Category: Essays
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Sleep, Baby, Oh Don’t You Sleep: Thailand’s Northeast in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cemetery of Splendour and Thunska Pansittivorakul’s Isan Odyssey” by Peixuan Xie ❀ Apichatpong Weerasethakul (director), Cemetery of Splendour, 2015.…
![[ESSAY] “Sleep, Baby, Oh Don’t You Sleep: Thailand’s Northeast in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s 𝐶𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑆𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑢𝑟 and Thunska Pansittivorakul’s 𝐼𝑠𝑎𝑛 𝑂𝑑𝑦𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑦” by Peixuan Xie](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/apichatpong-weerasethakuls-cemetery-of-splendour-and-thunska-pansittivorakuls-isan-odyssey.png?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “We Are What We Read: Reading Zheng Liu’s Cultural Mavericks” by X. H. Collins Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Cultural Mavericks. Zheng Liu, Cultural Mavericks: The Business and Politics of…
![[ESSAY] “We Are What We Read: Reading Zheng Liu’s 𝐶𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑀𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑠” by X. H. Collins](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/cultural-mavericks-the-business-and-politics-of-independent-bookselling-in-china.jpg?w=971)
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[ESSAY] “Lost and Found in Languages” by Qinxian Bonnie Ran Photo by Peicen Yan The Failure of Poetry Ma, I read a poem today: —the walls have been mortared with grief, dark enoughTo make blindness as a gift—we don’t have…
![[ESSAY] “Lost and Found in Languages” by Qinxian Bonnie Ran](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/yan7.jpg?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Poetry as Archive: Creativity, Political Commitment, and the Everyday in Tammy Lai-Ming Ho’s If I Do Not Reply” by Hannah Steurer Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on If I Do Not Reply.…
![[ESSAY] “Poetry as Archive: Creativity, Political Commitment, and the Everyday in Tammy Lai-Ming Ho’s 𝐼𝑓 𝐼 𝐷𝑜 𝑁𝑜𝑡 𝑅𝑒𝑝𝑙𝑦” by Hannah Steurer](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/if-i-do-not-reply_tammy-ho.jpg?w=907)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Ghostly Formations and Queer Futures: On Queer Southeast Asia” by Charlotte Marie Chadwick Shawna Tang and Hendri Yulius Wijaya (editors). Queer Southeast Asia, Routledge. 2022. 296 pgs. Queer Southeast Asia,…
![[ESSAY] “Ghostly Formations and Queer Futures: On 𝑄𝑢𝑒𝑒𝑟 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐴𝑠𝑖𝑎” by Charlotte Marie Chadwick](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/queer-southeast-asia-edited-by-shawna-tang-hendri-yulius-wijaya-copyright-2023.jpg?w=1000)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: Jason S Polley opens his review essay by recounting his fond and fervent championing of Kit Fan’s first novel, Diamond Hill (2021), whose Cantonese-inflected language enabled rare intergenerational and…
![[ESSAY] “𝑍𝑜𝑖 𝐺𝑖𝑛 Canton: Reading Kit Fan’s 𝐺𝑜𝑜𝑑𝑏𝑦𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑛” by Jason S Polley](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/goodbye-chinatown-kit-fan-cha.jpg?w=938)
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[ESSAY] “In Another Life, I Might Not Be A Better Self” by Lei Wang Miss Universe by John Doe If not for COVID, I would have moved back to China after my MFA, rather than remaining in Iowa. Instead of…
![[ESSAY] “In Another Life, I Might Not Be A Better Self” by Lei Wang](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/lei-wang-for-cha-an-asian-literary-journal.jpeg?w=275)
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[ESSAY] “Hong Kong: Once in a Million Years” by Simon Patton Owen Chow 鄒家成 and his tatoo Between 2019 and 2021, Hong Kong was repeatedly in the international spotlight. A decisive clash between civilisations was the main reason for such…
![[ESSAY] “Hong Kong: Once in a Million Years” by Simon Patton](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/718kdzhcgql._ac_uf10001000_ql80_.jpg?w=895)
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[ESSAY] “Shelves, Stories, and Silence: Reading Zheng Liu’s 𝐶𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑀𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑠” by Laurence Westwood
茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Shelves, Stories, and Silence: Reading Zheng Liu’s Cultural Mavericks” by Laurence Westwood Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Cultural Mavericks. Zheng Liu, Cultural Mavericks: The Business and Politics of Independent Bookselling in…
