Category: 2026 Entries
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Editor’s note: In this reflective essay, Gutierrez Mangansakan II recounts acting on a film by Lav Diaz to examine how Mindanao shapes Diaz’s cinema. Blending personal observation with critical analysis, he argues that the director’s duration, restraint, and resistance to…
![[ESSAY] “In Search of Mindanao in the films of Lav Diaz” by Gutierrez Mangansakan II](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/lav-diaz.webp?w=1024)
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茶 LEEDS茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [LEEDS | REVIEW] “Building Shenzhen from the Ground Up: Sheng Keyi’s Northern Girls” by Todd Foley Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Northern Girls. Sheng Keyi (author), Shelly Bryant (translator), Northern Girls:…
![[LEEDS | REVIEW] “Building Shenzhen from the Ground Up: Sheng Keyi’s 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝐺𝑖𝑟𝑙𝑠” by Todd Foley](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/https-www.penguin.sgbooknorthern-girls.jpg?w=974)
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Editor’s note: In Gutierrez Mangansakan II’s essay, growing trees in red-clay pots becomes a metaphor for exile, love, and impermanence. Through memories of family, cats, and lost homelands, he reflects on denied inheritance and chosen distance, arguing that care, memory,…
![[ESSAY] “Reflection on Exile, Impermanence, and Red Clay Pots” by Gutierrez Mangansakan II](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/aslan-and-buffy-in-the-dirty-kitchen.jpg?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “On Grief, Diaspora, and Grace Loh Prasad’s The Translator’s Daughter”by Rebekah Chan Click HERE to read all entries in Chaon Translator’s Daughter. Grace Loh Prasad, The Translator’s Daughter, The Ohio State University Press,…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “On Grief, Diaspora, and Grace Loh Prasad’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟’𝑠 𝐷𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑒𝑟” by Rebekah Chan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/the-translators-daughter.jpg?w=880)
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茶 LEEDS茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [LEEDS | REVIEW] “Primal Energy and Female Defiance in Sheng Keyi’s Northern Girls” by Cuilin Sang Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Northern Girls. Sheng Keyi (author), Shelly Bryant (translator), Northern Girls:…
![[LEEDS | REVIEW] “Primal Energy and Female Defiance in Sheng Keyi’s 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝐺𝑖𝑟𝑙𝑠” by Cuilin Sang](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/northern-girls-cha.png?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: Laurehl Onyx B. Cabiles considers the films Big Fish and Little Fish in relation to his father and the Filipino seafood dish kinilaw, using cinema as a lens for…
![[ESSAY] “𝐵𝑖𝑔 𝐹𝑖𝑠ℎ, 𝐿𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝐹𝑖𝑠ℎ, & The Fake Legend of Kinilaw” by Laurehl Onyx B. Cabiles](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/big-fish-little-fish.png?w=940)
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All entries on SUNDANCE 2026 [SUNDANCE 2026] “Visions of a Future Self: Kogonada’s zi” by Nirris Nagendrarajah Kogonada (director), zi, 2025. 199 min. In cinema, whenever I see a shot of the back of a character’s head, I think of…
![[SUNDANCE 2026] “Visions of a Future Self: Kogonada’s 𝑧𝑖” by Nirris Nagendrarajah](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/zi-film-cha-nirris.png?w=702)
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茶 LEEDS茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [LEEDS | REVIEW] “Memory, Fiction, and Subjective Reality in Ge Fei’s A Flock of Brown Birds” by Todd Foley Ge Fei (author), Poppy Toland (translator), Flock of Brown Birds, Penguin…
![[LEEDS | REVIEW] “Memory, Fiction, and Subjective Reality in Ge Fei’s 𝐹𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑘 𝑜𝑓 𝐵𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝐵𝑖𝑟𝑑𝑠” by Todd Foley](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/poppy-toland.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: Zalman S. Davis places Xuân Diệu and Huy Cận within Vietnamese literary history shaped by Confucian ethics, French colonial modernity, and revolutionary discipline. The essay reads Thơ Mới poetry as a space where male intimacy could appear through…
![[ESSAY] “Between Confession and Restraint: Queer Intimacy and the Making of Vietnamese Modernist Lyricism in Xuân Diệu and Huy Cận” by Zalman S. Davis](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/xuan-dieu-1916e280931985-and-huy-can.webp?w=700)
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Please click LEEDS to view selected pieces,updated regularly. We are very pleased to announce that we have formed a collaboration with the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing to republish selected reviews of translated titles from their platform. These reviews…
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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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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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Read Zheng Wang’s essay “A Gaze Across the River: On Translating Zhang Zhihao” HERE. Editor’s note: These translations, rendered by Zheng Wang, bring together a decade-spanning selection of Zhang Zhihao’s poems that dwell on family, rural landscapes, ageing, grief, desire,…
