This is the Sihang Warehouse (四行仓库) at Shanghai’s Suzhou Creek. In 1937 during the Japanese invasion of Shanghai, it mainly stored bags of sand, corn, and beans, until the 452 men of the 88th division of the Chinese army retreated into it. The Japanese armies invaded further into the city and the 88th was ordered […]
I expect an inspiring story about lifting yourself from ignorance and the poverty that brings, through education in all its form. But I did not expect the richness in which Tara Westover wrote it. She’s great at noticing things felt, rather than seen — and wraps them in flowing poetic sentences. She’s vulnerable, damaged, yet […]
So how does someone actually become a better person? (vs. learning Chinese characters)
I’ve now been studying Chinese for almost two years — and it has taught me not just how to speak and read and listen and write, but also how to learn. For instance, I’ve found there are many ways to learn Chinese characters. You can read sentences, recite words, write characters, or write the radicals […]
It’s hard to say how popular books really are in China. Shanghai has many stores, on- and offline, and even an English book (Siddhartha) was delivered within 10 hours. But so too are there millions of people (24 million in Shanghai), so it’s hard to say if book reading is really popular. Even Suzhou has lots […]
J. Maarten Troost disguises as a travel writer, but underneath that thin veneer of well-composed sentence structures and impressively large vocabulary hides a pessimist, racist, and otherwise deplorable person. It doesn’t take long before Troost remarks about smog, noise, phlegm, and pee — observations that are repeated every chapter. And then the SARS and eating-dog […]
So much negativity on the internet, and even Reddit has it’s subreddits that mock negativity, like awfuleverything, wewantplates, antiMLM, facepalm, menwritingwomen, idiotsincars and insanepeoplefacebook. Even interesting subs like relationships or stepparents are full of stories of how ungodly life is. It’s momentarily fun to browse these, but they do eat your brain, until negativity is […]
Even though I initially thought of it as a gimmick, I’ve come to really love the Oriental Pearl Tower. Built on the corner of the Huangpu River, it’s visible from many places in the city — sometimes as a surprise, like accidental eye contact. And every time you see it, it whispers you: “You are […]
If I ever have children, I hope they’ll read Albertalli’s books. There’s the story of the not-so-openly gay Simon, the overweight Molly, and her lesbian parents, and her sister who’s dating a pan-sexual girl. And these books show everyone’s struggles and thoughts and considerations. “The Upside of Unrequited”, like “Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda“, […]
“Here, the curve of the earth did not hide it, it revealed it.” Rendezvous with Rama describes the weird world of inside Rama, and it’s a real trip through the eyes and minds of its explorers. In this sense it reminds me of the video game Myst; a world that comes without explanation, without purpose […]
Construction workers sleep with six per room in bunk beds in modified shipping containers, and often live hundreds of kilometers away from family, and perhaps see their wife and children once a year. I guess life’s stripped down to the mere basics. Work, eat, sleep, accompanied by conversations. And the harder the work, the deeper […]
