Canto Cutie - Volume 2

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Canto Cutie
An art zine about the Cantonese diaspora
Volume II February 2021
Curated by Katherine Leung

Canto Cutie Vol. II
Artist Features
Annika Cheng New York, USA
Kaitlin Chan Hong Kong
Crystal Lee Hong Kong
Photography
Jasmine Li Boston, USA
Nat Loos Perth, Australia
Cehryl Hong Kong
Artwork
Winnie Chan Hong Kong
Marissa De Sandoli Vancouver, Canada
Jasmine Hui Seattle, USA
Irene Kwan Houston, USA
Karen Kar Yen Law Toronto, Canada
Ying Li Melbourne, Australia
Charlotte Hong Kong
saamsyu Hong Kong
Writing
Arron Luo Atlanta, USA
Bianca Ng New Jersey, USA
Kristie Song Irvine, USA
Ruo Wei Hong Kong
Clovis Wong Redmond, USA
Poetry
Raymond Chong Sugarland, USA
Karen Leong Sydney, Australia
KR

Table of Contents
Forword by Katherine Leung / 6
Artwork: Peachtree Plaza by Karen Kar Yen Law / 8
Artwork: Still Life at Popo’s by Marissa De Sandoli / 10
Interview with Kaitlin Chan
Hong Kong-based illustrator / 12
Cute and Cantonese: An identity rooted in courage
Photo set: Bygone Battle by Jasmine Li / 30
Artwork: Stay Angry by Charlotte / 33
Interview with Crystal Lee
Hong Kong-based cover artist / 40
Short story: Fish Eye by Ruo Wei / 52
Photo: Like Ghosts by Cehryl / 68
Poetry: Upheaval by KR / 70
Photo: Walking Home by Cehryl / 78
Photo set: Snippets from my
Second Home by Nat Loos / 73
4
Artwork: Still Life at Popo’s by Marissa De Sandoli / 81

Interview with Annika Cheng
New York-based fiber artist / 82
Poetry: day go by by Karen Leong / 111
Artwork: Identity by Winnie Chan / 112
Short story: It’s me, Me. by Bianca Ng / 118
Artwork: I’ll Find you Again in 1981 by Kristie Song / 123
Photo set: Passing Through by Jasmine Li / 124
Short story: Carefully step over the gap of my open heart
and show me where I came from by Clovis Wong / 126
Artwork: Canto Speak by Jasmine Hui / 136
Essay: Dreaming Hong Kong by Arron Luo / 138
Artwork: Making Dumplings by Ying L / 142
Short story: Eating Siu Mai Doesn’t Make you Cantonese / 143
Artwork: CUNG 4 GWONG 1 by saamsyu / 145
Artwork: Triptych by Irene Kwan / 146
Poetry: Until the Sunlit Aurora by Raymond Chong / 148
Artwork: Mondays by Irene Kwan / 149
A!erword by G and Tsz Kam / 150
5

From the editor
When I started this zine, it was just a solo passion project. The idea
arose from my frustration as an artist in finding suitable venues
and publications to display my work. Many publications require a
submission fee, perhaps are too broad, or actively reinforce
harmful stereotypes of the art world - that it is reserved for those
who know the “right” “art words”, those born into privilege, and
those with the most capital. There were also plenty of venues for
Asian American or Chinese artists, but nothing that existed
specifically for the English-speaking Cantonese diaspora.
I didn’t set out to change the rules, but instead, to create a space for
those who feel like they don’t have a home. Canto Cutie is now a
team of three Cantonese artists and writers from across the globe,
with G as a Cantonese translator, and Tsz Kam, who conducted the
riveting interview with queer illustrator Kaitlin Chan for this
volume. There are two returning writers, with fresh new work I am
excited to share once again, Raymond Chong and Arron Luo. This
issue also features a cover created by Hong Kong-based digital
artist Crystal Lee and an interview with Maryland Institute College
of Art fibers student Annika Cheng. Annika creates thoughtprovoking
garments with original concepts and breathtakingly
meticulous embroidered artworks that tell a story. I hope her
artwork sparks a conversation with a friend, or makes you ask
yourself what will be your own story as a Cantonese artist of the
diaspora.
I hope you have just as much fun reading through Canto Cutie, as I
did curating the works and interviewing these amazing artists.
Knowing how diverse our diaspora really is makes me proud to call
myself Cantonese.
Sincerely,
Katherine Leung
6

——
G
Tsz KamKaitlin Chan
Raymond ChongArron Luo
Crystal Lee
Annika ChengAnnika
Katherine Leung
7

8
Peachtree Plaza
Karen Kar Yen Law
Monoprint, oil paint, and embroidery on canvas
20! x 3!
@karenkylaw

Peachtree Plaza is a large monoprint on canvas and was born from
abstracted personal photographs taken at a local Chinese mall. Familiar
Cantonese iconography, like the BBQ roast duck, is abstracted to serve as
a formal device. The printed layers of abstraction are a metaphor of the
multicultural society while the materiality of the canvas and the cuts
throughout reveal the the instability and violence that people of colour
experience. Microaggressions have o!en been described as ‘death by a
thousand cuts’ and these cuts are exercised onto the canvas to juxtapose
the colourful and appealing elements of the canvas surface.
About Karen Kar Yen Law
My practice oscillates between painting and printmaking processes.
Through the language of multiples, gradients, layering, masking, and
mark-making, I reproduce cultural iconography to imagine and explore
my relationship with the Chinese diaspora and with Canadian culture. I
am a first-generation, Cantonese speaking settler, and use my practice to
design a lexicon which describes experiences of multiculturalism,
assimilation, and polite racism in Canada. As I blend, layer, and cover-up
colour and form in my works, these same operations exist and occur on
the daily in the experiences of people living in Canada. The product of my
artistic practice is artwork delightful in colour and presented to be
palatable, to invite even the most unsuspecting viewer into a discourse
on racialized experiences in Canada.
9

Still Life at Popo's
Marissa De Sandoli
10" x 12"
@noot.yfa

A conversation with
Kaitlin Chan
By Tsz Kam

14
kaitlinchan.com
@kaitlinmchan

Kaitlin Chan
Hong Kong
Kaitlin Chan (she/her) is a cartoonist and cultural worker from
Hong Kong. Her work about daily life, intimacy and queerness has
appeared in The New Yorker online, The Margins, Popula,
ArtAsiaPacific, the Hong Kong Visual Arts Yearbook. In 2018, she
co-founded Queer Reads Library, a mobile library centring queer
perspectives in diasporic communities. QRL has been exhibited in
eight cities and described by Eye on Design as “finding a global
community.” She also makes and collects zines. She is a big nerd
and is currently working on her first graphic novel.
Kaitlin Chan
The MarginsPopulaArtAsiaPacific
Kaitlin2018
Eye on Design
Kaitlin
15

You use graphite as a texture for a lot
of your comics, and the way you use
it has this very bold and animated
quality about it, but also a very
intimate quietness throughout. Can
you talk more about the relationship
you have with your chosen medium?
I am drawn to how pencil allows me
to feel as if I am working in dra!-
mode. The tangible and erase-able
quality expresses a sense of
exploration and play in my work. As
many of the moments I draw in pencil
are quiet and meditative, the humble
material of graphite, which may
remind us of taking tests in school or
even drawing as a child, brings me
back to a sense of beginning again,
with every new panel.
You create a lot of risograph zines of
your work, how did you come to
discover this medium?
risograph
I had collected many riso zines and
prints from places like Odds and Ends
Art Book Fair and New York Art Book
Fair before ever making my own, and
it felt like a dream come true to work
in that medium for the first time in
summer 2018.
Odds and Ends
2018
16

17

18
Calendar (2020), a 4-panel comic commissioned by @everyone.is.storyteller
2020—— @everyone.is.storyteller

In your newer works, you have been
changing up your style with digital
drawing methods, bolder, minimal
lines and sometimes color. What’s
your inspiration behind these
changes and what are some
challenges you face with them?
I have mainly drawn with pen and
paper until 2020, when my partner
gi!ed me with a secondhand digital
tablet. Up until then, I never thought
of switching to digital, mainly
because I was not happy with how
experiments I had made until that
point looked. But I suppose as I make
more comics, I want to keep
challenging myself. If I get too
comfortable, I may only utilize one
style for a long time, and then I won't
be able to discover the exciting feeling
of trying something new. This year, I
tried drawing with colored markers,
watercolor paints, digital on
PhotoShop and it's been fun to see my
ideas take shape in new ways, and
hearing my readers tell me how
unexpected it is to see this kind of
different direction from me.
My main challenges have to do with
getting over the idea that I have to "be
good" at something before I start it.
One of my favourite comic artists,
Walter Scott who creates "Wendy",
once said about his own drawings that
they don't "look like someone who is
good at drawing, drew them." Even
though Walter is a skilled
dra!sperson who has exhibited his art
in galleries and has an MFA, I love how
he leans towards an accessible
drawing style, that makes his
character of Wendy, a struggling
artist, feel ever more sincere and
profound.
2020
PhotoShop
Walter Scott
Wendy
Wendy
19

Intimacy is a theme subtly depicted
quite o!en in your comics, in your
comic “On Touch”, you openly
discussed the stereotype of Asian
families being lacking in providing
physical intimacy to their children.
How do you feel like this aspect of our
culture impacts our ability to express
emotions with close family and
friends?
While stereotypes can only gesture at
the deep expanses of our lived
realities, there's something to be said
about the lack of touch in how some
families who identify as Asian
communicate. What may feel like a
lack in one area (touch) can somehow
be expressed in many other ways
(cooking, checking on each other's
health and wellness). On Touch came
out of a sequence of small touches I
had experienced in a few days: having
a doctor hear my heartbeat, and
having a retail worker adjust my
glasses in a glasses shop: I felt this
urge to be held, and ended up having
to hug myself when I got home. While
not everyone likes to be touched or
touching, I realized I had resisted the
idea of myself as someone who
needed touch, maybe because I grew
up around a culture that emphasized
the "virginity and purity" of people
socialized as women. For people who
love through touch, not being touched
can feel very lonely. Finding friends
who love cuddles and hugs has helped
me bridge the ways in which I can
only communicate some of my
feelings through touch.

Can you share more about your
family’s immigration history and
your experiences studying and living
abroad?
My father was a multi-generation
Cantonese Hong Konger and my
mother is a second-generation
Toishan-Australian. Growing up in
Hong Kong speaking English (my first
language, as I mainly communicated
with my mother whose first language
is also English), made me realize that I
was not quite "the norm", of a
Cantonese speaking Hong Konger.
Only when I got older did I learn about
British colonization's lasting
emotional and social roots in Hong
Kong and the power dynamic of how
English is a language fraught with
particular connotations.
I studied and lived in Connecticut,
which is about as far from Hong Kong
as you get. Not because I didn't love
Hong Kong, but I was granted an
opportunity to study there and I felt
compelled to seize it. And I suddenly
felt that what made me comfortably
invisible (at least, until I opened my
mouth to speak) in Hong Kong made
me so obviously an outsider in a
white-majority town. It was a
humbling experience that reminded
me of how little I know about the
world, and how much more learning I
have to do about the global structures
of racism and capitalism that create
conditions for immigration.

