waiting for her.

Outside, it was raining again, a sound like clattering beads. There was a moth plastered against the kitchen window, escaping the wet. Its wings resembled torn newspaper. Its body was fat and fuzzy, like a pellet of lint. It was, Elaine marvelled, a miracle that she was here to see this moth at all.

There had been screams of arguments over whether Aunt Anne had the right to take Elaine to Hong Kong with her. The arguments had finally concluded when Lenny arranged for a job transfer and weekend visits with Elaine. Before that though, there’d been a protracted stalemate primarily consisting of dredging up Joan’s death. Elaine’s mother, according to Aunt Anne, had effectively been killed by Lenny’s ego. He was the one who had persuaded, manipulated, Joan into a second child she didn’t want. It had been a desperate bid to prevent her from leaving him and a narcissistic attempt to prove he was a man, with the job to support a real family. Despite suspecting what Joan would eventually do, he’d left her to die alone in their home.

Lenny told Elaine otherwise. He said he’d been there with her mother, helping her, holding her as she bled out in his arms. Is it so hard for you to believe me? Yes, she’d thought. Aunt Anne was severe, and she was stern, and she held grudges tighter than a fist, but she was no liar. Still, Elaine believed he was sorry. She believed he’d loved his wife, that he wanted to love his daughter, to know her. Forgiveness had felt so certain, like clear water bursting from a rusting tap. She’d struggled to find such forgiveness since. She could not seem to find it at all in Hong Kong. Sometimes, to remember the edges of that forgiving, she tried to imagine how her father must have looked when he first met her mother. Her parents, who came of age in wartime, celebrating their first real New Year’s Eve. Catching eyes as the crowd crashes apart, as fireworks splinter in the sky. The hopeful thrum of wishes and resolutions. Elaine heard her own voice. Can we do this again sometime? She couldn’t help the smile. Beyond the moth on the window, droplets fell neatly from roadside trees, steadily watering puddles on the ground. Soon, the typhoon would be back.

“You’re late.” Lenny notified Elaine of this fact as soon as she entered the kitchen. While he clinked his lone plate into the drying rack, Elaine considered telling him she’d been volunteering with Christian classmates at the Po Leung Kuk orphanage, as Sandy had recommended. It was an excuse tailored for her aunt and uncle. Yet the rules were different

Be there next week and I’ll tell you.

Photography by Stella Liu

nonchalance. She was unsure of what to feel or say in response, but she didn’t have to decide; Lenny soon wandered out of the kitchen. Their conversations always ended like this, disappointed by their own communicational shortcomings. The experience was akin to reading song lyrics without ever being allowed to hear the melodies. As she thought this, Elaine walked across the room and picked up her father’s plate, intending to wipe and reshelve it. But it was already dry. Elaine realised with a start that he must’ve been waiting for her. Outside, it was raining again, a sound like clattering beads. There was a moth plastered against the kitchen window, escaping the wet. Its wings resembled torn newspaper. Its body was fat and fuzzy, like a pellet of lint. It was, Elaine marvelled, a miracle that she was here to see this moth at all.

There had been screams of arguments over whether Aunt Anne had the right to take Elaine to Hong Kong with her. The arguments had finally concluded when Lenny arranged for a job transfer and weekend visits with Elaine. Before that though, there’d been a protracted stalemate primarily consisting of dredging up Joan’s death. Elaine’s mother, according to Aunt Anne, had effectively been killed by Lenny’s ego. He was the one who had persuaded, manipulated, Joan into a second child she didn’t want. It had been a desperate bid to prevent her from leaving him and a narcissistic attempt to prove he was a man, with the job to support a real family. Despite suspecting what Joan would eventually do, he’d left her to die alone in their home.

Lenny told Elaine otherwise. He said he’d been there with her mother, helping her, holding her as she bled out in his arms. Is it so hard for you to believe me? Yes, she’d thought. Aunt Anne was severe, and she was stern, and she held grudges tighter than a fist, but she was no liar. Still, Elaine believed he was sorry. She believed he’d loved his wife, that he wanted to love his daughter, to know her. Forgiveness had felt so certain, like clear water bursting from a rusting tap. She’d struggled to find such forgiveness since. She could not seem to find it at all in Hong Kong. Sometimes, to remember the edges of that forgiving, she tried to imagine how her father must have looked when he first met her mother. Her parents, who came of age in wartime, celebrating their first real New Year’s Eve. Catching eyes as the crowd crashes apart, as fireworks splinter in the sky. The hopeful thrum of wishes and resolutions. Elaine heard her own voice. Can we do this again sometime? She couldn’t help the smile. Beyond the moth on the window, droplets fell neatly from roadside trees, steadily watering puddles on the ground. Soon, the typhoon would be back.

