Category: Exclusive—Reflection
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Aesthetic Experiences: A Study of Anri Yasuda’s Beauty Matters” by Luca Griseri Anri Yasuda, Beauty Matters: Modern Japanese Literature and the Question of Aesthetics, 1890–1930, Columbia University Press, 2024. 304…
![[ESSAY] “Aesthetic Experiences: A Study of Anri Yasuda’s 𝐵𝑒𝑎𝑢𝑡𝑦 𝑀𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠” by Luca Griseri](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/https-__m.media-amazon.com_images_i_819sezp2oml._sl1500_.jpg.jpg?w=1000)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “From Star to Performer-Worker: Rethinking Anna May Wong Through Labour” by Anna Nguyen Yiman Wang, To Be An Actress: Labor and Performance in Anna May Wong’s Cross-Media World, University of…
![[ESSAY] “From Star to Performer-Worker: Rethinking Anna May Wong Through Labour” by Anna Nguyen](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yiman-wang-to-be-an-actress-labor-and-performance-in-anna-may-wongs-cross-media-world-university-of-california-press.jpg?w=1000)
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[ESSAY] “Maggie Cheung and the Refusal of Cinematic Immortality” by Anna Nguyen I have many confessions. I am exhausted by the discourse surrounding Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000). I am exhausted by fandoms that fixate on aesthetic…
![[ESSAY] “Maggie Cheung and the Refusal of Cinematic Immortality” by Anna Nguyen](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/irma-vep-1996-maggie-cheung.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: Cleo Li-Schwartz’s essay entwines personal pilgrimage and critical meditation, reading Berlin as a palimpsest of Jewish memory, Cold-War fracture, and inherited displacement. Moving through memorials, friendships, and borders, the narrator unsettles any stable present. The essay later turns…
![[ESSAY] “Walking with Leung Ping-kwan: Berlin, Memory, and the Interstice” by Cleo Li-Schwartz](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/leung-ping-kwan-cha.jpg?w=716)
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Editor’s note: In this deeply personal essay, Sajita Nair recounts her first pilgrimage to Sabarimala after decades of exclusion shaped by gendered religious custom. Beginning in childhood bewilderment at ritual prohibition, it moves through family memory, mythic inheritance and disciplined…
![[ESSAY] “The Eighteen Steps Home” by Sajita Nair](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/essay-22the-eighteen-steps-home22-by-sajita-nair.png?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: It is our pleasure to present this piece by Jennifer Eagleton, one of our most valued voices at Cha. A long-term resident of Hong Kong since 1997, Jennifer has built a distinguished career as editor, writer, and scholar,…
![[REFLECTION] “Personal Transformation Docket: 31/12/25” by Jennifer Eagleton](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/hongkonger-t-shirt.jpg?w=1024)
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[ESSAY] “Preserving the Path of Enlightenment at Borobudur and Not Just the Stones” by Daniel Gauss Borobudur is an allegory of self awareness, growth and social engagement, rendered in volcanic stone. It was not built for veneration, but to be…
![[ESSAY] “Preserving the Path of Enlightenment at Borobudur and Not Just the Stones” by Daniel Gauss](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/borobudur_cha.jpg?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Not A Utopian Land: Rereading the Evenki Culture in Chi Zijian’s novel The Last Quarter of the Moon and Gu Tao’s documentary film The Last Moose of Aoluguya” by Yiwen…
![[ESSAY] “Not Your Utopian Land: Rereading the Evenki Culture in Chi Zijian’s novel 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑄𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑜𝑜𝑛 and Gu Tao’s documentary film 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑀𝑜𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝐴𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑔𝑢𝑦𝑎” by Yiwen Liu](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/not-a-utopian-land_yiwen-liu.png?w=1024)
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[ESSAY] “1331 Runway: Hong Kong Youth Utopia or Real-Estate Planning Malfunction?” by Daniel Gauss In July 2025, international media erupted with enthusiasm over a project in Hong Kong called 1331 Runway. Built on land once occupied by the former Kai…
![[ESSAY] “1331 Runway: Hong Kong Youth Utopia or Real-Estate Planning Malfunction?” by Daniel Gauss](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/767206174.jpg?w=576)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [Essay] “1000XRESIST and Immunity in the Chinese Diaspora” by Nick Admussen Sunset Visitor (developer), 1000xResist, Fellow Traveller Games. 2024. 1000xRESIST is a 2024 narrative video game created by the Canadian studio…
![[ESSAY] “1000𝑋𝑅𝐸𝑆𝐼𝑆𝑇 and Immunity in the Chinese Diaspora” by Nick Admussen](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/https-www.fellowtraveller.games1000xresist.jpg?w=1024)
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[ESSAY] “Sixteen Dead, Zero Justice: Cambodia’s Monument to a Silenced Crime” by Daniel Gauss In 2009, Cambodia experienced a rare moment of national pride when Duch, the Khmer Rouge official who oversaw the notorious S-21 prison, was finally brought to…
![[ESSAY] “Sixteen Dead, Zero Justice: Cambodia’s Monument to a Silenced Crime” by Daniel Gauss](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/cambodia_cha.jpg?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: In Chris Song’s essay, James Shea’s Last Day of My Face (University of Iowa Press, 2025) is read in relation to Hong Kong as both a lived city and…