Sai Mun Zai (2018), a comic originally published in daikon* issue 4 (Food).
2018—— daikon*

Having grown up in a multi lingual
and dialect household, you express
having a difficult relationship with
Cantonese. Can you share more about
how being able to express yourself
best in one language or the other
affects your feelings about identity?
I am finally starting to let go of the
idea that my lacking Cantonese
makes me an insufficient person,
mainly because so many Cantonese
diaspora friends have affirmed my
right to exist as I am. I o!en feel like a
"traitor" because English is not a
language indigenous to the geography
of Hong Kong. But I realize my life is
an outcome of many decisions and
political occurrences that pre-date
my existence for hundreds of years,
and I can only inherit my English
privilege with a sense of
responsibility to be sincere and open
to recognizing my biases, ignorances
and personal failures. I feel open to
ideas about identity in flux and in
fluid states, this helps me feel less
alien. The wonderful poet Mary Jean
Chan has written extensively about
her relationship to English, I highly
recommend her work.
Mary Jean Chan
In our conversation, we talked about
queer visibility in Hong Kong. You
mentioned seeing TBs at your school
has had an impact on your idea about
what it can look like to be queer in
Hong Kong. Can you share more about
how this experience has shaped your
imagination about your own
queerness?
*TB stands for “tomboy”. It is a
colloquial term used to describe butch
presenting females or lesbians in
general in Hong Kong.
queer visibility
TB
24

In scanning vintage queer newsletters
from Hong Kong donated to Queer
Reads Library by the pioneering
journalist and queer rights defender
Connie Chan Man-wai, I found a
pamphlet describing lesbian love as "A
love that dares not speak its name." I
currently identify as bisexual and it
took me a few years to come to this
openness due to my internalised
homophobia and fear of being
attracted to people of a similar gender
identity to myself. Like in the
pamphlet, seeing people present
themselves in ways that defied gender
norms was a way of being that "I dared
not speak" into existence until I met
queer and trans friends in university.
These friends opened me up to whole
new worlds of language for how I
identify, and fundamentally showed
me the right to think about my own
gender and sexuality in an open and
expansive way, rather than a narrow
and suffocating one.
I love my friends so much for this, for
opening my eyes to how Hong Kong
can hopefully grow into a place where
queer and trans people are safe to
flourish and just be. We're far from that
point now, but there are so many of us
(I am but a grass in a field) fighting for
that in different ways here. It comes
down to the small things we do in our
daily lives, e.g if at work, you see
someone being made fun of for how
they express their gender or
appearance, just gently calling in the
colleague who is teasing, asking, "why
do you feel the right to make fun of
their outfit/haircut/style?"
25

Panels from Kong Nui (2020), a comic about internalised misogyny

2020——

Some of your comics address the
feeling of alienation in different
cultural contexts and the unspoken
boundaries that seem to keep certain
people out of certain identity groups.
How do you feel like the Hong Kong
identity as it is being imagined right
now has its possibilities and
limitations? How do you see yourself
seeking ownership of your particular
identity and fitting into this
imagination?
28
I can only speak for my own
experience as a single Hong Konger in
a community of others, and I feel that
Hong Kong identity is shi!ing. People
feel called upon to ask themselves
what is it that actually connects any
of us, or what we feel are the values
that compel our most important and
revelatory decisions. I greatly
appreciate people starting
international conversations about
solidarity where activists connect
over shared struggles against racism
and xenophobia. Jeffrey Andrews, a
Hong Konger of Indian descent who
recently began entering formal
politics in addition to his experience
as a social worker and a former triad
member, is one of the many people
doing the important work of
reminding Hong Kongers that we are
not one ethnicity, and people of many
different ethnic backgrounds have
every right to claim a stake in the
city's future, the city they also forge
their lives in. The Africa Center Hong
Kong has also been tirelessly
organizing programming that centers
African and African-American
experiences, and attending their
events this year has illuminated me to
how much more every ethnically
Chinese Hong Konger can do to be
vigilant about our internalised and
socially conditioned racism and
classism. Other great initiatives I
want to shout-out include Table of
Two Cities, ArtWomen and The Gamut
Project, all Hong Kong based
initiatives that are fighting
hegemonic powers. I hope to be useful
in reminding myself and others to
stop gate-keeping Hong Kong identity
and redistributing resources in a way
that underscores how Hong Kong is a
place where people deserve to be
heard.

Jeffrey Andrews
The Africa Center
Hong Kong
T a b l e o f T w o C i t i e s
ArtWomenThe Gamut Project
29

30

Cute and
Cantonese:
An identity
rooted in
courage
31

Wipe off your nose and move on. This piece was drawn in
October 2020, my life has kept moving on since the
movement started, and so does all the injustice in this
world. As a student with minimal social/political power,
there isn’t much I can do about it except keep holding
onto the anger I have been feeling, and try to become
someone that can change the world. Anger without
power/means to avenge is just anger.
About Charlotte
Charlotte (she/her) is a Hong Konger that is currently
studying Bioscience in a foreign country. She mostly
draws on her tablet as an outlet for her emotions.
Stay Angry
Charlotte
Digital art

34

For over a year, Hong Kong was a
battleground. Mass protests week a!er
week, tear gas, and standoffs with riot
police. Revolutionary posters all over
the streets, online communities sharing
protest iconography, all imprinted with
the same slogan: Liberate Hong Kong,
Revolution of Our Times. - Jasmine Li
35

38
A!er the Chinese government passed the
Hong Kong National Security Law on July
1st, 2020, the act of protesting itself
became punishable with a maximum
sentence of life imprisonment. Hong
Kong's year of protest became history, and
these images became relics. - Jasmine Li

Photos on page 30-31
and 36-41 are part of
the series Bygone
Battles by Jasmine Li.
About Jasmine Li
Jasmine Li is a
photographer and
filmmaker who
currently resides in
Boston. She grew up in
Hong Kong, and spent
her teenage years
documenting its
constant state of
transformation. She
hopes to immortalize
fleeting moments and
temporary places
through her work.
byjasmineli.com
@jvsli
39

Cover Artist
Crystal Lee

42

Crystal Lee
Hong Kong
Crystal Lee is a fine artist from Hong Kong. She
graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong
with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2018. Coming from an
all-girls secondary school, she has both traditional and
remixed ideas on feminism and femininity, which are
played out in her newest digital works, the Floating
Series, created on Procreate.
Crystal Lee2018
Procreate
@crystalsillustration
crystalleesuetying.weebly.com
43

44

W h a t w a s y o u r e x p e r i e n c e
studying art at CUHK and why did
you choose that path?
I chose to be an art major because
then I would be able to immerse
myself in what I love for four years
a!er DSE. It is nice to spend time
with fellow students who are also
passionate about art. My focus was
on oil painting but the curriculum
allowed us plenty of opportunities
to explore other media. Aside from
oil painting, I enjoy printmaking
the most, which is where I got the
idea to borrow printmaking
textures in my illustrations.
What is the inspiration behind
your Floating Series?
Reflection has always been the
imagery that inspires me. It
represents inner reflection, hidden
identity and sometimes distorted
self. As a woman, I think it is quite
common to feel distorted and I
want to create illustrations of
those who rise from fragmented
and distorted reflection. I studied
in an all-girl secondary school and
our motto was from(On
the Love of Lotus) which inspired
us to remain unspoiled rising from
the muddy bed.
45

46

You mentioned that you
w a n t e d t o “ c r e a t e
illustrations of those who
rise from fragmented and
distorted reflection.” Can
you explain more about this
concept?
Reflection on water is
imagery that I have always
come back to. It is everchanging
and subjective; it
r e fl e c t s t h e i n n e r a n d
hidden part of ourselves.
Fragmented and distorted
reflection appears when
water is disturbed by winds.
For me, I see strength in
those who see past the
broken reflections and rise
proudly finding/holding
onto their true selves; kind
of like what Mulan did in the
cartoon.
47

Your latest works deal with femininity and you went to an all girl’s
school. How do these factors influence the kind of feminist you are
today? Or the feminism you envision for the future?
In many ways, studying in an all girl’s school shielded me from the
usual comparisons between the two sexes. There’s no sport/maths
are for boys and art/literature are for girls. I feel like we don’t have
to pretend without the presence of the other sex. I also got to be
surrounded by a circle of strong and confident girls who thrive in
their passions, girls who have different sexuality, body types and
interests. We feel safe enough to share our identities with each
other. I hope that the world will become more like this - safe
enough for everyone to be themselves.
How is your art practice currently evolving? I noticed your latest
works on Instagram are created almost entirely on Procreate.
Instagram
Procreate
I am not involved in the local art scene as a professional artist but
am slowly transitioning to be an illustrator. I love the idea of
storytelling within a 2D image and that is also why I enjoy painting
in the first place. It is only recently that I started working digitally.
Before, I was a bit intimidated by technology, feeling that it is too
complicated. Procreate simplified it enough for me that I started to
understand the ways of digital drawing. I used to only paint in oils.
In fact, the Floating series came from an oil painting that I did.
Procreate

Fish Eye
Trigger warning: suicide ideation
52

Ruo Wei
Hong Kong
This is a short story written between 2019 and 2020. As
things become more sensitive in Hong Kong, I feel
helpless and useless situating in a foreign country.
Everything I see becomes digital: they are surreal, they
are unreal.
7 stories of the faraway land, I am none of the ANONs,
but every single ANON holds my reminiscence, my
conflicts and my diasporic emotions towards our
beloved city.
About Ruo Wei
Ruo Wei was born in Canada, raised in Hong Kong, and studies in
the United Kingdom. Ruo’s practice involves text and performance,
creating rituals that narrates their mixed feelings towards their
conflicting identity, thoughts and wishes.
redrosegrowwide.com
53

When a Fisheye is cooked, the transparent crystal shrinks and transforms into an
elastic white bead. Tasteless and functionless, it becomes a by-product that is never
used. Yet with the appearance of a sphere and smell of the ocean, the Fisheye
becomes a coarse replica that has been called the Pearl.
Behold, and bow before thy precious Pearl!
Flashbacks flooded ANON’s mind. It was when the meteorites first hit the city. Eyes
were marching through the streets, chanting as meteorites burst into flames, passing
through space. They had been causing uproars, determined to spread their beliefs
across the region. Carnival. Cannibal. The parade was nothing but chaos.
Granny once said that the city was well-known for holding a Pearl of Orient. The pearl
sat in the middle of the region, guarding the city from hazards and decay with a
sprawling nacre and a rusty shell. Over the century, people would travel miles to see
the prosperous, flourishing legend. But the Pearl of Orient seemed to have lost its
lustre, no longer protecting the people nowadays. In this unsettling era, the city
becomes everything but a “Legend”. The future is dead: It has reached a point of no
return towards dystopia. The phenomenon is apocalyptic. The metropolis has become
more deadly than it can ever be. Some may even say this is the start of doomsday.
There has been an increasing amount of capsaicin rain in the region. Irritation and
temporary blindness caused by the toxic rain may last from 30 minutes to a few

hours. The rain comes with unpredictable meteorite falls. Scorching metal pieces burn
with a golden yellow flame. Having the ability to penetrate asphalt floors, they are so
powerful that the human cannot withstand them under any circumstances.
The Catastrophes have also led to abrupt changes in human temperament.
Interactions between people become peculiar. Some people are allowed to gather but
some people aren’t. Some rumours are allowed to be spread but some rumours aren’t.
Some taboos are allowed to be ignored but some taboos aren’t. The chaos generated is
as fatal as the loss of the core of the city.
Irritating smoke from the rocks caused ANON to burst into tears. She didn’t
understand. Where was the Pearl? The Eyes were not holding the Pearl nor anything
remotely similar. Were the meteorites similar to what a Pearl could have been? They
were flaming dazzling white as well. Maybe the Pearl was something much more
abstract than a physical ornament, maybe a hidden power, or a force, or an army. Or
maybe ANON should stop overthinking. Someone should stop her.
ANON ran off to a quiet avenue, trying to gasp a sip of fresh air...
Stop right there!
... The End.

