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

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HL: I really wanted a diversity of voices within the collection, to learn about areas I wasn’t especially familiar with, who could draw us into their worlds with their strength of storytelling. So, we had writers like the gal-dem contributor June Bellebono, who showed us the experience of a trans spirit festival in Myanmar, and how that changed the way they saw themselves. There are untold narratives brought to the fore, such as the actor Gemma Chan’s essay on the Chinese Liverpool seamen, who were secretly deported from Britain, and the writer Claire Kohda’s devastating piece on how her Caucasian grandmother erased Claire’s Japanese heritage in an acrylic painting she made of her. 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”. This book was a great insight into the lives of individuals in the East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) community living in the UK, and some of the difficulties they have faced as a result of being from this community. Most poignant to me were the stories of the desire to assimilate and be accepted, and the associated hardships. As someone from the ESEA community who lives in England, I truly resonated with many of these accounts. I wish that I had read this book much earlier in life. 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. Claire Kohda is a literary critic, violinist and the author of WOMAN, EATING, a literary novel about a young, mixed-race vampire trying to navigate the London contemporary art world.

East Side Voices by Various, Helena Lee | Waterstones

Publishing in January 2022, EAST SIDE VOICES is a first-of-its-kind essay anthology that showcases the brightest East and Southeast Asian voices in Britain today. Featuring essays and poetry from new writers, celebrities and authors ranging from the likes of Gemma Chan, Katie Leung, Sharlene Teo and Zing Tsjeng, this collection explores the wide spectrum of experiences from the East and South-East Asian community. The group was founded in 2022 by publicity director Maria Garbutt-Lucero, who works at Hodder & Stoughton, and commissioning editor Joanna Lee, who works at independent publisher Atlantic Books. Its aim is to amplify the voices of east and south-east Asian writers and promote ESEA talent working across the UK publishing industry. During my childhood, my dad was the most selfless and diligent father. His love for my sister and me was expressed not through words but through small acts of devotion: always cutting fresh fruit for us; making sure we drank two full glasses of milk each day so our bones would grow strong (milk being a luxury they rarely had in Hong Kong); patiently teaching us how to swim (Golden Rule No 2: learn how to swim). However, when I was younger, there were some things about him that I found hard to understand: his obsession with education, his aversion to waste of any kind, his insistence that we finish every bit of food on our plates; and his constant reminders not to take anything for granted. It was because he knew what it was like to have nothing. Naomi Shimada is an influential model, BBC podcaster, and co-author of Mixed Feelings. She launched her newsletter Tender Contributions in January 2022.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. In the aftermath of the second world war, Britain forcibly deported hundreds of Chinese seamen who had served in the merchant navy, deeming them an “undesirable element” of British society. These men had helped keep the UK fed and fuelled on highly dangerous crossings of the Atlantic (approximately 3,500 vessels of the merchant navy were sunk by German U-boats, with the loss of 72,000 lives). The festival will take place at Foyles’ flagship store on Charing Cross Road in London on 23 September, during ESEA Heritage Month. 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.’ 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.

First UK festival for east and south-east Asian writing

A couple of weeks later, I came across an article written by the journalist Dan Hancox in the Guardian. I had thought I was pretty familiar with the long history of anti-Asian racism and discrimination in the UK and elsewhere; the shifting stereotypes, the scapegoating, Yellow Peril and the like, and the erasure of the contributions of the 140,000 men of the Chinese Labour Corps who risked their lives carrying out essential work for the allies in the first world war. But this was a story I had never heard before.

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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. 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. Purcell Room is located in Queen Elizabeth Hall. For step-free access please use Royal Festival Hall JCB glass lift to Level 2 and enter via Riverside Terrace. It’s difficult to put into words how I felt when reading East Side Voices. To my knowledge, there has never been a book like this - one dedicated to the experiences of East and South East Asian people in Britain. For so long we have looked, with yearning, at the nonfiction titles coming out of the US, such as those of Cathy Park Hong, Eleanor Ty and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu. The fact that this was a historical first was a little daunting. As a British person of Vietnamese descent, I must admit that I felt somewhat apprehensive to read and review this book. What if I was disappointed? What if I didn’t feel seen? This was more than just another book in my list of 2021 reads. Its publication suddenly became about my whole identity, my whole sense of belonging in a country with which I have had a difficult relationship my entire life. Talk to a member of staff at the auditorium entrance if you have a disability that means you can’t queue, or you need extra time to take your seat. They can arrange priority entry for you as soon as the doors open.

East Side Voices | personal stories of Gemma Chan, Katie Leung

A wonderful book – so timely and much needed. I loved the collection and I hope everyone will read it’ Elif Shafak Many pieces reference meagre cultural representation and insulting stereotypes in TV and film, such as the contribution by Katie Leung, the Glaswegian actor cast as Cho Chang in the Harry Potter films. A private school rebel turned art school cool girl, Leung is as far from the cringing, sniffling Cho Chang as it’s possible to be. Yet her success is racialised: “I was not considered [for roles] unless race came into it.”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. Slowly regretting putting this off for so long because this was amazing and it took me less than a day to finish.

East Side Voices: Celebrating ESEA Identity - Southbank Centre

Many of the essays discuss the unseen but inherent racism toward the Asian community in art, and media…which I rarely see discussed but is important that it is. The essays were compiled recently and there were frequent references to covid and the impact that prejudicial misinformation has had on Asian lives. 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. How long have you had this?” I asked in amazement. He shrugged. This was no ordinary plastic bag. Indeed, the bag was not of this millennium. I did struggle a little with some of the essays feeling a little repetitive, and so short I struggled to really engage with them or the writers. I also felt that some of the essays were written for the purpose of promoting the writers’ non-writing activity rather than an enhancement to the collection of essays as there was little depth or exploration within them. 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.I continuously resonated with the different authors ‘essays’ and felt as if their anecdotes were about me.