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[Cultural] The Inaugural Record of the Australian Rainbow ParrotAuthor: JEFFI CHAO HUI WU Time: Thursday, July 31, 2025, 1:05 PM ········································ [Cultural] The Inaugural Record of the Australian Rainbow Parrot "The Australian Rainbow Parrot" was founded in January 2005. In an era when blogs were just emerging and social media had not yet become widespread, we chose a path that was almost contrary to the trends of the time—publishing a paper quarterly, completely hand-compiled, manually contacting authors, and using wages to support printing and mailing as a grassroots literary magazine. The first issue was printed in very limited quantities, with a cost of ten Australian dollars per copy, making it extremely expensive. It was printed on demand, and the typesetting was done using the most basic tools, with even image processing completed on a regular office computer. At that time, I was still working in Sydney, busy with company affairs during the day, and at night writing articles, contacting authors, editing, proofreading, and typesetting until late into the night. The vice president, Meizhi, was responsible for proofreading each issue's cover, inscriptions, table of contents, and section pages, all of which she designed by hand. Each page of text was proofread more than three times before being sent to the printing house. There were no designers, no layout artists, no team—only a computer, a strong determination, and a literary ideal. In the first five issues after its launch, all printing and mailing costs were covered by me alone, with no external funding whatsoever. Each issue included works from at least one hundred authors, and the expenses for self-publishing, domestic and international postage in Australia, and sending sample copies to authors and libraries nearly consumed most of my monthly income at the time. The permanent honorary president, Mr. Wu Di, was responsible for collecting and verifying authors' addresses and arranging for mailing around the world. Some advised me, "Instead of struggling like this, why not switch to an electronic version?" But I insisted, "If this world can't even support a single print publication, what culture can truly take root?" What is even more remarkable is that the inaugural issue of "Australian Rainbow Parrot" received an ISSN number, which at the time was a significant cultural recognition. The National Library of Australia has strict review standards, requiring publications to have a complete structure and a commitment to ongoing publication. We truthfully submitted the journal's positioning, editorial responsibilities, layout design, and publication schedule, and not only received the official number but were also included in the National Library's permanent collection system. This means that the content of each issue will be preserved, indexed, and made available for query in a national database, becoming a part of the structure of Australian literature. In the same year, we simultaneously established a dedicated website and forum for the "Australian Rainbow Parrot International Writers' Association," becoming the main platform for interaction between the journal and its readers. The earliest submissions mostly came from local writers in Australia, with Ms. Dujun becoming one of the poets and writers with the highest posting rate that year. Gradually, we attracted Chinese-language writers from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Canada, and the United States, forming a literary intersection of multiple contexts, generations, and social strata. This group of "wild authors" constituted our initial literary gene—they included cleaners, chefs, international students, retired teachers, new immigrants, and ordinary people who settled in other countries due to job changes or marriage relocations. In 2007, the Beijing Modern Literature Museum officially collected "Australian Rainbow Parrot," a move that confirmed the dual positioning of this publication within the global Chinese cultural ecosystem: it is both a rare sample of overseas independent literature and an important intersection in the external observation perspective of China's local cultural system. Since then, "Australian Rainbow Parrot" has become one of the only active Chinese literary journals simultaneously collected by the National Library of Australia and the Modern Literature Museum of China. Starting from the sixth issue, enthusiastic cultural supporter Mr. Zeng Li offered to cover the printing costs free of charge. He is not a literary person and has never submitted any works; he simply felt deeply moved after reading the first three issues and wished to support the survival of this grassroots publication from behind the scenes. His support spanned from the sixth issue to the twentieth issue, helping us solve the most significant cost issues, allowing the publication to continue without advertisements, promotions, or bundled distribution. We have never set limits, nor do we distinguish between professional and non-professional. As long as the writing is genuine, profound, and moving, we are willing to use it. It is precisely for this reason that the twentieth issue of "Australian Rainbow Parrot" has become a unique sample—it is neither a commercial journal nor an institutional project, but a cultural practice entirely driven by individual logic, independently edited, self-financed, and collaboratively created across regions. There are no quotas, no "mainstream perspectives," only authentic individual expressions and cross-disciplinary exchanges. These texts were later digitized along with the Bipaihui website and incorporated into the TROVE system and PANDORA electronic archiving program of the National Library of Australia. We have begun the process of remaking the twenty issues of the print publication into electronic versions, and will submit them in accordance with the National Library's electronic publishing requirements. In the future, these documents will be open for browsing and retrieval worldwide. If you have published works in any of those twenty issues, it means that your texts will be permanently included in the national literature system, available for global readers to read, study, cite, and preserve. This is not only our solemn commitment to the author, but also a cultural echo that we could not have imagined when we launched in 2005. At that time, we simply wanted to leave behind some truths, not realizing that these words would ultimately become part of the record of civilization. To this day, we still remember when we sent out the first issue, the postal clerk said, "You're sending to so many places, are you starting a company?" I replied, "No, it's for every writer." She smiled and moved on, not realizing that this matter has already lasted for twenty years. "The Australian Rainbow Parrot" has not disappeared; it has always been here. In the words, in the pages, in the catalog numbers of the national library, in the hearts of each of us who still wish to write, still wish to read, and still wish to believe that "words have light." The documentary of this journey is not only the growth trajectory of a publication but also a micro-history of culture forged by hand, belief, and paper in an era. The Australian rainbow parrot is hailed as a green oasis of Chinese culture in the Southern Hemisphere. 
[图] Cover of the inaugural issue of "Australian Rainbow Parrot" magazine Source: http://www.australianwinner.com/AuWinner/viewtopic.php?t=697087 |
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