A passage from the Bible: Citizens must respect the Pearl of Orient at all times.
To prevent any misunderstandings, citizens should never cause disturbance to
society, those who do may be executed. Any forms of disagreement to the Pearl
shall not be tolerated and those who disturb in the name of the Utopian Era will be
strongly condemned.
This is the Temple; you’re not supposed to be here.
ANON did not expect himself to be standing in a fishy empty chamber. The room
was so empty, ANON barely found anything valuable. A dry, deflated fisheye was
placed on a velvet showcase, with dust moving and alighting around. How ironic it
was to realize what the whole nation had been praising had become nothing but a
fraud. Hours ago, ANON was still mumbling about how ridiculous the 5 meters tall
concrete walls were. He had literally spent nights digging a tunnel just to get into
the forbidden land. The land was guarded 24/7 by the flying Eyes, and the only
gateway was exclusive to the pious followers. There must have been an extreme
cost associated with the construction of this bizarre architecture, who knows what
kind of extravagance the corrupt people inside are having.
…
Lanterns around ANON started moving steadily, rhythmically, unemotionally. He’s
surrounded. From the shimmers, ANON could tell there might be more Eyes than
he imagined. There’s no point in returning. To his surprise, the Godfather was here
as well. The man gave an order and darts started raining from above.
The darts hit ANON and immediately took effect, triggering his memories of all the
times he’d ever given thought to suicide. He had always longed for death. When
ANON was young, he used to wonder how it would feel if he were to suffocate
himself with a piece of transparent plastic bag. It might have been a deep breath,
another one, gradually less, ‘til he ran out of oxygen. He might have stuck his head
out of the car on a highway during a family road trip. The last thing he saw would be
an approaching truck.
He might as well jump down from a residential building and let go of his ability to
think before his body landed somewhere below. It might be a Saturday noon. Kids
would have been running around in the playground. He surely wouldn’t want
them to be traumatized by his pallid white body. That would have been the last
way he wanted to leave this place.
56

57

But ANON had never thought of dying in the
hands of the Godfather. He wasn’t ready for it.
Now that he was unavoidably close to losing
his mind, there was so much more he wanted
to do. words couldn’t describe all but one thing:
the untold truth must not fade into
nothingness. Nevertheless, ANON had no
choice, he had no control over his life or death.
… The end.
Basic biological forms of homo sapiens are no
longer fit for survival, hence people are
transforming in response to the altering,
unpredictable environment. Survival of the
fittest; it is never the fiercest that survive, but
the most responsive to change. Human beings
are nurtured to live in duality: To wake up and
work during the days; to camouflage and find
hope in the nights. Alternatively, human
beings are neither diurnal or nocturnal, but
ghosts who never rest.
The endless struggle is driving ANON crazy. It’s
been days since she was trapped here. She
hadn’t even had a single drop of water. The
Eyes had sealed off the whole area so the
survivors could no longer reach parts of the
ruins where they could find the resources and
support they needed. The downpour has
contaminated all the water tanks. Food is
gradually rotting, and first aid supplies are
dampened. There were a few bodies near
ANON, dead because of the exposure to toxins
from the catastrophes. ANON was not faring
any better. Symptoms were spotted on her
body. Her skin was swelling, mutating and
occasionally bleeding black. Perhaps it was the
clouds. There had been rumours of the
capsaicin rain. Some said that it came from
another region. The contents were different
and definitely more carcinogenic than before,
killing the future generations in the area.

ANON swore she would never give life to
a new-born to only allow it to face this
disastrous world.
A melancholic melody was swimming
through the ruins. The sounds came
from a distant car driving past the site. It
was the song that ANON couldn’t get out
of her mind, assuring her the vehicle was
one driven by her companions out
searching for survivors like her.
Can anyone hear me?
ANON looked on as the music faded
away. She knew her companions
couldn’t find her. It wasn’t their fault,
there were always people being le!
behind. Surely it was a short life and she
sincerely hoped for a longer, better one,
but this would have to do; it was her
moment to leave. ANON started asking
herself what it would have been like if
the world was better, or if the metropolis
simply never knew about the fraud.
Would she be “happier”?
Probably not. If none of this ever
happened, she would have wanted to
become a writer. ANON would settle
down in another country and rent a
small house with a garden. Every
morning, she would sit by the balcony as
music played from her old-school radio
speaker. She and her gay friend would be
enjoying their fake marriage, sharing
thoughts on culture, music and art as
well as giving each other sufficient
individual time. Sometimes ANON might
still think of the one she was once deeply
in love with, wondering if he was ever
going to reappear in her world and get
herself confused again once in a while.
Nevertheless, everything would be a
happily ever a!er. The fact that life isn’t
an endless excitement makes it sound
flawed, but that was the kind of freedom
she longed for.
ANON swallowed another mouthful of
black liquid. Just as her body lay supine,
she smilingly whispered.
At the end of the world, I wish I could
have...
... The end.

The phenomenon has been ongoing for
decades. There are countless Eyes in the
sky, spying on any possible events or
activities prohibited by the Bible. This
includes any speech or thought on the
Fisheye. Disobedience may lead one to
unconsciously commit suicide.
Please bring her back.
ANON stood at the tip of the shiny metal
cliffs, looking down to the pitch-black
ocean. It was a dreadful expedition until
he had finally arrived. Dusk was near
and the sea waves were gently sitting
above the horizon. The sea appeared in a
layered dark state. Like ink precipitating
at the bottom, forming an indigo
gradient. The solution seemed to reflect
nothing other than itself.
ANON was told that the site was once a
super civilisation ages ago, but it had
been hit by hundreds of meteorites all at
once in one night, leaving nothing alive
within the surrounding tens of miles.
Layers of molten metal and ash were the
only remains of a once existing
metropolis sealed by force. The city had
become an unspeakable place.
ANON didn’t like the atmosphere he had
been experiencing. He felt as if he was
living in between walls within walls,
despite the Godfather and his parents
emphasizing it was for his own good.
Surely, a lot of people were grateful for
what they had, a stable and simple life,
but ANON wanted more. He wanted an
adventure that might kill him but also
enlighten him. He treasured the ability
and the possibility to explore and think
more than anything, no matter how
ruthless the the truth which lay beyond.
...
The first morning sunlight finally hit the
water surface, and strange objects
started to mysteriously pop up from
beneath. They were the bloated bodies
of the suicides, floating up and down in
a rhythmic pattern. High concentration
of sodium chloride and extreme low
temperature of the seawater had
preserved the bodies, allowing them to
maintain their supposed forms. For
centuries, this was where many have
chosen to dispose of their own bodies.

ANON climbed down the rocks
and reached the hidden bay.
There were more bodies, but
he was lucky enough to have
found his target. It was a
colourless body lying by the
shore, so fragile and
otherworldly. ANON browsed
shamelessly, methodically
studying each anatomy. The
body maintained its dignity
even in nude. The seafoam
formed by the hitting waves
had stained the body. The
brine had preserved her skin,
still beautiful despite her
inanimate status. Her skin
glittered under the sun like
marble statues of Ancient
Greece, but there was a
strange bullet size scar to the
back of her chest, obviously
something intentionally done
to the body. Perhaps the
stories were true, and it was
time for ANON to come out
from the walls.
It’s okay now. We shall get out
of here.
... The end.
The relationship between Dystopia and Utopia is one of mutualism. They coexist
in dimensions, under the same threads of time that are tangled up and
intertwined with each other. In that world of perfection lies countless gems
one could ever imagine.

ANON never knew that there was an abandoned antique shop in the middle of
the town. She is absolutely mesmerized with the things she found in this
narrow display area. The space is quite the hidden gem. Located at the end of
the valley, it subtly camouflages itself like a moth resting on lichens. If you
explore the interiors, you shall be visually bombarded by things that do not
exist in this era: fabric umbrellas, exotic masks, lightsabers and plenty more.

These miscellaneous objects stack upon each other, forming an extremely
unstable but irresistibly beautiful composition.
ANON climbs up some crackly old stairs and finds herself lost in the attics
overwhelmed with archival materials. Ancient weapons are neatly displayed
on walls whilst in the middle sits the most powerful of them all. Hundreds and
thousands of writings and drawings, each and every kind, all casting the same
spells and effects. ANON assumes that documenting this collection would take
a massive effort, though it only represents a small fraction of the historical
event that produced them.
Words and images— the most gentle yet powerful weapons ever created in this
world. Somehow a few anonymous bards had survived from the catastrophes
and were able to secretly record and preserve what they could. The prints
safely avoided weather stains, burning massacres, and countless instances of
censorship from the Eyes. They survived against all odds to tell the new
generation, people like ANON, stories of the Bible, the Catastrophes, the Dead
Sea, stories of the Fisheye and the Pearl of Orient, and stories of a mysterious
city that has been demolished and rebuilt. The forbidden city where ANON now
stands upon.
It mustn’t be exposed. Not until the time is right.
History is the best inheritance given by the ancestors, yet what is le! will
forever remain a secret in the shop’s hidden attic. ANON never knew these
dark ages of her city. She feels like she is reading some kind of surreal fictional
stories, or some stories from another parallel existence. The information goes
against what she has been previously taught. She isn’t sure who to believe
anymore. It is certainly an unsettling and strange feeling. As if she isn’t meant
to experience any of this. It’s a name that should not be mentioned, a beauty
that should not be obtained.
As ANON struggles to figure out what to do with the remains, a melancholic
melody starts playing as something else comes in from a mobile device stuck
on the wall.
Can anyone hear me?
... The end.
The formation of a pearl is highly sophisticated. It involves the acceptance of
a killing pain. Reluctantly, the body treats this pain with patience and
tolerance, wrapping up the irritant with layers of nacre, forming the most
unique and free-form of beauty you can ever find in this world.
Have you heard about it? A mythological Bird spotted in the region.
ANON inattentively pulled up her rod as she listened to the other fishermen

