Dear Red Pocket Family,

A few months ago, when my team and I were brainstorming themes, one theme quickly emerged as a favourite: Lost in Translation. I suspect it has something to do with how open ended, yet specific, the prompt is. After all, here are some of the prompts we thought of for the theme:

• Etymology, oracle bone script, cuneiform, ancient scripts

• Ancestral tongue

• Untranslatable foreign words

• Incorrect translations resulting in catastrophe (e.g. mokusatsu)

• Lost roots

• Translation in movement

• Cultural appropriation

My gosh, did the writers and artists deliver. My brother has witnessed me shouting the lines from “Arrogant English” by S.H. Chung because it was just. that. good.

If your parents were witnesses to the Cultural Revolution in China, you may find Sasha Pang Leonard’s piece “cultural revolution cooking” impactful.

If you grew up queer in a stifling Midwestern suburb, you may relate to 같은 이야기.

If you have ever been shamed to feel dirty in your melanin-rich skin, you may appreciate “Melanin & Lovely” by Rudra Pandya.

This volume is also significant to Red Pocket because of the tribulation our team faced to deliver the final product. It was not without intense deliberation. But having read each piece, I am hopeful that future volumes will encapsulate even more nuances of the Asian diaspora.

I hope you find this volume as striking as I did.

Kind regards,

Barton Lu (He/Him)

Editor-in-Chief, Founder

Red Pocket Magazine