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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: Chris Song offers a rigorous meditation on the Fleurs des lettres Issue 118 cover controversy, where a grieving teenager’s image appeared without consent. Reading the intervention of Hong Kong Readers’ Bookstore, the magazine’s board of directors, and the…
![[ESSAY] “A Face, a Cover, a Failure: Fleurs des lettres Issue 118 Cover Controversy” by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-a-fragment-of-history-a-life-bound-in-dependence-with-the-river-as-kin.png?w=596)
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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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Editor’s note: Kathy Nguyen recounts a Vietnamese refugee family’s exploitation by a nameless sponsor, detailing coerced labour, rage, and inherited memory across resettlement landscapes. It condemns capitalism as predatory, sustained by dispossession and silence, while honouring survival resistance. An earlier…
![[ESSAY] “Sweating Labour, Angry Tears” by Kathy Ngoc Nguyen](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/abstract-orange-brushstroke-white-paper.jpg?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: Photographer Daniel Garrett examines debate over a Hong Kong protest photograph used on the cover of After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made, written (2021) by Ben Rhodes, a senior adviser and speechwriter in the…
![[ESSAY] “After the Fall, Before the Image: On Reading a Hong Kong Protest as Book Cover” by Daniel Garrett](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/screenshot-2026-01-21-at-12.44.41.png?w=813)
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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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