babbled some gossips. She was out of luck for some harvest today. The water
current was strangely turbulent, too rapid for her to catch even the slightest
movement from the fish. ANON did not seem to care though, as if it was just a
disguise for her search of something much more valuable.
ANON knew what the others were talking about. She saw it once when she was
standing by the window, feeling the breeze on a midsummer night. Head of a
lion, body of an eagle, the hybrid flew across the sky right in front of ANON and
gazed into her eyes. There was nothing sentimental in its pure gaze. Unlike a
griffin, the ominous beast was rumoured to appear only when the city
was about to be demolished. Something must be wrong with the Pearl
of Orient.
ANON admitted to have lived a long life. She witnessed the era when people
first exploited the Pearl. Then the astonishingly rapid development that
followed turned it into one of the most well-known super civilisations in the
world until now. Though she never felt like she was part of it. She was more
like an observer and avoided intervening most of the time. But now that the
beast was here, she couldn’t hide from it anymore. She must do something in
order to prevent the decaying of the city.
...
Ignoring the fisherman’s warning, ANON dived into the pitch-black water. She
had sensed a strong signal from beneath and could feel her blood flowing in
reverse over the excitement of the discovery. The ocean was such a
mysterious non-space. Countless unfound treasures laid beneath a seabed
formed by the flesh and blood of our ancestors. To ANON, the signal could very
well be the tangible Utopia she longed for. She deeply believed that there must
be something more in the ocean if the Pearl had originated there.
Nothing much could be seen from the surface. Not even bubbles. Hours
passed. Nobody came back from the ocean. Not even a body. The fishermen
wondered as they sailed away in sunset: Did ANON become the prey of a deepsea
carnivore?
... The end.
Futurism requires futuristic approaches in time of crisis. Misallocations in
space-time may occur in portals, one might be sent to a crystal dungeon in
some planet lightyears away or the inner stomach of a hungry dragon. But
portals are the only known way to reach Utopia at the moment.
ANON looked at the figure in front of him in disbelief. He wasn’t sure if he was
hallucinating.

Aren’t you dead?
I am, but not really. I live as a memory in the minds of everyone who
remembers.
The portal was quickly disrupted, no longer connecting the worlds together.
The parallel universe for the souls of the deceased had once again le! ANON to
face reality alone. There came a moment of disappointment but ANON was also
overwhelmed by the fact that somewhere, lightyears away perhaps, people
who were long gone were still there, with him. He wondered if it meant that
events were destined to happen. Perhaps there is a regularity in all life. Nothing
is coincidental. The breakdown of the city could have been an inevitable
process, a mobius loop that connected them to the new fantasy. If the Eyes
were meant to spy and the catastrophes were meant to happen... What would
be created to lead us through?
*Bang Bang*
ANON snapped out of his thoughts. The Eyes had initiated the cleansing
ceremony, there was no time for ANON to think about anything else. Red and
blue lights swirled around, aggressively taking over every inch of space
illuminated. The air expanded and compressed under the contrasting hues.
Apparently, the area was in lockdown. ANON must seek shelter before the Eyes
spot him. He must retain anon. Should ANON flee though? Could he possibly
stay? Would there be somewhere out there willing to accept him? Would there
be places without the Eyes? What if there’s nothing le! out there? Would he be
le! alone forever?
ANON chuckled in despair.
We might not live to see the future of the metropolis, and we might never reach
Utopia. We might struggle to trust each other, and we might struggle to stay
alive. In the end, regardless of the insurmountable fear and hopelessness, we
will overcome.
...The end.

Images on page 42 - 69 are part of the Floating Series () by Crystal Lee.

Like Ghosts (2019)
Cehryl
@cehryl

70
Upheaval:
A poetry
collection
on Hong
Kong and
Resistance

KR
Upheaval is a poetry collection centred on my experience in
navigating an embroiled Hong Kong that is starkly different
from the city I grew up in. It touches on the areas of movement,
resistance, and culpable change in returning to a home that is
both pervasive and fluid in the face of trauma. The four poems
outline my own perspective as both native and outsider in the
six months I have spent back home, and chronicle the everfleeting
impermanence of loving Hong Kong, and being able to
do very little to preserve it.
About KR
KR is a Cantonese writer that prefers to remain anonymous.
Poems in this collection are “cliff faced”, “2878”, “heavy harded”,
and “Kei qin ah”accompanied by photographs by Cehryl and Nat
Loos.
Page 70:
Like Ghosts
Cehryl
@cehryl
71

cliff faced
I am back but in what way
forming inconsequence
drips in gutter water
crowning like a halo
yesterday i let myself be toppled
By sea mist and the unrelenting face
of the sun
like the rest of us world ridden narcs
knowing we are (were) amongst the few
who roam fancy free
eroded rocks like ribbons
flanking either side
the boat rocks
In every sense and we tilt at the side
angled for trouble
but never do we capsize
against the setting sun
So there is nothing to be done
But soak in such displays
and think
what a beautiful footrest
a lingering kind of beautiful
this treasure trove city is
Snippets from my second home
Nat Loos
@natlikesdumplings
72

73

74

2878
worried about our home
whispered like a kiss that curls
from my mouth falling on velvety ears
No respite too great could tear me
from screens screaming
I feel sickle
and red like a fist enclosing intrusive
Chokehold on every ligament
affirmation in high ceilinged rooms
dictating fate of the masses
who no doubt will continue to stream onto
paths slippery with blood
My mother curfews me on the eve
of the nation at its sickbed
Even though I am twenty one
and amongst them who are trying foremost
and chinese second
I think of the 1 opposer and my dog strains against my
grip
We both struggle - but whatever for?
Snippets from my second home
Nat Loos
@natlikesdumplings
75

Kei qin ah
Half baked
It is dystopia who stands within
yellow lit shopping mall past close
Centre stage the most conducted
game of musical chairs
we are dispersing
undulating the flower like the fawning
black is but blue tightened night
Voices carry over pleasant jazz onto
the street
The mall in jaunty grandeur
the bullets rubber I bunch at the sound
Those around me cheerful
in steel lip resistance
ages a daffodil of every stripe I am
delighted to find
The Black Sea
hoping it parts
its legs
Snippets from my second home
Nat Loos
@natlikesdumplings

heavy harded
oh to be lulled by sinking
stones my heart a wish
Can it be snuffed out?
twelve fold I watched
numbered days slip like sand
through cracked palms
Unbefitting for the half adults
who raise them in sixes
Foolhardy is the David
without divinity
or a wisp of public outroar
pebbles ricochet in riotous silence
the battlefield landlocked city
Encroaches
in return for silence
death is merciful
ran through the beating heart of the
resistance
Petals wilt in the ham fisted grip
others look away
it is in good taste for me to watch
entranced
Walking Home
Cehryl
@cehryl

Photos on page 75-79 are part of the series Snippets from
my Second Home by Nat Loos.
Being half Cantonese and half German, I sometimes felt
awkwardly situated in-between both sides, but I'm slowly
learning to explore and embrace all parts of myself. When
I'm away and miss Hong Kong, I look at these photos and
feel as though I'm transported back into my second home.
About Nat
I'm a university student currently studying Art History
and Asian Studies. I've always been drawn to all things
visual and love to capture moments around me.
Photography is an outlet I use to express myself and it
helps me appreciate the world I live in more.
Photos on page 70-71, 80-81 are work of Cehryl.
These two photos were taken last year when I first moved back
to Hong Kong from the US. In both photos, I see an atmosphere
of uncertainty, and the moving figures in the purple photo of
Sham Shui Po look like sad wandering ghosts. They parallel how
I've felt about Hong Kong when I was away. I was constantly
homesick, and yearned to taste the chaotic, saturated, resilient
spirit of my city. But even when I returned home, the longing
was stuck in me. What was it, then, that I really longed for? Was
it just the memory of an old Hong Kong? Sometimes, I feel like
one of the wandering ghosts in the picture. Looting the past, an
invisible thief.
About Cehryl
I was born and raised in Hong Kong but moved to the US for
college. In the seven years away from home, I invented and
reinvented my identity, that grew further and further away from
who my family understood I was (or wasn't). It's been confusing
and heartbreaking to reconcile the differences between who I
was and who I had become. Growing up, I resented a lot of
societal pressures and traditional Chinese values — I wanted to
be free — but as I got older, I grew more critical and cynical
(thankfully) about the Western notion of identity and
invidualism. This internal conflict will likely never dissolve, so
I'm grateful for music, photography and words, through which I
try to trace my roots, my split ends, and everything else.
80

Still Life at Popo's
Marissa De Sandoli
"24 x 36"
@noot.yfa
Still Life is a reflection on the everyday item. It is a record of the
visual language that informed my childhood. All these items are
things that would have surrounded me in my Popo's house.
About Marissa
Marissa is an interdisciplinary artist from Vancouver, BC. She
explores themes regarding nostalgia, the unconscious and
surreal, and family heritage. She is currently in her second year
at Emily Carr University with a major in Visual Arts. Loves a
smooth sanded canvas.
81

82

Interview with
Annika Cheng
83

Annika Cheng
New York, USA
Annika Cheng is a fiber artist from Queens, New York,
currently studying at the Maryland Institute College of
Art (MICA). Annika’s works tell a story of Cantonese
identity as an Asian American, o!en through wearable
pieces. She shares her musings of quarantine life on
social media.
Annika Cheng
MICAAnnika
annikacheng.com

You are a student at MICA. Can you tell
me more about your path to art school
and how you choose your major? What
is your experience as a BIPOC in an arts
environment?
My mom always likes to tell the story of
when I was 3, a teacher saw me drawing
and asked “do you want to be an artist
when you grow up?” and I said, “I’m
already an artist”! Despite this though, I
didn’t seriously decide that I wanted to
pursue higher education in art until my
junior year of high school. I honestly
have no idea what I thought I was going
to do before that though because, in
retrospect, it seems so clear that art was
the only thing I was meant to do.
When coming to MICA, I thought I was
going to be an illustration major, which
is HILARIOUS to think about now. I was
convinced that it was “the right” path to
take because illustrators have a clear
job path as working for magazines, or
books. Halfway through my freshman
year, I took an Intro to Fiber class, and it
really made me realize I wasn’t
interested in illustration at all.
86

Being a BIPOC, especially an Asian
person, in an arts environment is very
strange, and can sometimes be
challenging. Although this is starting to
change, it is clear that the dominant or
default perspective is that of a white
man. Art history courses teaching
“modern art” almost always focus on
American or European modern art,
while the histories of BIPOC art are
always designated to special classes like
“African Art History” or “Chinese
Contemporary Art”. I have definitely felt
that I am always subject to the white
gaze, as my work is constantly being
judged on standards that have been
created by a Western and White art
world. But I can also say that this
environment is starting to change, if
only slightly. BIPOC associations like the
Black Student Union and Asian Student
Association, have begun speaking out
more about systemic problems on
campus, and I can feel teachers and
students actively working to decenter
the white male perspectives. It’s
definitely still a fight sometimes, but
there is an open conversation about it
on campus, and I think that is already a
step in the right direction.
Page 84-85:
Annika Cheng
Year of the Dog
Acrylic yarn and monk cloth
87

