Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium Appendix LI 好話說盡，壞事幹絕   On 1 October 2023 National Day, we return to the well-worn mendacity that underpins the Chinese party-state. We do so by recalling the ‘Golden Millet Dream’ 黃梁夢, an old story about the fleeting nature of success, the whims of autocratic fiat and frustrated aspiration.… Read

New Sinology Jottings The Same Fair Moon 千里共嬋娟   The Fifteenth Day of the Eighth Month of the lunar calendar, which in 2023 falls on 29 September, marks the Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋節.… 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 陰魂不散   ‘At the center of the center of China lies a corpse that nobody dares remove.’ The line rings as true today in 2023, the 47th anniversary of Mao’s death, as it did when Behind the Forbidden Door: Travels in Unknown China, Tiziano Terzani’s colourful account of reporting from China, was published in 1985.… Read

Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium 悲欣交集   In October 2020, having found Xiaonan guilty of ‘illegal business operations’ a Beijing court sentenced Geng Xiaonan 耿瀟男, entrepreneur, humanitarian and cultural activist to three years incarceration.… Read

Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium Chapter XXXI 在路上   ‘It’s as though we are in some kind of “Kerouac fantasia”. Back in the day, Jack Kerouac encouraged everyone to hit the road — forget all that stuff and set out in pursuit of your soul, find your own path in life … ‘My sense is that we have this kind of mindset now and, given the way things are unfolding, I’m pretty sure that all kinds of new community and cultural phenomena will appear.’… Read