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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Reliving the Filipino 90s Nostalgia in Marla Ancheta’s One Hit Wonder” by Bryan Elijah Trajano Marla Ancheta (director), One Hit Wonder, 2025. 112 min. Before music was only a…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Reliving the Filipino 90s Nostalgia in Marla Ancheta’s 𝑂𝑛𝑒 𝐻𝑖𝑡 𝑊𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟” by Bryan Elijah Trajano](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/marla-ancheta-director-one-hit-wonder.jpg?w=1024)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Untold. Bae Suah (author), Deborah Smith (translator), Untold Night and Day, Jonathan Cape, 2020. 155 pgs. It has been some…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Between Dream and Wakefulness: Reading Bae Suah’s 𝑈𝑛𝑡𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑁𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐷𝑎𝑦” by Dorina Tataran](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/untold-night-and-day-1.jpg?w=977)
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Chris Song’s Note: Selected from Hong Kong author Lok Fung’s acclaimed short story collection The Charred City, “A Wayward Wisdom Tooth” recounts the tale of Shevon Kam, a driven beauty executive who endures a decade-long struggle with a decaying wisdom tooth—a…
![[TRANSLATION] “A Wayward Wisdom Tooth” by Lok Fung, Translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/alireza-heidarpour-46cfxprdjni-unsplash.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: Emma Zhang reflects on her shifting identity as a language teacher in an age when machine translation threatens the role of English as a bridge to the world. Seeking cultural understanding, she visits Talibé, an exhibition by Mauritanian…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑏𝑒́: The Forgotten Faces of Globalisation” by Emma Zhang](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/e07c3432-3e50-439d-b428-1c00cf25c682.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: In “Twist of Fate: When Writers Are Better Recognised for Their Images”, Thammika Songkaeo, author of Stamford Hospital (Penguin Random House SEA, 2025; reviewed in Cha), offers a thoughtful reflection on how contemporary publicity privileges appearance, exoticism, and…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “Twist of Fate: When Writers are Better Recognised for their Images” by Thammika Songkaeo](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/banner-size.jpg?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [REVIEW] “The Dynasty that Dreamt in Red: Diamond Shumshere Rana’s The Wake of the White Tiger” by Abhinav Tulachan Diamond Shumshere Rana, The Wake of the White Tiger. 1984. 235 pgs.…
![[REVIEW] “The Dynasty that Dreamt in Red: Diamond Shumshere Rana’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑇𝑖𝑔𝑒𝑟” by Abhinav Tulachan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/diamond-shumshere-rana-the-wake-of-the-white-tiger.jpg?w=347)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Sho Miyake (director), Two Seasons, Two Strangers (Tabi to Hibi), 2025. 89 min. A woman sits at her desk, a pencil poised above a blank page. She has been…
![[REVIEW] “Winter of The Soul: On Sho Miyake’s 𝑇𝑤𝑜 𝑆𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑠, 𝑇𝑤𝑜 𝑆𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟𝑠” by Nirris Nagendrarajah](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/still2_two-seasons-two-strangers_locarno.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: In “Noodle Insurrection or a Gathering of Radicals”, Jennifer Eagleton intertwines Chinese character radicals with politics, crafting a witty poem around Shaanxi’s biangbiang noodles. She blends linguistic play, cultural history, and insurrectionary imagery, demonstrating radicals’ layered meanings. A…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “Noodle Insurrection or a Gathering of Radicals” by Jennifer Eagleton](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/biang-biang.png?w=1024)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Elizabeth Ai (editor), New Wave: Rebellion and Reinvention in the Vietnamese Diaspora, Angel City Press, 2024. 192 pgs. Elizabeth Ai’s edited volume New Wave: Rebellion and Reinvention in the…
![[REVIEW] “Archival Rhythms—Youth, Identity, and Cultural Resistance in the Vietnamese Diaspora: Elizabeth Ai’s 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝑊𝑎𝑣𝑒” by Nguyễn Minh Tiến](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/acp_11.11.24-54-copy.jpg?w=1024)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Afterlives. Satoru Hashimoto, Afterlives of Letters: The Transnational Origins of Modern Literature in China, Japan, and Korea, Columbia University Press,…
![[REVIEW] “The Power of Multilingual Inquiry: Mapping Intra-Asian Relations Beyond Binaries—Satoru Hashimoto’s 𝐴𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝐿𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠” by Jennifer Junwa Lau](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/afterlives-of-letters-the-transnational-origins-of-modern-literature-in-china-japan-and-korea.jpg?w=1000)
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