Category: Essays
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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,…
![[ESSAY] “Bittersweet Fusion: Taste, Pain, and Fate in Kit Fan’s 𝐺𝑜𝑜𝑑𝑏𝑦𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑛” by Angus Stewart](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/goodbye-chinatown-kit-fan-cha.jpg?w=938)
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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)
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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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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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Editor’s note: Llinos Evans’s essay traces the literary and linguistic significance of the One-Syllable Article through a detailed reading of Yuen Ren Chao’s “Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den”. Moving beyond its reputation as a phonetic curiosity, it argues for…
![[ESSAY] “Beyond the Stone Den: One-Syllable Articles as Literary Form—An Introduction” by Llinos Evans](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/poem.jpg?w=785)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Things Fall Apart: Kong Shangren’s The Peach Blossom Fan” by Jeff Tompkins Kong Shangren (author), Wai-yee Li (translator). The Peach Blossom Fan, Oxford University Press, 2024. 816 pgs. Wai-yee Li…
![[ESSAY] “Things Fall Apart: Kong Shangren’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝐵𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑚 𝐹𝑎𝑛” by Jeff Tompkins](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/the-peach-blossom-fan.png?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “It’s My House, and I Live Here: Weike Wang’s Rental House” by Peixuan Xie Weike Wang, Rental House, Riverhead Books, 2024. 224 pgs. Reading Rental House is, for a Chinese…
![[ESSAY] “It’s My House, and I Live Here: Weike Wang’s 𝑅𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝐻𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒” by Peixuan Xie](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/rental-house.jpg?w=994)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Order in the City: Tammy Lai-Ming Ho’sIf I Do Not Reply” by Luca Griseri Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on If I Do Not Reply. Tammy Lai-Ming Ho, If I Do Not…
![[ESSAY] “Order in the City: Tammy Lai-Ming Ho’s 𝐼𝑓 𝐼 𝐷𝑜 𝑁𝑜𝑡 𝑅𝑒𝑝𝑙𝑦” by Luca Griseri](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] “Rather Demolish Ten Temples Than Destroy One Marriage: Tiantian Zheng’s Violent Intimacy” by Laurence Westwood Tiantian Zheng, Violent Intimacy: Family Harmony, State Stability, and Intimate Partner Violence in Post-Socialist China,…
![[ESSAY] “Rather Demolish Ten Temples Than Destroy One Marriage: Tiantian Zheng’s 𝑉𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝐼𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑐𝑦” by Laurence Westwood](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/violent-intimacy-family-harmony-state-stability-and-intimate-partner-violence-in-post-socialist-china.jpg?w=1000)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Hot Popping Momma!: Reading Jin Yong in Translation, Part II” by Jeff Tompkins Read “Reading Jin Yong in Translation, Part I” HERE.Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on John Minford. Jin Yong,…
![[ESSAY] “Hot Popping Momma!: Reading Jin Yong in Translation, Part II” by Jeff Tompkins](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/20240315172927214401contentphoto4.jpg?w=1000)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “The Places We Would Rather Be: Yan Ge’s Elsewhere” by X. H. Collins Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Yan Ge. Yan Ge, Elsewhere: Stories, Scribner, 2023. 304 pgs. I became interested…
![[ESSAY] “The Places We Would Rather Be: Yan Ge’s 𝐸𝑙𝑠𝑒𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒” by X. H. Collins](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/elsewhere-yan-ge.jpg?w=994)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Kung Fu Is a Store of Infinite Fun: Reading Jin Yong in Translation, Part I” by Jeff Tompkins Read “Reading Jin Yong in Translation, Part II” HERE. Jin Yong, aka…
![[ESSAY] “Kung Fu Is a Store of Infinite Fun: Reading Jin Yong in Translation, Part I” by Jeff Tompkins](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/legends-of-the-condor-heroes--2.png?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “On the Lighter Side: Nektaria Anastasiadou’s A Recipe for Daphne” by Beth Adams Nektaria Anastasiadou, A Recipe for Daphne, Hoopoe Fiction, 2021. 326 pgs. “A monstrous confusion of civilization and…
![[ESSAY] “On the Lighter Side: Nektaria Anastasiadou’s 𝐴 𝑅𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝐷𝑎𝑝ℎ𝑛𝑒” by Beth Adams](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/2021-02-12-dsc_0074-copy.jpg?w=1024)
Cha 