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

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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 by Helena Lee | Goodreads

I’d love to read something simmer form a Middle East viewpoint because believe me, it’s be very different but also very similar. 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.”

A first book of its kind: a collection of essays from the perspective of East and South-East Asian voices in Britain, curated and edited by Helena Lee. As I'm a British-born Chinese and rarely come across any books about lives similar to mine, I was so excited to read this book and absolutely delighted when @sceptrebooks offered to send me a copy.

Helena Lee - East Side Voices, Founder - LinkedIn Helena Lee - East Side Voices, Founder - LinkedIn

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. 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.

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.’ A wonderful book – so timely and much needed. I loved the collection and I hope everyone will read it’ Elif Shafak