Be there next week and I’ll tell you.

figs of fickle droop low to tree stump’s belly, swaying against its pruned skin, bark dried by wholly sun. oblong tiger tears with stripes fading into taper, convene in clusters of moon grape and granny smith.

it is the perfect fruit to cradle flying eggs. below the swinging of ficus bosom, the musk of fruitful rot wavers from half-melted figs sunk into the dirt floor, fig-scent tantalizing wasps until they land on tiger tear skin and begin to burrow.

by amber zou

i wonder if the she-wasp too, had melted, digested into the mesh of inverted flower seeds, antennae and wings blown off, so to never fly again. her wither would bud the fig in which she has chosen to nestle in.

she has been thrown into a safe haven of floral blossom begged to be immersed into fig body she has found purpose in surrendering her self to a dense field of pink sugar and seeds.

Amber Zou is a junior at Phillips Exeter Academy originally from Houston, Texas. She is an alumna of Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, and has received recognition for her poems and prose through Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, school prizes, and school publications. She is a lover of lowercase letters, her dog, Mae, and La Croix.

Photography by Joy Chen

Willowed Belonging

by Karizma Ahmed

‘Tis my place? Knowest not I, Prithee, where to stay?

Hither, whence merriment comes easy, unburdened from count.

Ecstasy running like water, a piety –Nay, ‘tis not I.

Booming laughter ignites a pain sweet and twenty. Much too smiles: a privilege

Sith and simmer, clutched in afflicting hermitage, And flatter not with joy more than me bounty.

Or thither, with melancholy gods passionately raining The sky drenching the sand, a sea of my mourning. Thought: the little villain, a pithy of mine lyfe. Nay ‘tis not I either.

For I gorge on un-gaitly howls, Mine hunger never quite absolved. Though, one-half in jaws of death, The other half is still alive.

Bolts and shackles, in whose capture, I. Stone bows targeting resolution: My Achilles heel. Deposited ghosts of my inaction: A sad Cypress, My willowed belonging hath never truly blent.

Artist’s Statement

In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare used the willow tree as a symbol of unrequited feelings. The word “unrequited” entails in itself immense affliction, of effort not rewarded with consequence; of fervored involvement met with passive dismissal. “Willowed Belonging” brings to paper my belonging (to places and to people) that had always remained unrequited—never returned in full measure, something I had always associated with the very complex procedure of “growing up and growing out.”

There is an inherent amount of discomfort innate to the phenomenon of “growing up.” It is unsettling. Chagrin sits poised, hanging sulkily above my every thought and every interaction. The melancholy of my past chokes my present, whose vulnerable whimpers have so often been subdued that suspension has become elemental to me. My emotions find themselves on a slinging continuum of paralysis. with action frozen from fear of what might go wrong, without ever bothering to wonder, for once, what might go right.

My apprehensions rest heavy and unmoving on my opportunities and possibilities, where every smile feels like a burden, an unknown, unearned privilege. What is my place, after all? Where exactly do I lie on the spectrum of happy smiles and gloomy sighs? I am “half agony, half hope,” as Austen has said. Unbeknownst to me, a hunger feasts hungrily on every laughter attained despite incredible friction of thought. To think, for me, is to drown headlong into chaos, spiralling deep and hard. It is frozen cowardice in the face of every life-inducing euphoria; “to think” is my Achilles’ heel. Inaction builds itself into a charnel house in my heart. At every moment, my belonging is willowy—it’s unrequited.

- Karizma Ahmed

Karizma is a second-year English major at Miranda House who is oddly proud of her name. Melancholic with a tinge of humor, she goes through her life in ephemeral moments of euphemistic passivity. Naturally exhausted and perpetually overworked, she struggles to strike a balance between ambition and availability. She survives life with good music and trashy rom-coms.

Louisa Choi is a 19 year old Korean-American poet and writer who has grown up in Hong Kong and is currently living in New York City, studying psychology. Hong Kong’s very own contemporary Sylvia Plath, her work is centred around mental health and childhood. She has had her work published in [insert accomplishments here], and has also worked with All My Friends Zine. Some notable works that she has published include: ‘Yes, I Am the Poet’, and more recently ‘A Farewell to Childhood’.

I frequently see your work linked to mentions of mental health. How would you say your experience with mental health struggles has influenced your artwork?

Immensely. I write almost only about my mental health struggles. Obviously I dip into other stuff here and there but one of my strongest and most difficult battles that I have experienced and am still experiencing in my life have been mental health. My work will always reflect what is going on in my life, so for that reason they go hand-in-hand. I get questions sometimes, for example, do you rely too much on your mental health struggles for inspiration, but I don’t think it is about being sad to produce good writing. I understand that some people make that assumption that I have that going through my head, but it is more because I am just like any other human being who goes through ups-and-downs too, and I write about those as honestly as possible. For me, it just coincidentally ended up being about mental health, it was never ever supposed to be just like ‘I have mental health issues, so I am going to write about them’. When I was eleven and I started writing, I had no idea what mental health was. It just naturally became that. Will it always stay that way? I have no idea, but for now, it is where my writing is most therapeutic, most helpful to me, so it will stay that way for awhile.