![[TRANSLATION] “Ten Poems” by Zhang Zhihao, translated by Zheng Wang](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/zhange28098s-profile-photo.jpeg?w=591)
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Editor’s note: Zheng Wang’s essay reflects on his encounter with the poet Zhang Zhihao and the process of translating his poetry across languages and generations. It traces their meeting by the Yangtze River into a broader meditation on rootedness, memory,…
![[ESSAY] “A Gaze Across the River: On Translating Zhang Zhihao” by Zheng Wang](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/https-__www.poetryinternational.com_en_poets-poems_poets_poet_102-28920_zhang.jpg?w=336)
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Editor’s note: Photographer Daniel Garrett examines debate over a Hong Kong protest photograph used on the cover of After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made, written (2021) by Ben Rhodes, a senior adviser and speechwriter in the…
![[ESSAY] “After the Fall, Before the Image: On Reading a Hong Kong Protest as Book Cover” by Daniel Garrett](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/screenshot-2026-01-21-at-12.44.41.png?w=813)
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Editor’s note: John E. Barrios examines Norberto Roldan’s Viva España, Long Live America, staged from 25 November to 31 December 2022 in Museo Iloilo and Kri8 Art Space, as a meditation on colonial afterlives. He traces how Catholic relics, American…
![[ESSAY] “Postcolonial Ambivalence in Norberto Roldan’s 𝑉𝑖𝑣𝑎 𝐸𝑠𝑝𝑎𝑛̃𝑎, 𝐿𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝐿𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎” by John E. Barrios](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/norberto-roldan.jpg?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [REVIEW] “The GPA of Youth: On Boredom, Brilliance and the Cost of Conformity in Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone” by Abhinav Tulachan Chetan Bhagat, Five Point Someone, Rupa Publications India, 2004.…
![[REVIEW] “The GPA of Youth: On Boredom, Brilliance and the Cost of Conformity in Chetan Bhagat’s 𝐹𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡 𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑜𝑛𝑒” by Abhinav Tulachan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/five-point-someone-chetan-bhagat.png?w=1024)
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[ESSAY] “Fieldnotes: Bund and Flood” by Aizuddin Anuar Translator’s note: This is a translation of my own work, originally written in Malay and titled “Nota lapangan: ban dan banjir” (2025), which was published in MediaSelangor in Malaysia. Through a series…
![[ESSAY] “Fieldnotes: Bund and Flood” by Aizuddin Anuar](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/jelai-river_bund-aizuddin-anuar.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: In his latest essay for Cha, Daniel Gauss examines Dafen, a former rural settlement located in Shenzhen’s Longgang District in southern China, within the Pearl River Delta near the Hong Kong border. The essay examines Dafen’s transformation from…
![[ESSAY] “Dafen Transformed: From Painting Factory to Pre-Fab Cool Zone” by Daniel Gauss](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/img_20260117_151141.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: Laurehl Onyx B. Cabiles’s essay traces a Filipino upbringing in conflict-marked Cotabato and its unlikely resonance with Derry Girls. Through memories of militarisation, prejudice, and youthful fear, it shows how humour bridges distant histories, revealing comedy as a…
![[ESSAY] “Why Does a Guy from Cotabato Province Relate to 𝐷𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑦 𝐺𝑖𝑟𝑙𝑠?” by Laurehl Onyx B. Cabiles](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/derry-girls.jpg?w=1000)
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Editor’s note: Anna Nguyen’s essay critiques the literary marketplace’s fixation on identity, arguing that it rewards legible, consumable narratives while punishing rigorous resistance. Drawing on Glissant, Jordan, and Davis, she challenges flattened intersectionality, positionality statements, and the colonial gaze masquerading…
![[ESSAY] “I Write An Attempt Away From Identity Reductionism” by Anna Nguyen](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/anna-nguyen.jpg?w=933)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [REVIEW] “Off-Kilter Worlds and Authoritarian Futures in Ysabelle Cheung’s Patchwork Dolls” by Jennifer Eagleton Ysabelle Cheung, Patchwork Dolls, Blair, 2026. 200 pgs. Ysabelle Cheung’s stories are clearly connected to contemporary society,…
![[REVIEW] “Off-Kilter Worlds and Authoritarian Futures in Ysabelle Cheung’s 𝑃𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘 𝐷𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑠” by Jennifer Eagleton](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/patchwork-dolls.webp?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Filmic Silence and the Speaking Body in the Novel” by Thammika Songkaeo Click HERE to read all entrieson Stamford Hospital. Eva Trobisch (director), All Good, 2018. 93 min. In 2020,…
![[ESSAY] “Filmic Silence and the Speaking Body in the Novel” by Thammika Songkaeo](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/stamford-hospital-all-is-good.png?w=846)
Cha 