“We try to preserve life, even when we know it has no chance of enduring its body. We feed it, keep it comfortable, bathe it, medicate it, caress it, even sing to it. We tend to these basic functions not because we are brave or selfless but because, like breath, it is the most fundamental act of our species: to sustain the body until time leaves it behind.”

“I long to come home, but now, I will always come home to my family as a visitor, and that weighs on me, reverts me back into the teenager I was, but instead of insisting that I want everyone to leave me alone, what I want now is for someone to beg me to stay.”

“I want to give you a little patch of solid ground to stand on, or at the very least some small green oasis you can look at in the distance, to keep you from drifting away from reality, from escaping back into your mind.”

film · Lulu Wang's 2019 film, The Farewell, rejects the traditional conception of belonging and longing as a Chinese-American. In it, we see how the pain of fitting in and upholding tradition shape who we are and who we want to be in unexpected ways.

Words I · On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong is a letter to a mother whose trauma, strength, and journey takes shape in a new body and a new country in her son. from war-scarred Vietnam to drug-riddled Hartford, Connecticut Vuong’s semi-autobiographical tale is both singular and universal. Vuong collaborated with Wang on her zine published by A24, First Gen.

Photographs I · Beloved by Wang and named as one of BBC’s 2018 most influential women in the world, Luo Yang captures the duality of fragility and inner strength of women across China from this ongoing photo series, GIRLS.

Words II · This passage from Jenny Zhang's Sour Heart echoes our themes of the pull and push of longing for something that cannot be repeated. Zhang's work also appears in First Gen.

Photographs II · These selected works are about "big city yearning, ordinary fantasies, and emotional globalisation." according to their creator, Singapore-based photographer Nguan.

Words III · An inspiration to Vuong, Qui Miaojin left behind the work from which this is taken, Last Words from Montmartre when she committed suicide at 26. The composition of letters is a heart-wrenching memoir on living “between cultures, languages, and genders.”

Music · This song, Two Slow Dancers by Japanese-American singer-songwriter Mitski, is a pseudo-sentimental odeon confusing remembering and missing; how we conflate the importance of our memories as they slip away with age. Vuong featured this song in his playlist dedicated to his debut novel featured in this compendium.