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

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. 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. 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. Naomi Shimada is an influential model, BBC podcaster, and co-author of Mixed Feelings. She launched her newsletter Tender Contributions in January 2022. Showcasing original essays and poetry from well-known 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.

See you soon

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. 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: Celebrating ESEA Identity - Southbank Centre East Side Voices: Celebrating ESEA Identity - Southbank Centre

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”.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.’ 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. 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 by Helena Lee | Goodreads

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.’ Ladyboy by June Bellebono was a beautiful essay and really highlighted the importance of the intersectionality with race when it comes to talking about LGBT+ issues.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… Dazzling . . . East Side Voices is a thoughtful, painful reminder of the grand narratives that get buried under belittling stereotypes’ Bidisha, Observer 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. 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.

East Side Voices by | Hachette UK East Side Voices by | Hachette UK

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. 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’ 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.In fellow actor Katie Leung’s essay ‘Getting Into Character’, she describes her refusal to play a character who was assigned a Chinese accent for seemingly no good reason. Her persistence paid off, and she played the character with a British accent. I was reminded of some recent work my mother had done – a voiceover piece for a well-known NGO – for which the producers had requested somebody whose voice had a ‘foreign twang.’ They didn’t tell her why. 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. I have not rated this 5 stars because, whilst I found myself connecting with the authors and their stories, I wanted - if not needed - more every time each story ended. Although upon reflection this may be unfair, given that the book purports to be, and is, a collection of short stories. Despite this, I just can’t help wishing there was more.