What is your creative process like? Where is your favourite place to write?

So like I was saying, I actually have no professional training in writing. I plan to try to take a poetry class in university next semester. My creative process is not really a thing. I simply write. I open my notes app, and I sit and write. My favourite place to write is the MTR. I love sitting on the subway, pull up my phone, and writing the saddest stuff I ever write.There is something about the juxtaposition of doing something so mundane while also doing something so dramatic, but it is only me, and only I know what I am doing. So, I would say my favorite place to write is on the subway, and that my creative process is just word vomit. I write the best when I am at my most weird and unfiltered with my writing. I like to use conventional words in an unconventional way. That is my favourite type of writing, so I just try to be weird but true to myself when possible,

If you had to sit on a long MTR ride with someone (they can be dead or alive, famous or not), who would it be and why?

I mean, of course I would say Taylor Swift. I would die (metaphorically) if I met her, because she has been my inspiration for my whole life. That is the expected answer of me, so if I was to give a different, slightly less expected answer, the first thing that comes to mind would be one of my friends, my mother, or people who are close to me in my life. I would love to spend time with them and that is a really meaningful thing to me. I don’t fantasise about meeting any celebrity aside from Taylor Swift, so either just her, or my close friends.

I know that you are inspired a lot by Taylor Swift, and I feel like some more highbrow literary critic people would say that pop music does not count as a form of ‘art’, what are your thoughts on this?

I think that is stupid. Art is art. You can’t say that a piece of art isn’t art because it is popular If that is the case, then Van Gogh and Picasso would not be artists. I think that anything, even what a three-year-old might create with a bit of paint and a paintbrush is art. Art is very subjective, and the critics that say that popular music is not art are just critical of their own insecurities. But I also think that popularity does not make art better or worse. I say that to myself because I know that I have a large following on Instagram. That does not make me better or worse than any writer, I just think that that makes me more socially popular. Being popular does not mean the art is good, it is just being circulated more. And I understand, to a certain extend, why people think that pop music is not art, because they use formulas and certain melodies they know are popular, and it gets monetized, but I think that, if you make a song only to go viral, it would not do well. In that case, you could say that that is less artistic. But who is to say that creating formulas counts as not being ‘artistic’? That could be an art in itself, so I think that people can have their preferences, but to go to extends to claim that a piece is ‘not art’, is a statement beyond our control.

I also grew up reading Sylvia Plath and I really love her work - do you have a specific piece of hers that particularly speaks to you? Furthermore, I know that she has had struggles with mental health in the past as well. Is there any way you think that her work has resonated with you?

For sure. Sylvia Plath speaks such honest truths, especially for the time period for which she was alive, which is super inspiring to me. In high school, I studied her collection of poetry, ‘Ariel’, and the poem ‘Daddy’ was one of my favourite poems ever. I think it is a genius poem. It is relatable to me for my own interpretation, but likely not Plath’s own interpretation of it. I do think that my own interpretation is more relatable for myself. I think that Plath is such an impressive woman. She housed so much pain in her mind and body and we are privileged to learn about that through her writing. Obviously, me and Plath have very different lives, but I do relate to her in the sense that she has that inner turmoil and struggle that she feels she can only express through her writing.

With the onset of academic pressures as well as what could be seen as a claustrophobic city setting - how would you describe your experience growing up in Hong Kong? And do you think that there are parts of your hometown that you have outgrown?

For sure, I think that I have outgrown everything at this point. Whenever I go back, it is an interesting experience for me. It is like a trip down memory lane, while also scary and weird. I mean, I have so much love for Hong Kong in my heart, but that I only developed that love after leaving. I did struggle for much of the time I was there. I never really associated with the city itself. It will always mean something to me, and there are a lot of good memories, which I associate with Hong Kong. I think

Photography by Chloe Brooke

that there is a lot of good, a lot of bad in Hong Kong. For example, yes it can be such a wonderful place, but there are also a lot of weird inner workings of Hong Kong, especially socially, but I look back with appreciation now, because I would not be who I am without that experience.

To wrap this up, our last question is: do you have any words of wisdom to leave behind for aspiring young writers or creators?

Just write, write, write, create, create, create. Don’t stop yourself because of expectations or fear. That is what I did up here, and somehow I ended up here. Just know that your voice is worth something, and that it is there for a reason. Even if everyone hates what you do, it doesn’t really matter as long as you are enjoying it and that you are proud of it. The sky’s the limit when it comes to creativity and how you can grow as a creator. Connect to other creatives as well. In this day and age, there can be a lot of competition, especially in the realm of creativity, but you are not online to have competition with other people, you are there to learn from each other and bond.

