Spring 2025

Deep in the perilous Dzhungarian Alatau mountain range lived a mean old giant – Deu. Inside his sombre cave, he felt his power waning. His spells wouldn’t spell, and the chaos he loved to wreak on the nomads of the Kazakh steppe didn’t bear their usual terror. Sullen, he decides to visit a Spirit for advice. “To regain your strength, you must drink a drop of blood from an innocent newborn human,” she tells him. And so, the Deu calls up his minion Masa – the Mosquito, a cunning little fella whose sting is sharp and strike sudden. “Masa, go into the Valleys of Zhetisu and find me that newborn!”

The road to the Valleys of Zhetisu takes the Masa across Kazakhstan’s Spring landscape. He anxiously buzzes through dense breathing forest, the driest plains, the most desolate of places, through luscious rivers, and deep, deep lakes. Finally, at a river’s bay, he sees white circles from afar – yurts! In a nearby tree, the Masa awaits the coming night.

What he doesn’t see is the watchful swallow – Karlygash, who notices his arrival and monitors him carefully.

As soon as stars start showing in the deep blue sky, the Masa darts out of his hiding spot and seeks out the yurt with the sweetest smell. As the flavor of a ripe peach floods his senses, he peeks under the entrance door and sees the baby’s crib – Besik. No adults around, perfect. As he tries to enter, he feels a breeze behind him. Karlygash – the swallow! With determination in its eyes, it races toward him. Its mighty wings swat at the helpless Masa. And just outside the sleeping baby’s yurt, they battle. Within minutes, the Masa can no longer withstand the blows the Karlygash keeps throwing at him, and so he drops to the ground.

Furious at what the Deu sees from his visions up in the mountain cave, he thrashes and curses. Amidst his rage, he throws a reckoning spell at the Karlygash. Taken off guard, all the Karlygash can do at the sight of an incoming fireball is throw himself to the side. While the fireball misses his body, it manages to graze the Karlygash’s singular tail, separating it forever into two. Today, the split tail is a reminder of the Karlygash’s bravery against the evil of the world.



The story above is a retelling of an old Kazakh folktale.

To Ari, Spring meant swallows — and to me, swallows meant home.

As you read the following issue, think about how our artists, writers, and creative folk have interpreted Spring through their work. Each piece is profound, personal, and priceless.

Enjoy.

I’m perched in an unfamiliar room on a narrow canopy above a bed.

Where my hands jazzed, talons grip.
My nose is curved to a lacquered beak.

My reduction from human size was fated in my name: Etoile Wren Tanaka Boots. Granted by my parents–nature-loving, bird-watchers–they bestowed a kestrel to my brother, a middlelark to my sister, and a wren to myself. Three, destined to leave the nest in a frenzied flurry of flaps, one day.

I perch, conducting outer stillness, a delicate balance. For within myself, blood weaves and ducks, branching through hollow bones to keep me alive. The movement is accompanied by a deafening sound that I can only observe in silence. A roaring of a red lake, damned between layers of skin.

For an eternity, I’m still, listening to the mechanisms of my existence. Suddenly, my attention is shattered as I hear human laughter downstairs. Though perhaps it is crying, as crying and laughter often hold hands.

Curiosity piqued. I go to identify this crying-laughter. I jump ungracefully off the ledge and onto the floor–still uncomfortable with the thought of flight. I pitter-patter across the room to the edge of the stairs, hip-hop down each rung. 

Before reaching the bottom rung, the source of the laughter and crying is unveiled, a small party. A congregation for which I had missed an invite.

At the center of the party, and the noise, was a woman with a greying complexion, both in skin and hair. What beige she had bled into the leather sofa upon which she was draped.

For a moment, she stilled and quieted. As she lay on the couch, she stared down at two small birds in front of her. She began to cry. First quietly and seemingly to herself, small shakes in her shoulders. The movement startled the birds, who hopped back in response. Now observing this change, the woman lost breath and her whimpers turned to sobs, and her whole body began to shake and tremble violently. This disturbed the birds greatly, and they further retreated.

Continuing to shake, the woman reached her trembling hands into a small bag that lay on her stomach. She produced a small slice of bread. She looked again at the birds. The birds came closer with anticipation. I felt my body approach in unison.

In one swift toss, she released the bread. They swooped aerially, while I rushed my legs forward, breaking bread. Our movement seemed to amuse the woman, whose sobs were quelled and rapidly mutated to erratic laughter. Through the giggles, I ate. I hadn’t realized before that I was hungry.

I felt my stomach expand with satiation. Full, I hopped away from the party and towards the door of the house. My wings were cramping from lack of use. I promptly decided that I would attempt a flight outside. 

