VOLUME IX: FABLES
Every culture has a story to tell and share. Through the lens of the photographers and the eye of the designers, the FABLES told vocally and in the written text are expressed visually to communicate shared history and teach new cultural traditions. The fantastical nature of these photoshoots brings us back to a time when our parents and grandparents would tell us bedtime stories and legends about our culture. With this edition, we are passing down these stories of inspiration, and hope that readers can draw influence from them as well.
Every culture has a story to tell and share. Through the lens of the photographers and the eye of the designers, the FABLES told vocally and in the written text are expressed visually to communicate shared history and teach new cultural traditions. The fantastical nature of these photoshoots brings us back to a time when our parents and grandparents would tell us bedtime stories and legends about our culture. With this edition, we are passing down these stories of inspiration, and hope that readers can draw influence from them as well.
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<strong>VOLUME</strong> <strong>IX</strong>: <strong>FABLES</strong>
Contents<br />
Digital Edition: Fables<br />
04 Storylines<br />
06 The Monster’s Home Is My Body<br />
12 The Crow and the Serpent<br />
18 Son Tinh, Thuy Tinh<br />
24 Butterfly Lovers<br />
30 Year of the Tiger - Xiangxin<br />
36 Credits
Storylines<br />
The Monster’s<br />
Home is My Body<br />
For our shoot, we explored the ideas of growing up as a child with<br />
this “monster” created in our households by our parents to instill<br />
fear in us to do certain tasks and chores and internalize certain<br />
values. These monsters are used to direct our actions without<br />
explanations of why we should or should not do things. With the<br />
dark makeup and styling, we focused on this mythical creature to<br />
emphasize the eerieness of it: we grow up to be so familiar with it<br />
that it almost becomes us as well, as we are shaped by the values it<br />
embodies. The blurring of what we fear and of what we become so<br />
intertwined, we begin to fear ourselves.<br />
The Crow and the<br />
Serpent<br />
Our shoot is centered around the fable, “The Crow and the Serpent”.<br />
In the fable, we see a crow that has built a nest for its eggs in a tree<br />
in the forest. However, on the base of that same tree, lives a serpent.<br />
Every day when the crow would be away, the serpent would go up<br />
and eat all the eggs. To get back at the serpent, the crow then steals<br />
the queen’s necklace and puts it in the serpent’s den. The queen’s<br />
guards took the serpent away and the crow successfully outsmarted<br />
the snake. We incorporated the cunningness of the crow and naïveté<br />
of the serpent into our shoot and also featured the queen’s necklace<br />
that sealed the serpent’s fate. The makeup heightened the emotions<br />
and traits of the animals and the South Asian clothing paid homage<br />
to the origin of the fable.
Son Tinh Thuy<br />
Tinh<br />
Son Tinh, Thuy Tinh is a well-known Vietnamese myth that explains<br />
the yearly flood and tidal of their country. Son Tinh is the lord of the<br />
mountain and Thuy Tinh is the lord of the sea. They were competing<br />
against each other to win over princess Mi Nuong and become her<br />
groom. Son Tinh won the competition and Thuy Tinh got angry.<br />
Therefore, every year he raises the sea level and creates a flood to<br />
show his eternal vindictiveness.<br />
Our photoshoot is inspired by this legend. Son Tinh, the lord of the<br />
mountain, is in black and gold to represent the mountain and the<br />
land. Thuy Tinh, the lord of the sea, is in blue to represent the sea.<br />
We chose the architecture school building because of its unique<br />
architecture. The stairs give us a variety of heights and create a<br />
sense of a mountain. Their common space furniture blocks are blue<br />
to represent the sea.<br />
Butterfly Lovers<br />
This Chinese legend involves two lovers who weren’t able to be<br />
together. The woman of the story, Zhu Yingtai, dresses as a man<br />
to pursue an education and meets the male of the story, Liang<br />
Shanbo, while studying. Zhu reveals her true gender years after<br />
studying with Liang, but it’s too late since Zhu is already betrothed to<br />
someone else that she doesn’t love. Liang grows ill and dies from the<br />
heartache. Zhu later visits Liang’s grave on her stormy wedding day.<br />
Two butterflies are seen at the grave once the rain passes and Zhu is<br />
gone. Both models are dressed in the same attire to represent Zhu’s<br />
male presentation, the butterflies allude to the butterflies seen at<br />
the grave, the red and gold are associated with the color of weddings<br />
in China (since Zhu dies on her wedding day), and the red thread is<br />
a literal depiction of the red thread of fate which is an East Asian<br />
symbol for soulmates- they will end up together no matter what<br />
obstacles are thrown their way.<br />
Year of the Tiger -<br />
Xiangxin<br />
Year of the Tiger - Xiangxin was inspired by the traditional,<br />
cultural, and historic significance behind Chinese New Year and<br />
its corresponding Chinese zodiac. In China, the 15-day festival is<br />
bursting with vibrant red and gold, fireworks, family reunions, and<br />
loud celebrations to honor deities and ancestors. With 2022 being<br />
the year of the tiger, which is traditionally thought to symbolize<br />
power, respect, and bravery, we sought out confident, fierce models<br />
who radiated the spirit of a tiger and were able to radiate that<br />
spirit throughout the shoot. The celebration of Chinese New Year<br />
is explosive, colorful, and loud, so we are privileged to have had the<br />
opportunity to work with models who took such bright, iconic colors<br />
and bold poses by the reigns and made them their own.