Artwork by Sophie Schweizer

Sophie Schweizer

Sophie Schweizer (*2002) is originally from Linz, Upper Austria, but currently lives and works in Vienna where she is also studying Art History. In her figurative, mostly oil and gouache paintings she explores darker themes like trauma, anxiety and emotion while keeping the style playful, aesthetically pleasing and maybe even a bit kitschy. Within the harmony of pastel color palettes she weaves in meaningful allegories which invite the viewer to ponder and interpret.

cave-man

BY ROBERT GAO

cave-man: the thin-lipped dreamer in the corner. the man who only speaks of polygonal topography, bloodlines asymmetrical to the bloody undergrowth. how in the dark, cave-man carves sigils out of charcoal: knuckles gathering red, a country elegized into the sins of an afterlife long forgotten. no repentance, no repentance: cave-man murmurs a psalm of the curse of immortalization, how he doesn’t trust fate to guide predestination. now faceless,

cave-man camouflages into canopy, whispering xīn nián kuài lè as december compresses into the lip of nuclear winter. hearing the damp hollow of echoes, cave-man crawls on fours, rice grain and vegetation tattooed into kanji on his back, the gift of the blood god, japanese general saluting massacred bodies, cave-man mouth cupping into O and choking the silence of the moon; atonement, bulleted fruit, the new year wasting into the scars of the old. & cave-man grins a layer of banana teeth, watching katanas pour into monsoons, into the midsummer carnage.

TRANSLATIONS

xīn nián kuài lè — Happy New Year

Robert Gao is a sophomore and Chinese-American writer at the University Laboratory High School in Urbana, Illinois. Focused on exploring the Sino diaspora, his works have been published in Best Teen Writing 2022 and nationally recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation, Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Alliance for Young Writers, and New York Times. He is one of the founding members and serves as Poetry Editor-in-Chief for the Metaphysical Review.

Photography by Stella Liu

on (im)mortality in june

on (im)mortality in june crazy? crazy?

no, you’re crazy. cotton candy sunsets and sun-burnt terracotta tiles, you know what, I feel like I could live forever if someone gave me some antidepressants.

i think we’re already immortal, this is what being divine feels like. citruses burst blood-orange against apollo-kissed skin — mandarin-peel stars for my solar system to orbit around for a moment; for a moment I feel drunk, sprite-glittering diamonds dribbling down my chin, blue-stained ichor shining through the skin of our hands, ambrosia added sugars on our lips, laughter bubbling up, a cauldron of ephemeral immortality. and the sun-flares fading spectacularly into our hands.

Gianna Voce is a first-year student studying computer science in upstate New York, originally from Washington, DC. When she’s not messing up code, her favorite pastimes include sketching, drinking too much espresso, and writing (usually bad) poetry. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and can be found in Carmina Magazine, Travesties Press, and PenPoint Literary Magazine.

- by gianna voce

Photography by Joles Wong

My parents were born in the Philippines to Chinese immigrants from the Fujian region of precultural revolution China. It’s a long story, I know.

if Jesus gave His blood for me, i wonder, was it red?

感謝神1 - - - - - - - - - - - -but that’s tradition2 that i can’t read the elders are singing songs of praise offerings of poppy seeds for the white man’s god the pretty flowers of prayer grown on 鼓浪屿3 but on the golden mountain He can be ours too

curled up as the shower head sweats Gethsemane on my back as the lance pierced in the wall’s tiled side cries clear and red shampoo and salt and metal burning, brimstone in my mouth a winding scarlet snake slithers out from a bore in my skull hot crimson streaking across a canvas of gilded skin cutting through the ivory white lather, creamy and concealing flood water dilutes me and washes it all down the drain get out, sit down (head down) the carpet is stained a chinese new year red is this proof of my ancestors? then let it flow; let it flow float it back to a fish head (soup) and the homeland

阿姨4 told me to circulate: raise my hands when i bleed before AR-15s among seeds or tanks in the square?

two sides of a dirty gold coin cast from immigrant dreams when culture is simmered down to a orange chicken reduction but nothing except salty-tear waters keeps us apart

i paint them a fresh new coat of red because it flows within me red is me and i am red

Thanks be to God; lyrics to a hymn

Literally: it is in Traditional Mandarin, used by Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau

Gulangyu: an island off the coast of China, a treaty port after the First Opium War and the site of some of the first Protestant missions; also where my Grandma found Jesus working as a schoolteacher Aunt, respectful title for older women. In this case, refers to the French-Taiwanese nanny who drove me home from school and cooked for my family through my elementary and middle school years while my parents were at work

Luke Tan is a young creative from New Jersey. Right now, he’s either procrastinating or running off of a burst of adrenaline and coming up with some crazy new writing idea (or probably both). In his free time, he enjoys drumming and sleeping. He can be found on instagram @luke.k.tan or @loquat. photography, and he hopes you have a

wonderful day!

