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Trans:Act

How much does this cost? This practical question of the marketplace can reach into the deeper waters of vulnerability and capitalist corruption, memory and nostalgia, labor and migration, and the possibility of transformation. The Trans:Act folio brings together seven pieces of bilingual writing contextualized around marketplace experiences in Phnom Penh, Dumaguete City, Nam Tượng, Port Dickson, CR Park, a fictional rural Thai flea market, and an electronics shop in Malaysia.

Trans:Act: A Folio of Marketplace Exchanges
By Transpacific Literary Project

20 Thai Baht = 33 Philippine Pesos = 44 Indian Rupees = x bolt of fabric = y square vuông of rice = 15,000 Vietnamese đồng = 2,600 Cambodian Riel = 2.6 Malaysian Ringgit = 9,100 Indonesian Rupiah = unquantifiable sweat

Sanggup menahan jerit, menukar peluh menjadi ringgit || [we’re] able to swallow shrieks, exchanging sweat to ringgit

Van Runcit Putih | Neighborhood Sundry Van
By Zedeck Siew and Sharon Chin

Sakit lelah aku tidak lain dan tidak bukan harga hidup senang aku kini || My asthma is the cost of the middle-class life I live now

៦០០០០រៀល! មើលទៅបង! បង្កងធំៗណាស់! || 60,000 KHR. Big ones! Look at them, sister!

một cây vải đổi lấy mười vuông thóc || one bolt of fabric for ten vuông of unhusked rice

Grandfather would have bought the Ilish—not wincing at the 1200 rupees per kilogram

ตลาดนัด | The Flea Markets
By Duanwad Pimwana and Mui Poopoksakul

รองเท้านักเรียนคู่นั้นยี่สิบบาทเองหรือ || These school uniform shoes are only twenty baht?

Tiangge
By Nikka Cornelio-Baker

Mamsa! Sitenta’ng kilo! || Jack fish, seventy pesos a kilogram.

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