Thank you for joining us for our Eighth Anniversary Issue. I am not sure that neither my co-editor Jeff Zroback nor I would have imagined at the beginning that Cha would have lasted this long.

 

But here we are.

 

When we started, we knew very little about running a journal, and to be frank, we still have a lot to learn.

 

Even the slowest student will pick up a few lessons in eight years—in my case, it has been about one a year.

1. Without hard work—especially that of your editors, writers, artists and webmaster—you would have long ago ended up an abandoned page on a forgotten server. But, on this of all anniversaries, you must also admit that it has taken a lot of good luck too.

2. As much as you would like to think that you are still a start-up, after eight years online, you need to admit that in Internet years you are decidedly middle-aged.

3. There are three ways of coping with rude emails.

4. You will be happy every time you hear about a past contributor's success. Sometimes you might even congratulate yourself for having spotted their talent.

5. As soon as you put out an issue, you will start worrying about the next one …

6. even though you know it will come out just fine.

7. As much as you may complain, you find deep satisfaction in the work—even dealing with rude emails.

8. You know that, like most things in life, your efforts will be fleeting and one day may end up on a forgotten sever. But you also know that you are not ready for that day yet.

Thank you so much for having been with us for the past eight years. I hope you will stay with us and help our fleeting efforts last many more.

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming / Co-editor
Cha
24 December 2015