Seeds of Fire ‘On Heritage 遺’, reproduced below, was written in January 2016. It offers the Rationale behind China Heritage, a publishing and archival project related to culture, translation and thought that was launched in December 2016.… Read

Seeds of Fire 無恥之尤 Journalist Marije Vlaskamp’s essay on the Gao Brothers 高氏兄弟 — Gao Zhen 高兟 and Gao Qiang 高强 — reproduced below, is all but unreadable, even unbearable. That’s because Vlaskamp describes dilemmas and agonies of conscience that have been part of my own life for nearly half a century.… Read

Seeds of Fire 馬首是瞻 While many people were enthralled by Kungfu bots— 武bot — of the official Spring Festival song-and-dance celebration, or Chunwan 春晚,  broadcast by Beijing’s CCTV on 16 February 2026, some were just as attentive to what the show says about things IRL.… Read

The Other China   China Heritage marked the lead-up to the 2026-2027 Bingwu Year of the Horse with a series of essays, a selection of Other People’s Thoughts and a poem by Xu Zhangrun:

The Little New Year

On the Cusp of Fire — The Flaming Horse and The Blood-red Ram

Snakes Retreat with the Advent of The Horse

Other People’s Thoughts LXXIII

Who will adjudicate the how’s and why’s?

… Read

Xu Zhangrun Archive 哦莫怪！我是路人 The last meal on the last night of the traditional calendar — 年夜飯 niányèfàn — is one of the most important occasions in the Chinese year. Families and friends gather to bid farewell to the old year and welcome in the new with food, drink and merriment.… Read

Other People’s Thoughts This is the seventy-third 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