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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “As If Present; As If Absent: Fang Fang’s Wuhan” by Angus Stewart Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Fang Fang. Editor’s note: In this eloquent and incisive…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Weike Wang, Rental House, Riverhead Books, 2024. 224 pgs. Reading Rental House is, for a Chinese person, a singularly curious—almost epiphanic—experience. Years ago, slightly tipsy at a reception in…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Rajan Kurai Krishnan, Ravindran Sriramachandran, and V.M.S Subagunarajan, Rule of the Commoner: DMK and the Formations of the Political in Tamil Nadu, 1949–1967, Cambridge University Press, 2022. 280 pgs.…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Saad Omar Khan, Drinking the Ocean, Buckrider Books, 2025. 250 pgs. “We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Winifred Dongyi Wang, Dissection of the Moon, Accent Edition, 2025. 232 pgs. Dissection of the Moon is a hybrid work—a knotted thing. It unspools the lines drawn across gender,…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Daryl Qilin Yam, Lovelier, Lonelier, Epigram Books, 2021. 496 pgs. In late March 1996, an intruder—tracked by millions around the globe—raced across the sky. This interloper, discovered by an…
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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 Vigil. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Vigil: The Struggle for Hong Kong, Brixton Ink, 2025. 176 pgs. Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink was…
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📁RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Ming-sho Ho, Challenging Beijing’s Mandate of Heaven: Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, Temple University Press, 2018. 270 pgs. Ming-sho Ho’s Challenging Beijing’s Mandate of Heaven compares…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Ee Ling Quah, Fire Dragon Feminism: Asian Migrant Women’s Tales of Migration, Coloniality and Racial Capitalism, Bloomsbury, 2025. 216 pgs. “An exchange of glances, light nods and eye contacts…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Alvin Pang, All That is Left of the Sea: Selected Poems, Red River Press, 2025. 148 pgs. Emotions and poetry often operate by falling into sync with one another.…


![[ESSAY] “As If Present; As If Absent: Fang Fang’s Wuhan” by Angus Stewart](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/fang-fang.jpg?w=976)
![[REVIEW] “It’s My House, and I Live Here: Weike Wang’s 𝑅𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝐻𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒” by Peixuan Xie](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/rental-house.jpg?w=994)
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Politics of the Plebs—𝑅𝑢𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑟: 𝐷𝑀𝐾 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑛 𝑇𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙 𝑁𝑎𝑑𝑢” by Kathiravan Annamalai](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/rule-of-the-commoner.jpg?w=419)
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “A Love that Doesn’t Bind: Saad Omar Khan’s 𝐷𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑂𝑐𝑒𝑎𝑛” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/saad-omar-khan-drinking-the-ocean.jpg?w=971)
![[REVIEW] “Knotted Threads: Memory, Language, and Violence in Winifred Dongyi Wang’s 𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑜𝑜𝑛” by Heather Y. Kim](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/https-accentaccent.comforthcoming-dissection-of-the-moon.png?w=1024)
![[REVIEW] “Daryl Qilin Yam’s 𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑟, 𝐿𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑟: A Red Pill of Metafiction” by Jason Low](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/daryl-qilin-yam-lovelier-lonelier-1-copy.jpg?w=692)
![[REVIEW] “Hong Kong Remembered and Rewritten: Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s 𝑉𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑙” by Wayne Wong](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/vigil.jpg?w=977)
![[REVIEW] “Radicals, Realists, and Revolutions—A Tale of Two Movements: Ming-sho Ho’s 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐵𝑒𝑖𝑗𝑖𝑛𝑔’𝑠 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑛” by Jennifer Eagleton](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/this-is-just-the-begining.jpg?w=720)
![[REVIEW] “Decorative Roles and Dehumanising Gazes: Reflections on Ee Ling Quah’s 𝐹𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝐷𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑜𝑛 𝐹𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑚” by Loritta Chan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/fire-dragon-feminism-asian-migrant-womens-tales-of-migration-coloniality-and-racial-capitalism.jpg?w=978)
![[REVIEW] “A Bubble of the Sea Holds the Cosmos and Its Caricature: Alvin Pang’s 𝐴𝑙𝑙 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝐿𝑒𝑓𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑒𝑎” by Kabir Deb](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/alvin-pang-all-that-is-left-of-the-sea-selected-poems-1.jpg?w=792)