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

蛇尾馬頭   The 2014 Year of the Horse was my birth year — I turned sixty on 4 May 2014 — a fateful time and one that Indian astrologers had warned me would be a time of extreme danger.… Read

Seeds of Fire 赤馬紅羊劫   *** This is the first of a series of new years cards designed for China Heritage by Callum Smith. It features a photograph by Lois Conner of a bronze horse from the tomb of Qin Shihuang on a yellow background.… Read