Widely celebrated Substack newsletter Chaoyang Trap invited me to contribute a few words to their inaugural edition of The Chaoyang Review. I wrote about the ambitious new album from Xi’an-based post-punk band FAZI, entitled Folding Story.

Introducing the new review series, Krish Raghav wrote, ‘The “review” is an exercise in paying attention. If there’s something (anything) that ties our chaotic newsletter together, it is this discernment towards what feels under-explored in English writing about China. Cultural critique—rigorous, reflective, current—felt like a big one. […] The hope is that our choice of review subjects (and our multi-voiced perspective) can highlight the overlooked, analyze the popular, and reflect unfolding reactions. At the very least, maybe we can help create a more info-rich, expansive idea of where the actual cultural conversation on the Chinese web is.’

It’s an important new direction from what has quickly become one of the most incisive and interesting English language voices on contemporary Chinese culture.  

Read the inaugural edition of the Chaoyang Review, including my write-up of FAZI’s album, here.

Very happy to get my hands on a physical copy of this book, which I contributed to with some translation and editing.

The third edition of ‘Staging Alterity’ – a project involving performances and discussions with artists from around the world – was due to take place in Shanghai in September 2020, but of course the pandemic made an in-person event of that nature impossible. Instead, co-curators Ophelia Huang and Zhao Chuan gathered together essays, conversations and imagery from an array of important figures for this fascinating book, published with the support of Pro Helvetia.

Find out more about the book here.

For Vogue Scandinavia, I spoke with some of the region’s diehard surf enthusiasts.

The best waves of the year only arrive during the area’s coldest months, often meaning sub-zero temperatures and a risk of frostbite. “When I stop feeling my toes, I go up, I put some hot water in my boots, I get the feeling back in my toes,” one committed surfer told me. “And then I go out to surf again.”

If it sounds brutal, that’s probably because it is. Yet surfing in such conditions also comes with some extraordinarily beautiful scenery, including the opportunity to ride waves under the Northern Lights.

To read more about the people heading out to the coast when the temperature is down and the surf is up, get the December-January issue of Vogue Scandinavia or read the full story at Vogue Scandinavia ($).