it just took 4 of my 8-year-old steps to walk past it on the way to Chinese school every week the narrowest building almost an afterthought its deep green façade …
Gung Haggis Fat Choy is not your typical celebration. Born out of the rich tapestry of Canadian multiculturalism, this unique event combines two seemingly disparate cultural traditions—Chinese New Year and …
Reading Joy Kogawa’s poem on the Evacuation, I suddenly awaken to the fact that the people I knew who knew her are gone. Grown-ups who could tell me of her …
Hakka Matriarchal ThreadsWearing and Weaving Hakka Roots: An Interview with Visual Artist Nicole Lau
Nicole Lau is a Chinese Canadian with Hakka ethnic roots. Lau is an interdisciplinary artist currently living and working in Vancouver. Lau held her solo exhibition “Home Kong” in Vancouver, …
The taijitu (太極圖) Taoist symbol is a combination of two interlocking spirals with two dots superimposed on them. When life is born as represented by white, mortality accompanies it as …
live in a city lucky for light eyed, light haired. fed instead on hospital hot lunch, newcomers stuffed in translation, apartment blocks, their children. every reserve disappears to return for …
When my father died, I stopped cutting my hair. In numerous cultures around the world, cutting one’s hair, shaving one’s head, pulling, or rending one’s hair is a ceremonial or …
So this is how it feels, ears an errant visitor amidst hushed conversations under the orange lamp whose glow glances your skin, shimmering ever so slightly. Like the kumquat in …
look at this rocky playground, where we scraped knees to leave them bleeding, then outgrown the stagnant navy blue and white uniforms, blown into different directions, flying away- until divine …
i twist the spines of my mother’s green onion stems products of caramelized trauma spun into salted relationships through my busy thumbs gluing her past to my present in a …