Jessie Lau
@laujessie.bsky.social
340 followers 230 following 21 posts
writer & freelance journalist | 🇭🇰 in 🇬🇧 covering global human rights & culture; stories in The Guardian, BBC, CNN & more 👩🏻‍💻 www.laujessie.com • founder of newtidenetwork.substack.com • head of mag @nuvoices.bsky.social • contributing editor at Translator
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Reposted by Jessie Lau
Reposted by Jessie Lau
nuvoices.bsky.social
Travelling to see the world means accepting that the world will see you. In South America, Tappy Lung's interactions force her to contemplate her perceived "Chinese-ness".🏅 This essay was a runner-up in NüStories’ personal essay contest:
Carrying Chinese-ness Across South America
*Editor’s note: The following story was a runner-up in our first ever annual NüStories personal essay contest. This year’s theme was Chinese identity – read more here.
nuvoices.com
Reposted by Jessie Lau
xunlingau.bsky.social
Good piece from @laujessie.bsky.social here on the case of Zhang 'Tara' Yadi a Chinese Student who was due to start studying at SOAS in London but has been detained while in China over her writing for the magazine Chinese Youth Stand For Tibet.
‘She didn’t realise how dangerous it was’: London-bound student held in China over Tibet support
Zhang Yadi was due to begin a degree in the UK but the activist vanished on holiday amid tensions over Dalai Lama
www.theguardian.com
laujessie.bsky.social
I wrote a story @theguardian.com about Zhang Yadi, a London-bound Chinese student and Tibetan rights advocate who was arrested over the summer on suspicion of “inciting separatism.”

If found guilty, she faces a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

Read the story, with comments from @hrw.org, below:
‘She didn’t realise how dangerous it was’: London-bound student held in China over Tibet support
Zhang Yadi was due to begin a degree in the UK but the activist vanished on holiday amid tensions over Dalai Lama
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Jessie Lau
jwassers.bsky.social
thetls.bsky.social
'When, in 1991, China opened its doors to foreign adoption, international demand led to the trafficking of babies overseas'

Jessie Lau: Two victims of China’s one-child policy
Baby snatchers
www.the-tls.com
laujessie.bsky.social
I wrote a review @thetls.bsky.social of “Daughters of the Bamboo Grove,” a deep investigation by author & former @latimes.com China correspondent @barbarademick.bsky.social into Beijing’s brutal One Child Policy that centres around the reunion of a pair of separated twins. Read in print or online 🔗
Baby snatchers
In a secluded shed, deep within the bamboo grove in a rural Chinese village, a woman gave birth to identical twin daughters. It was 2000, the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac – usually an ausp...
www.the-tls.com
Reposted by Jessie Lau
laujessie.bsky.social
thanks for reading and sharing!
Reposted by Jessie Lau
xunlingau.bsky.social
"many of the film’s worst fears have arguably now been realised, even if they’ve taken on a different shape or form in real life" - @laujessie.bsky.social On the 2015 film "Ten Years / 十年" which screened as part of the HK Film Festival.
laujessie.bsky.social
It’s been ten years since I first watched the banned HK dystopian film “Ten Years,” now being brought to Britain by the HK Film Festival UK.

I wrote my reflections in an essay @prospectmagazine.co.uk and spoke to some of the directors ahead of the London screening, co-hosted @amnestyuk.bsky.social
How Hong Kong’s dystopias became its reality
It is ten years since the film ‘Ten Years’ won its industry’s greatest accolade. Now the Chinese Communist Party has banned it—and stifled art in the ...
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
laujessie.bsky.social
It’s been ten years since I first watched the banned HK dystopian film “Ten Years,” now being brought to Britain by the HK Film Festival UK.

I wrote my reflections in an essay @prospectmagazine.co.uk and spoke to some of the directors ahead of the London screening, co-hosted @amnestyuk.bsky.social
How Hong Kong’s dystopias became its reality
It is ten years since the film ‘Ten Years’ won its industry’s greatest accolade. Now the Chinese Communist Party has banned it—and stifled art in the ...
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
laujessie.bsky.social
I penned New Tide’s first newsletter celebrating our launch as the UK’s first East and Southeast Asian journalist’s media network!

Every month, our newsletter will feature a new ESEA journo and a round up of UK opportunities + events. Subscribe now: newtidenetwork.substack.com/p/new-tide-w...
New Tide: What’s On in ESEA Heritage Month
When I first moved to London about six years ago, as a Hong Kong journalist excited to start a new life in the United Kingdom, I was completely unprepared for the challenges of navigating Britain’s me...
newtidenetwork.substack.com
Reposted by Jessie Lau
nuvoices.bsky.social
Are you a writer interested in exploring sci-fi, and using fiction to examine social issues through a futuristic lens? Join our upcoming virtual Speculative Fiction Workshop, hosted by NüVoices and led by @hannamade.bsky.social

More information: nuvoices.com/2025/08/13/e...

