Gái Già Beppu
(ガイジャ別府*)

* Beppu's Ladies-chan

Nhân and Miêu are two best friends among a group of six. Fate brought them all to Beppu—a small town in Japan—where they grew up together, isolated from the outside world. Both Nhân and Miêu love to take photos. They are also hoarders: of images, of memories, of writings, of friends, and of lovers. In 2018, after several failed attempts to readjust to life beyond their teenage years, fate once again reunited them—this time in a small house in District 3 of Saigon. Two rooms across a hallway; both lived in bunkers of unspeakable longings, missed connections, and haunted echoes from their twenties in Japan. As emotions ran high, this zine came to life.

Every year when the cicadas start to sing, I miss Japan dearly, as if a part of myself had been buried under the Minami Ishigaki park, where we hung out by the swings, singing, and smoking.

This summer, as the cicadas are singing again, I invited Cao Mieu to join me in a conversation about our Japanese memoirs. But instead of texts, we would reply to each other with artworks. Every page is a response to the previous. All communication takes place only within these pages.

I lost my residence card years ago. Mieu still has hers, so she will hereby board the page first.