Photography by Stella Liu

Photographer Feature: JolesWong

These photos were taken between July and September of 2022, my first summer back in Hong Kong after leaving to study in the UK. It was during that first year I was in the UK that I discovered photography and really got into it. Something about holding a camera just completely changes how you experience the world and reconfigures your vision to look for the photo in every environment. In those scorching hot summers of Hong Kong, light is in such abundance (except for rainy/typhoon-y August), so I really tried to exploit that in my pictures using film. What I’ve gotten used to with film is that it loves the light; and light is what allows us to see color, so I think those two components are what my pictures from this summer revel in.

I remember when my mom saw the ‘Orange Tree’ boat picture over my shoulder at home and said “huh, you don’t usually see a color like that in Hong Kong” - which I just think is so telling about who I was and what circumstances that photo was taken in. Before Summer 2022 I don’t think I ever really grasped the beauty of the city while I lived in it.

I never really knew anywhere else but Hong Kong, so I lacked the perspective to see its uniqueness before. After going away for a year, I was so desperate to feel at home again, but the feeling of coming home was not the wave of relief that I thought would just come over me as soon as I stepped off the plane. I had to really look for those feelings and those moments.

It was because I wasn’t coming home blind but with a kind of trace - like I had a sketch in my memory of what the city looked like and what it meant to me from childhood - and now I’ve grown up a little, I have the skills to refine that sketch and turn it into something closer to a real picture.

And so, with a camera always in my hands, I looked for all the things that made me feel at home, and simultaneously captured unexpected sights that Pre-Summer 2022 would never have noticed. Everything

I shot here was during one walk from Causeway Bay to the area near my childhood home, ending at the Central-Western bypass which had a nice small park decorated for Mid-Autumn festival. When I look at these photos, I feel really lucky that I took it during that special occasion and got to experience a side of the community that has grown here since I’ve left.

Photography is special in that it expresses something unique to that short and fleeting moment a photo is taken in, imbued with the particular set of circumstances the person holding the camera was in at the time.

So for me, these photos will always make me feel the heat and humidity under my shirt in September, the rumble under a highway, a motorcycle revving, the specific blinking sound of Hong Kong traffic lights, little kids talking in cantonese, the smell of saltwater, and the warmth of the sunset that tells me it’s another day closer to when I’ll say goodbye again.

Joles Wong is a university student from Hong Kong now living in London to complete a degree in Graphic Communication Design at Central Saint Martins. They grew up in the Fortress Hill / North Point area where Victoria Harbour was always close by, and so these areas are the main subject for this series of photographs.

Photography by Joles Wong

Joshua Karthik is one of the co-founders of ‘Stories by Joseph Radhik’ - India’s internationally renowned wedding photography firm. With half a billion views for the work they’ve created, and with 460 shoots in 35 countries around the world, Stories has created a significant impact on the world of wedding photography in India and elsewhere. He has been acknowledged as an expert in the world of wedding photography — specifically with focus on the business. He has also created a very beautiful video called ‘Where the heart is’ (on Youtube), which has now reached 350 million views and counting. He’s been featured in the Netflix series, The Big Day, as an expert of wedding photography. He is also one of the producers of Food Stories on Vice.

Questions: How did you start your photography career?

I think more interesting to talk about is how I started my photography journey. Because i don’t know if the career is relevant to everybody who’s reading a magazine, what’s more interesting probably is how got started for photography: The story is my brother had asked me to try out a new lens, I have never tried a 50mm lens before, so he said “Why don’t you take it and just try to take some pictures with it?” So the first set of photos I took gave me so much joy, I just kept experimenting, and kept working at it. And that’s what actually led me to this 11 years ago – when I actually shot my first photo, and now you can actually see my work, right? So that’s my photography journey. I think anyone can start with photography. It’s a medium of expression; one of your thoughts carrying in your head, what it is you have to say. It’s a great way to express yourself without having to write, without having to sit down without telling people. It’s a great way to also understand what you are feeling at that moment and try to translate it into an image. The lesson here I would like people to take away is that you will never be able to accomplish anything if you don’t ever start, by taking the first step. In a lot of things we never take the first step and we all want to become ‘x’ or ‘y’, we wanna become the best writer or an incredible songwriter, get on stage and sing to tons of people. But if you never sing your first song, or you never write your first piece, or you never start your first magazine, I don’t think any other stuff will happen. I think this is my photography journey, just to pick your first photo, and trust yourself, and keep pushing, keep pushing consistently, and potentially you can get somewhere. That’s my photographer journey.