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Editor’s note: Elaine Tsai’s essay traces Taiwan’s layered history before turning to Ghost Month, whose rituals of burning joss paper and offering food shape her childhood summers. These practices lead into reflections on ancestor worship, her father’s death, and beliefs…
![[ESSAY] “Ghost Month and the Afterlife” by Elaine Tsai](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/the-religious-painting-unprovoked-dead-ghosts.png?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: Julien Pieron’s essay examines Sophie Houdart’s Ce territoire qui, comme une pulsation… (Éditions des mondes à faire, 2026), an ethnographic study of post-Fukushima life in Tōwa that portrays a world where catastrophe persists as an unclosed present. Through…
![[ESSAY] “Life in the Persistence of Fukushima: Sophie Houdart’s 𝐶𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑖, 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒 𝑢𝑛𝑒 𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑠𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛…” by Julien Pieron](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/maf_houdart_scan_01-resp2880.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s Note: “Digital Distances: Social Media, Intergenerational Conflict, and Female Visibility in Contemporary China” is the third in a series of three essays, together entitled “Glimpsing the Other Shore: Distance, Difference, and the Feminist Gaze in Contemporary Chinese Women’s Writing”,…
![[ESSAY] “Digital Distances: Social Media, Intergenerational Conflict, & Female Visibility in Contemporary China” by Caterina Petroselli](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/distances3.jpg?w=593)
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Editor’s Note: “The Body as a Site: Class, Migration, & Geographic Distance in Contemporary Chinese Women’s Fiction” is the second in a series of three essays, together entitled “Glimpsing the Other Shore: Distance, Difference, and the Feminist Gaze in Contemporary…
![[ESSAY] “The Body as a Site: Class, Migration, & Geographic Distance in Contemporary Chinese Women’s Fiction” by Caterina Petroselli](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/distances2-1.jpg?w=596)
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Editor’s Note: “Distance & Difference: Feminist Frameworks in Zhang Li’s An Anthology of Short Stories by Chinese Women” is the first in a series of three essays, together entitled “Glimpsing the Other Shore: Distance, Difference, and the Feminist Gaze in…
![[ESSAY] “Distance & Difference: Feminist Frameworks in Zhang Li’s 𝐴𝑛 𝐴𝑛𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑆ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑏𝑦 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑊𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛” by Caterina Petroselli](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/distances1.jpg?w=597)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Reading—Making Notes on (There is Always Music)—Geoffrey William Brodaksilva’s The Philosophy of Aggressiveness” by Jeremy Fernando Geoffrey William. Brodaksilva. The Philosophy of Aggressiveness: The Necessity and Indeterminacy of Escape, Atropos…
![[ESSAY] “Reading—Making Notes on (There is Always Music)—Geoffrey William Brodaksilva’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑃ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝐴𝑔𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠” by Jeremy Fernando](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/the-philosophy-of-aggressiveness-geoffrey-w-brodaksilva-author.jpg?w=855)
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Editor’s note: Matt Turner recalls a heat-soaked 2008 dérive across Beijing, tracing Soviet-era housing while reflecting on memory’s fragility and the city’s rapid transformation. Prompted by Hari Kunzru, he contrasts Situationist theory with lived wandering, critiquing both superficial psychogeography and…
![[ESSAY] “Remembering a Beijing Dérive” by Matt Turner](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/untitled-design-31.png?w=329)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “The Three Teachings in Action: Wayne Wong’s Martial Arts Ecology” by Mario Rustan Wayne Wong. Martial Arts Ecology: Aesthetics, Philosophy and Cinematic Mediation, Edinburgh University Press, 2026. 304 pgs. After…
![[ESSAY] “The Three Teachings in Action: Wayne Wong’s 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝐴𝑟𝑡𝑠 𝐸𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/wayne-wong.-martial-arts-ecology-aesthetics-philosophy-and-cinematic-mediation-edinburgh-university-press.jpg?w=750)
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Editor’s note: In this essay, Daniel Gauss reflects on Bangkok’s Democracy Monument as a symbol of Thailand’s unfulfilled democratic promise. Erected in 1939 to commemorate the 1932 coup that ended absolute monarchy, it honours a revolution carried out by elites…
