I continuously resonated with the different authors ‘essays’ and felt as if their anecdotes were about me. I realised that farming was the link to everything. Food and the making and growing of the food were the thread that tied so much together: the rhythms of farming, the myths of farming, the spirits and gods and souls of everything in the jungle. And so I learnt that I am from the jungle, no matter how far I am, the rituals and rhythms of the soil of the jungle sit within me.’ Gemma Chan’s father in 1975, during his time in the merchant navy. Photograph: Courtesy of Gemma Chan

First UK festival for east and south-east Asian writing

Garbutt-Lucero, who co-manages and writes for Florence Welch’s book club Between Two Books and launched a Filipino food pop-up in 2018, said that while growing up she “felt the dearth of literature available by east and south-east Asians, particularly British voices”. Zing Tsjeng is a journalist with over 10 years of experience across print, online and broadcast media as an editor, writer and presenter. She is VICE UK’s editor in chief, where she specialises in arts, culture, identity and current affairs, and has also written for publications such as British Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Time Out London.Slowly regretting putting this off for so long because this was amazing and it took me less than a day to finish. This is a wonderful collection of essays, stories, memories, poems describing what it's like to be East and/or South East Asian (ESEA) in Britain today although I feel it does have an even wider reach. Drawing on her more than 10 years of experience working at Harper’s Bazaar – where she is responsible for the publication’s art and culture content, often collaborating and commissioning award-winning writers and artists, the collection brings together a selection of original essays and poetry from celebrities, prize-winning literary stars and exciting new writers. Listening to other people debate your origins in your presence is a disconcerting experience, but it’s one that I’ve become accustomed to over nearly three decades of living in Europe. I’ve observed how these discussions have attempted to be more reflective, more self-interrogative, as people travel and read widely, and pride themselves upon being culturally engaged…trying to explain being Chinese-Malaysian to anyone in Europe is a curiously dispiriting experience in which the simplicity of one’s identity – which feels so clear and obvious – suddenly becomes torturously complicated, a source of confusion and even, in these days of cultural sensitivity, a cause of anxiety.’ This series of essays about Asian Identity in Britain, features not just writers, but actors, chefs and individuals in other professions writing about their own personal experience. Edited by Helena Lee, there is the common thread linking the essays, but each stands alone, and can be read in isolation.

East Side Voices — besea.n East Side Voices — besea.n

I am a huge lover of reading essay collections when it's about race, gender, and inequalities individuals face every day. And this book seriously did not disappoint. The curation of voices Helena was able to get for this book is amazing and I so hope another book is in the works. Fluidity and Resistance - Ideas of Belonging in a Fractured World by Tash Aw was SO vindicating! They talked about British people's obsession with family trees and ancestry and how it's a way of reaffirming their sense of belonging more than any desire to celebrate differences. This articulated a thought I've always had so well. The evening is hosted by Helena Lee, founder of the East Side Voices salon and editor of East Side Voices: Essays Celebrating East and Southeast Asian Identity, and features poetry, discussion and live readings by contributors to this first-of-its-kind anthology.Naomi Shimada’s ‘Ode to Obaa-chan’ (her grandmother). I found it incredibly touching, unapologetically honest, emotionally vulnerable and the relationship itself so beautiful. The essays are sharpest when various forms of objectification intersect – for example when sexual and racial abuse combine, as with novelist Sharlene Teo’s excellent, self-lacerating piece on exotification: “Once, a man followed me down a platform at Paddington station, chanting ‘ ni hao, konnichiwa, sexy sexy’ and I told him to get lost – only for him to start shouting and running after me.” Gemma Chan on the truth about her father’s life at sea: ‘He knew what it was like to have nothing’ In 2020, Helena Lee, acting deputy editor of Harper’s Bazaar, created East Side Voices, a monthly literary salon in London highlighting the work of Asian writers. This compelling collection of essays features several of the salon participants writing about their experiences as part of the diaspora of Asian and Southeast Asians living in Britain. Dazzling . . . East Side Voices is a thoughtful, painful reminder of the grand narratives that get buried under belittling stereotypes’ Bidisha, Observer I appreciate that this essay collection, not only is wide ranging in their topics and themes but also very much intersectional. My favorite essays are probably by June Bellebono who talked about the trans community in Myanmar; Anna Sulan who wrote about her migration story and her identity of having a white mother and an Iban father; and Helena Lee who talked about her guilt and experiences of wanting to belong that when she was little she distanced herself from her heritage, dismissing her parents' experiences of being immigrants and how she finally came to understand it as she grew older (there was a paragraph where she talked about how she realized how different herself is from her friends by all the enid blyton's books she has read and it reminded me of my sixth grade self). I also really liked the fact that these essays were written by various figures, ranging from journalists, actors, poets, and even chefs.