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East Side Voices: Essays celebrating East and Southeast Asian identity in Britain

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Take the rest of the noodles and the pak choi and you can have it for your lunch tomorrow.” My dad pushed the takeaway containers and their remaining contents across the table towards me. Enjoyed reading most of them very much. Fab collection. Very surprised to see Tash Aw in it (pleasantly surprised). 4 and a little more but rounded off to a full 5-star rating. I like how different each story was. This just felt like something that needed to be published. Haven’t read anything quite like this collection before. Very well edited, and for the most part, very well written too. Might write a longer review later. Maybe… All the anthology contributors are incredibly successful: society’s winners, global third-culture kids. As Chinese-Malaysian novelist Tash Aw writes poetically“: “We revel in the three-dimensional nature of our hybrid cultures and languages, rejoicing in the fact that we have an instinctive understanding of how the south-east Asian archipelago weaves its cultural connections.” Yet many of the testimonials demonstrate that no amount of privilege protects you from the racism of others.

East Side Voices by Helena Lee | Hachette UK East Side Voices by Helena Lee | Hachette UK

Asian women are blighted by racist and sexist tropes: the demure, obedient little woman; the steely, relentless Tiger Mothers; and the sexy, compliant super babes. Discussing passing for white, mixed race writer Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, recounts the times she has passed but wished she hadn’t. Such as when white men tell her they rate women by race, White, Asian, and Half, wearing their racism with a strange kind of pride. Women are guilty of blatant racism too, like the random woman who says, “Alright, Ching Chong?” as Hisayo Buchanan walks past. 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.Edited by Helena Lee (Acting Deputy Editor at Harper's Bazaar and East Side Voices founder) EAST SIDE VOICES invites us to explore a dazzling spectrum of experience from the East and Southeast Asian diaspora living in Britain today. Showcasing original essays and poetry from celebrities, prize-winning literary stars and exciting new writers, EAST SIDE VOICES takes us many places: from the frontlines of the NHS in the midst of the Covid pandemic, to the set of a Harry Potter film, from a bustling London restaurant to a spirit festival in Myanmar. In the process we navigate the legacies of family history, racial identity, assimilation and difference. 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”. Edited by Helena Lee, founder of the East Side Voices cultural salon and Acting Deputy Editor of Harper’s Bazaar. Featuring writing from: Romalyn Ante, Tash Aw, June Bellebono, Gemma Chan, Mary Jean Chan, Catherine Cho, Tuyen Do, Will Harris, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Claire Kohda, Katie Leung, Amy Poon, Naomi Shimada, Anna Sulan Masing, Sharlene Teo, Zing Tsjeng and Andrew Wong.

East Side Voices by Helena Lee | Goodreads

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.

Once Upon a Time in... Middlesex when Helena Lee describes how upset she'd get doing her Chinese school homework and feeling like the language didn't belong to her anyway. The festival will take place at Foyles’ flagship store on Charing Cross Road in London on 23 September, during ESEA Heritage Month. 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.

East Side Voices: Essays Celebrating East and Southeast Asian

I'm really happy to have seen it "because an actress I like was talking about it" and that in the end, it was instructive and very important. E ast Side Voices boasts contributions from a dazzling range of east Asian and south-east Asian public figures, from Eternals actor Gemma Chan to model Naomi Shimada. It grew out of a salon convened by the book’s editor – and acting deputy editor of Harper’s Bazaar – Helena Lee in February 2020, just before the pandemic that Donald Trump branded the “China virus” and “Kung flu”, fuelling a wave of racist violence against east and south-east Asian people.I discovered this book thanks to the actress Gemma Chan whom I adore enormously. She also wrote an essay for this book, so I bought it haha. A wonderful book – so timely and much needed. I loved the collection and I hope everyone will read it’ Elif Shafak It is a testament to the quality of each author’s writing that despite the brevity of each account, I became deeply invested in their stories. I also found myself reflecting on my own experiences and difficulties as an Asian immigrant with greater clarity and understanding.

besea.n reads… East Side Voices — besea.n

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.’The bookshop Foyles is to partner with a publishing network to launch a new festival featuring writers from east and south-east Asia, thought to be the first in the UK focused wholly on writers from the region. For ESEA people, East Side Voices is a testament to the little piece of Britain that our communities have carved out for ourselves. It reminds us that we are not alone. For all readers - not just ESEA people - this book is a fantastic insight into the experiences of what it means to be ESEA in a country that has by and large overlooked us. May East Side Voices be the first of many works dedicated to our peoples, our cultures, our struggles, and our triumphs. The fact that there is a glimmer of resemblance between this anecdotal snippet from someone who frequently walks the red carpet and my own upbringing reminds me that we may all have shared pasts in some way or another, no matter our present or future. East Side Voices is a collection of essays on the experiences of Asians living in Britain. The topics are wide ranging and each author brings their own unique take on the subject. Taken together, these essays paint an empowering, touching and enlightening picture of what it means to be Asian in Britain.

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