I waited until I reached the edge of the doorway to prepare myself for flight. Arms, no, wings outstretched, I began to flap. I waved vigorously. Up and down, the effort was usually fruitless. However, this time, I could feel my talons drag from the ground, lifting—

A rush of pure excitement, anticipating flight and departure.

But I was wrenched back down instantly.
I looked down to see what had grabbed me out of the sky, and saw only myself.

My talons were expanding to fill more life, fattening and smoothing. Within an instant, I had humanoid feet and felt myself rise as my body expanded and fleshed. The injection of life and space came at a cost, as I was struck with the pain of ripping muscle and bone.

Now, much larger, I stood still for a second with my arms still outstretched and now colliding with the door frame. With the possibility of flight weighed down by my refound humanity, I brought my arms down and turned back to face inside and towards the woman on the sofa. 

Still crying to herself quietly, the woman had stopped feeding the birds. As I approached her carefully, I felt my stomach contract with fear. Although I lacked understanding of the woman,I realized I was afraid of the woman. I was afraid for the woman. Now, against my best judgment, I sat down on the beige couch with her. With no better consolation in mind, I began to quietly,

    Singin’ don't worry 'bout a thing

Her sobs became the beat of my song and I continued with hummed sobbing, Bob Marley’s words continuing to remind me and her and us that

Description: In AH111, we learn about Foucault’s critique of the panopticon, a prison in which you may be watched at any given moment and thus always behave “appropriately” to avoid the possibility of punishment. Throughout the AH College, we make jokes about how Forum is a panopticon, surveilling our every move with cameras and tab-monitors and using cold calls and randomly scored polls as our “punishment”. Perhaps this is for the best, and we become better learners as result, or perhaps this is a breach of privacy and invasion of our mind normalized at Minerva. In AH166, we learn about humor theories and methods for social change, and I decided to parody Forum with each camera showing a different breach of privacy, to both draw attention to the issue and use “humor as a coping mechanism”. I’ve included a lost of easter eggs, including a introspective poem in chat, audio-always-on, incongruent images of myself, and the endless gaze of the gays, so explore each pixel and let’s panic together!

Part 1

The night leading up to the journey I was like a middle schooler right before their field trip, not being able to sleep from excitement. But, I wasn’t the same middle schooler girl anymore. So, of course, my excitement was accompanied by a clinging feeling of anxiety and an inevitable tiredness coming from trying to do a week's worth of schoolwork in two days leading to that night.

Thanks to my overwhelming anxiety, I was easily awake at 6.30 AM to get ready and be at the train station at 8.10 as requested by Prof* earlier in the week.

As an over-preparer, I already had my bags packed, and my outfit chosen so it took me literally 15 minutes to get ready. I still waited to leave at the time I initially planned to, as I was too stressed to change my plans even though it would mean I would arrive there earlier. When I arrived at Beimen station the first flaw of my plan was evident: the Beimen MRT station and High-Speed Rail Station were not connected. I was rushing through the streets with all the scenarios in my head about how Prof would think of me as irresponsible because I was too late. Worst-case scenario we could even miss the train! As scenarios rushed in my head, I didn’t even realize how drizzle was starting to get heavy (it would later be followed by a typhoon but fortunately we would be already kilometers away from it).

After arriving at the station at exactly 8.11, I learned that Prof would be a little late. I was relieved that I wasn’t the one who was late but also slowly realized how I joined this trip without knowing any of the plans. Prof was using the subject ‘we’ in all his messages but I had no idea who was coming or where we were exactly headed other than the ‘south’ of the island. Trying to spend time people-watching in the busy station, I was perplexed by myself being this calm while going on a trip with people I didn’t even know.

When Prof arrived with his family — his wife and daughter —I was definitely surprised to see a family with a little kid instead of a research group and slowly started to wonder if the ‘trip’ would be too different than I imagined even though I had no expectations whatsoever. Was it going to be a touristy family tour instead of academic research? Apparently, they were late because the 5 years-old daughter had stomach issues and was throwing up all morning. After hearing that, I remember scribbling these words in my journal: ‘Let’s see if the trip will be worth missing 3 classes.”

Believe me, it was.

Part 2

We arrived at Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung County around 11 am. I had learned where we were going from the ticket Prof handed me rushing as we were already an hour behind the initial plan. When we met with the research assistant in the project and the one who had planned most of the trips, I was relieved that the trip wouldn’t be just me tagging along with someone else’s family.  On the road, I was mostly quiet trying to use as little space as possible so they wouldn’t regret inviting me. In the car, Prof gave me a quick overview of the itinerary and background information on the Dache people, who immigrated from the Dachen Islands in the south of China in 1955 after the Chinese Civil War.  Dachen people were replaced in villages all over Taiwan by the military after the evacuation from the Islands, according to their occupation. For example, fishermen were placed in coastal villages while farmers went to villages in valleys. Our first destination was one of these villages in Kaohsiung County.