And how did I start my photography career? My brother Joseph and I, we found this company 9 years & 11 months ago, has this global impact in the arts field, which is wedding photography. It started again with the first step; saying the yes, I will be courageous enough to go shoot the first wedding. I was courageous enough to actually say yes to an opportunity, then not stopping that. A lot of people might say yes to the first opportunity, but what do you do as the next step? In the last 10 years we shot nearly 500 weddings, which means we didn’t sleep much, we’ve been working hard, and we’ve been trying to improve with each wedding we shoot. And every shoot that we do, we’re trying to actually be better than the shoot that we did in the past. That is what got us to being published all around the world and being on Netflix, etc. It’s one thing to think about the first step, it’s another to be consistent and be better at every step you proceed along your journey.

What made you fall in love with photography?

It’s a medium of expression. It’s incredible because you don’t have to be a good writer, you don’t have to do anything- if you can just click the button, you can have the photo. As simple as that right?

I think that in the last decade, photography has democratized because of this whole thing; the smart phone. The fact that a highly capable camera can be in your hands at all times. They didn’t exist 11, 12 years ago. When the iPhone was new, photography wasn’t a big ___. The camera lenses were really, really bad. When the iPhone got better, it became so easy to just be able to take photos and capture what you’re seeing with a very high degree of resolution. I think it’s an incredible time of life; if you guys are growing up at this age you already have phones like that, it’s incredible. Because you’re growing up at the time that you have access to the phones that were not available 10 years ago. And you just have to press the shuttle. It’s all that takes. And that’s why I love photography, it’s beautiful.

What could you define home as? Where would you say your home is?

I’ve moved to a large part of India, I’ve traveled across and lived in multiple cities, and my parents actually live in Indonesia, which is not too far from Hong Kong. My siblings live in the US, all sorts of places around the world. One thing that’s certain– I do not think that home is a place; a building or an apartment or a specific structure. Home is for all the people to go home to, it’s the family that you love most, the people that you build the structure for. And secondly, home is where you actually feel safe. That does not have to be a specific structure. If you can tick those two boxes off, you can pretty much make home happen anywhere in the world wherever you are. So if home is the people in the family, or a place where you feel secure and safe, it could be on a journey as well, it could be anywhere, it doesn’t have to be a structure.

Do you have any words of wisdom to leave behind to aspiring young photographers?

Yes. When aspiring young photographers, I might look at their work and say this is incredible, this is amazing, reaching to the certain vision that I do not have. In a lot of cases, the difference between them and the legend is the amount of work the legend is putting in. Consistently, year after year, decade after decade. Like yes, of course, the readers see the world will be different. But as the young aspiring photographers never put in the work, they will never be able to sharpen their vision. It’s one thing to wish for something, it’s another to work for it.

And if I have one thing to tell the young photographers, it would have to be the consistency of work. The consistency of the idea, creating with your camera, the idea of observing the world around you, bringing up your camera and completing what you see, to frame in your camera. And you do it over and over again, even if you start with something that you do not believe is your idea, you at least sharpen that, you will at least get to a better place. I think a lot of young aspiring photographers never give themselves the opportunity to even get to the point where they consistently try. If you’re aspiring to be a photographer, your volume of work you create needs to show the heights that you want to get to. I still want to get better, I want to get even better than I am at this point. I would suggest you put in the work and be consistent with what you create. That’s what we want, to sharpen a craft.

Photography by Stella Liu

Bleeding Tomatoes: A Golden Shovel

After Chen Chen

I am minimal but specific in what I ask for, and as such, many see me as unfriendly. but see the broody silkie hen who sits as quietly as the eggs she rests atop, warming a bed of eggs that will never hatch? She is unlike soft tomatoes which spill expected red at spicular touch, but instead she is grit guzzling and egg-expecting, giving mercy to her silent kin, always waiting, to cradle them underneath the chin of her haunches. She is me, and I, her, foolishly strong & awaiting always waiting &

do you see now why I dream of having one silkie chicken (that bares white shirtfront)?

Amber Zou is a junior at Phillips Exeter Academy originally from Houston, Texas. She is an alumna of Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, and has received recognition for her poems and prose through Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, school prizes, and school publications. She is a lover of lowercase letters, her dog, Mae, and La Croix.

