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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 Idol, Burning. Rin Usami (author), Asa Yoneda (translator), Idol, Burning, Canongate, 2022. 96 pgs. Rin Usami’s Idol, Burning (『推し、燃ゆ』, 2020) offers an incisive exploration of…
![[REVIEW] “Belief, Devotion, and Estrangement in Rin Usami’s 𝐼𝑑𝑜𝑙, 𝐵𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔” by James Au Kin-Pong](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/idol-burning-canongate.jpg?w=1024)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Rory B. Quintos (director), Anak, 2000. 135 min. Where would we be without our mothers? Watching Anak, one is immediately drawn into its poignant narrative, centred on the life…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “The Cost of Love and Sacrifice in Rory B. Quintos’s 𝐴𝑛𝑎𝑘” by Jhon Steven C. Espenido](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/the-child.webp?w=800)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Aparna Upadhyaya Sanyal, Instruments of Torture, Harper Collins India, 2024. 200 pgs. In this haunting collection of stories, each narrative is aptly named after a medieval torture device, metaphorically…
![[REVIEW] “Labyrinthine Corridors of the Human Psyche: Aparna Upadhyaya Sanyal’s 𝐼𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑇𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒” by Namrata](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/aparna-sanyal_cha.jpeg?w=800)
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Author’s note: This is a review of the Disco-TECA performance that took place at The Stage, London, as part of Queer East 2024, which may be different from its previous or subsequent versions. A trailer of the show can be…
![[REVIEW] “Disco-TECA: Disco Culture as Queer Culture” by Hongwei Bao](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/g47a2566x.jpg?w=1024)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Robert Eggers (director), Nosferatu, 2024. 132 min. Over Christmas, I finally lifted my copy of Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio off the shelf. It is often…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “You Are Not of Human Kind: A Freudian Comparison of 𝐿𝑖𝑎𝑜𝑧ℎ𝑎𝑖 and 𝑁𝑜𝑠𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑢” by Angus Stewart](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/nosferatu.png?w=1024)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS ❀ Julie Otsuka, When the Emperor Was Divine, Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. 148 pgs.❀ Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic, Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. 129 pgs.❀ Julie Otsuka,…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “Julie Otsuka: The Ideal of Justice and the Reality of History” by Jiahe Chen](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/julie-otsuka_cha.png?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 Idol, Burning. Rin Usami (author), Asa Yoneda (translator), Idol, Burning, HarperVia, 2022.144 pgs. Japan, for me, has long been a pop music paradise. On my…
![[REVIEW] “When a Passion Turns Toxic: Rin Usami’s 𝐼𝑑𝑜𝑙, 𝐵𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔” by Wendy Tokunaga](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/rin-usami-author-asa-yoneda-translator-idol-burning.jpg?w=946)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Annie Zaidi, Bread, Cement, Cactus: A Memoir of Belonging and Dislocation, Cambridge University Press, 2020. 166 pgs. Annie Zaidi’s memoir Bread, Cement, Cactus: A Memoir of Belonging and Dislocation…
![[REVIEW] “Lived Reality: Annie Zaidi’s Memoir 𝐵𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑, 𝐶𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝐶𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑠” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/annie-zaidi-bread-cement-cactus-a-memoir-of-belonging-and-dislocation.jpg?w=971)
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“Article 5.3: Under no circumstances shall any citizen go to the capital.” This is one of the most serious of all our laws. Anyone who grew up in my village of Orfetel, only a few days’ travel from the ruins…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “In Farghestan” by Matt Turner](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/farghestan6-1.png?w=972)
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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 Half Sound, Half Philosophy. Jing Wang, Half Sound, Half Philosophy: Aesthetics, Politics, and History of China’s Sound Art, Bloomsbury, 2021. 232 pgs. Jing Wang’s Half…
![[REVIEW] “Overhearing 𝑄𝑖: Jing Wang’s 𝐻𝑎𝑙𝑓 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑, 𝐻𝑎𝑙𝑓 𝑃ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑦” by Maurice Windleburn](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/half-sound-half-philosophy-aesthetics-politics-and-history-of-chinas-sound-art.jpg?w=1024)
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Header artwork by Annysa Ng 茶 First Impressionsclick for information 茶 Essays click for information 茶 En Routeclick for information 茶 XI XI—Can We Sayclick for information 茶 Write to Powerclick for information 茶 Auditory Cortexclick for information
Cha 