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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Bearing Witness in Gigi L. Leung’s Everyday Movement” by Rebekah Chan Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Everyday Movement. Gigi L. Leung (author), Jennifer Feeley (translator), Everyday Movement, Riverhead Books. 2026.…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Bearing Witness in Gigi L. Leung’s 𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑀𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡” by Rebekah Chan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/everyday-movement-by-gigi-l.-leung-translated-by-jennifer-feeley-.jpg?w=993)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Sleep, Baby, Oh Don’t You Sleep: Thailand’s Northeast in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cemetery of Splendour and Thunska Pansittivorakul’s Isan Odyssey” by Peixuan Xie ❀ Apichatpong Weerasethakul (director), Cemetery of Splendour, 2015.…
![[ESSAY] “Sleep, Baby, Oh Don’t You Sleep: Thailand’s Northeast in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s 𝐶𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑆𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑢𝑟 and Thunska Pansittivorakul’s 𝐼𝑠𝑎𝑛 𝑂𝑑𝑦𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑦” by Peixuan Xie](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/apichatpong-weerasethakuls-cemetery-of-splendour-and-thunska-pansittivorakuls-isan-odyssey.png?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: Leslie Shimotakahara reflects on how a childhood encounter with an institutionalised great-uncle, silenced by internment-era injustice, became her latest novel The Breakwater. She recounts research, family reticence, editorial reshaping, and the imaginative recovery of erased places, presenting writing…
![[ESSAY] “From Scrapbooking to Novel Writing: Giving Voice to an Unsettling Family Secret in 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟” by Leslie Shimotakahara](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/leslieshimotakahara_photo.jpg?w=1024)
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Read Leslie Shimotakahara’s essay on the writing of The Breakwater HERE. [EXCERPT] “From The Breakwater” by Leslie Shimotakahara Leslie Shimotakahara, The Breakwater, Cormorant Books, 2026. 350 pgs. I wasn’t a week past my seventeenth birthday. Freshly kicked out of the…
![[EXCERPT] “From 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟” by Leslie Shimotakahara](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/the-breakwater.jpg?w=900)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “We Are What We Read: Reading Zheng Liu’s Cultural Mavericks” by X. H. Collins Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Cultural Mavericks. Zheng Liu, Cultural Mavericks: The Business and Politics of…
![[ESSAY] “We Are What We Read: Reading Zheng Liu’s 𝐶𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑀𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑠” by X. H. Collins](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/cultural-mavericks-the-business-and-politics-of-independent-bookselling-in-china.jpg?w=971)
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[ESSAY] “Lost and Found in Languages” by Qinxian Bonnie Ran Photo by Peicen Yan The Failure of Poetry Ma, I read a poem today: —the walls have been mortared with grief, dark enoughTo make blindness as a gift—we don’t have…
![[ESSAY] “Lost and Found in Languages” by Qinxian Bonnie Ran](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/yan7.jpg?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Poetry as Archive: Creativity, Political Commitment, and the Everyday in Tammy Lai-Ming Ho’s If I Do Not Reply” by Hannah Steurer Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on If I Do Not Reply.…
![[ESSAY] “Poetry as Archive: Creativity, Political Commitment, and the Everyday in Tammy Lai-Ming Ho’s 𝐼𝑓 𝐼 𝐷𝑜 𝑁𝑜𝑡 𝑅𝑒𝑝𝑙𝑦” by Hannah Steurer](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/if-i-do-not-reply_tammy-ho.jpg?w=907)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [ESSAY] “Ghostly Formations and Queer Futures: On Queer Southeast Asia” by Charlotte Marie Chadwick Shawna Tang and Hendri Yulius Wijaya (editors). Queer Southeast Asia, Routledge. 2022. 296 pgs. Queer Southeast Asia,…
![[ESSAY] “Ghostly Formations and Queer Futures: On 𝑄𝑢𝑒𝑒𝑟 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐴𝑠𝑖𝑎” by Charlotte Marie Chadwick](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/queer-southeast-asia-edited-by-shawna-tang-hendri-yulius-wijaya-copyright-2023.jpg?w=1000)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [REVIEW] “Between Golf and Karaoke: Locating Filipino Identity in Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana” By Ciro Quiapos Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Filipiñana. Rafael Manuel (director), Filipiñana, 2020. 24 min. Before Rafael Manuel’s directorial…
![[REVIEW] “Between Golf and Karaoke: Locating Filipino Identity in Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana” By Ciro Quiapos](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/filipinana-trailer-diretto-da-rafael-manuel-filippine-regno-unito-2020.png?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: Jason S Polley opens his review essay by recounting his fond and fervent championing of Kit Fan’s first novel, Diamond Hill (2021), whose Cantonese-inflected language enabled rare intergenerational and…
![[ESSAY] “𝑍𝑜𝑖 𝐺𝑖𝑛 Canton: Reading Kit Fan’s 𝐺𝑜𝑜𝑑𝑏𝑦𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑛” by Jason S Polley](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/goodbye-chinatown-kit-fan-cha.jpg?w=938)
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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
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