Category: 2024 Entries
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Grace Loh Prasad, The Translator’s Daughter, The Ohio State University Press, 2024. 272 pgs. Grief occurs in many forms. There’s the mourning of a loved one who has passed…
![[REVIEW] “Stunning Memoir: Grace Loh Prasad’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟’𝑠 𝐷𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑒𝑟” by Susan Blumberg-Kason](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/the-translators-daughter.jpg?w=880)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Wei Shujun (director), Only the River Flows, 2023. 101 mins. Wei Shujun’s Only the River Flows, an adaptation of Yu Hua’s novella Mistakes by the River set in 1995,…
![[REVIEW] “Such an Indelible Period Texture: Wei Shujun’s 𝑂𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑅𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝐹𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑠” by Oliver Farry](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/only-the-river-flows-banner.jpg?w=512)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Qian Guo, Food Cultures of China: Recipes, Cultures and Issues, Bloomsbury, 2023. 272 pgs. The first thing that struck me about Qian Guo’s encyclopaedic undertaking in this book, was…
![[REVIEW] “An Encyclopaedic Undertaking: Qian Guo’s 𝐹𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝐶𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎” by Ceri Hwi-Li Holloway](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/food-cultures-of-china.jpg?w=994)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Ralph Jennings, 50 Useful Tips on China, from a Guy Who ALMOST Got It, Earnshaw Books, 2024. 260 pgs. Ralph Jennings is a seasoned journalist who has spent the…
![[REVIEW] “Resonating with Anyone Who Travels Internationally: Ralph Jennings’s 50 𝑈𝑠𝑒𝑓𝑢𝑙 𝑇𝑖𝑝𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎” by Susan Blumberg-Kason](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/50-useful-tips-on-china-from-a-guy-who-almost-got-it.jpg?w=971)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Read Madeleine Slavick’s “The Yellow Chair” HERE. Madeleine Slavick, Town, The Cuba Press, 2024. 132 pgs. Imagine a poet and a photographer collaborating. What will they create? Town is such…
![[REVIEW] “Where Ripples Intersect: Madeleine Slavick’s Photopoetry Collection 𝑇𝑜𝑤𝑛” by Aqua Kaiyun Zheng](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/town_madeleine-slavick.jpg?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 Cho Nam-joo. Cho Nam-joo (author), Jamie Chang (translator), Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, Liveright, 2021. 176 pgs. Everyone who has read Cho Nam-joo’s debut novel Kim…
![[REVIEW] “The Limited Life of a Woman: Cho Nam-joo’s 𝐾𝑖𝑚 𝐽𝑖𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑔, 𝐵𝑜𝑟𝑛 1982” by Dorina Tataran](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/kim-jiyoung-born-1982.jpg?w=923)
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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 Mao Suit. Antonia Finnane, How to Make a Mao Suit: Clothing the People of Communist China, 1949–1976, Cambridge University Press, 2023. 386 pgs. Here is…
![[REVIEW] “A Rare, Exciting Academic Book: Antonia Finnane’s 𝐻𝑜𝑤 𝑡𝑜 𝑀𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑎 𝑀𝑎𝑜 𝑆𝑢𝑖𝑡” by Ilaria Maria Sala](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/how-to-make-a-mao-suit-clothing-the-people-of-communist-china.jpg?w=1000)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Thomas Barker, Indonesian Cinema After the New Order: Going Mainstream, Hong Kong University Press, 2019, 244 pgs. After reviewing several books on East Asian films and pop culture, it…
![[REVIEW] “Master in Its Own House: On Thomas Barker’s 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝐶𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑚𝑎 𝐴𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝑂𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/thomas-barker-indonesian-cinema-after-the-new-order-going-mainstream-1.jpg?w=1001)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Osamu Dazai (author), Sam Bett (translator), The Flowers of Buffoonery, New Directions, 2023. 63 pgs. The Flowers of Buffoonery (『道化の華』/ Dōke no Hana), an early work by Osamu Dazai…
![[REVIEW] “Constructing a Performative Self: Osamu Dazai’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝐵𝑢𝑓𝑓𝑜𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑦” by James Kin Pong Au](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/the-flowers-of-buffoonery.jpg?w=778)
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“What would you think about moving here?” We were on a bus heading to Hong Kong International Airport on Lantau Island. It was dark outside. We were going to catch an early-morning flight back home to Seattle. The motion of…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “The Chinese Girl” by Jeff Beyl](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/screenshot-2024-07-03-at-06.31.04.png?w=1024)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Yasunari Kawabata (author), Haydn Trowell (translator), The Rainbow, Penguin, 2023. 400 pgs. Yasunari Kawabata’s The Rainbow, recently translated into English for the first time, evokes in me a strong…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Carrying On: Yasunari Kawabata’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑅𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑏𝑜𝑤” by Gabrielle Tse](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/the-rainbow-kawabata-yasunari.jpg?w=933)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder, Penguin Random House, 2024. 224 pgs. “Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers, and how one remembers it…
![[REVIEW] “An Achingly Poignant Personal Trauma Narrative: Salman Rushdie’s 𝐾𝑛𝑖𝑓𝑒” by Sudeep Ghosh](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/knife-salman-rushdie.jpg?w=1000)
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[REVIEW] “Deception and Distrust: Henrietta Harrison’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝐼𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔” by James Thompson
📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on The Perils of Interpreting. Henrietta Harrison, The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire, Princeton University Press,…