![[ESSAY] “A Democracy Monument in Bangkok, Still Waiting for Democracy” by Daniel Gauss](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/the-monument-to-democracy-in-thailand-1.jpg?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [REVIEW] “Gods, Ghosts, and the Lunar Year: Reading Joan Law and Barbara E. Ward’s Chinese Festivals” by Simon Patton Joan Mee Nar Law and Barbara E. Ward. Chinese Festivals: Hong Kong,…
![[REVIEW] “Gods, Ghosts, and the Lunar Year: Reading Joan Mee Nar Law and Barbara E. Ward’s 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝐹𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑠” by Simon Patton](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/41leivsiyil.jpg?w=500)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Bittersweet Fusion: Taste, Pain, and Fate in Kit Fan’s Goodbye Chinatown” by Angus Stewart Click HERE to read all entries in Chaon Goodbye Chinatown. Kit Fan, Goodbye Chinatown, World Editions,…
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: Beth Adams approaches Do You Like Brahms?, a Korean TV drama set within a prestigious Seoul music school, through her enduring interest in Asian television that explores artistic vocation,…
![[ESSAY] “Music, Ambition, and Quiet Longing in 𝐷𝑜 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝐿𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝐵𝑟𝑎ℎ𝑚𝑠?” by Beth Adams](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/do-you-like-brahms_.jpg?w=426)
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[ESSAY] “Does MOCA Bangkok Have a Soft Porn Problem?” by Daniel Gauss It is time for museums, especially those dedicated to contemporary art, finally to understand the objectification of women. It is also time to ask why one of Asia’s…
![[ESSAY] “Does MOCA Bangkok Have a Soft Porn Problem?” by Daniel Gauss](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/museum_of_contemporary_art_moca_bangkok_thailand_-_20161201-05.jpg?w=1024)
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[ESSAY] “FOUR TWENTY PM: A.T. Apichart at the National Gallery of Thailand” by Daniel Gauss There is a famous painting by Caravaggio of St Jerome translating the Bible. He is old, gaunt, and frail, and he works with a skull…
![[ESSAY] “FOUR TWENTY PM: A.T. Apichart at the National Gallery of Thailand” by Daniel Gauss](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/https-__www.facebook.com_photo__fbid2572090546292510seta.633624243472493.jpg?w=1024)
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[ESSAY] “Shaped by Hong Kong, Sharpened by Wudang: Gigi Chang’s Translation Practice” by Debra Liu For those of us influenced by the legendary Jin Yong (Louis Cha) Legends of the Condor Heroes series, yet unable to read lengthy works in…
![[ESSAY] “Shaped by Hong Kong, Sharpened by Wudang: Gigi Chang’s Translation Practice” by Debra Liu](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/gigi-chang.jpg?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: Aastha Uprety’s essay reads Jia Zhangke’s Still Life and Razan AlSalah’s A Stone’s Throw as twin elegies of engineered upheaval, where dams and pipelines reorder earth and memory. Through…
![[ESSAY] “Energies of Displacement: Transformation in Jia Zhangke’s 𝑆𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝐿𝑖𝑓𝑒 and Razan AlSalah’s 𝐴 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑒’𝑠 𝑇ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑤”by Aastha Uprety](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/energies-of-displacement-transformation-in-jia-zhangkes-still-life-and-razan-alsalahs-a-stones-throw-by-aastha-uprety.png?w=935)
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Editor’s note: Anna Nguyen’s essay “A Dead Language” turns on an offhand slight, “No one speaks Vietnamese,” and worries it into grief, form, and theory. Between a father’s aphasic silence and a mother’s nightly monologues, Vietnamese persists. English, institutional and…
![[ESSAY] “A Dead Language” by Anna Nguyen](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/anna-nguyen.jpg?w=933)
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Editor’s note: Pál Dániel Levente, a guest of honour at the 2026 Brahmaputra Literature Festival, proposes a poetics of butterflies, stones, and blades. The five poems move within that range. India, New Delhi, Agra, and the Ganges become sites of…
![[ESSAY] “Butterflies, Stones, and Blades” by Pál Dániel Levente](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/shot-by-cerqueira-hemgxmfpsaw-unsplash.jpg?w=1024)
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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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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 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)
Cha 