Category: Exclusive
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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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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: Jonathan Chan reads She Follows No Progression (Wendy’s Subway, 2024), edited by Juwon Jun and Rachel Valinsky, as a collective meditation on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, attending closely to…
![[ESSAY] “Reading the Gap: Indeterminacy, Translation, and Legacy in 𝑆ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑠 𝑁𝑜 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛” by Jonathan Chan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/she-follows-no-progression-a-theresa-hak-kyung-cha-reader-edited-by-juwon-jun-and-rachel-valinsky.png?w=579)
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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: 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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Editor’s note: Chris Sullivan reflects on an unexploded wartime bomb in Hong Kong, observed from Amsterdam, using the incident to consider urban memory, historical residue, and the quiet persistence of past violence. [ESSAY] “Disarming a Ghost” by Chris Sullivan Hong…
![[ESSAY] “Disarming a Ghost” by Chris Sullivan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/disarming-a-ghost-still-square.jpg?w=1024)
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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: 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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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: 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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[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)
Cha 