志异 Draft by Drama box December 2014 (english) | Page 3

Dear Reader,
Last issue, the publication of Draft coincided with the Sunflower
Movement in Taiwan. This time, in the course of putting together the
new issue, series of protests were taking place in Hong Kong. There are
perhaps no better footnotes to our theme of ‘Harmony/Discord’ than
these events.
Words expand in their meanings the more we contemplate them. This
issue, as we foreground the notion of ‘harmony’, we realise just how
dissonant it can be. Harmony can be construed as illusion, reality, ideal,
veneer, and/or irony, and that’s exactly what our writers have done.
In Feature article, Quah Sy Ren discusses the paradox of harmony
through Drama Box’s recent community engagement ‘BOTH SIDES,
NOW’. In Columns, Phoon Yuen Ming explores the relationship between
‘displacement’ and ‘exile’ in the lives of revolutionists, and Jonathan Sim
explicates the notion of ‘harmony’ in Chinese philosophical traditions. In
Special Feature, we are glad to reprint an article by Ngoi Guat Peng, in
which she appeals for a civil solidarity that transcends national borders.
In Open Call, we have the music of Tang Wei, who pieced it together
almost seamlessly from distorting recorded sonic samples of ceramic
crashing onto a hard surface, and our photographer Hong Guoyao’s
work ‘Dual’.
It’s hard to make sense of ‘harmony’ without premising it on ‘discord’, and
vice versa. But come to think of it, isn’t everything kind of like that?
This issue also marks the third year of Draft’s publication. We are
immensely grateful to all the writers, translators, artists and designers
for making issue after issue with us, and to you, our reader, for reading
page after page. Thank you.
Here’s to another year.

Wang Fang, Kate
Co-editor

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