chinaheritage.net/journal/tesl...
Tesla Might be Able to Fly, but China’s Still Got More Hot Air — Dasheng’s Calligraphic Comments on Current Affairs (XIV)
The Other China 誰愛我呀 This is the fourteenth chapter in the series Dasheng’s Calligraphic Comments on Current Affairs, which features the calligraphy of Liu Chan, aka Dasheng, and his observations on t...
chinaheritage.net
“How could I possibly enjoy this bounded life of mine were I not to spend it engaged in idle pursuits.” 若復不為無益之事則安能悅有涯之生。 — Zhang Yanyuan (張彥遠, ca.815-ca.877), trans. Duncan Campbell chinaheritage.net/journal/idle...
Idleness and The Idler
Intersecting with Eternity The Idler, though sluggish, is yet alive, and may sometimes be stimulated to vigour and activity. He may descend into profoundness, or tower into sublimity; for the diligenc...
chinaheritage.net
The latest chapter in our series “Other People’s Thoughts”. It ends with a line from Nobel laureate Anne Carson: “Start in the middle.” chinaheritage.net/journal/othe...
Other People’s Thoughts LXXXIX
This is the eighty ninth chapter in Other People's Thoughts, a China Heritage series inspired by a compilation of quotations put together by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans), one of our Ancestors, during ...
chinaheritage.net
chinaheritage.net/journal/seed...
Seeds of Fire, Mike Brock, Alan Watts and the Tao
Seeds of Fire at Forty 道生一，一生二， 二生三，三生萬物 In this chapter of Seeds of Fire, a series that commemorates the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Seeds of Fire: Chinese Voices of Conscience (Hong K...
chinaheritage.net
Calling it "super intelligence" will scare people even more than "artificial intelligence." This issue is framed. The name change, intended to make AI sound more dominant and inevitable, will likely harden resistance. Trump steaks, Trump vodka, Trump airlines, Trump casino, Trump intelligence...
More “Other People’s Thoughts”: “What is happiness?” Mr. Draper asks in a meeting. “It’s a moment before you need more happiness.” — Don Draper, Mad Men, Season 5, Episode 11 chinaheritage.net/journal/othe...
Other People’s Thoughts LXXXVIII
This is the eighty eighth chapter in Other People's Thoughts, a China Heritage series inspired by a compilation of quotations put together by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans), one of our Ancestors, during...
chinaheritage.net
Beijing artist Lao Shu on China’s National Day holidays: “Travelling during the holidays can be a real pain, and getting back home is often just as irksome. You might as well stay put and read for pleasure and enjoy glimpses of autumn leaves fluttering.” chinaheritage.net/journal/pers...
Persimmons and Lao Shu’s Existential Autumn
The Other China 向前看 Lao Shu 老樹 is the nom de plume of Liu Shuyong (劉樹勇, 1962-), a Beijing-based artist, writer, critic and professor in communications. His artistic voice is unique and personal, its t...
chinaheritage.net
Common translations of 川特勒 — ‘Trump’ 川 + ‘Hitler’ 希特勒 — are ‘Hair Hitler’ and ‘Adolph Twitter’: chinaheritage.net/journal/tsar...
Tsar Vlad Fiddles while Hair Hitler Gags — Dasheng’s Calligraphic Comments on Current Affairs (XIII)
The Other China Liu Chan 劉蟾, who also goes by the literary sobriquet Dasheng 大生, is a writer, scholar and calligrapher. Born in Shaanxi, he lives in Beijing where he edits The Chinese Study 中國書房.
chinaheritage.net
Susan Neiman, author of “Call It Evil: Understanding the Trump Era”, observes that: ‘Evil threatens human reason, for it challenges our hope that the world makes sense.’ chinaheritage.net/journal/the-...
The Evil All Evil Aspires to Be — two essays on Satanic Washington
Contra Trump 道高一尺，魔高一丈 This chapter in Contra Trump, our series about the second presidency of Donald J Trump and its relationship with Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium, we feature two essays on evil. In...
chinaheritage.net
A new ‘calligraphic comment’ by Liu Chan: “… as I see it, the real threat to the USA isn’t found in the Middle East. Rather, as America’s founding fathers feared, it has arisen at the very heart of government [蕭牆之內].” chinaheritage.net/journal/trum...
Trump’s Bribe, America’s Disaster — Dasheng’s Calligraphic Comments on Current Affairs (XII)
The Other China 禍起蕭牆 This is the latest in the series ‘Dasheng’s Calligraphic Comments on Current Affairs’. For a full list of these comments, see below. *** Liu Chan 劉蟾, who also goes by
chinaheritage.net
A new chapter in this series. Here’s a taste: “We’re developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won’t be able to think.” — Rod Serling chinaheritage.net/journal/othe...
