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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Meena Kandasamy, When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife, Atlantic Books, 2018. 272 pgs. Meena Kandasamy’s When I Hit You, Or Portrait…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Chloë F. Starr, Red-light Novels of the late Qing, Brill Publishing, 2007. 293 pgs. This book should be recognised as a significant academic achievement. It is the result of…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Hayao Miyazaki (director), The Boy and the Heron, 2023. 125 min. This review contains spoilers. For me, what’s perhaps most interesting about The Boy and the Heron is that…
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Chris Song’s Note: Chan Hay-ching’s 陳曦靜 short story “Boda’s Borders” 寶達的邊境 was originally written in Chinese and was first published in Hong Kong Literature Bimonthly 城市文藝, No. 105 (April 2020). It was later included in her collection Rocky, a Stray Dog…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Paul Lynch, Prophet Song, Oneworld Books, 2023. 320 pgs. Although I was reading about a fictitious Ireland, as I began Prophet Song, Paul Lynch’s Booker Prize-winning novel, I felt…
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Also read Andrew Barker’s tribute to Reid Mitchell. Photo of Reid Mitchell © Martin Alexander Describing a great and complex man as Reid Hardeman Mitchell (1955-2023) is not easy—he was a poet and a professor, bon vivant and raconteur, historian…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin, Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy, Hachette Books, 2023. 336 pgs.…
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Tragedies of Inequality: Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite and Jordan Peele’s Us” by Jonathan Chan Bong Joon-Ho (director), Parasite, 2019. 132 min.Jordan Peele (director), Us, 2019, 116 min. The sociologist Teo You Yenn…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Celine Song (director), Past Lives, 2023. 106 min. Life is a sea, a kaleidoscopic cornucopia of experiences with a myriad of people. We start in shallow waters of first…


![[REVIEW] “Personal Yet Communal Narrative of Meena Kandasamy’s 𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝐼 𝐻𝑖𝑡 𝑌𝑜𝑢: 𝑂𝑟, 𝐴 𝑃𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑔 𝑊𝑖𝑓𝑒” by Bervinder Kaur](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/when-i-hit-you.png?w=1024)
![[REVIEW] “A Niche Book on a Niche Subject: Chloë F. Starr’s 𝑅𝑒𝑑-𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑁𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑄𝑖𝑛𝑔” by Paul Bevan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/red-light.png?w=1024)
![[REVIEW] “Defying Explanation: Hayao Miyazaki’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑜𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐻𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑛” by e rathke](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2f7d7a1e-94d3-48eb-be56-12bcb518f235.sized-1000x1000-1.jpeg?w=1000)
![[TRANSLATION] “Boda’s Borders” by Chan Hay-ching, translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chan-hay-ching-and-chris-song.png?w=934)
![[REVIEW] “Clash of Ideas: Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s 𝐿𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠” BY JAMES KIN-PONG AU](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/longing-and-other-stories_cha.png?w=1024)
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “To Flee or Not to Flee: Paul Lynch’s 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑡 𝑆𝑜𝑛𝑔” by Jennifer Eagleton](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/prophet-song.jpg?w=978)
![[EXCLUSIVE] “A Tribute to Reid Mitchell” by Akin Jeje](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/reid-mitchell-cha-an-asian-literary-journal-2.jpg?w=1024)
![[REVIEW] “The Story Isn’t Over Yet: Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin’s 𝐴𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑠” by James M Zimmerman](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/shibani-mahtani-and-timothy-mclaughlin.png?w=1024)
![[ESSAY] “Tragedies of Inequality: Bong Joon-ho’s 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑒 and Jordan Peele’s 𝑈𝑠” by Jonathan Chan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/us.png?w=749)
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “The Beauty of the Unsaid: Celine Song’s 𝑃𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐿𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠” by Elliot Ng](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/https-__cdn.sanity.io_images_xq1bjtf4_production_e1bdf7c917e4a436ec391336e8a05dcba478d275-3840x2063_custom-8d06a6607db24746e6e697791cd638654a1f0dda-s1100-c50.jpg?w=1024)