Part 3

We were invited by a family of 4, three generations, father, two daughters, and one granddaughter. The research assistant had met one of the daughters, Mrs Y, through a Dachen organization she encountered on another research trip. The research assistant had requested her time for a short interview on why she decided to come back from the US after 13 years and take great care of the village’s only temple. Lots of Dachen villages are currently empty because even though the Taiwanese government at that time considered villagers' occupation to place them in places where they could continue work and sustain themselves, the vastly different weather and soil conditions made it impossible for Dachen people to continue their occupation. They fell into inevitable poverty and uncertainty. So, they decided to try their chances in the country of endless opportunities: the USA. Mrs Y was one of those people who went to the US during the 1960s with her husband and children to create a new life. According to her, they were successful too. Similar to many Dachen Islanders, they opened a Chinese restaurant in New Jersey and were able to make enough money to sustain themselves and their children.

Mrs Y spoke of her life in the US quite fondly, so I was perplexed as to why she decided to return. It turned out, it wasn’t her decision after all. After years of quiet struggle with immigration —she did not give many details about that part — Mrs Y and her children were able to gain permanent residency while her husband’s application was rejected, meaning he had to leave the US as soon as possible. For Mrs Y it wasn’t a big deal at all: while she and her children stayed in the US, her husband could reapply for a visa in Taiwan. However, she could not dare to make her opinion count against her husband’s flying fists. In the end, the whole family returned to their village in Taiwan.

Even though I couldn’t fully understand what she was describing due to the language barrier, Mrs Y’s eyes emitted disheartenment combined with a strong light of endurance.

Her story was not composed of words as most would assume; her body had become the story itself. Every subtle twitch of her eyes, movement of her eyebrows, and trembling of her hands was the story, not the words. She told us that she was severely depressed after returning to the village. She saw no future for herself, nothing to keep her occupied, nothing to give her a sense of reason to live…

The next part of Mrs Y’s story might come across as a cheesy one. You might say it is too unrealistic but I invite you to listen to the emotions behind it rather than what happened itself because what happened does not matter. What matters is that Mrs Y found her devotion that she could hold on to stay in this world.

According to Mrs Y, on one of those nights that she toyed with the idea of letting go for good, a group of spirits visited her in her dreams. They advised her to keep the village’s temple, which was on the verge of becoming an abandoned pile of stones, running. “Keep our home alive,” they told her. She listened. That message was the only thing she needed to hold back on to the rope that carried her up to brightness again. After that night, Mrs Y spent the majority of her time renovating the temple, then keeping it clean and encouraging more visitors. Even long after her husband passed away and her children moved to bigger cities, she did not give up her foremost responsibility. And that day with us, she continued her role as the caretaker of the temple by sharing it with the Prof and his team so The Department of Education could record the temple as a religious diversity location and officially protect the place.

There are a lot more tears, courage, and bravery in Mrs Y’s story that my words cannot capture. Among all things, I was mostly impressed by how she was willing to open herself to make sure her story and the temple’s story were heard. She knew that the only way to keep able to take care of the temple, which was her responsibility given by the higher forces themselves, was to be vulnerable to those who wanted her to help preserve it.

Part 4

Later that day, another local professor joined us. I was overjoyed to be able to witness their conversations full of passion and dedication to preserve cultural and religious diversity. Those conversations, they are whole another story…

The next day we went through mostly by visiting numerous temples to record their location without any interviews. I got to learn the true diversity of Chinese Popular Religion through various architectural details of temples that once looked all the same to me.

Looking back after some time, I am slowly realizing how incredibly lucky I was to come across Prof W, his family and coworkers who had no ego at all. All those times in the long car rides, I had never felt inferior. The ego-free atmosphere of the group was so welcoming that I got rid of that girl who was trying to cover as little space as possible to become the one who confidently asked questions, shared her opinions and her own life story.

Leaving this trip, I was feeling confused about how a group of foreigners, us, had the power to record stories of those people with true impact on the world. How big of an honor is that?

Isn’t that what we humans do: live, share, and preserve…

Now I know that I want to leave my mark in the world through other people’s stories. I don’t need my name to be in headlines, I just want people to sense me through lines of lives that are worth remembering.

The end (for now).

*The full names are omitted to protect privacy of individuals. This story has my interpretation of the stories witnessed and might unintentionally include incorrect or incomplete information.