Re-introducing my newsletter
An updated format with sections and everything
Dear ones,
After pushing out a book baby at the beginning of this year, I’m excited to refocus my attention on my neglected elder child, Substack.
Soon you’ll be receiving a reformatted monthly newsletter*. I’ll try and keep the writing as tight as possible, launching with the following structure. The sections are somewhat taken from my slogan ‘eating for longevity, chewing on identity’ as well as the title of my book An A-Z of Chinese Food (Recipes Not Included).
*Why am I doing this?
Consolidate an overflow of stimulating information and over-stimulated thoughts
Build our collective knowledge and understanding about language, food and identity beyond the normative
Support community champions
Divest my reliance on Meta/Instagram
Build a paying audience
Inspire you!
The sections:
Eating
Notes on what I’ve been eating or cooking, most definitely some kind of Chinese food. No, this is not me finally caving to the ‘RECIPE?’ demand of entitled netizens. Expect plenty of context and thirst-traps like this:
Recommendations on the culture I’ve consumed too: writing, music, podcasts etc.
Chewing
Notes on what I’ve been chewing up. Thoughts, feelings, observations. There’ll be the usual topics: identity, community and womanhood or, as one reader summarised:
An A-Z
Dispatches from my painfully slow, self-driving Chinese language studies. Radical-based deep dives, articles, slang and such. Findings from other languages too, because they’re also cool.
Melon seeds
‘Eating melon seeds’ is the Chinese internet slang equivalent for this GIF:
That’s because melon seeds are a popular Chinese snack (I previously wrote about its cross-cultural significance). The meatiest morsels of insight exist in BTL (below the line) commentary on articles or social media posts. I’m going to kick off this section on the commentariat with my own response to a gate-keeping incident on Instagram.
Sharpen your teeth for those melon seeds!
Community spotlight
Some of you know that I maintain and update a free-to-use directory of small food business owners of British East and Southeast Asian heritage, excluding restaurants. I’ll use this section to spotlight producers, but also other ESEA individuals and organisations who are Doing Good Stuff.
Intimate sister
知心大姐 is Chinese for agony aunt. Actually it translates as ‘intimate sister’, which I much prefer. You’re welcome to email me a question, which I’ll anonymise, but publicly address.
Bulletin board
Ad hoc events, announcements, important notices.
With warmest wishes,
Jenny