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Editor’s note: Cha’s long-term contributor Matt Turner introduces 6AMING, his forthcoming poetry book from Antiphony, due in September. In this short essay, he discusses time-stamped automatic writing, no-music influence, not-poetry, underground journals, and resistance to spectacle, surveillance, and institutional validation.…
![[ESSAY] “NO U-TURN—6𝐴𝑀𝐼𝑁𝐺: Themes and Contexts” by Matt Turner](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/matt-turner-6aming-cha-asian.png?w=637)
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Read Matt Turner’s essay “NO U-TURN—6AMING: Themes and Contexts” HERE. [EXCLUSIVE] “Eight Poems from 6AMING” by Matt Turner Photograph © Wang Yin 8:38-3:11 pressed against, side to sidethe shelter—hidden, aggrievedunder a constant temperaturelittle balls of bone and eyerunning around, pouring…
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Editor’s note: Chris Sullivan reflects on an unexploded wartime bomb in Hong Kong, observed from Amsterdam, using the incident to consider urban memory, historical residue, and the quiet persistence of past violence. [ESSAY] “Disarming a Ghost” by Chris Sullivan Hong…
![[ESSAY] “Disarming a Ghost” by Chris Sullivan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/disarming-a-ghost-still-square.jpg?w=1024)
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All entries on SUNDANCE 2026 [SUNDANCE 2026] “‘I Want to Make Films for Teenagers Forever’: A Conversation on BURN” by Nirris Nagendrarajah & Makoto Nagahisa Makoto Nagashia (director), BURN, 2025. 103 min. INTRODUCTION Nirris Nagendrarajah W-w-why do people do what…
![[SUNDANCE 2026] “‘I Want to Make Films for Teenagers Forever’: A Conversation on 𝐵𝑢𝑟𝑛” by Nirris Nagendrarajah & Makoto Nagahisa](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/burn.jpg?w=936)
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Editor’s note: Daniel Gauss treats Prambanan Temple as a ninth-century political technology, where ritual, architecture, and kingship converged to naturalise obedience by embedding rule within Shaivite cosmology. Built by the Sanjaya dynasty as a counter to Borobudur Temple, it functioned…
![[ESSAY] “Prambanan: A Temple in Java that Turned Faith into Obedience” by Daniel Gauss](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/img_20251111_094005.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: Troy Cabida reflects on his debut poetry collection Neon Manila, exploring queer Filipino-immigrant embodiment, pop music, resistance, as glamour and violence coexist. Some poems from the collection can be found HERE. [ESSAY] “On Neon Manila: A Balancing Act…
![[ESSAY] “On 𝑁𝑒𝑜𝑛 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑙𝑎: A Balancing Act Between Sparkle and Substance” by Troy Cabida](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/img_6830.jpg?w=1024)
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Read Troy Cabida’s essay “On Neon Manila: A Balancing Act Between Sparkle and Substance” HERE. [EXCLUSIVE] “Four Poems from Neon Manila” by Troy Cabida Troy Cabida, Neon Manila, Nine Arches Press, 2025. 72 pgs. Black Turtleneck Sonnet With my first ever…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “Four Poems from 𝑁𝑒𝑜𝑛 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑙𝑎” by Troy Cabida](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/81b4db7dtkl._sl1500_-1.jpg?w=984)
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Editor’s note: Chris Song offers a rigorous meditation on the Fleurs des lettres Issue 118 cover controversy, where a grieving teenager’s image appeared without consent. Reading the intervention of Hong Kong Readers’ Bookstore, the magazine’s board of directors, and the…
![[ESSAY] “A Face, a Cover, a Failure: Fleurs des lettres Issue 118 Cover Controversy” by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-a-fragment-of-history-a-life-bound-in-dependence-with-the-river-as-kin.png?w=596)
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Editor’s note: Julia Merican reads Lu Lei’s practice through meals, menus, embroidery, and exhibitions, attending to how intimacy operates as both method and politics. From private dinners with strangers to layered textile works, Lu uses food and language to negotiate…
![[ESSAY] “A Seat at the Table: Lu Lei and the Politics of Intimacy” by Julia Merican](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/64901cc90ad6cbfa52190a71-biography_1325594-resize-1920-1234.webp?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: Kathy Nguyen recounts a Vietnamese refugee family’s exploitation by a nameless sponsor, detailing coerced labour, rage, and inherited memory across resettlement landscapes. It condemns capitalism as predatory, sustained by dispossession and silence, while honouring survival resistance. An earlier…
![[ESSAY] “Sweating Labour, Angry Tears” by Kathy Ngoc Nguyen](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/abstract-orange-brushstroke-white-paper.jpg?w=1024)
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