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◉ On Becoming a Hong Kongese Writer◉ Sunset at Lion Rock: An Excerpt Matthew Wong Foreman, Sunset at Lion Rock, Proverse Press, 2024. 288 pgs. {Read Jason S Polley’s review.} For over 2,000 years, apocalyptic visions of doom—of the End Times, of destruction,…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Anna Qu, Made in China: A Memoir of Love and Labor, Catapult, 2021. 224 pgs. Made in China is a sensitive, thoughtful exploration of the inextricable ties between labour,…
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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 Cho Nam-joo. Cho Nam-Joo (author), Jamie Chang (translator), Saha: A Novel, Liveright, 2023. 161 pgs. Cho Nam-Joo’s Saha: A Novel (《사하맨션》, 2019) presents a dystopian…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Shuchi Talati (director), Girls Will Be Girls, 2024. 118 min. Female sexuality has long remained one of the most stringently policed and anxiously mediated territories. The erotic interiority of…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Chen Qiufan (author), Ken Liu (translator), Waste Tide, Tor Books, 2019. 352 pgs. They call us “the waste people.” Waste is dirty, inferior, lowly, useless, but omnipresent. They produce…
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [REVIEW] “Samrat Upadhyay’s Mad Country: To Adapt and Thrive in the Chaos” by Abhinav Tulachan Samrat Upadhyay, Mad Country, Soho Press, 2017. 304 pgs. Abhinav Tulachan’s copy of Mad Country Following…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Donald Keene, The First Modern Japanese: The Life of Ishikawa Takuboku, Columbia University Press, 2016. 288 pgs. At the age of fifteen, I first encountered the Chinese translation of…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS This is a review of the play Min forsvundne onkel (My Missing Uncle 我失蹤的舅舅) produced by Nydanskeren Jimbuts Kulturforening and premiered at Teater FÅR302, Copenhagen, on 2-12 April 2025.…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Rob Noble, Octopus: The Pioneering Story of the World’s First Contactless Payment Card, Blacksmith Books, 2023, 396 pgs. As a resident of a city bereft of a…


![[FEATURE] “On Becoming a Hong Kongese Writer” by Matthew Wong Foreman](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/matthew-wong-foreman-sunset-at-lion-rock-1.webp?w=663)
![[REVIEW] “Negotiating Love and Labour in Anna Qu’s 𝑀𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎” by Fion Tse](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/made-in-china-anna-qu.jpg?w=993)
![[REVIEW] “Narrating the Margins of the Future: Cho Nam-Joo’s 𝑆𝑎ℎ𝑎” by James Au Kin-Pong](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/cho-nam-joos-saha.jpg?w=789)
![[REVIEW] “Shuchi Talati’s 𝐺𝑖𝑟𝑙𝑠 𝑊𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝐵𝑒 𝐺𝑖𝑟𝑙𝑠: A Stirring, Sublime Portrait of Becoming” by Ananya Singh](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/girls-will-be-girls-2.webp?w=780)
![[REVIEW] “A Harrowing Future of Waste in Chen Qiufan’s 𝑊𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒 𝑇𝑖𝑑𝑒” by Loritta Chan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/chen-qiufan-author-ken-liu-translator-waste-tide.jpg?w=798)
![[REVIEW] “Samrat Upadhyay’s 𝑀𝑎𝑑 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦: To Adapt and Thrive in the Chaos” by Abhinav Tulachan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/samrat-upadhyay-mad-country-1.jpg?w=1000)
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “A Poet’s Most Unvarnished Desires and Defeats: Donald Keene’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑀𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝐽𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑒” by Jiahe Chen](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/the-first-modern-japanese-the-life-of-ishikawa-takuboku-2.jpg?w=1000)
![[REVIEW] “Reimagining Chinese Queer History and Looking for an Alternative World: A Review of 𝑀𝑦 𝑀𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑈𝑛𝑐𝑙𝑒” by Hongwei Bao](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/untitled_1.4.1-jacob-linholdt.png?w=1024)
![[REVIEW] “Asako Yuzuki’s 𝐵𝑢𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟: Tasting the Essential Self” by Jennifer Eagleton](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/butter-a-novel-of-food-and-murder-1.jpg?w=985)
![[REVIEW] “The Almost Everything Card—Rob Noble’s 𝑂𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑠: 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑’𝑠 𝐹𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑃𝑎𝑦𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝐶𝑎𝑟𝑑” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/octopus-the-pioneering-story-of-the-worlds-first-contactless-payment-card-1.jpg?w=896)