Other People’s Thoughts LXXXVII
This is the eighty seventh chapter in Other People's Thoughts, a China Heritage series inspired by a compilation of quotations put together by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans), one of our Ancestors, durin...
chinaheritage.net
Dasheng records a contemporary trip through historical landscapes that are of raw beauty, abiding significance and religious magnanimity. He offers readers a respite from the hurly-burly of the present moment; a reminder of the vanity of transitory obsessions. chinaheritage.net/journal/dash...
Dasheng Goes West — a Scholar’s Travelogue, Part II
西遊日記其二 In August 2026, Dasheng Liu Chan 大生劉蟾, the scholar, essayist, calligrapher and editor whose work features in The Other China section of China Heritage, was invited to accompany a study tour o...
chinaheritage.net
A diary of a nine-day trip along the Hexi Corridor in Gansu composed in literary Chinese by Liu Chan 劉蟾, independent scholar and social commentator, and transcribed in his calligraphic hand (translated by China Heritage): chinaheritage.net/journal/dash...
Dasheng Goes West — a Scholar’s Travelogue
西遊日記 In August 2026, Dasheng Liu Chan 大生劉蟾, the scholar, essayist, calligrapher and editor whose work features in The Other China section of China Heritage, was invited to accompany a study tour of ...
chinaheritage.net
A further celebration of ‘Teacher’s Day’, the 10th of September 2026: chinaheritage.net/journal/lao-...
Lao Shu’s Mentors — ‘Teachers Create a Link Between the Ancient and the Modern’
The Other China 打通上下古今 Teacher’s Festival 教師節, or ‘teacher’s day’, was originally celebrated in China on 6 June. Called 雙六節 — the ‘Double Sixth’ — is was gazetted by the national government of the
chinaheritage.net
Teacher’s Day 教師節 in the PRC — the ROC celebrates it on 28 September, Confucius’ Birthday 孔子誕辰. Beijing waited until Mao had been dead for five long years before the state finally started celebrating teachers. That was on 10 September 1981: chinaheritage.net/journal/teac...
Teacher’s Festival — Lao Shu on Those who Set Him on His Journey
The Other China We travelled together for a time — we weathered a storm and stood together at that ferry crossing to watch the sunset. It was our connection. It would be well nigh impossible
chinaheritage.net
chinaheritage.net/journal/the-...
The Ninth of September 1976 and the Birth of Mythopoetic Mao
Seeds of Fire at Forty Mao Zedong died fifty years ago, in the early hours of 9 September 1976. With his death, the Chairman entered history and China’s mythopoetic realm although, in a sense, he
chinaheritage.net
俗心十萬念， 青山一二松。 無來亦無去， 本原即是空。 A myriad of commonplace thoughts crowds the heart, two or three pines grown unaware in the verdant hills. Nothing new arrives, nor does anything old depart. At the root of all of this and that is the void, śūnya. chinaheritage.net/journal/othe...
Other People’s Thoughts LXXXVI
This is the eighty-sixth chapter in Other People's Thoughts, a China Heritage series inspired by a compilation of quotations put together by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans), one of our Ancestors, during ...
chinaheritage.net
chinaheritage.net/journal/pier...
Pierre, Kevin & Me — an intergenerational troika
Seeds of Fire Celebrating Four Decades 李白陸 In ‘Take Xi Jinping at his word’, the essay by Greg Sheridan, Foreign Affairs editor of The Australian, reproduced below, Pierre Ryckmans, Kevin Rudd and I a...
chinaheritage.net
夏去秋來，四時輪轉 — ‘Summer now gives way to autumn, the cycle of seasons in a changeful year’. In this selection of Beijing artist Lao Shu’s work we offer a cornucopia of the year’s seasonal bounty, including the artist’s whimsical poetic inscriptions. chinaheritage.net/journal/lao-...
Lao Shu’s Cornucopia
The Other China 夏去秋來，四時輪轉 夏去秋來，四時輪轉 — ‘Summer now gives way to autumn, the cycle of seasons in a changeful year’. Or, to quote Shakespeare: That time of year thou mayst in me behold When
chinaheritage.net
Other People’s Thoughts, LXXXV “People who don’t know the difference between ‘entomology’ and ‘etymology’ bug us in ways we cannot put into words.” — Merriam-Webster, Bluesky, 20 August 2026 chinaheritage.net/journal/othe...
Other People’s Thoughts LXXXV (Corrected Version)
This is the eighty-fifth chapter in Other People's Thoughts, a China Heritage series inspired by a compilation of quotations put together by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans), one of our Ancestors, during ...
chinaheritage.net
chinaheritage.net/journal/the-...
The Floodwaters Reach Heaven Itself — Dasheng’s Calligraphic Comments on Current Affairs (XI)
The Other China 洪水滔天，無息壤以堙之 Liu Chan 劉蟾, who also goes by the literary sobriquet Dasheng 大生, is a writer, scholar and calligrapher. Born in Shaanxi, he lives in Beijing where he edits The Chinese
chinaheritage.net
