Ready Player Two is a bit like ‘meh’ movie sequels that take the same cast of a popular movie and basically copy the story: old wine, new bags. But I absolutely loved Ready Player One, and so I also loved being back in The Oasis with Wade and the gang, this amazing mix of nostalgia […]

Three characters in the wild: “油坊 Yóufáng” (Oil mill). In the back of the building was indeed an oil press. Eva tells me about her grandpa who also had a 油坊 business, how people can bring nuts or something and then for a tiny fee her grandpa would turn it into oil. The second one […]

The paper faces of Mao and Qin Shi blacken and deform as fire takes the bills. I never knew burning money to be so beautiful, even though this money is fake, burned to honour ancestors. Eva’s dad twists the poke and turns over more unburned ghost money (冥纸 Míng zhǐ) into the flames. Half an […]

I loved plenty of crime novels — Devotion of Suspect X, Journey under the Midnight Sun, In the Woods by Tana French, and several Agatha Christie stories as well as Lee Child, some Stephen King — and I’m now reading The Chestnut Man. The main thing I noticed, though, is that even when I absolutely […]

It’s several years after reading this book that I’m writing this review. I’m wondering now why I read books, whether the key is enjoyment, relaxing down and winding down the day. Or whether books should teach me something new, let me live a life I do not have. Or perhaps they should teach me something […]

A world map that is upside down is just as correct as the one we’re used to. In China they use these kinds of world maps, with China in the middle. China’s Chinese name, 中国, Zhōngguó, means middle country. If you now think “OMG but why are they so arrogant they have to put China […]

This series is called ‘Secret Listening’, from the Chinese word 偷听Tōutīng. I know this can be — and should probably be — translated as ‘eavesdropping’, but secret listening captures it better and adds a bit of jest. These little stories or remarks stood out to me, and show a more personal side of China away […]

The museum in Taicang (太仓) shows the city’s history, how 1000 years ago — during the Yuan and Ming Dynasty — it was one of China’s richest cities, thanks to its position next to the Yangtze River. But the link between that city and today’s Taicang remains unclear to me, apart from some excavations and […]

We’ve lived 2021. In the future, you’ll remember the big accomplishments from 2021, but will you remember how they felt? The worries you felt were significant, the little joys that found their way, the hopes you had. Historic events will be reduced to paragraphs on Wikipedia, your feelings dulled by time. Write them down before […]

I loved ‘A God in Ruins’, so here comes a list of superlatives. Yet some people will surely feel this is a boring book, 468 slow-paced pages, which you need to read at an even slower pace to understand, to feel. Who likes such books anyway? It has over 50,000 ratings on GoodReads in 2021, […]