Editors' Note
torrid
[tawr-id, tor-]
adjective
1. subject to parching or burning heat, especially of the sun, as a geographical area:
the torrid sands of the Sahara.
2. oppressively hot, parching, or burning, as climate, weather, or air.
3. ardent; passionate:
a torrid love story.
[tawr-id, tor-]
adjective
1. subject to parching or burning heat, especially of the sun, as a geographical area:
the torrid sands of the Sahara.
2. oppressively hot, parching, or burning, as climate, weather, or air.
3. ardent; passionate:
a torrid love story.
We are writing this at the mid-point of September, as torrid (definition 2) weather is interrupted by unseasonable rain. Where we are, a new president has just been sworn in after a walkover, cuing mixed feelings - hope in this appointment of a woman to the role; and frustration over political and constitutional engineering that resulted in an election that didn't happen, a victory that wasn't really one. An oil tanker collided with a dredger a few days ago in a crowded shipping straits, with tragic loss of life. To the west, a right-wing president twists and turns in the widening gyre over immigration policies. To the north of us, a former Nobel peace prize-winning leader fails to do more to prevent racial and religious persecution; human rights abuses.
So much has been lost, but not forgotten. On the personal front, we remember a , and a brilliant daughter of Singapore, academic and arts-policy commentator, Dr Lorraine Lim, taken from us too young and too soon. She was 37.
“The wound is the place where the light enters you,” wrote Rumi. This issue, put together over many months, has the remnant of summer sunshine and splendour - and a hint of the torrid (definition 3): in Iman Fahim Hameed's depiction of the dissolving of a marriage, in her Colombo vignettes; in Joshua Ip's playful love poetry; in Athena Tan's blending of the tentative, stuttering and then all-in-one-gush in her verses.
Art-wise, Adeline Tan's beastly, menacing yet seductive carnivorous plants are the product of radioactive torrid soil in a post-apocalyptic dream. Buz Walker-Teach's sketches of Southeast-Asian urbanscapes capture the light and heat of tropical cities, as one explores their old quarters on foot.
In comparison, David Koo's breezy sketches for structures, sculptures and houses in Malaysia are cool to behold, even if the use of recycled materials in his work holds the promise of flash, reflection and ardour. Daniel de Culla, meanwhile, sent us "a gift" with lots of humour and carnivalesque charm.
By a strange coincidence, thanks to alphabetical order, the issue opens and closes with two writers ruminating, in their own ways, on being a foreigner in Asia. Matthew James Friday (Issue 3) returns as a contributor with his wry observations on what's in a name in China; while Ryan Thorpe considers (confronts?) the orientalising gaze - its repugnance and complicity - in Korea, then shifts tonally to a satirical prose piece on xenophobia (catnophobia?). It's fitting, really, this bookending, given our torrid love affair with being outsiders, even in our own lands.
The Editors
WeAreAWebsite.com
15 September 2017