![[ESSAY] “𝐿𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐷𝑎𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑀𝑦 𝐹𝑎𝑐𝑒, Past Light of a City: Reading James Shea and Hong Kong” by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/https-uipress.uiowa_.edubookslast-day-my-face.jpg?w=970)
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[ESSAY] “A Woman Named Summer: Rethinking Xu Hongfei’s Early Sculpture at the Guangzhou Museum of Art” by Daniel Gauss Xu Hongfei’s Summer, photos by Daniel Gauss Among the many works displayed in the Guangzhou Museum of Art, one marble sculpture…
![[ESSAY] “A Woman Named Summer: Rethinking Xu Hongfei’s Early Sculpture at the Guangzhou Museum of Art” by Daniel Gauss](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/img_20251125_110600.jpg?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: In “E.T. 3 is Lying in a Coffin Outside Wuhan”, Angus Stewart explores Xiaosha Zhang’s 2018 mockumentary My Son Went to an Alien Planet (E.T. Made in China), situating…
![[ESSAY] “E.T. 3 is Lying in a Coffin Outside Wuhan” by Angus Stewart](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/https-mubi.comenbefilmse-t-made-in-china.webp?w=1024)
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[ESSAY] “Wong Bar Wine: A Cinematic Oasis in Hanoi” by Zalman S. Davis On a calm Monday evening, I found myself at 14B Hai Bà Trưng in Hanoi, drawn to a cosy corner on Tràng Tiền that radiated a warm, amber…
![[ESSAY] “Wong Bar Wine: A Cinematic Oasis in Hanoi” by Zalman S. Davis](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/img_20241222_010158-e1761994105173.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: We are honoured to present the personal reflection “Curriculum Vitae in Silence” and the poem of the same title by Liu Hongbin, a Chinese British poet of Tiananmen exile. He was shaped by a childhood torn between pastoral…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “Curriculum Vitae in Silence” by Liu Hongbin](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/marble-feature.webp?w=1024)
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Earlier this week, the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2025 was awarded to the Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.” Coverage in outlets such…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “Whose Words Win the Nobel? On Translators and the Question of Literary Recognition” by Kabir Deb](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/copy-of-copy-of-taken-as-strictly-true-neuroscience-and-sinology-in-laszlo-krasznahorkais-f09d90b7f09d9192f09d91a0f09d91a1f09d919ff09d91a2f09d9190f09d91a1f09d9196f09d919cf09d919b-f09d918.png?w=1024)
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◉ Afterword: Living Between Languages◉ Three Poems◉ Anything but Human 大重啟 @ TrendLit Publishing Living between languages by Daryl Lim Wei Jie My poetry was brewed in the multilingual kitchen that is Singapore. The translational and the interlingual—that is, existing…
![[FEATURE] “𝐴𝑛𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝐻𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛: Living between Languages” by Daryl Lim Wei Jie](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/anythingbuthuman-copy.jpg?w=838)
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Editor’s note: Emma Zhang reflects on her shifting identity as a language teacher in an age when machine translation threatens the role of English as a bridge to the world. Seeking cultural understanding, she visits Talibé, an exhibition by Mauritanian…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑏𝑒́: The Forgotten Faces of Globalisation” by Emma Zhang](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/e07c3432-3e50-439d-b428-1c00cf25c682.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: In “Noodle Insurrection or a Gathering of Radicals”, Jennifer Eagleton intertwines Chinese character radicals with politics, crafting a witty poem around Shaanxi’s biangbiang noodles. She blends linguistic play, cultural history, and insurrectionary imagery, demonstrating radicals’ layered meanings. A…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “Noodle Insurrection or a Gathering of Radicals” by Jennifer Eagleton](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/biang-biang.png?w=1024)
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There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
![Protected: [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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There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
![Protected: [ESSAY] “A History of Peel Street Poetry” by Akin Jeje](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/images.png?w=225)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Tragedies of Inequality: Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite and Jordan Peele’s Us” by Jonathan Chan Bong Joon-Ho (director), Parasite, 2019. 132 min.Jordan Peele (director), Us, 2019, 116 min. The sociologist Teo You Yenn…
![[ESSAY] “Tragedies of Inequality: Bong Joon-ho’s 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑒 and Jordan Peele’s 𝑈𝑠” by Jonathan Chan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/us.png?w=749)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Die With Your Pants Down: Patrick Tam’s Nomad” by Matt Turner Patrick Tam (director), Nomad (烈火青春), 1982. 157 min. This review contains spoilers. I really didn’t see the final scene coming.…
![[ESSAY] “Die With Your Pants Down: Patrick Tam’s 𝑁𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑑” by Matt Turner](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/nomad_japanese-poster.webp?w=1024)
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