Category: Mario Rustan
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Derek Currie, When ‘Jesus’ Came to Hong Kong: The Remarkable Story of the First European Football Star in Asia, Blacksmith Books, 2023. 404 pgs. This is my second…
![[REVIEW] “Jesus’ Pub Tales: Derek Currie’s 𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 ‘𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠’ 𝐶𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝐻𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝐾𝑜𝑛𝑔” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/when-jesus-came-to-hong-kong.jpg?w=962)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Rob Noble, Octopus: The Pioneering Story of the World’s First Contactless Payment Card, Blacksmith Books, 2023, 396 pgs. As a resident of a city bereft of a…
![[REVIEW] “The Almost Everything Card—Rob Noble’s 𝑂𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑠: 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑’𝑠 𝐹𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑃𝑎𝑦𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝐶𝑎𝑟𝑑” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/octopus-the-pioneering-story-of-the-worlds-first-contactless-payment-card-1.jpg?w=896)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Absolutely on Music. Haruki Murakami (author), Jay Rubin (translator), Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa, Alfred A. Knopf, 2016. 352 pgs. In…
![[REVIEW] “Two Japanese Men and a Record Player—Haruki Murakami’s 𝐴𝑏𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑜𝑛 𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑐: 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑆𝑒𝑖𝑗𝑖 𝑂𝑧𝑎𝑤𝑎” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/absolutely-on-music-conversations-with-seiji-ozawa-alfred-a.-knopf-2016.jpg?w=751)
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📁RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Benjamin Hegarty, The Made-Up State: Technology, Trans Femininity, and Citizenship in Indonesia, Cornell University Press, 2022. 198 pgs. I grew up seeing transwomen day and night. During the day,…
![[REVIEW] “Dress Up for Indonesia: Benjamin Hegarty’s The Made-Up State” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/finalreadingsbooklaunch20april2023_poster.jpg?w=816)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Kelly H. Chong, Love Across Borders: Asian Americans, Race, and the Politics of Intermarriage and Family-Making, Routledge, 2021, 246 pgs. As a single Asian man, I was once oversensitive…
![[REVIEW] “It’s Only Love: Kelly H. Chong’s 𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝐴𝑐𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑠 𝐵𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/love-across-borders-asian-americans-race-and-the-politics-of-intermarriage-and-family-making.jpg?w=1000)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Nicole Tarulevicz, Eating Her Curries and Kway: A Cultural History of Food in Singapore, University of Illinois Press, 2014. 224 pgs. Anyone who has been to Singapore or Malaysia,…
![[REVIEW] “The 𝑀𝑎𝑘𝑎𝑛 Republic—Nicole Tarulevicz’s 𝐸𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐻𝑒𝑟 𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐾𝑤𝑎𝑦: 𝐴 𝐶𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝐻𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝐹𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑆𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑎𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑒” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/eating-her-curries-and-kway-a-cultural-history-of-food-in-singapore-university-of-illinois-press-1.jpg?w=500)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Thomas Barker, Indonesian Cinema After the New Order: Going Mainstream, Hong Kong University Press, 2019, 244 pgs. After reviewing several books on East Asian films and pop culture, it…
![[REVIEW] “Master in Its Own House: On Thomas Barker’s 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝐶𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑚𝑎 𝐴𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝑂𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/thomas-barker-indonesian-cinema-after-the-new-order-going-mainstream-1.jpg?w=1001)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Yiu-Wai Chu, Hong Kong Pop Culture in the 1980s: A Decade of Splendour, Asian Visual Cultures series, Amsterdam University Press, 2023. 305 pgs. While my previous two…
![[REVIEW] “Esprit of the City: Yiu-Wai Chu’s 𝐻𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝐾𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑃𝑜𝑝 𝐶𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 1980𝑠” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/hong-kong-pop-culture-in-the-1980s.jpg?w=930)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILM Leung Wing-Fai and Andy Willis (editors), East Asian Film Stars, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 236 pages. You’re a Cantonese researcher rummaging through the library and cannot believe your eyes. There’s…
![[REVIEW] “Stardom Before Netflix: A Review of 𝐸𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐴𝑠𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝐹𝑖𝑙𝑚 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑠” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/east-asian-film-stars.jpg?w=946)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILM Ken Provencher and Mike Dillon (editors), Exploiting East Asian Cinemas: Genre, Circulation, Reception, Bloomsbury, 2018. 234 pgs. In the early 2000s, unless you lived in a city in the…
![[REVIEW] “Extreme Asia—A Review of 𝐸𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐸𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐴𝑠𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝐶𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑚𝑎𝑠: 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑟𝑒, 𝐶𝑖𝑟𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑅𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/exploiting-east-asian-cinemas-genre-circulation.jpg?w=568)
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{Written by Mario Rustan, this review is part of Issue 43 (April 2019) of Cha.} {Return to Cha Review of Books and Films.} Patrick H. Hase, Forgotten Heroes: San On County and its Magistrates in the Late Ming and Early Qing,…
![[Review] “Hong Kong Noir 1688: Patrick H. Hase’s Forgotten Heroes: San On County and its Magistrates in the Late Ming and Early Qing” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/forgotten-heroes_cha.jpg?w=1024)
Cha 