“So, It’s Like Graphic Design?” | “好 似 平 面 設 計?”
I’m familiar with zines but have never made one myself, so I figured I might as well make one I can use on a daily basis. Design is hard enough for me to explain in English to friends and curious strangers on airplanes, so imagine me trying to do so in broken Cantonese to my parents. My dad calls me at least once a week, asking me to remind him what it is I’m trying to learn again. It’s both frustrating and shameful because Chinese is my first language, yet I’m not fluent enough to articulate these complex philosophies and thoughts. This is why “So, It’s Like Graphic Design?” was put into existence— so I can hopefully just mail one to my family members and they won’t have to ask me anymore. Feel free to print one out if you’d like by clicking on the link above. Click here for the video to teach you how to assemble the zine.
Most Chinese people read in Mandarin, but I unfortunately am not very confident in my Mandarin skills to go between English and Mandarin translations. To get some reasonable Cantonese translations, I used Microsoft Bing (because believe it or not, there aren’t many English to Cantonese translators out there). I can’t read in Cantonese at all really, so I relied on the text to speech function to listen to what was translated instead. My listening and comprehension skills are still lacking, but much better than reading or writing. I would also use speech to text, speaking in Cantonese, to get the correct characters if I felt like what was translated by the application was incorrect/felt awkward.
Honorable Mention: I was inspired by Clarence Kwan’s zine “Chinese Protest Recipes” that highlighted ways Asians Americans can support the Black Lives Matter movement while also sharing traditional Chinese recipes.
