Editor’s Note
Something I consider often is the concept of truth–the nuances of a phrase, the implications of a different set of words. In an increasingly technical age, languages, always shifting and changing, can never be captured quite precisely against a growing scope of history. Translation, functioning as a substitution of one language for another, is by nature imperfect. There are too many moving parts: context, speaker, tone, time.
How do things change when they’re translated? How much more complex do they become? In an effort to capture these nuances, we turn to multilingualism, the coexistence of multiple languages. Different languages have different ways of conveying the same rough concepts, and the beauty of multilingualism lies in these distinctions. When I was a child, my mother used to say, “学如逆水行舟，不进则退.” The literal translation of this is something like, “Learning is like sailing against the current; if you don’t advance, you will be driven back.” My mother used it as a reminder not to grow complacent. Even if I already knew something, that knowledge would stagnate if left untouched. The thing I always loved about this, about Chinese proverbs as a whole, is the poetry of them, how the instruction or call to action lies within the phrase itself. Although English has never offered the same imperative, it provides something different–a coexistence, a guiding framework, that grants a deeper meaning, a deeper understanding.
As you delve into Issue 5, reflect on this coexistence. Reflect on the painful duality of language, how it creates both refuge and alienation in a foreign space. Consider multilingualism as a means to understand painful histories in Bella Majam’s “Pamana,” or as a way of memorializing them in Narisma’s “Bless the 賓妹.” Allow yourself to reflect on the grief and anger in the closing lines of Bobby Morris’s “THE LEFT REVOLUTION,” where the merging of linguistic boundaries serves as a means to capture history in a way that can be true to both those who lived it and those who remember it.
Thank you so much for the patience and warmth you’ve shown us during this transition, and welcome to this new era of Pollux.
Best wishes,
Megan Xing / Editor in Chief