I’ve been following your daily log of
quarantine life for your visual
journalism class and you shared about
attending art classes through Zoom.
Can you share more about that
experience, what you think you might
gain, or how you could possibly be
“cheated” from the traditional art
school experience? Where are you
currently based?
Zoom
I am currently based in Baltimore, MD,
and I am living pretty close to the MICA
campus. It’s pretty funny that I’m living
right next to the fiber building but I’m
taking my classes online. I honestly
enjoy my online courses because my
classes are shorter, I spend less time on
travel, and I can manage my time better.
But of course, online classes can never
reproduce all the benefits of being in
person. One of the biggest ways that I
feel “cheated” is the lack of access to all
the tools and spaces offered by the
school. I couldn’t take classes that are
based around machines like the
industrial sewing machine, a knitting
machine, or a loom because there would
be no way for me to access them from
home. Also in doing research for
papers, there is less availability of
certain books or articles.
But besides physical access, I feel
cheated out of networking, both with
my professors and my peers. It’s very
difficult to connect over a screen, and
even though I can ask for a private zoom
meeting with my teachers, it’s hard to
stand out when you’re still just a face on
a screen. Zoom also makes it impossible
to have those casual conversations with
other students. Moments like the 10
minutes before class starts, or asking to
get lunch together feel small and
negligible, but I’ve come to realize how
valuable those spaces were. I miss
getting to know my peers, and I truly feel
like I learn as much from them as I do
from the professors. I feel cheated out
on those natural connections to make
friends, to talk about work, and to create
collaboratively.
Zoom

Annika Cheng
The Shell of a Mask
Clear vinyl

What got you interested in fiber? Where are you originally from?
My story of “where I’m from” is really complex. I am adopted, so I am technically
originally from Chengdu, China, but I was raised in Queens, New York. My mom is
from Hong Kong, and my Dad ethnically Chinese, but is from the Philippines. Both
my parents speak Cantonese, Mandarin, and English, but I was raised mostly
listening to English and Cantonese.

I think I was always interested in fiber
art. I remember teaching myself how to
crochet when I was little and making
little clothes for my dolls. I also
remember harassing my mom to learn
how to knit, so she could teach me how
to follow more complex patterns. I really
have my mom to thank for nurturing all
of my interests and supporting me in all
my artistic endeavors. My fiber practice
started early, and it just grew with me as
I got older, until I realized I could
(hopefully haha) make it into a career.
In your daily log of quarantine life, you
depicted how your father, a doctor, had
to undergo the process of quarantining
from your mother in their own house, by
hanging up a transparent plastic
curtain. The picture you've drawn of it is
very stark, a crazy reality. In May, just
two months a!er quarantine started in
the US, you created the clear vinyl shell
to be worn over your head. Are there any
parallels between these two
experiences?
I’m really glad you made that connection,
the vinyl shell was actually a direct
response to the experiences of my
parents. Every time I would facetime my
dad, my mom would wave hi from behind
the plastic curtain, and vice versa. They
would tell me how sad they were that they
couldn’t hug, or kiss, or even just eat
dinner together in the same room. It
made me think about how the things that
protect us physically, are hurting us
mentally. During a pandemic, it’s really
hard to toe that line between physical and
emotional needs. So that one moment my
parents described to me really inspired
me to think about all these things and
create the shell piece. We hide away in
our shell for safety, but we still look out
into the world, longing for connection.
facetime

92

93

When coming up with Our Home, Hong
Kong, you share that “Hong Kong feels
familiar and yet completely unknown
because I have heard so much about it
through my mom, but the last time I
was there was when I was 3.” How do
you “claim” this place in your art? In a
rapidly upward mobile immigrant
culture, many are defined by how
many times they’ve visited their
“homeland” - individuals who get to go
every year may be perceived as more
“Cantonese”. How do you explore Hong
Kong, the geographical and geopolitical
entity in both your identity and work?
I reclaim my Chinese heritage by
making artwork about it. It forces me to
do research on where I’m from, to fully
process my emotions, and really
articulate it for others to see. I felt
strange about “claiming” Hong Kong as
my own because I am technically from
Sichuan. I have also only visited Hong
Kong once, and I barely remember it.
My connection to Hong Kong is more
emotional than physical. The
generational knowledge of that place
has been passed down to me through
my mother, and the Cantonese
communities and spaces that exist in
New York.
In my work “Our Home, Hong Kong”, I
am exploring Hong Kong through the
lens of nostalgia for a place that doesn’t
exist. My mom is nostalgic for the Hong
Kong that she used to know growing up.
I am nostalgic for the place my mom has
described to me, and for a place where I
might feel at home. Both of our ideas of
Hong Kong are likely very different from
what the physical place is like, but we
both still claim that emotional
connection to it.
In Our Home, Hong Kong, you depict
faces and places, but also an emphasis
on transportation. Can you talk more
about why you choose to include the
concept of transportation in that
particular work? Since the pieces are
easily removable, how is it meant to be
explored or used by others?

Transportation came up a lot because in
interviewing my mother for the piece,
those were the spaces she remembered
the most. But on a deeper level,
transportation is something that is really
tied to my identity. I immigrated from
China to America. I grew up in New York,
a place that is famous for its complex
train and bus system. My parents always
emphasized travel and encouraged me
to explore new places. I focused on
transportation in that piece because it’s
one of the connecting trains of thought
between where I am, and where I want to
be. It expresses my want to explore this
place that I know, but haven’t lived in.
The movable pieces encourage the same
of my audience, hoping that they will
empathize with me.

96

Page 94-99:
Annika Cheng
Our Home, Hong Kong
Found fabrics, magnets
97

In Beautiful American Cheong Sam, you share how the
perception of the Cheong Sam has changed over the
years, “completely appropriated and taken by America”.
Do you think your work is distinctly American, and how
so? How do you think the US plays a larger role in both
assimilating and exoticizing Cantonese culture?
I have a hard time placing where I and my artwork fall. I
don’t like to think that my artwork is American, but
there is no denying that I was raised in America, and
therefore embody an American perspective whether I
like it or not. I put a lot of pressure on myself to question
my role in exoticizing and orientalizing Chinese culture
by making so much work about it. But at the same time,
I am making this art to help myself think through these
ideas, to learn more about my heritage, and to figure out
who I am, as cliche as that sounds. If I had to put a label
on it, I think I would call my artwork distinctly Chinese
American.
I’m not sure how to respond to this question about the
US assimilating and exoticizing Cantonese culture. There
are so many ways to answer that question since there is
so much history of how Cantonese Americans have been
treated. There are also so many facets of assimilation
and exoticization in today’s culture. There are so many
stereotypes of what America THINKS Asian people are
like, like the wise kung fu master, the quiet submissive
woman, the smart nerd, the successful doctor, the rich
international student, etc. These stereotypes both
assimilate AND exoticize Asian people, as we are always
seen as “different”, but we still respond to these
stereotypes in order to define ourselves in American
culture. Everything Asian is made fun of until it is
appropriated by Americans. Our eyes are squinty but on
a white person, it’s a “fox eye” look. Our food is
disgusting until it’s in a 5-star restaurant in upper
manhattan. Our language is too complicated, loud, and
obnoxious until it’s being spoken by an educated white
man, or tattooed on someone’s leg. We exist in a strange
space of constantly being othered until certain aspects of
our identity are given the okay.

You write that you cut up your own
childhood Cheong Sam - what was that
process like?
I actually recreated my childhood
Cheong Sam instead of cutting up the
one I used to wear. I distinctly
remember my dad asking me if he could
donate it to Salvation Army and I told
him I wanted to keep it, and he said
“well, it doesn’t fit you anymore so I
don’t think you need it”. I made my
parents check anyway on the off chance
that my dad had mercy and saved it, but
he definitely gave it away. Although I
was sad that I had lost that bit of my
childhood, it was cathartic to go through
the process of recreating it. Remaking
this garment recreated all of the love
and care that I felt for it. Plus, I don’t
know if I could have actually gone
through with cutting up the actual dress
if I had it.

102

When creating Beautiful American Cheong Sam, you question
“whether this dress truly represents traditional Chinese beauty” or
something else. Some may argue that Cheong Sam rose to mass
popularity in the 1920’s as a revolt against traditional values, as it
was adapted from the men’s garment changpao. What do you
want non-Asian audiences to take away from this work?
1920
I had a difficult time deciding who my audience for this work should
be. I was questioning whether I should make this work accessible to
a non-Asian audience at all. But the work is interrogating a problem
with the way America treats Asians and specifically Cantonese
women, so I felt that a non-Asian person should be able to
understand the work so they can question their complicity. My
highest hope for this work would be to encourage a non-Asian
audience to question how they have potentially fetishized and
colonized Cantonese culture, as well as Asian femme bodies. I would
also hope that the work sparks a genuine interest in Cheong Sam’s
history, beyond just an aesthetic appreciation.
Page 100-104
Annika Cheng
Beautiful American Cheong Sam
Found fabrics
103

Face Change “is based on the Beijing
and Sichuan opera tradition of or
“Face Change”, in which a performer
will magically change what mask they
are wearing. In referencing this
tradition, I am hoping to comment on
the cultural code-switching that I
perform as an Asian American.” Can
you talk more about the cultural-code
switching that you do?
I think all people participate in codeswitching
behavior, but that is
especially true for BIPOC. As an Asian
American, I am constantly engaging
with the stereotypes that have been
painted onto me. If I’m in a classroom
discussion, I feel that I need to
participate more and speak my mind so
I don’t fall into the role of the quiet
submissive Asian woman. If I’m with
distant relatives, I’m more reserved and
modestly admit to my academic
accomplishments so I can fit into their
expectations of the polite and
successful immigrant child. If I’m in an
interview, I play up my hard-working
model minority status so I seem fit for
the job.
The only time I can drop the act is
among other Asian Americans. There is
an unspoken understanding that we all
have to fulfill these roles outside of our
safe space together. I think codeswitching
is an innate part of Asian
American identity because of our
liminal existence.
You write that you “face constant
contradictions between wanting to be
proud and critical of both countries” as
red, white, and blue have significance
in both American and Chinese cultures.
Can you talk more about the
contradictions?
Annika Cheng
Face Change
Acrylic yarn

When I was younger, I was very proud to
be Chinese American. To me, America
represented the land of the free, the
land of equal opportunity, a melting pot
of ethnicities. All the immigrant
families I knew had moved to America
for a chance at a better life, and I was
proud to live in a country that offered
hope to others. I was also proud to be
Chinese, a culture that seemed so rich
and beautiful. I greatly admired the
Chinese community around me for
their ability to work hard, and rise
above adversity. I still hold a lot of these
values close to my heart, but I can
recognize that both American and
Chinese cultures are not perfect.
America was built on the backs of
immigrants but is still very much a
racist country that works to
systematically oppresses BIPOC.
Chinese people are a minority group,
but colorism and racism are still very
prevalent. I want to be proud of who I
am, and where I am from, but I can’t let
that stop me from holding these two
communities accountable for issues
that are still very real.

