‘Break a leg’, that’s not just an old saw. Notes on the 2025 Riyadh Comedy Festival

Contra Trump 豬八戒照鏡子 … the festival takes place on the seventh anniversary of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi being murdered by Saudi government officials on October 2, 2018. In 2021, President Joe Biden found Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s personal security detail Rapid Intervention Force responsible for killing Khashoggi, but the Saudi royal court has continued to deny involvement.… Read

Other People’s Thoughts LXVI

This is the sixty-sixth 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

Xu Zhangrun Mourns Jerome Cohen

Xu Zhangrun Archive   In Memoriam: Jerome A. Cohen 精神家族一代師表——思祭孔傑榮先輩 A Eulogy by Xu Zhangrun  許章潤誄孔公 translated by G.R. Barmé (draft, 24.ix.25)   Jerome Cohen enjoyed the longevity of a truly righteous man, however, following an extended illness he has now left us.… Read

Still Dissenting from Ba Jin

Celebrating New Sinology 謝巴公 On 17 October 2025 it will be twenty years since Ba Jin (巴金, the pen name of Li Yaotang 李堯棠, 1904-2005) died at the age of 100.… Read

Cancel Culture

Contra Trump 禁言 A picture is worth a thousand words. The Chinese rubric of this chapter in Contra Trump is 禁言 jìn yán, ‘to muzzle speech’. This has also long been characteristic of Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium, 習近平無奈之帝國: see, for example, The Heart of The One Grows Ever More Arrogant and Proud 獨夫之心 日益驕固 — Geremie R.… Read

America’s Grievances Against Its “King” on Constitution Day 2025

Contra Trump 違憲惡法 On 17 September 2025, America’s annual Constitution Day, it just so happened that America’s roi manqué, the 47th President of the United States, was wined and dined by King Charles III, the descendant of the British sovereign who had been unsuccessful in his efforts to prevent American independence and, by association, the promulgation of the American Constitution.… Read