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[REVIEW] “When Cosmopolitanism Traverses Across the Screen Beyond...
📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Felicia Chan, Cosmopolitan Cinema: Cross-Cultural Encounters in East Asian Film, Bloomsbury, 2017. 224 pgs. Cosmopolitanism...
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[REVIEW] “How Bizarre To Be Human Amongst Other Humans: Hiromi Kawakami’s...
📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Hiromi Kawakami (author), Ted Goossen (translator), People from My Neighbourhood, Granta Books, 2021. 96 pgs. “Why did you come...
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[EXCLUSIVE] “In Beijing: 12.26-1.10” by Matt Turner
I’d nervously sweated through the last 23 hours, certain I’d be escorted to a ventilation-less detention room to wait for a flight back to the US. And now I faced a Border Control officer who looked...
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[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “One Foot in the Past, One Foot in the Future: Hayao and...
📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Gorō Miyazaki (director), From Up on Poppy Hill, 2011. 91 min. Yokohama is somewhat in the shadow of neighbouring Tokyo but it’s...
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[EXCLUSIVE] “Don’t Call em’ Choppers” by Jeff Beyl
Via. Faai-jee. That’s how to say, chopsticks, in Cantonese. That’s what my wife taught me. When we were first married, she taught me many Cantonese words for everyday things. One day, just kidding...
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[REVIEW] “The Losers of China’s Sexual Revolution: Tsering Yangkyi’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒...
📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on The Flowers of Lhasa. Tsering Yangkyi (author), Christopher Peacock (translator), The...
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[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Four Women Migrant Workers: TSERING YANGKYI’S 𝑇ℎ𝑒...
📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on The Flowers of Lhasa. Tsering Yangkyi (author), Christopher Peacock (translator), The...
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[REVIEW] “A Great Cry for Help: Leta Hong Fincher’s 𝐿𝑒𝑓𝑡𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑊𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛” by Marika...
📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Leta Hong Fincher, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China (10th Anniversary Edition), Bloomsbury, 2023. 280...
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[EXCLUSIVE] “Kung Fu Is a Store of Infinite Fun: Reading Jin Yong in...
📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Jin Yong, aka Louis Cha Leung-yung (1924–2018). Picture via. ▚ Jin Yong (author), Shelly Bryant, Gigi Chang, and Anna Holmwood...
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[REVIEW] “No Better Place to Start: Fuchsia Dunlop’s 𝐼𝑛𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝐵𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑡”...
📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Fuchsia Dunlop, Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food, Particular Books, 2023, 480 pgs. China is a big country—but...
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[REVIEW] “Stardom Before Netflix: A Review of 𝐸𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐴𝑠𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝐹𝑖𝑙𝑚 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑠” by MARIO...
📁 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...
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[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “History As Written by the Successful Underdogs: Jing...
📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILM Jing Tsu, Kingdom of Characters, Riverhead Books, 2023. 336 pgs. The earliest known empire is the Sumerian. It is also the first...
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[REVIEW] “The Banality That Starts It All: Dorothy Tse’s 𝑂𝑤𝑙𝑖𝑠ℎ” by Luca Griseri
📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILM Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Owlish. Dorothy Tse (author), Natascha Bruce (translator), Owlish, Fitzcarraldo...
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[EXCLUSIVE] “Twenty Years Since Losing the City” by Lawrence Kwok-ling Pun,...
Chris Song’s Note: Lawrence Kwok-ling Pun’s 潘國靈 short story “Twenty Years Since Losing the City” 失城二十年 is a sequel to Wong Bik-wan’s 黃碧雲 canonical short story “Losing the City”, which gruesomely...
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[REVIEW] “China’s Most Important Woman Writer of The Last Half-century: A...
📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILM Wang Anyi (author), Todd Foley (translator), I Love Bill and Other Stories, Foreword by Xudong Zhang, Cornell University Press,...
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[FEATURE] “Goodnight, Akira Toriyama” by e rathke
Akira Toriyama (1955-2024) I remember racing home from school to watch Dragonball Z. I remember blank pages that I filled with Goku and Vegeta and Trunks. I remember trying to draw those trousers...
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[REVIEW] “To Experience A World That No Longer Exists: Ch’oe Myŏngik’s...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILM Ch’oe Myŏngik (author), Janet Poole (translator), Patterns of the Heart and Other Stories, Columbia University Press, 2024. 278...
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[REVIEW] “While We’re Still Connected: Sasha Chuk’s 𝐹𝑙𝑦 𝑀𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑜𝑜𝑛” by...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Sasha Chuk (director), Fly Me to the Moon 但願人長久, 2023. 112 min. A story fraught with the problems and pain of a broken family,...
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[REVIEW] “Extraordinarily ordinary?: Hiromi Kawakami’s 𝑃𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑀𝑦...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on People from My Neighbourhood. Hiromi Kawakami (author), Ted Goossen (translator), People...
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[SHŌGUN] “Bold Directorial Choices: 𝑆ℎ𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑛 (1980)” by e rathke
There have been two adaptations of James Clavell’s 1975 novel Shōgun—a 1980 miniseries and a new one from this year, currently showing on Hulu and Disney+. This short essay focuses on the 1980...
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