Artwork by Sophie Schweizer

Variations On Supernovae, No. 1

Over the hills, then under, time is a miserable mirage of balloons & tea parties like a great desert deserter from bands of winter warriors proclaiming victory over the catacombs of Paris (paupers, or once prodigal sons) when all that survives under the quiet cobblestone are belladonna seedlings peaceful as unfulfilled wishes carried by skeletal supernovae

Have you forgotten those springtime visions? Foxes are what rabbits become grow into,

to fit to survive post-apocalyptic societies, to never desert squalling trenches over cruel blizzards, just as an infant seeks out a hearth

by Willow Kang

an eye for an eye

so pluck out that apple iris of yours & return it to Jörmungandr’s body who gave you your savagery, drew out your bloodstained need for opulence after all, you were born upon a cornucopia’s coffin, spared from its teeth bared at/for the heavens

You must know of my carnal desire for the full moon: How it curves over the bedsheets surreptitiously, through a secret night; take it out, breath by breath prying into tranquility, prying out entrails, still warm from a waning heart

Photography by Chloe Brooke

Detached Home

By Saptarshi Bhowmick

Depicted: 香港中環吊燈 (Central Hong Kong Chandelier), 2021, Video Installation by Pipilotti Rist

It is foreign to me today, those lands ushered by stellar moon and those people, coal-rimmed yet beautiful.

I, like honeydew on an arid plant, gaze at them with a demeanour smile. Heaven knows how I was once one of themlaughing at a lame joke on a tribal marriage party, pacifying the dreams that once arised, when the sun kissed the daybreak to greet a warm and heartfelt ‘good morning’.

Returning to this lulling homeland that now seemed not so much like a home. I, a soul with detached naivety, was unable to muster enough remorse to feel, To feel what has been lost so far.

Driving to the outskirts with a carriage that carries me further from my home, I look back.

Photography

By Joy Chen

My mother found me under a cabbage. She tells me I was pink and wriggling. I imagine a worm but she says I was cuter. I imagine a piglet and she says “about that.”

She says I was crying until she scooped me and caressed my bald little head, nestled me into her warm chest. I stayed there for years listening to her heartbeat, curled and cradled in compassion, tuned to her cooing. But then I was told there was no more room I told myself I had grown too large, she had grown too weary. I had to move so I packed up my belongings in a little red cloth tied to a stick over my shoulder.

I took the next bus out of home and it took the next left after the post office and it followed the straight highways though all the conspiracy towns of the USA, along the Great Wall of China, we ran out of diesel three quarters of the way up the Big Ben and around the pyramids, where we had to pull over.

A cactus had needled a puncture in the tyre. We continued after a brief repair break.

I never left that bus.

I never tiptoed the Great Wall or scaled the pyramids or tasted sea water.

I saw from inside the beauty of outside but I never left that bus.

Until eventually I stopped off in a city only forty minutes away from where I started it was small, messy, but it was close and I made that my new chest I called it home

But it’s not my mother’s

Cabbage Patch Kid

by Róise Curran

it’s not my cabbage patch it’s not quite but I call it home.

Except when I call home, then I call it house.

“I’m going to my Galway house tonight, can you give me a lift to the bus stop” and my mother says “of course,” so I go and I stay for a week that turns into a month, I stay for years.

When does a house turn into a home?

When you find a new chest to nestle into?

When you grow your own cabbage patch kids? When your mother moves in? When will my mother move in?

When she’s old and I’m older with a bad back and a sore shoulder and when bones grow stiff and colder.

I don’t like seeing my mother with grey hair.

Róise Curran is a 19 year old poet from the West of Ireland. She has been writing since she was 16 and hasn’t stopped since. Many people describe her poems as uniquely visual and sincere, but that’s just from her friends and family. She has a dog named Ritza and two cats named Flower and Alan. She hopes to make something big someday so keep your eyes peeled!

Photography by Stella Liu

by dora gan

just 1/365, but it’s the 1/365 here’s another lap around the sun, here, have a medal, a cake, an extra candle and a +1

it’s a cake of expectations. of pomp and grandeur and magic, of suddenly being able to do more, take in more, we loved turning older.

but when did the cake turn bitter, when did the extra candle become claustrophobic and the extra number become a burden weighing you down,

remember when i looked forward to that 1/365, red velvet and cream cheese, dunce caps and party poppers, wrapping paper strewn across the floor to use materialism to hide the lack of substance in me

take a fist full of cake and let it crumble between my fingers, the way it disintegrates, the particles

to the abyss of hell, blood red velvet flavoured hell, the particles like my life and my fortress, collapsing around me, throwing the white flag to the higher power of time, humanity, and mortality the pointy hat a dunce cap, a noose, sentencing me to forced joy at a cake i didn’t eat and a number i didn’t want

time is a construct. there is no point.

but if we have to do this ritual, then add one. and if adding one is too easy, here’s a problem for you:

x years ago today, it was slime and amniotic fluid on the floor and mother screaming and father staring and you crying and gasping for breaths in a dark hospital room with family and friends gathered outside to witness the spectacle

today, it is crumbs and champagne on the floor and mother screaming and father staring and you crying and gasping for breaths in a dark bedroom with family and friends gathered outside to witness the spectacle

y = happiness, x = years, find the turning point when the cake turned bitter, when the candles became claustrophobic, when birthday became another day

hint: differentiate

Dora Gan is a high school junior from Hong Kong. You can find her reading anything Agatha Christie, baking banana bread, or drawing random doodles on notebooks. A self proclaimed mathematician turned humanities student, she still loves integrating mathematical concepts into her writing.

