This is the eighty-fourth 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

The Other China 吾倦矣 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 tenor, whimsy and profundity evoke what for decades we have called The Other China — a cultural noosphere that is as undeniably local as it is universal.… Read

The Other China 朱公千古
atque in perpetuum   On 12 August 2026, it was reported that Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基, 1928-2026), premier of the Chinese People’s Republic from 1998 to 2003, had passed away.… Read

The Other China 毒瀆毒
殺閷杀 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.… Read

Seeds of Fire 已矣哉 Enough! There are no true men in the state: no one understands me.
Why should I cleave to the city of my birth?
Since none is worthy to work with in making good government,
I shall go and join Peng Xian in the place where he abides.… Read

Contra Trump 愛屋及烏   IFLA (I Fucking Love Australia) writes about America and its Pacific cousin on Substack. In his inimitable Australian style of prose, IFLA chronicles the saga of a benighted America.… Read