![[REVIEW] “Deception and Distrust: Henrietta Harrison’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝐼𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔” by James Thompson](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/the-perils-of-interpreting-the-extraordinary-lives-of-two-translators-between-qing-china-and-the-british-empire.png?w=1023)
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Chris Song’s note: In “A Night Flight”, the passengers endure days of eerie silence and mounting despair, with many succumbing to death and some choosing to leap into the night. The story draws a haunting parallel to the Flight MH370…
![[TRANSLATION] “A Night Flight” by Liu Waitong, translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/liu-waitong_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 Natsume Sōseki. Natsume Sōseki (author), Matt Treyvaud (translator), Ten Nights Dreaming and The Cat’s Grave, Dover Publications, 2015. 96 pgs. It was the twilight of…
![[REVIEW] “Reading Natsume Sōseki as a Historian of Twentieth-Century East Asia” by Emily Matson](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/natsume-soseki.png?w=1024)
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📁RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Eric Reinders, Reading Tolkien in Chinese: Religion, Fantasy and Translation, Bloomsbury, 2024. 200 pgs. The availability of Chinese works of imagination translated into English seems to be growing in…
![[REVIEW] “Wondrous Challenges of Translation: Eric Reinders’s 𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑇𝑜𝑙𝑘𝑖𝑒𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑒” by Raymond K. Nakamura](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/eric-reinders-reading-tolkien-in-chinese.jpg?w=1000)
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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 Violets. Kyung-sook Shin (author), Anton Hur (translator), Violets, The Feminist Press, 2022. 218 pgs. I fell in love with Kyung-sook Shin’s writing after reading the…
![[REVIEW] “Keeping You Captivated: Kyung-sook Shin’s 𝑉𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑠” by Dorina Tataran](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/violets.jpg?w=932)
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It is difficult, at best, to take a leisurely walk in Hong Kong. The streets are congested with cars and trucks and buses, and the sidewalks are jam-packed with people. It is said that Hong Kong is a study in…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “He Wrote On” by Jeff Beyl](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/cha-an-asian-literary-journal.jpg?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 Natsume Sōseki. Natsume Sōseki (author), Matt Treyvaud (translator), Ten Nights Dreaming and The Cat’s Grave, Dover Publications, 2015. 96 pgs. Natsume Sōseki’s Ten Nights Dreaming…
![[REVIEW] “A Dreamlike Book: Natsume Sōseki’s 𝑇𝑒𝑛 𝑁𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 𝐷𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑎𝑡’𝑠 𝐺𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑒” by Marsha McDonald](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ten-nights-dreaming-and-the-cats-grave.jpg?w=647)
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📁RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS 📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Alexandra A. Chan, In the Garden Behind the Moon, Flashpoint, 2024. 432 pgs. On paper, Alexandra A. Chan seems to have it all. A doctor of archaeology, a professor,…
![[REVIEW] “Remembering Through Memoir: Alexandra A. Chan’s 𝐼𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐺𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑛 𝐵𝑒ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑜𝑜𝑛” by Susan Blumberg-Kason](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/in-the-garden-behind-the-moon.jpg?w=1000)
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📁RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS 📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Pat Boonnitipat (director), How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, 2024. 127 min. This review may contain spoilers. Dare I say it, Pat Boonnitipat’s How to Make Millions Before…
![[REVIEW] “Amah, You’re My First Place: Pat Boonnitipat’s 𝐻𝑜𝑤 𝑡𝑜 𝑀𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑀𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝐵𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝐺𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑚𝑎 𝐷𝑖𝑒𝑠” By Rhanydell Bien Baysa](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/before-grandma-dies.png?w=936)
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📁RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS 📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Thuận (author), Nguyễn An Lý (translator), Chinatown, New Directions, 2022. 160 pgs. A train in the Paris Metro is brought to a halt by a potential bomb threat. Her commute disrupted, the unnamed narrator of Chinatown begins…
![[REVIEW] “On the Primal and Final Mystery: Her Mind Unravels in Thuận’s 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑛” by Kammy Lee](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/chinatown.jpg?w=800)
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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 The Woman in the Purple Skirt. Natsuko Imamura (author), Lucy North (translator), The Woman in the Purple Skirt, Penguin Random House, 2021. 224…
![[REVIEW] “Obsessed: On Natsuko Imamura’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑢𝑟𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑆𝑘𝑖𝑟𝑡” by Nirris Nagendrarajah](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/the-woman-in-the-purple-skirt.jpg?w=925)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Jopy Arnaldo (director), Gitling, 2023. 105 min. The world’s noise fades into the background when you’re with the right person. Gitling (or Hyphen in English) (2023) is…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Love In Translation: Decoding Jopy Arnaldo’s 𝐺𝑖𝑡𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔” by Richard Muñiz](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/gitling_film-still-3-1.jpg?w=1000)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Kumar Shahani (director) Maya Darpan, 1972. 107 min. Kumar Shahani (1940-2024), one of the doyens of Indian parallel cinema breathed his last on 24 February this year.…
![[REVIEW] “An Aesthetic Exploration of the Trials and Tribulations of a Woman: Kumar Shahani’s 𝑀𝑎𝑦𝑎 𝐷𝑎𝑟𝑝𝑎𝑛” by M S Murali Krishna](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/maya-darpan-the-illusory-mirror-1972.jpeg?w=1024)
Cha 