Other People’s Thoughts is a section in the Journal of the China Heritage site. It is inspired by a compilation of quotations put together by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans), one of our Ancestors, during his reading life.… Read

Spectres & Souls The ‘centennial month’ of July 2021 highlighted many aspects of Communist Party ideology and practice that, superficially at least, seem germane to the Xi Jinping era (2012-). For those with a longer perspective, and more retentive memories, however, the underpinnings of this year’s pharaonic display  of pomp and circumstance were evident (unavoidable, in fact) long before the advent of the man we think of as the Chairman of Everything.… Read

Spectres & Souls   In 1949, in one of his first acts as the mayor of a ‘liberated Beijing’, PLA General Nie Rongzhen (聶榮臻, 1899-1992)  approved the establishment of two new territorial ‘exclaves’ of the city.… Read