Can you talk more about the duality of
your identity, and how they may be in
conflict at times, and in conversation at
other times?
A good way to sum up the conflict
within my identity is my relationship to
privilege. As someone who was raised in
America, I am privileged to speak
English fluently, to have access to
education, and to have job
opportunities. As an Asian person living
in American, I am privileged to be
allowed success as the “model
minority”, and to have access to both
American and Chinese cultures. But at
the same time, I am aware that Asian
Americans are the least represented
group in media, we are rarely in
positions of power, and we are judged
on our ability to align ourselves with
whiteness. I feel that I have both
benefitted from, and been oppressed by
the racist system in America, and it’s
tough to operate in that space.
106
How did you get into rug-making?
Honestly, I got into rug making because
I saw people on TikTok doing it and I
thought it looked really fun. I sat on the
idea of making rugs for a good three
months before getting the materials to
do it because I was worried it was just
going to be a passing hobby that I did for
a few days and then never touched
again. But I’m really glad that I did end
up buying the materials for it, and I wish
I had earlier because it’s a process I
really enjoy. I find that I can focus
better when my hands are busy, so it’s
been a great activity for online classes,
where I am mostly listening to lectures.
Recently, I’ve been fighting the need to
be productive all the time, and to
constantly be making “real” and “deeply
conceptual” artwork. Rug making is a
medium that I’ve kept strictly for my
own entertainment, and not for the
approval of a classroom critique. It’s
something that helps me relax, and
there is a lot of pressure taken off
because not every rug needs to be
perfect, and have “artistic meaning”.
Annika Cheng
Year of the Tiger
Acrylic yarn and monk cloth
Page 112:
Annika Cheng
Year of the Dragon
Acrylic yarn and monk cloth

TikTok
107

108

Can you talk more about the process and
inspiration behind your rug making?
I’m living away from my parents right now
and I think I find myself making a lot of
Asian symbols in my rugs because I miss
home. I feel cut off from my family, my
community, and my culture, so I keep
returning to these motifs as a space of
comfort. Like I mentioned earlier, rug
making is a medium that I’ve maintained
as strictly for me, and for fun, and so I feel
freer to just make things that are more
visually driven rather than conceptually
driven. I’m allowing myself to be more
self-indulgent and make things that I
want to make, even if it’s just copying the
design of a white rabbit candy wrapper.
But I will definitely say that there is
something comforting about filling my
living space with so! symbols that remind
me of home.
Annika Cheng
Year of the Rat
Acrylic yarn and monk cloth
109

110

day go by
Heady rush yesterday when I sampled
wistful bygones a little too excited
for noodles wilting in polystyrene
Yes please Table for two
I am keening for this lovely mirage
of normality
my tenderness is a flesh wound
the city opens its legs
when there is an opening we take it
Whomst has had enough of unprecedented times?
Feet thundering past central a collective sigh
we are moored
we are moored
day go by is a part of Reorient, a collection of poems about
reaquanting with the city and self.
About Karen Leong
Karen Leong is a writer and poet (and self-proclaimed Cantocutie)
who has stubbornly clung to her Hongkie status despite her garbled
Chinese. She regretfully only writes in the coloniser's language but
may one day be able to wield her mother tongue with more ease.
Her works mainly involve Hong Kong, Women of Colour, and her
lived experience in straddling both identities. In her spare time she
writes, scrapbooks, and waxes poetic about being an Aries. She is
published on Zami, Doof Magazine, and now, Canto Cutie.
111

112

Winnie Chan
Hong Kong
Winnie Chan is originally from Hong Kong and has
based in Penzance, Lancaster and London before
Exeter. MA Fine Art graduate from Chelsea College of
Arts, University of the Arts London, she sees making
art as a way to communicate with others, through
messages and expression. Winnie’s works are her
own life experiences and introspection particularly
about her journey in finding true happiness.
2015
Identity
Acrylic on canvas and clay
10" x 10" and 5.5" x 3.7"
chanwinnie.com
@winnieinner
113

My father was born in Hong Kong and my mother was in Mainland
China (her parents were born in Hong Kong but le! in order to escape
from the Japanese occupation during World War II). Therefore, my
mother was not allowed to come to Hong Kong and live with us until
1998 due to immigration and visitor rules. Hong Kong was a British
colony before 1997. Permanent residents of the city could apply for the
British National (Overseas) passport before, and the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region passport a!er the handover. However, having
the BNO passport does not grant the right of abode or the permission to
work in the UK. Under these situations, I started to question my identity
and our freedom of choosing where to live and work. We live under the
same sky; the world only has one sky; every human should have the
same equal rights. The sky in square canvas represents the unknown
and infinity, but is bounded by an invisible stretcher like national
borders and rules.

19981997

It’s me,
Mom.

Bianca Ng
New Jersey, USA
Bianca Ng (she/her) is a second generation Chinese
American visual storyteller and facilitator, creating
brave spaces for BIPOC folx to affirm their
intersectional identities and creative voices. Her
background is in branding, illustration, and print
design, and she's also known for her interdisciplinary
personal projects. In 2017, she founded Take Up Space,
a visual storytelling project that celebrated everyday
female voices during Women's History Month.
Previously, she was the creative director of The
Cosmos, an intentional online & offline community for
Asian womxn. Currently, she is freelancing and
building communities.
bianca-ng.com
@bng.design

Bianca Ng
Acrylic marker
It’s Me, Mom.
My parents gave up a comfortable life in China
so that their children could have better
opportunities. When they came to America,
like all immigrants, they struggled. First, they
had my sister, and four years later they had
me. I was sent back to China between the ages
of two and four. I stayed with my aunt and
uncle because my parents couldn’t afford to
care for both children at the same time.
Growing up, my mom fed me stories as though
this was a vacation, whether out of guilt,
survival, or ignorance. She shaped my story
before I even had time to process or react to
the experience.
When I started grade school in America, I
would share my story with my friends because
it felt like a cool fun fact. Something
interesting to say to fill the silences.
Somewhere between grade school and college,
this experience morphed into something
embarrassing at best and shameful at worst.
I’d realized no one else I’ve ever met could
relate to my story. I forgot about it entirely
until I began to explore my complicated
relationship with my mom through my
artwork and therapy.
In 2016 my friend sent me this compelling
essay on NPR written by Beth Fertig called “For
‘Satellite Babies,’ Separation Can Take Its Toll.”
It was about children born in the U.S. and
raised in China. My entire life I thought I was
the only person who went through this specific
relational trauma.

During the first few years, babies
are developing an attachment to
their parents. When this is
disrupted either by neglect, abuse,
or circumstance, it can have longterm
effects on their internal
working model. Children who
experienced relational trauma can
develop avoidant or anxious
attachment styles instead of
secure attachment styles. The
sparse memories I have of my time
in China were negative. As a child,
y o u a r e u n a b l e t o p r o c e s s
i n f o r m a t i o n s e p a r a t e f r o m
yourself. Everything that happens
to you, you relate back to yourself.
This thing happened. I must have
done something wrong. I must be
bad.
When you learn shame as a child,
and that shame is reinforced early
on, it becomes a habit, and that
habit becomes ingrained into your
internal working model. As an
adult, I can logically understand
why my parents made that difficult
decision, but the habits and the
feelings of unworthiness do not
have an on and off switch. It still
affects me.
O n e o f t h e m o s t p o i g n a n t
memories I have, and it’s also the
memory my mom used to recount
continually, was when we were
first reunited in China:
“When I flew from America to pick
you up in China, I rushed from the
airport to your boarding school.
When I came to your classroom,
you were handing out bread to the
other kids. Then I called your
name, and you looked at me for a
few seconds, but continued
handing out bread. Finally, I said,
‘Bianca, it’s me, Mom.’ From that
moment on, you never le! my side
until we went back home to
America.”
Back then, there was no FaceTime.
I would only be able to talk on the
phone with my parents. For two
years, I never saw my parents or
my sister. The fact that I didn’t
remember what my mom looked
like makes me feel powerless for
the four-year-old me.
This story asks more questions
than it answers. I’m illustrating
this experience to bring awareness
about the realities of the Satellite
Baby experience. It’s not a story of
blame or victimhood. It’s a story to
shed light about a surprisingly
common experience many Chinese
Americans go through, but that is
never openly discussed. I hope for
t h i s w o r k o f a r t t o b e a
conversation starter. I wonder
about children who had similar
experiences as me, and I wonder
about children who just grew up
separated from their parents due
to circumstance.
How does this affect them into
adulthood?
This artwork and personal essay is
about my experience navigating
familial trauma. As a daughter of
C a n t o n e s e i m m i g r a n t s a n d
Satellite Baby, I question my
relationship with my parents,
specifically my mom.

I'll Find You Again in 1981
Kristie Song
Digital Art
@chinesefreckles
Growing up with a Cantonese mother and a Mainland Chinese father, my
memories of navigating between these two cultures have always been full
of yearning. I spent weekends eating at dim sum restaurants or Hong
Kong cafes, but we mostly spoke Putonghua at home. I long to understand
and be immersed within the Cantonese part of my heritage, and I believe
writing stories and joining communities like Canto Cutie will allow me to
do so. Finally, I want to be a part of a diverse pool of voices and narratives
that illustrate the multitudes that exist in the phrase: I am Cantonese.

Carefully step
over the gap of
my open heart
and show me
where I came
from /
126

Clovis Wong
Redmond, USA
Clovis Wong is a teacher and writer in the
Seattle area. He was born in Bellevue and
grew up in Redmond. He is working on
staying connected with his Cantonese and
Hong Kong family (sik teng m sik gong) and
thinking about identity, diaspora, social
justice, and the legacies of (neo)imperialism.
splintersfeelings.tumblr.com
127

Carefully step over the gap of
my open heart and show me
where I came from /
My father and I were talking as he drove. He wondered aloud if he was like his
own father, my Je Je. My paternal grandfather passed away when my dad was
still a teenager.
"I'm surprised you notice and remember all the stories I tell you," he says to
me, when I write about them. I always remember. How could I forget? I'm
haunted by the stories. I burn them into my memory in the only way that I
can. The stories are like candles, lighting up the dark spaces in my
consciousness that are haunted by ghosts.
-
My dad doesn't speak much to his family anymore.
His mom, my Maa Maa, tried to control my father's life and groom him to
become an eldest son who could serve as the head of the household. He
needed to fill the vacancy le! behind by my grandfather’s death. It was a
tough burden for a teenager.
My father's younger brother, my Suk Suk, told me about the Wong progenitor
7 generations before me (my father's grandfather's grandfather's
grandfather).
"Wong () le! his Guangdong hometown to come to the United States and
make his fortune. He returned home planning to retire with the fruits of his
labor only to be warned of an assassination plot waiting for him. So instead of
returning to his home village, he took a detour to Macau to retire with his
Gold Mountain windfall. He eventually accumulated 4 wives (including an
American wife) and le! behind many descendants in the Macau/Hong Kong
area."

