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

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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 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. Je suis vraiment contente de l'avoir vu "parce qu'une actrice que j'aime en parlait" et qu'au final, c'était instructif et très important. 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.

East Side Voices | Belfast Walking Tours and Museums East Side Voices | Belfast Walking Tours and Museums

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. 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. Members get the first chance to book our entire programme of events, including go-down-in-history gigs, concerts with world-class orchestras, and talks from cultural icons and political giants. 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.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 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 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’

Gemma Chan on the truth about her father’s life at sea: ‘He

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. Naomi Shimada is an influential model, BBC podcaster, and co-author of Mixed Feelings. She launched her newsletter Tender Contributions in January 2022. I didn’t have many ESEA friends growing up – a couple here and there, but I didn’t see that many people who looked like me until I got to high school. I didn’t have a typical Vietnamese upbringing (whatever that means) – we had no family friends or relatives close by who were also Vietnamese, and so many of the cultural references and in-jokes that I have seen bandied about in Vietnamese American corners of the Internet go over my head. Like many, I have often felt fraudulent in my claim to ESEA heritage.

East Side Voices is a thoughtful, painful reminder of the grand narratives that get buried under belittling stereotypes, of how progress can also regress and how self-actualisation, self-discovery and personal excellence still grate against the perceptions of strangers. Naomi Shimada’s ‘Ode to Obaa-chan’ (her grandmother). I found it incredibly touching, unapologetically honest, emotionally vulnerable and the relationship itself so beautiful.

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

Timely and urgent, “East Side Voices” is a first-of-its kind collection exploring a spectrum of experience from the East and Southeast Asian diaspora living in Britain today, and the creation of Harper’s Bazaar’s features director, Helena Lee. It’s a continuation of the platform she founded in February 2020 to raise the visibility of talent of East and Southeast Asian heritage. I also learned A LOT from these essays. There were various infomation that I did not know and were horrified to learn, such as the fact that Filipinos make up the largest ethnic group of nurses in the NHS and in 2020 were the single largest nationality to die from Covid. In another essay, it was informed that Filipino nurses were the ones assigned most to the Covid wards in the UK during the critical times. There were also some essays here that were written during those first critical months and their experiences of racism that they had to endured because of it.

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I highly recommend this book, particularly to my fellow South East Asians and those dealing with moving to the west from the east. 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. 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 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.