THE<br />
MONSTER’S<br />
HOME IS<br />
MY BODY
Photographers | Audrey Eng, Angeline Tran<br />
Stylists | Janna Khan, Youmna Khan<br />
Model | Khadra Mohd Azrul<br />
Graphic Designers | Anna Cao, Terri Kang
The Crow<br />
and<br />
the<br />
Serpent
Photographers | Sejal Patil, Reiah Jaffer, Marzia Tasnim<br />
Models | Zainab Ahmed, Agniva Bhaumik<br />
Graphic Designer | Zara Ahmed
YEAR OF THE TIGE<br />
XIAN
R<br />
GXIN
Photographers | Dylan Chen, Akash Dewan, Zhuoheng Yang, Faith Tang<br />
Models | Joshua Huang, Christina Ng<br />
Graphic Designers | Fay Piyathassrikul, Woojin Kang, Tina Tran
CORE LEADERSHIP<br />
PHOTO/VIDEO/STYLING DIRECTOR<br />
Youmna Khan<br />
DESIGN DIRECTOR<br />
Emily Cao<br />
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR<br />
SJ Shin<br />
OUTREACH CO-DIRECTORS<br />
Ally Garcia<br />
Lanny Lo<br />
ENGAGEMENT DIRECTOR<br />
Emily Wang<br />
MARKETING DIRECTOR<br />
Angel Huang<br />
STRATEGY DIRECTOR<br />
Yena Kwon<br />
FINANCE CO-DIRECTORS<br />
Anh Duong-Tran<br />
Francoise Martinetti<br />
PHOTO ASSISTANT DIRECTOR<br />
Hui Murray<br />
VIDEO ASSISTANT DIRECTOR<br />
Abigail Lee<br />
MA:E OFFICIAL WEBSITE<br />
www.maemag.com<br />
MA:E DIGITAL EDITION<br />
www.maemag.com/digital<br />
STYLING ASSISTANT DIRECTOR<br />
Anthony Huynh<br />
DESIGN ASSISTANT DIRECTOR<br />
Fay Piyathassrikul
ACTIVE TEAM MEMBERS<br />
PHOTO TEAM<br />
Dylan Chen<br />
Akash Dewan<br />
Audrey Eng<br />
Hanh Mai<br />
Hui Murray<br />
Sejal Patil<br />
Amber Syed<br />
Cindy Wang<br />
Zhouheng Yang Julie Zhou<br />
STYLING TEAM<br />
Zainab Ahmed Reiah Jaffer<br />
Janna Khan<br />
Pinkey Lam<br />
Elissa Li<br />
Roshni Mohan<br />
Ngoc Diep (Remi) Pham<br />
Faith Tang<br />
Marzia Tasnim<br />
Angeline Tran Izzy Xie<br />
DESIGN TEAM<br />
Zara Ahmed<br />
Nawal Ahmed<br />
Anna Cao<br />
Sophia Cao<br />
Sarah Jabre<br />
Iris Jung<br />
Terri Kang<br />
Woojin Kang<br />
Quri Kim<br />
Izzy Manlongat<br />
Tina Tran<br />
Yuyu Yang<br />
ENGAGEMENT TEAM<br />
Sydney Lai<br />
Julia Tsutsui<br />
MARKETING TEAM<br />
Anne Cao<br />
Omar Fan<br />
Phoebe Huang<br />
Janna Khan<br />
Jiyoon Lee<br />
STRATEGY TEAM<br />
Zhen (Tracy) Li<br />
FINANCE TEAM<br />
Allison Cui<br />
Rachelle Deng<br />
Shirley Zheng<br />
Naomi Philip<br />
Yu-Jin Choi<br />
Anna Ho<br />
Joanne Kang<br />
Jennifer Kim<br />
Weicong Wan<br />
Izzy Manlongat<br />
Sonia Dai<br />
Jennifer Kim<br />
EDITORIAL TEAM<br />
Lynn Dang<br />
Nicole Kuchta<br />
Melissa Vozar<br />
Zoha Khan<br />
Tiffany Pham<br />
OUTREACH TEAM<br />
Nilisha Baid<br />
Joanne Kang<br />
Erisa Rosen<br />
Aaron Cho<br />
Esther Kwon<br />
Cover Page | Fables<br />
| Photographers<br />
Dylan Chen, Akash Dewan,<br />
Zhuoheng Yang, Faith Tang<br />
| Model<br />
Christina Ng
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