This is the seventy-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 his reading life.… Read

Contra Trump 越瘦秦肥   The focus of this chapter of Contra Trump is No Kings Day, 28 March 2026. We featured earlier mass protests against Donald J. Trump’s rule organised under the banner of No Kings in:

貳佰伍 — No Kings Day

How “No Kings” Betrays 1776

Here we commemorate the mass demonstrations with an essay by Chris Hedges in which he comments on the empty heart of America’s autocrat.… Read

The Other China 心田 It is because he is free from striving that no one in the world can strive against him’ — this line from Tao Te Ching encapsulates the spirit of the following selection of works by Lao Shu 老樹, the nom de plume of Liu Shuyong (劉樹勇, 1962-).… Read

Seeds of Fire 曾伴浮雲歸晚翠，猶陪落日泛秋聲。
世間無限丹青手，一片傷心畫不成。   悲傷 bēishāng, ‘grief’, ‘sorrow’, ‘distress’ — two Chinese characters in the calligraphic hand of Li Xianting 栗憲庭 written for Geng Xiaonan 耿蕭男 to commemorate her release from prison displayed here with Tao Jingzhou 陶景洲 in March 2026 are a silent testimony to the karmic link between Li, Geng, Tao and Xu Zhangrun 許章潤, their long-persecuted friend.… Read

The Other China   Liu Chan 劉蟾, who also goes by the pen name 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.… Read

Seeds of Fire The intellectual culture it most resembled, Claude said, was one built on relentless questioning, arguing with texts, treating interpretation as sacred, a contrarian streak, deep concern with ethics and law, and a tradition of thriving through knowledge rather than territorial conquest.… Read