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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Saad Omar Khan, Drinking the Ocean, Buckrider Books, 2025. 250 pgs. “We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “A Love that Doesn’t Bind: Saad Omar Khan’s 𝐷𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑂𝑐𝑒𝑎𝑛” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/saad-omar-khan-drinking-the-ocean.jpg?w=971)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Winifred Dongyi Wang, Dissection of the Moon, Accent Edition, 2025. 232 pgs. Dissection of the Moon is a hybrid work—a knotted thing. It unspools the lines drawn across gender,…
![[REVIEW] “Knotted Threads: Memory, Language, and Violence in Winifred Dongyi Wang’s 𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑜𝑜𝑛” by Heather Y. Kim](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/https-accentaccent.comforthcoming-dissection-of-the-moon.png?w=1024)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Daryl Qilin Yam, Lovelier, Lonelier, Epigram Books, 2021. 496 pgs. In late March 1996, an intruder—tracked by millions around the globe—raced across the sky. This interloper, discovered by an…
![[REVIEW] “Daryl Qilin Yam’s 𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑟, 𝐿𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑟: A Red Pill of Metafiction” by Jason Low](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/daryl-qilin-yam-lovelier-lonelier-1-copy.jpg?w=692)
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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 Vigil. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Vigil: The Struggle for Hong Kong, Brixton Ink, 2025. 176 pgs. Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink was…
![[REVIEW] “Hong Kong Remembered and Rewritten: Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s 𝑉𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑙” by Wayne Wong](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/vigil.jpg?w=977)
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📁RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Ming-sho Ho, Challenging Beijing’s Mandate of Heaven: Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, Temple University Press, 2018. 270 pgs. Ming-sho Ho’s Challenging Beijing’s Mandate of Heaven compares…
![[REVIEW] “Radicals, Realists, and Revolutions—A Tale of Two Movements: Ming-sho Ho’s 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐵𝑒𝑖𝑗𝑖𝑛𝑔’𝑠 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑛” by Jennifer Eagleton](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/this-is-just-the-begining.jpg?w=720)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Ee Ling Quah, Fire Dragon Feminism: Asian Migrant Women’s Tales of Migration, Coloniality and Racial Capitalism, Bloomsbury, 2025. 216 pgs. “An exchange of glances, light nods and eye contacts…
![[REVIEW] “Decorative Roles and Dehumanising Gazes: Reflections on Ee Ling Quah’s 𝐹𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝐷𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑜𝑛 𝐹𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑚” by Loritta Chan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/fire-dragon-feminism-asian-migrant-womens-tales-of-migration-coloniality-and-racial-capitalism.jpg?w=978)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Alvin Pang, All That is Left of the Sea: Selected Poems, Red River Press, 2025. 148 pgs. Emotions and poetry often operate by falling into sync with one another.…
![[REVIEW] “A Bubble of the Sea Holds the Cosmos and Its Caricature: Alvin Pang’s 𝐴𝑙𝑙 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝐿𝑒𝑓𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑒𝑎” by Kabir Deb](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/alvin-pang-all-that-is-left-of-the-sea-selected-poems-1.jpg?w=792)
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Kyung-Ran Jo (author), Chi-Young Kim (translator), Blowfish, Astra House, 2025. 304 pgs. Blowfish is a taut, deceptively quiet novel, structured as a contrapuntal meditation on grief, disconnection, and stillness. The stillness seethes…
![[REVIEW] “To Stay, To See, To Not Flee: Kyung-Ran Jo’s 𝐵𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑓𝑖𝑠ℎ” by Ananya Singh](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/blowfish-a-novel-hardcover-e28093-july-15-2025-by-kyung-ran-jo-author-chi-young-kim-translator-1.jpg?w=979)
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Editor’s note: Lydia Wong’s evocative essay explores salt as both a material and metaphorical force in Hong Kong’s cultural, political, and sensual identity. From ancient salt fields to contemporary political repression, she traces how salt symbolises preservation, resistance, and longing.…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “SALTY WET 鹹濕” by Lydia Wong](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/salted-fish_peng-chau_december-2019_oliver-farry.jpg?w=1024)
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Header artwork by Annysa Ng 茶 First Impressionsclick for information 茶 Essays click for information 茶 En Routeclick for information 茶 XI XI—Can We Sayclick for information 茶 Write to Powerclick for information 茶 Auditory Cortexclick for information
Cha 