Category: ExclusiveโNon-fiction
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่ถ FIRST IMPRESSIONS ่ถ REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “ReadingโMaking Notes on (There is Always Music)โGeoffrey 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] “ReadingโMaking Notes on (There is Always Music)โGeoffrey William Brodaksilva’s ๐โ๐ ๐โ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐โ๐ฆ ๐๐ ๐ด๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐ฃ๐๐๐๐ ๐ ” 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 dรฉrive across Beijing, tracing Soviet-era housing while reflecting on memoryโs fragility and the cityโs rapid transformation. Prompted by Hari Kunzru, he contrasts Situationist theory with lived wandering, critiquing both superficial psychogeography and…
![[ESSAY] “Remembering a Beijing Dรฉrive” by Matt Turner](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/untitled-design-31.png?w=329)
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่ถ FIRST IMPRESSIONS ่ถ REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] โThe Three Teachings in Action: Wayne Wongโs Martial Arts Ecologyโ by Mario Rustan Wayne Wong. Martial Arts Ecology: Aesthetics, Philosophy and Cinematic Mediation, Edinburgh University Press, 2026. 304 pgs. After…
![[ESSAY] โThe Three Teachings in Action: Wayne Wongโs ๐๐๐๐ก๐๐๐ ๐ด๐๐ก๐ ๐ธ๐๐๐๐๐๐ฆโ 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 Bangkokโs Democracy Monument as a symbol of Thailandโs 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 Democracyโ 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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่ถ FIRST IMPRESSIONS ่ถ 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 ๐ถโ๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐น๐๐ ๐ก๐๐ฃ๐๐๐ ” by Simon Patton](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/41leivsiyil.jpg?w=500)
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่ถ FIRST IMPRESSIONS ่ถ 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 ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐ฆ๐ ๐ถโ๐๐๐๐ก๐๐ค๐” by Angus Stewart](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/goodbye-chinatown-kit-fan-cha.jpg?w=938)
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่ถ FIRST IMPRESSIONS ่ถ 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 ๐ท๐ ๐๐๐ข ๐ฟ๐๐๐ ๐ต๐๐โ๐๐ ?” by Beth Adams](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/do-you-like-brahms_.jpg?w=426)
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[ESSAY] โDoes MOCA Bangkok Have a Soft Porn Problem?โ 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 Asiaโs…
![[ESSAY] “Does MOCA Bangkok Have a Soft Porn Problem?โ 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] โShaped by Hong Kong, Sharpened by Wudang: Gigi Changโs Translation Practiceโ 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] โShaped by Hong Kong, Sharpened by Wudang: Gigi Changโs Translation Practiceโ by Debra Liu](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/gigi-chang.jpg?w=1024)
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่ถ FIRST IMPRESSIONS ่ถ REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: Aastha Upretyโs essay reads Jia Zhangke’s Still Life and Razan AlSalah’s A Stoneโs Throw as twin elegies of engineered upheaval, where dams and pipelines reorder earth and memory. Through…
![[ESSAY] โEnergies of Displacement: Transformation in Jia Zhangkeโs ๐๐ก๐๐๐ ๐ฟ๐๐๐ and Razan AlSalahโs ๐ด ๐๐ก๐๐๐โ๐ ๐โ๐๐๐คโby 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, โNo one speaks Vietnamese,โ and worries it into grief, form, and theory. Between a fatherโs aphasic silence and a motherโs nightly monologues, Vietnamese persists. English, institutional and…
![[ESSAY] โA Dead Languageโ by Anna Nguyen](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/anna-nguyen.jpg?w=933)
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Editor’s note: Pรกl Dรกniel 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] โButterflies, Stones, and Bladesโ by Pรกl Dรกniel Levente](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/shot-by-cerqueira-hemgxmfpsaw-unsplash.jpg?w=1024)
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่ถ FIRST IMPRESSIONS ่ถ REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: Jonathan Chan reads She Follows No Progression (Wendyโs Subway, 2024), edited by Juwon Jun and Rachel Valinsky, as a collective meditation on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, attending closely to…
![[ESSAY] โReading the Gap: Indeterminacy, Translation, and Legacy in ๐โ๐ ๐น๐๐๐๐๐ค๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐โ 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 Diazโs cinema. Blending personal observation with critical analysis, he argues that the directorโs duration, restraint, and resistance to…
![[ESSAY] โIn Search of Mindanao in the films of Lav Diazโ 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 IIโs 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] โReflection on Exile, Impermanence, and Red Clay Potsโ 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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่ถ FIRST IMPRESSIONS ่ถ 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] โ๐ต๐๐ ๐น๐๐ โ, ๐ฟ๐๐ก๐ก๐๐ ๐น๐๐ โ, & The Fake Legend of Kinilawโ 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: Chaโs 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] โNO U-TURNโ6๐ด๐๐ผ๐๐บ: Themes and Contextsโ 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: 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] โDisarming a Ghostโ by Chris Sullivan Hong…
![[ESSAY] โDisarming a Ghostโ by Chris Sullivan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/disarming-a-ghost-still-square.jpg?w=1024)
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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] โOn Neon Manila: A Balancing Act…
![[ESSAY] โOn ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐: A Balancing Act Between Sparkle and Substanceโ by Troy Cabida](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/img_6830.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: Julia Merican reads Lu Leiโs 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] โA Seat at the Table: Lu Lei and the Politics of Intimacyโ 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: Zheng Wangโs 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 ย](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 Roldanโs Viva Espaรฑa, 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] โPostcolonial Ambivalence in Norberto Roldanโs ๐๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ธ๐ ๐๐๐ฬ๐, ๐ฟ๐๐๐ ๐ฟ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ด๐๐๐๐๐๐โ 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 โNota lapangan: ban dan banjirโ (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 Shenzhenโs Longgang District in southern China, within the Pearl River Delta near the Hong Kong border. The essay examines Dafenโs 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] โWhy Does a Guy from Cotabato Province Relate to ๐ท๐๐๐๐ฆ ๐บ๐๐๐๐ ?โ 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 Nguyenโs essay critiques the literary marketplaceโs 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…
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่ถ FIRST IMPRESSIONS ่ถ 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)
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่ถ FIRST IMPRESSIONS ่ถ REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: In Hongwei Bao’s new essay, Pillion (2025), directed by Harry Lighton and adapted from Adam Mars-Jonesโs 2020 novella Box Hill, becomes a lens for exploring queer biker cinema, kink…
![[ESSAY] “Geared Up for Pillion” by Hongwei Bao](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/pillion-film-poster.jpg?w=1024)
Cha 