The Tower of Reading 興趣 This is a companion piece to On the Spur of the Moment, a chapter in The Tower of Reading focussed on an anecdote in New Tales of the World 世說新語.… Read

The Tower of Reading 乘興而行，
興盡而返。   In this chapter of The Tower of Reading we focus on a well-known anecdote found in New Tales of the World 世說新語. Wang Huizhi’s impulsive behaviour also provides us with a pretext to discuss some ideas that lie at the heart of an abiding Chinese tradition of quirkiness, taste and individuality.… Read

The Other China 浪跡雲水中   This spring selection of work by Lao Shu, a Beijing-based artist who will be familiar to readers of China Heritage, starts with a self-portrait and doggerel verse followed by an excerpt from an essay titled ‘Mucking About’ 就是個好玩兒.… Read

Watching China Watching 陷阱 Watching China Watching was launched in January 2018. The first chapter in the series consisted of The China Expert, an essay by Simon Leys originally published in 1981, and the now-famous Ten Commandments of László Ladány from 1982.… Read

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

Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium Chapter Three, Part II 旋 Communist Chinese politics are a lugubrious merry-go-round … and in order to appreciate fully the déjà-vu quality of its latest convolutions, you would need to have watched it revolve for half a century.… Read