Photography by Wiktoria Sadowska

Photographer Feature: Chloe Brooke

Chloe was born in the Philippines and is now a student in Hong Kong. Being ethnically Filipino, Chinese and British has fostered an insatiable curiosity for the world’s cultural diversity that never ceases to stop. Her free-spirited personality stems from her theatrical background, as she has performed in Shouson theatre and written spoken word for HKYAF. You can find her snapping shots for @ochloi, editing videos, or creating Spotify playlists for every mood she has. She never misses an opportunity to express herself or to crack a dad joke.

I lived in the Philippines my whole life until my family migrated to Hong Kong when I was six.The free-spirited 6-year-old climbing guava trees hemmed in by the urban concrete jungle. Having spent my whole life in the Philippines despite being a quarter Chinese by blood, I felt far away from home. The fast-paced city of Hong Kong never seems to go to sleep took some getting accustomed to. As I grew, I adapted to city life and can now admire it many charms, from the soaring skyscrapers to the modern means of transport.

My phone was used to take these photographs, after which I edited with my own preset to achieve the desired ‘film’ aesthetic Although green is typically linked with nature, I found the photos of the city to be a particularly striking juxtaposition with the green hues. I believe this helped the photographs effectively convey the spirit of Hong Kong.

My love for photography will never fade because it allows me to preserve and cling onto priceless moments with the click of a button. My everlasting appreciation goes to photography for allowing me to capture fleeting moments in time as permanent works of art.

thanks to...

Hans Yang

Robert Gao

Saptarshi Bhowmick

Alyssa Wong

Brooke Nind

Subhashree Patnaik

Róse Curran

Dora Gan

Amber Zou

Gianna Voce

Al’Awadi

Karizma Ahmed

Sophie Schweizer

Stella Liu

Wiktoria Sadowska

Joles Wong

Luke Tan

Jasmine Saul

Nicole Lau

Hannah Wong

Willow Kang Liew Bei

Kimmi Lynn

Elena Li

Charms Ng

Aren Hakhverdyan

Hailey Wong

Maja Timis

Rebecca Baulch

Chloe Brooke

Houda Saliba

Jed Canlobo

Joy Chen

Time and time again these people have astounded me. I am so grateful for this amazing, exuberant and passionate team of people that I have had the pleasure to work with.

The magazine – from the start to the release of this first edition has been a rollercoaster. From the sleepless nights of typing into the void of an empty Google Document to sprinting from the MTR station at 9pm, adrenaline pumping, to our first interview with someone halfway across the world (shoutout to Louisa Choi!). I will always be grateful to Jed, firstly for his ‘entrepreneurial spirit’. I think I would have given up this idea long ago if he wasn’t constantly appearing everywhere and reminding me of it. His sheer passion for anything he does, or any injustice that he comes across, is something that I will always have massive respect for. I also owe my sanity to Hailey Wong, our Managing Editor who, as one of the first people to join the magazine, always keeps things running. I still remember the first Zoom meeting we had, after which Hailey pointed out that “your password security is weak, we should fix that”. To this day, her attention to detail is still something that I am in awe of and I am so glad I managed to meet and work with such an inspirational person through just a short Google Forms application. Aren, the most talented artist I have ever met, thank you so much for tolerating my hourly texts to shift things on the InDesign document and for being the backbone of our magazine’s design. I know it’s annoying. I owe a lot of gratitude to Maja as well, for always keeping our magazine on track (with her terrifyingly organised mind), and ensuring that everything we do is keeping in with our magazine’s purpose and serving a larger societal good. To Houda for having the funkiest Instagram reel ideas, and for being someone we could always rely on to post / grow our social media, as well as making meetings fun (and chaotic). Thank you to Chloe, our Canva queen / influencer, for creating such beautiful Instagram posts and for instilling such a cool aesthetic into our feed and always bringing your optimism into our team meetings. To Rebecca – thank you so much for being the one to reach out to others.

Thank you to all the contributors without whom this edition would not be possible. Special thanks to Stella Liu, our first contributor, for being our never-ending source of jaw-dropping film photography and everyone we interviewed for the insights, advice and inspirational messages.

Finally, thank you to each and every member of the XinSai Team who put their hearts & souls into bringing this magazine to life. Our core team, editors and designers and their tireless efforts are the “how” behind “Growing Up, Growing Out”.

This magazine was formatted by Aren Hakhervydan and Joy Chen

With Love, Joy