I lived in the Kingdom of Tonga, a small developing country in the South Pacific, for two years as a member of Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV). Ue! is a hand-made in-house magazine of Tonga JOCV members. As a chief editor, I established the magazine, organize it and designed the cover. We published three issues in one year (the later half of my two-year term), and I embedded meanings of each issue in the cover.
The Preparatory Issue (left)
This cover design represents the concept of the in-house magazine; to provide information of Tonga through text and image. Some images shows typical things in Tonga.
The First Issue (center)
This is a play on words. "The first (issue)" is soukan in Japanese. "Spectacular view" is also soukan, and "double ring" is soukan, too. They are homonyms. This is "soukan (spectacular view) of soukan (double rings) of soukan (the first) issue." The entire view represents the national flag of Tonga.
The Second Issue (right)
This is another play on words. "Two" is ni in Japanese, and a Tongan word ni means "time"; two in Japanese and time in Tongan language are homonyms. This is "my precious times in Tonga".
"Ue!" is a Tongan expression that people say when they are surprised, like "oops" or "oh my god". It is a short version of "Oiaue!", a collection of the five vowels of Tongan language, that people say to express multiple emotions; when they are surprised, laugh, cry, or feel sorry.
There used to be an "official" in-house magazine of Tonga JOCV titled Oiaue!, but it was discontinued for some reasons. I planned to re-establish it, but it was not "officially" recognized by the JOCV office as an in-house magazine and we had to voluntarily issue it. I titled it Ue! and hoped that it would be officially recognized and they would proudly title it Oiaue! again.
