Every month, NAHS and Pudong Press come together to present a theme to members, who contribute artwork and writing based on each month’s topic. January’s theme was “Anew”. Enjoy the works presented below.

Creative Prose A Thing Anew by Ethan Jiang ’26:

Anew, meaning in a new or different and typically more positive way.

But ignore its rigid, literary, and insipid meaning. What does the word really mean to you and me?

The season begins anew, with autumn exhaling the cool but still subtly warm air from its lungs and inhaling the new winter winds within its incorporeal nose.

The plants grow anew as their offspring leaves and petals sever themselves from their motherly care and frolic around through forests, plains, and artificial streets.

The butterfly transforms anew; the caterpillar awakening from its long slumber of dreams and emerges from its chrysalis to stretch its wings and legs and to witness the world as it is.

And the human, he experiences everything anew. From the moment he is delivered from the womb, to childhood and adolescence, and ultimately to adulthood, the human will undergo immeasurable changes that will cause him not to appear remotely similar to the same person from birth.

Me, I have also turned anew, pouring a glass of water upon the blank canvas and refilling it again, simply to repeat the process over and over and over relentlessly.

Well, until the glass cracks…

Have we all begun anew? Of course, our appearances have been altered, and our minds have matured like fine wine resting in a cellar. But really, what has changed other than the superficial details we can observe on Earth’s surface? We celebrate each new year and then immediately live out the same old routine we have performed with identical thoughts and touch for the entirety of our lives. How can we say then that something has gone anew, or at least, different?

A woman bequeaths her wedding ring to her daughter, and that daughter hands the wedding ring to her daughter. Each time it is passed down, the ring becomes scratched and rusts, either due to neglect or utter ignorance, but it is restored with new bits and pieces. After generations of mothers and daughters transferring the wedding ring to the next, it has been repaired so much that it contains none of its original material.

Is the wedding ring still the same, or has it been converted anew?

The same idea goes for the ship of Theseus, where a vessel is mended with new parts every so often until each piece is replaced. You, me, we are all just Theseus’s ships drifting on a turbulent, vibrant blue, and salty sea with the slow turtle clouds crawling above that transparent film of air particles.

Anew. Something has undergone anew. Something has started anew. Nothing is anew, and everything is anew. The Universe was started anew by the Big Bang, or a divine God/deity has willed it to happen through a mere gesture; nevertheless, when the Universe finally ends, another book opens again.

So, what does the term “anew” mean to us? Is the most adequate way of describing it through its dictionary definition? Or can the word’s meaning be idiosyncratic and not bound to just other terms defining that one word? In the end, it is your own decision, but I prefer to consider the adverb “anew” as a process of creating something different, whatever that may entail.