It’s comforting – in an admittedly dystopian way – how well my algorithm gets me. Over the past few weeks, I’ve gone down a rabbit hole of horoscope content (both Eastern and Western) on Instagram. Wondering what the Year of the Fire Horse might hold for an Aquarius rabbit? My second-hand knowledge, absorbed from online pseudo gurus with questionable levels of expertise, can tell you (it’s looking bright, if you can believe them).
I learned that the Fire Horse has something of a reputation. In Japan, it’s a birth year known for producing particularly unruly women, considered too free-spirited and too unpredictable. So much so that in 1966, the last Year of the Fire Horse, birth rates plummeted. All of that’s to say, feelings run strong about this year, so brace yourself – or better yet, take notes.
We’ve themed this issue loosely around the Lunar New Year, with stories around homecoming and tradition.
Victoria Chan tracks mahjong’s stylish, savvy comeback among diaspora Gen Zers and auntie aspirants alike. Once associated with smoky dens and long afternoons, it’s now a vehicle for connecting with heritage and creative reinvention. At the game’s centre is a new breed of organisers and artists reshaping its future. In London and Toronto, Connor Wan Cing-tsuen founded mahjong clubs where diaspora kids who never learned the language can still discover their roots, and in Hong Kong, Karen Aruba and her family are preserving the vanishing craft of hand-carved tilemaking. Her father, Master Ricky Cheung, is one of the city’s last artisans still doing it by hand.
Elsewhere, associate editor Gavin Yeung follows the heat trail of
the Philippines’ first Michelin Guide, which has sparked a homecoming of another kind. Chefs, once trained to perfect French sauces, are now flavouring dishes with fish paste and cooking in traditional clay pots. Filipinos had to fall in love with their own cuisine all over again, said the late chef Margarita Forés – and after reading the piece, it’s something I’m very much looking forward to doing myself.