This story was authored by at least 4 or
5 people, stories relayed across
generations, until my Suk Suk was able
to compile them all and then convey it
to me.
Does this make the story less true? Or
does it make it more true, the
accumulated sweat and tears of
generations distilled into a single,
elegant fairy tale, an origin story of a
man heading east on his Journey to the
West?
-
In Cantonese (and in Mandarin), "he,"
"she," and "it" all correspond to the
same spoken word. Gender is only
marked in the written form. My sister
and I used to make fun of our parents
for always slipping up on pronouns,
calling he's she's and she's he's. I realize
now how special it is to not have gender
linguistically and ontologically bound
into our consciousness. Of course,
Chinese culture still contains
uncomfortable Confucian attitudes
toward gender, sex, and reproduction.
But there's still something remarkably
profound about not needing to assign
gendered pronouns to people. Romance
and Germanic languages are so
strongly gendered. Who felt like they
needed to assign gender to chairs, stars,
doors, cups, hats, and boats, anyways?
My maternal grandfather, Gung Gung,
was a gambling addict. But I wouldn't
say he was addicted to chance, as he
was a surprisingly risk-averse man in
other aspects of his life.
He turned down a job offer from his
family because he didn't want to move
away from the racetrack in Happy
Valley, where he'd built up his daily
routine.
He'd calculate the optimal horse to bet
on, studying and researching all the
details that might distinguish him from
the crowd. He was a man who found
comfort in games — the consistency and
dependability, the clear and precise
conditions of defeat and victory that are
absent from the tedium of everyday life.
In games there is only victory and
defeat. The chess pieces don't care who
you are, where you were born, or how
much money you make. There is only
the elegant simplicity of victory or
defeat and whether or not you’re willing
to pick yourself up a!erwards and try
again in search of the sweet dopamine
hit of victory.
Gung Gung was a chain smoker, so
severe an addict that the long flights
from Hong Kong to the United States
were troublesome for him. He passed
away watching a game of chess under a
bridge on Hong Kong island. But just
months before he passed away he
visited Seattle to see my sister and I. My
sister was less than a year old and I was
only a toddler.
I wonder if Gung Gung would have
appreciated my childhood chess
tournament trophies and my passion for
real-time strategy games. I wonder if he
would have taught me to flank using
chariots, pin down with cannons,
connect my elephants.
I was too young to remember him, so I
can't say that I really met him. But I'm
glad that he got to meet me before he
died.
-

To this day, the sound of Cantonese
music puts me at ease, even though I
barely speak the language. But hearing
the rising and falling tones brings close
to a warm part of my childhood.
When I was young, not yet in grade
school, I had a hard time falling asleep
by myself. My parents recognized I was a
creature of ritual. My dad would sit close
and would play Cantopop as I fell asleep.
One day, he turned on some music to
listen to during the day, just for himself.
But I told him that I wasn't ready to
sleep yet.
-
"Transgenerational trauma," my
professor said during our seminar. We
were discussing Lacanian
psychoanalysis, and the displacement of
trauma through unspoken linguistic
signs. The idea is that trauma is
transmitted through generations by
overdetermining the language that the
parent uses to talk to the child, the child
to grandchild, and so on. A lifetime of
scars is tucked into the limits of our
speech.
What an abyss it must be for a
grandparent and a grandchild to not
even share a common language. What
kind of trauma is belied by the fact that
everything goes unspoken?
I grew up reading through my Je Je's
comic books. Wong Si Ma () was a
famous cartoonist in Hong Kong and his
characters are still remembered
fondly. The first time I read them they
gripped my imagination. Over time, I
realized that those cartoons carried the
same sense of humor that my father had
taught me, the same love for puns and
physical comedy and light-hearted
pranks.
Wong Si Ma had time for everyone in his
life, but not enough time for his family
before he passed away.
-
Even though I'm not religious, Hong
Kong for me is a site of pilgrimage. So
much of my diasporic experience is tied
to a homeland that exists more in
stories than it does in world.
I feel regret, as if I have failed in a duty,
by not properly learning the language.
But I suppose now is as good a time as
any to start.
-
In the summer of 2019, the people of
Hong Kong protested against the
Extradition Law. The law would formally
permit the extra-legal disappearances
the Chinese state was already
committing (albeit covertly) to
eliminate political dissidents without
trial. It was a successor to the Fishball
Revolution, the Umbrella Revolution,
the 2013 Hong Kong dock strike, the 1967
Riots, and many other examples of
direct political action. The people of
Hong Kong have a long history of
fighting against state power and
showing that profit can never be
allowed to take precedence over human
life. I need to be careful not to impose
my own dreams and political desires
onto these people who look so much like
me an ocean away. But I send them my
well wishes. I hope that all people, in
Hong Kong and around the world, will
be able to live in a self-determined way
and heal from the traumas of
imperialism.

I dream of a day where I can continue
to visit Hong Kong and even show the
city to my own children, a time and
place when we would both be tourists. I
could show them where their
grandparents and great-grandparents
came from. We could walk the street
where the traditional bakery has long
been replaced by a McDonalds, and
maybe even cross the border and see
our ancestral hometown in Shuntak.
I hope that they could make their own
judgment of all its flaws and refractions
and come to terms with it on their own. I
hope that it would make them feel at
peace, despite it being a reminder for
them that people like us will always
wander with the diasporic burden, all
those people who le! something behind
that they never possessed in the first
place.

Whenever I commute around my
hometown in the Seattle area, I think
back to riding the MTR in Hong Kong
and the British-inflected English voice
warning me: "Careful, please mind the
gap." In Cantonese, to be careful is
"siusum," literally translated as "small
heart." To step with caution. I try my
best to step with caution, remembering
all the sacrifices people have made to
put me here walking these grounds and
living this life. I don't think I can be
grateful for receiving something I
never asked for.
But I keep trying to dream for the two
grandfathers I never really met, who
persisted as a memory of a memory,
ghosts who guide my heavy heart, as I
slowly learn how…
…to open my heart and be happy.

This is a short story/memoir about my personal experiences and identity, as
framed through my paternal and maternal grandfathers. It deals with the
topics of language, Hong Kong diaspora, and intergenerational trauma. A
theme presented in the alternate Chinese title and in the ending is the idea of
matters of the "heart," which captures some of the ambivalence of being
diasporic and remembering your "homeland" primarily through family stories
instead of personal experiences.
134

Photos on page 128-139 are part of the series Passing Through by
Jasmine Li.
Passing Through captures the constant motion of urban life in Hong
Kong and Taipei. The two cities share not only a merciless pace of
development, but a perpetual sense of political volatility. Hong Kong and
Taipei are both physically and politically in flux.
135

Canto Speak
Jasmine Hui
Digital
@jyuutw

This is about being a
Cantonese-American
that can understand
the language but can't
speak it well. It's a
frustrating and
embarrassing ordeal
since the language is
such a significant part
of my individual and
community identity.
About Jasmine Hui
I am a Cantonese-American artist and design student born and
raised in the Pacific Northwest. In my practice, I often explore
written Cantonese vernacular and expressing themes through
humor. My ultimate goal is to make art that is relatable to
Asian-Americans and to visually tell the history and stories of
the Cantonese diaspora.

Dreaming
Hong Kong

Arron Luo
Atlanta, USA
Arron Luo (he/they) is a writer and care
worker living in Atlanta, an historically Black
US city on Muscogee / Creek land. They grew
up reading a lot of sci-fi, fantasy, and young
adult fiction, and studied Asian American
literature in university. His favorite learnt
words from that time include liminal space,
precarity, and sitelessness. Their favorite
snack is the dependable egg tart.
arronluo.wordpress.com
@arronluojunyu

Dreaming Hong Kong
In the most common sense, I am not a Hong Konger. It is neither where I live, nor
where I was born. But in a real sense, I could not exist as I am without Hong Kong
also existing as it has.
I was born in New York to parents from Taishan. Before I turned one year old, my
father sent me with a friend from the same village on his next return visit to China,
to pass me into the care of my father’s siblings.
I lived my early childhood in rotation between three aunts and one uncle, of whom
one lived in Hong Kong, and the other three in Shenzhen. Because of my citizenship
status, a!er every three months of being in the People’s Republic of China, I was to
visit Hong Kong for any length of time from a day to months, a!er which I would be
able to re-enter the PRC for another maximum of three visa-sanctioned months.
When I say I could not exist as I am without Hong Kong also existing as it has, I mean
that both Hong Kong and I alike would not exist if not for empire. (Empire, here, is
plural.)
The international border between Shenzhen and Hong Kong before the 1997 transfer
of sovereignty, and the less-than-international one a!er 1997, is because of
European and British imperialism. That my parents, as economic migrants, had
been compelled to migrate at all is because of Western and US empire.
While theirs were individual choices based on socioeconomic conditions and the
American Dream myth, historical forces also pre-ordained, streamlined, my
parents’ choices. They necessarily led to my existence as a non-Black person of color
living on stolen Indigenous land and as a Chinese person in diaspora, whose earliest
childhood was lived back and forth across a colonial SZ-HK border.
Besides the American Dream, there is also the US dream of permanent PRC
defangment (via Hong Kong if expedient) and a Chinese dream of an imagined and
unified China inclusive of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang (but, curiously, not
Semirechye, Tuva, Outer Mongolia, or Outer Manchuria). And, all the time, there is

the ongoing push and pull and si! and
flow of capital and human bodies, with
the non-sovereign city as their conduit.
To be a Hong Konger, then, to me
means to be an inhabitant of a dream
that others are dreaming. But there are
so many alternative Hong Kongs being
dreamt of from within the dream, too!
If Hong Kong is the presence of empire
and capitalism, what might Hong Kong
be in the absence of empire and
capitalism? If it could, what would
Hong Kong be a!er empire and
capitalism?
I am not a Hong Konger, but where
Hong Kongers are from, I am from, too
—and where Hong Kongers are going,
so may I. So, the answers to these
questions matter a lot to me. Together,
let’s dream ourselves to a Hong Kong
lucid.
—
“Dreaming Hong Kong” has to do with
nation-states, their borders and border
policies, and gestures towards the
necessary discourse of indigeneity,
place, and belonging for diasporic
people. The histories of empire and
capitalism in Asia by Asians and non-
Asians alike have made indigeneity not
even a question for many Sino people
to meaningfully contemplate as part of
our identities. I myself am denied twice
at the nation-state level—once by a
Chinese regime that sees me as a
homeland threat because of my
divergent and permissive stance on
Chinese heterogeneities, and again by
a US regime that sees me as a
homeland threat because of my alien,
and specifically Chinese, heritage. By
both empires, I am forbidden from
expressing Asian or Chinese identity
specifically in relationship to land, or
claiming place or belonging at all. My
impulse in this work, then, is to be
retroactively preemptive, using my
repetition at both ends of the piece that
I am not a Hong Konger as a double
negative that lets me tenuously claim
Hong Kong even as I technically deny it
to myself twice. Against the backdrop
of nation-states and the long arc of
history, this is my little ode to Hong
Kong and my small Cantonese history.
Ursula K. Le Guin has these words for
us: “We live in capitalism, its power
seems inescapable—but then, so did the
divine right of kings.” Right now, we
also live in nation-states, and their
power over people certainly feel
inescapable as well. But even though in
this long moment I am discouraged, I
know to work to cultivate strength and
find company with fellow people
whose nationalities are also diasporic.
By diasporic nationality, I mean that
although my technical nationality is a
US one, my place of belonging is
actually not any land, but is the
psychic space I work to nurture and
create together with other diasporic
people—in my case, Chinese,
Cantonese, and/or otherwise Sino
people. We are our own proof of worlds
where the nation-state is not primary
and does not reign supreme, and that a
world after empires can exist, because
we are attempting to dream it.

