ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL PRESENTS – Video Anchor, Janelynne Galera sits down for an exclusive interview with Tiana Day, a 19-year-old activist, organizer, speaker and founder of the non-profit organization, Youth Advocates for Change. Tiana Day has chosen to fight for her rights as a half-Black half-Asian American woman living in the modern…
Full Article EXCLUSIVE: YOUTH ACTIVIST LEADER TIANA DAY’S INTERVIEW WITH ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES — South Korea, often referred to as the ‘plastic surgery capital of the world,’ is a place where it’s not only typical but expected for young women to have double eyelid surgery before they hit thirty. Jaw slimming, skin lasering, destructive dieting – these radical approaches…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: IF I HAD YOUR FACE (2020) BY FRANCES CHA – BEAUTY AND WOMANHOOD IN SOUTH KOREA
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Like a hamster sprinting on its wheel, going precisely nowhere, thirty-four-year-old freelance copy editor Fuyuko Irie does not question the mundanity of her daily routine. Japanese author Mieko Kawakami’s latest release, All the Lovers in the Night (2022), follows a character with no real friends, no boyfriend,…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: ALL THE LOVERS IN THE NIGHT (2022) BY MIEKO KAWAKAMI – THE CONDITION OF THE MODERN WOMAN
BADER ZAINAL WRITES — On April 20, Farah Hamza Akbar was killed in broad daylight after turning down the marriage proposal of the perpetrator. In another tragic killing, Fatima Al Ajmi was shot dead by her brother, who felt hate and anger because she had married someone outside of their…
Full Article KUWAIT: A WOMEN’S MOVEMENT ARISES FROM THE ASHES OF MALE VIOLENCE
KIANA KARIMI WRITES — A flickering light, screams of famished, sleep-deprived young girls inside tightly-packed crates, armed men ripping victims from each other’s arms, their innocence slowly stripped away in a twisted, torturous cycle of violence… A chilling rendition of Nirvana’s hit 90’s song “Teenage Spirit” creeps through the screen…
Full Article RUSSIA: MARVEL’S “BLACK WIDOW” PUTS A NEW SPIN ON FEMINISM
MANAGING EDITOR ZHI JIAO DANIELLE GOH WRITES – With the recent international headlines about a Beijing divorce case ruling in which a man was ordered to pay his ex-wife for years of housework, now is perhaps a good time to reflect on the recent rise of feminism in China. 2020…
Full Article CHINA: CHINESE FEMINISM AT HIGH TIDE
MANAGING EDITOR ZHI JIAO DANIELLE GOH WRITES — Clubhouse has recently gained media and investment attention, having secured roughly a billion valuation-10 times higher than its actual app valuation. But what, exactly, is Clubhouse? It’s an audio chat-based social media app created during the pandemic. Users can hop in and out of…
Full Article CHINA: HOW LONG CAN CLUBHOUSE LAST?
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (in the second of three reviews of new Japanese books) – As you read this thoroughly entertaining yet gruesome tale, you will wonder, is this narrator mentally ill? Or does the problem lie in an evil society where humans are reduced to being baby-making, money-making cogs in…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: EARTHLINGS BY SAYAKA MURATA
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (in the first of three reviews of new Japanese books) — The title of the novel itself poses a compelling question: does pregnancy and what comes with it (having both breasts and eggs) determine the destiny of the female body? Breasts and Eggs (2020) tells the story…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: BREASTS AND EGGS BY MIEKO KAWAKAMI
MONICA KELLY WRITES — On average, a woman spends eight years of her life menstruating – yet the topic of periods remains taboo and is stigmatized in China. This November, in a bid to end ‘period shame,’ women attending Chinese universities set up free sanitary pad dispensers in bathrooms. These…
Full Article CHINA: STOPPING THE BLAME AND SHAME GAME AGAINST WOMEN
SIANY GUNAWAN WRITES – In Indonesia, the debate on women’s rights has accelerated in response to political and social challenges. More and more women are being sexually abused and, according to women’s legal counselors, the alleged violence had continued for years. The National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) recorded…
Full Article INDONESIA: WOMEN’S RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS…AREN’T THEY?
(This is the eighth in a series on modern Korean literature newly published in superb English translations.) ANDREA PLATE WRITES – Who could possibly find humor in severed heads, natural disasters and mass graves? South Korean author Yun Ko Eun does, as will any reader of the English language version…
Full Article KOREAN FEMINISTS IN TRANSLATION: GENIUS DISASTER TOURIST GUIDE
(This is the sixth in an original series about new wave feminist writers in Korea whose work has started to reach English language readers via superb translations.) ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Imagine this book as a movie: “Silence of the Lambs” meets “Thelma and Louise.” The Law of Lines (Arcade…
Full Article SOUTH KOREA: THE LAW OF LINES – THEY’RE MADE TO BE CROSSED
(This is the second in an original series about new wave feminist writers in Korea) ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Is this the face of modern-day feminism in Seoul? If I Had Your Face, Frances Cha’s debut novel (Ballantine Books), tells the story of four young women struggling to succeed in…
Full Article KOREA: NEW WAVE LITERATURE AS WOMEN’S LIBERATION (PART TWO)
ANDREA PLATE WRITES – (This is the first in an original series about new wave feminist writers in Korea). It was big news in 2016 when the novel Kim Ji-young, 1982, by author Cho Nam-Joo, awakened a semi-somnolent women’s movement in South Korea. The book sold one million copies—only the second novel in the…
Full Article KOREA: NEW WAVE LITERATURE AS WOMEN’S LIBERATION
ROSE RTEIMEH WRITES — A world in which it is possible to receive a naked picture of a well-known online model in exchange for a donation to charity is very 2020. Kaylen Ward, a 20-year-old influencer and online sex worker, started a fundraiser on Twitter for multiple Australian fire relief…
Full Article AUSTRALIA: NAKED CAME THE PHILANTHROPIST!