Tickets: lu.ma/hnie6mgm
laujessie.bsky.social
In the wake of China’s massive #maskpark scandal, in which sexually exploitative images of Chinese women were found to be shared in Telegram groups with hundreds of thousands of users, I wrote a story @theguardian.com about how the current system leaves women vulnerable to digital violence and abuse
China’s cyber-abuse scandal: is the government unwilling to crack down on exploitation of women online?
Secretly filmed images of women are spreading online, yet the authorities seem more focused on censorship than punishing the perpetrators, critics say
www.theguardian.com
laujessie.bsky.social
Calling all UK-based ESEA journalists: I’m so excited to launch New Tide Media Network!

Our mission is to bring nuance into ESEA coverage, empower community members in newsrooms and push back on western-centric storytelling.

Join our launch party & journalists panel in London on Aug. 7 - RSVP now!
New Tide Media Network: Launch Event · Luma
Welcome to the launch event for New Tide Media Network. We look forward to welcoming you on our big day! Doors open: 6pm Panel talk: 6.30-7.30pm Drinks and…
lu.ma
laujessie.bsky.social
thanks for sharing!
Reposted by Jessie Lau
minorityrightseu.bsky.social
A technological perspective: Can AI help restore what colonization tried to erase? @laujessie.bsky.social shows how AI supports Ainu language preservation and Indigenous self-determination amid aggressive state assimilation.

📖 Read the BBC piece below:

#Ainu #Indigenous #AI #Japan #Politics
Can AI speak the language Japan tried to kill?
More than a century after colonisation, the Ainu language almost vanished. Now machines are listening to hours of old recordings and learning to give it a new voice.
www.bbc.com
laujessie.bsky.social
Thank you @ourobororoboruo.bsky.social for your kind words + pretty much summing up the heart of what I was trying to get at ♥️
ourobororoboruo.bsky.social
Diaspora anxieties over cultural representation and authenticity can create a lot of tension for folks who want to be true to themselves but also where they come from.

Lovely to see the author take charge and not let others dictate how she should go about it.
laujessie.bsky.social
While planning my wedding, I struggled to find “the dress.” I quickly realised that my anxieties were less about the look itself, and more about what it had come to represent: my sense of identity in an interracial marriage. It led my to write this personal essay–out now in the style pages @cnn.com
Reposted by Jessie Lau
nuvoices.bsky.social
“I feel increasingly protective of my Hong Kong heritage and defensive against assimilation. The pressure I’ve felt has been exacerbated by the racist and sexist backlash … to East Asian women marrying outside their race, which has become a negative cultural trope.” Our editor @laujessie.bsky.social
laujessie.bsky.social
While planning my wedding, I struggled to find “the dress.” I quickly realised that my anxieties were less about the look itself, and more about what it had come to represent: my sense of identity in an interracial marriage. It led my to write this personal essay–out now in the style pages @cnn.com
Planning my multicultural wedding was already difficult. Finding a dress was even harder | CNN
Jessie Lau thought dress hunting would be straightforward. But her anxieties became less about the look itself, and more about what it had come to represent, she writes.
amp.cnn.com
laujessie.bsky.social
While planning my wedding, I struggled to find “the dress.” I quickly realised that my anxieties were less about the look itself, and more about what it had come to represent: my sense of identity in an interracial marriage. It led my to write this personal essay–out now in the style pages @cnn.com
Planning my multicultural wedding was already difficult. Finding a dress was even harder | CNN
Jessie Lau thought dress hunting would be straightforward. But her anxieties became less about the look itself, and more about what it had come to represent, she writes.
amp.cnn.com
laujessie.bsky.social
thanks for reading and sharing!
Reposted by Jessie Lau
mauracunningham.bsky.social
"While there are few Ainu speakers around today, there is a rich repository of oral stories. In recent years, researchers have turned to these audio archives with the aim of bringing Ainu back to life." Interesting piece by @laujessie.bsky.social for BBC.
Can AI speak the language Japan tried to kill?
More than a century after colonisation, the Ainu language almost vanished. Now machines are listening to hours of old recordings and learning to give it a new voice.
www.bbc.co.uk
laujessie.bsky.social
Excited to share my new longread about researchers using AI to revitalize the Ainu language in Japan (nearly extinct from colonization)!

It’s a story about the use of AI in language preservation efforts, and how Ainu people are pushing back on mainstream society’s mono-cultural narrative of Japan:
Can AI speak the language Japan tried to kill?
More than a century after colonisation, the Ainu language almost vanished. Now machines are listening to hours of old recordings and learning to give it a new voice.
www.bbc.co.uk
laujessie.bsky.social
Today, I joined 20,000 protesters in London marching in solidarity with Palestinians.

Now, the death toll is over 53,000 in Gaza. We must not look away; we must not normalise genocide. World leaders must stop arming Israel, seek an immediate ceasefire and end all complicity in this devastating war
laujessie.bsky.social
London folks! I’ll be speaking about reporting on human rights, politics & culture in China from afar + the work we do @nuvoices.bsky.social on this June. 3 panel at The Frontline Club.

Hosted by The China Correspondents’ Club of London, the event will feature diverse voices on China. Come join us!
Panel discussion: Reporting, State Media and Journalism in China
An open discussion on state influence, media narratives, and the future of China coverage
www.eventbrite.co.uk