Growing up as second-generation Australians, my family didn't actually have
many traditions. We didn't celebrate Christmas or Chinese New Year.
However, occasionally we do make dumplings together, and it is definitely
something I strongly associate with my Cantonese heritage. During COVID-19 I
have been teaching myself how to make dumplings and it is been surprisingly
comforting.
About Ying L
I currently reside in Melbourne (Wurundjeri country) and identify as
Australian-Born-Chinese (the /other/ ABC! :P). Having lived in Hong Kong for a
number of years, I'm trying to reconcile my Chinese heritage with my
Australian citizenship. Recently I have returned to illustration to explore my
thoughts on identity... and COVID-19.
142
Making Dumplings
Ying L
Digital
@lapsap_art

Eating Siu Mai Doesn’t
Make You Cantonese
by Kristie Song
As a kid, the highlight of every week was Sunday morning dim sum with
my maternal grandparents, Gong-gong and Po-po. We’d carpool to
restaurants with names like “88 Seafood House”, grand places that looked
like banquet halls: each filled from corner to corner with large oval tables
draped in the same thick, off-white linen. Gong-gong always marched in,
cutting past hostesses in clean black uniforms calling out numbers,
through the clangs of tea cups and chopsticks, and straight to the
restaurant manager—he seemed to be chummy with each one—and we’d
be seated at once, to the dismay of families gripping their numbers with
clenched, white fists.
Then, stout middle-aged women pushing steel carts would bark their
goods at us.
Pineapple bun! Do you want it? Do you want them cut?
Gong-gong would offer only a nod or shake of the head, his gaze
swimming in the small porcelain tea cup near his folded hands. And so
was the rhythm of our mornings: stern women coming and going, Gong
gong nodding or scowling, the table filling and emptying with small steel
steamers.
143

Dad liked to gnaw on chicken feet, making sucking
noises while he crunched on the small bones. Mom
liked anything wrapped in dough, but she o!en ate
in silence because Gong-gong made her nervous.
This was something I learned later on.
I’d eye the carts, hoping each new auntie would have
my favorite: siu mai. And when it would arrive, I
made sure my thank you was bright and proper. “
!”
Usually there was no response. She would place her
little red stamp onto our card, which would be
littered with the same red stamps by the end of the
meal, and then move on to the next table. But I felt
victorious, a well-mannered Cantonese kid who
sounds like her mother, like her grandparents.
Thank you rolled off the tongue, its intonations
practiced and carefully executed.
But Gong-gong and Po-po rarely spoke to me in
Cantonese. This was reserved for my mother, her
sisters, her brother, and their children. Not me. To
them, my mother had made the mistake of marrying
a Mainland-er: my father with the sharp nose and
wooden tongue. He spoke Putonghua, or Mandarin
Chinese, the dialect my mother had to learn to
converse with him when they first began dating.
This was not the language of her home.
I am his reflection: the same broad shoulders, deep
undereye circles, strong nose bridge. It didn’t matter
how practiced my mm goi sai was, or how I have my
mother’s eyes and freckles.
About Kristie Song
Kristie Song is a Chinese-American writer based in
Southern California. She also works with audio and
digital art to tell meaningful stories about lost
memories and childhood scraps.
@chinesefreckles

CUNG 4 GWONG 1
saamsyu
Video still
@saamsyu
About saamsyu
At the beginning of 2019, saamsyu was established to engage in illustration
creation. My works mainly focus on still objects. And the style is based on
the luminosity and texture of the TV screen which are influenced by
animations and movies in the 1980s.
Page 150-153 contains the digital work of Irene Kwan.
About Irene Kwan
Born and raised in Texas, Irene majored in Communications before setting
off to South Korea to serve as a teacher for a number of years. While abroad,
she took the opportunity to journey throughout the world to test her
conservative, immigrant mother’s unshaking theory that “America is the
greatest country in the world!” After years of walking about on foreign soil,
Irene has proven that theory to be immensely false and believes instead that
no superlative can define a single country. She currently resides in Houston
and gets by through life following Haruki Murakami’s advice: “I think that
my job is to observe people and the world, and not to judge them...I would
like to leave everything wide open to all the possibilities in the world.”

Traveling is my personal quest to recreate a new identity for myself in a
short time span and to contemplate the dualities of my identity that have
coursed through me and whispered queries into my ear: What if you were
raised in the East - where you would finally be part of the majority? Would
you be happier? Would you feel less inferior? Would you have climbed the
societal ladder quicker?
Despite being born and raised in Texas, I have never found myself fully
identifying with this place – this country – nor having a desire to firmly
plant my roots here as many of my other Asian peers tended to naturally do
without any questioning or curiosity of the what-if’s laying outside our
borders. This concrete jungle is at one pole a safe haven handed to me by
the toils of my immigrant parents; at the other, a region bere! of sensory
and visual stimulation that leaves me feeling hollow.
I unexpectedly found solace from canceled travels this year and ‘escaped’
this city by turning to an unlikely source of comfort – Chinese watercolor
paintings.

This triptych artwork, “,” is a product of fantastical imaginings of
journeying through ethereal landscapes and was created through
illustrated renderings of famous ink works by Pu Ru (), Fan Kuan (),
and Huang Junbi (), respectively, with touches of additions and
deviations snuck in there to illustrate no matter how far I stray into the
depths of nature or venture to the other side of the world, I will always carry
traces of my Texan identity with me – for better or worse."
Triptych
Irene Kwan
Illustration & digital art
@reeny.reenz

Until the Sunlit Aurora
Once upon an eon
Midst an enchanted summer
At mystical Cathay
From Beijing – The Forbidden City
Through Shanghai – Pearl of the Orient
To Fenghuang – Ancient Phoenix Town
A creamy peony
Of dreamy allure
From ancient City of Chrysanthemums
By serpentine Huang He
Utterly infatuates my desires
When you entirely captivate me
By your glossy lips
By your milky peaks
By your spicy scent
As we nightly enrapture
Within the crimson chamber
As my stony jade stalk imbeds your dewy jade gate
With your glazed high tide of yin
And with my honeyed high tide of yang
Amid our sultry inferno
When you and me seductively sear
With our misty gasps
And our teary blazes
Until the sunlit aurora.
From an enchanted voyage across the mystical land of Cathay, an intense
Cantonese gentleman tells a romantic tryst with a bewitching lady, a peony
from the ancient capital of Kaifeng, by the Yellow River, until the sunrise.
About Raymond Douglas Chong
Raymond Douglas Chong is the president of Generations, LLC, his creative
enterprise in Sugar Land, Texas. He is a writer of stories, composer of poems,
director of films, and lyricist of songs. Raymond is a civil engineer, a traffic
operations engineer, a professional transportation planner, and a road safety
professional.
chineselovepoetry.com

Mondays
Irene Kwan
Illustration & digital art
@reeny.reenz

Afterword
from the translator
When I joined Canto Cutie as a translator, I was prepared for
expressions that would be difficult to translate. There are concepts
in the diasporic communities that have not entered the popular
Chinese lexicon. The word (diaspora) was foreign to many local
Cantonese speakers until 2019, when discussions about a new wave
of mass migration of Hong Kong people put the word in the
spotlight.
In this volume, we encounter diasporic concepts that have not yet
made their way to the popular Chinese lexicon. In the interview
with Annika, we talked about how she “claim(ed)” her mother’s
birthplace in her art (p.96). The word "claim" is lost in translation
because existing Chinese equivalents are used as a verb to describe
actions involving formal processes or physical objects, and would
sound odd when used in relation to a mental process. The final
translation is , a rare combination of the verbs (to
recognize/acknowledge) and (to take possession of). The term is
almost never used. The lack of representation of "claim" in the
Chinese lexicon makes it apparent how differently locals and
diaspora members relate to their identities in general. This concept
of “claim” is unique to the diasporic communities, for whom
relationship with “homeland” may be influenced more heavily by
secondhand stories passed down from previous generations rather
than firsthand experiences.
In the same interview, I also had reservations about the translation
for the simple expression “visited their ‘homeland’”. “Homeland” in
Chinese is or , which are always paired with the verbs
or (to return), forming the everyday expressions or
(to return to one’s homeland). Apparently, “homeland” is naturally
a place to “return to” in the Chinese language. This is odd for
descendants of immigrants, whose spatial relationship with their
“homeland” is reversed. I chose the verb (to go) to stay true to
the experience of diasporic people but the strange collocation

stood out to me like an eyesore. It was not idiomatic, not native to
the language. But isn’t being “not native” part of the diasporic
experience for some people?
I had a lot of fun translating this zine. I am grateful to be taken on
this journey to understand your diasporic experiences, and be able
to reflect on diaspora through the languages.
G
2019
Annikaclaim
96claim
visited their
“homeland”Homeland
G

Afterword
from the editor
I invited myself to be part of the Canto Cutie editing team a!er
being featured as an artist for the first volume. At the time, I
believed it would be beneficial to the zine to have someone who can
read Chinese and is fluent in Cantonese helping Katherine with
sorting through submissions and conducting artist interviews.
Around the same time I got involved with the first volume, I had
also just reconnected with G, my secondary school classmate from
Hong Kong, a!er not having been in touch for over a decade since I
moved to Texas. I showed G the dra! for the first volume, she read
the entire zine in one night, and soon expressed interest in
translating for future volumes.
The wide range of experiences represented by those who submit to
the zine fascinates me, and it was precious to work alongside an
old friend in providing the support needed to showcase this.
Without the range of skills in our combined language abilities,
certain editing tasks simply could not be accomplished by one of us
alone. When editing Ruo Wei’s haunting sci-fi allegory, Fish Eye
(p.54), G and I debated back and forth over whether we should
rewrite certain sentences that had Cantonese influence. My initial
instinct as a Texan was to leave the majority of the piece alone, as I
am used to people making the English language their own all
around me every day. As a translator, G was not as cavalier when it
came to the matter of using the right words to convey the right
meaning. In the end, along with Ruo, we decided it was more
important for the reader to understand the language clearly so
they may visualize the imagery Ruo wanted to present. Though we
did not succeed in finding the perfect English-Cantonese hybrid
language for Fish Eye, it was gratifying for us to put our bilingual
skills to use and help bring this sci-fi allegory of the 2019 Hong
Kong protests to life.

I am so glad to have made new friends and bonded with an old
one through working on Canto Cutie. Thank you so much for
giving me this experience by being a part of it.
Tsz Kam
Katherine
G
Ruo Wei
Fish Eye54
G
Ruo
Fish Eye
2019
Tsz Kam