Year: 2025

Big Qingming Festival Chinese inside-painted glass ball

Item description / significance
This is an inside-painted (inner-painted, reverse painted) glass ball depicting an adaptation of the Song dynasty handscroll painting “Along the River During the Qingming Festival.”

Bought where
in China on Xianyu, the Chinese second-hand marketplace app (from a seller in Beijing)

Age and origin
Painted in 2000, according to the inscription, probably in Hengshui, Hebei Province, in northern China

What I like about it
What attracted me is that the quality of the painting (the level of detail) is high. Also, the seller discounted the price, haha. But, get this: I have another inside-painted glass ball depicting this same scroll, and it was painted by the same guy!!! This one was painted 8 years later, has more detail, and (I think) is bigger.

See below for more photos of this sphere and the other one I bought before, photos from the seller, and photos of other spherical renditions of this painting.

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Bill and Ted trilogy

In 2016, on a plane, I saw the 1989 Bill and Ted movie for the first time and really enjoyed it. Recently, Siqi and I watched it together, and watched the 1991 sequel, and watched the 2020 follow-up.

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Two wood bears

Item description / significance
These are two small painted carved wooden bears, one white, one black.

Both were described as hand-carved, but I’m a little suspicious about that. The listing for the white bear said it’s made from beechwood.

Bought where
in China on Xianyu, the Chinese second-hand marketplace app

Age and origin
New!

What I like about them
The lifelike poses. I’m not an expert on bears, and these are a little abstract, but they still seem to contain an accurate kind of bear spirit somehow. These bears seem friendly and curious. (I would not approach a “friendly and curious” bear in real life!)

Other notes

So apparently now I have a collection of 3 wooden bears, including the Japanese bear I bought in Longquan, Zhejiang, China.

See below for more photos of these two, including photos from the sellers.

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Slices of life in China (Q1 2025)

These are things I wanted to share that don’t seem to justify a blog post of their own. They are nice to look at, or interesting, or both.

See below for 36 photos.

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Zhizhang Bridge (Q1 2025)

Yet more photos of Zhizhang Bridge!

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Notable vehicles (Q1 2025)

Ever since arriving in Hangzhou in December 2022, I’ve been noticing stuff about cars here, and I’ve been meaning to share my observations.

Therefore, here are some facts about the automotive landscape in China (especially Hangzhou):

In addition to imported vehicles and vehicles produced in cooperation with foreign automakers, China has a lot of domestically produced car brands. I’d heard of them because I edited news articles for China Knowledge, an English-language news portal offering business, financial, and real-estate news about China. But to see all the different designs in person is dizzying. Never knew there could be so many different shapes of taillights. (LEDs have changed the world.)

There are “cars” on the road that are tiny, some with only three wheels. These glorified golf carts are mysteriously ubiquitous despite not being road legal. (Apparently, they have recently been officially banned in Beijing.)

Some courier vehicles have no driver. These may start to replace the much more numerous three-wheeled courier vehicles that do have drivers. (But who unloads them, I want to know??? Seems like you’ve still got a last-mile problem.)

There are many consumer model vehicles with AI self-driving features. “Already today, a quarter of all newly registered vehicles in the Chinese market are equipped with a Level 2 driving system for highway scenarios.”

There are often mechanical shelves for cars in underground parking garages to increase capacity. (They are super annoying to park in because you have to back in, and you have to do it very precisely, because there’s only about 6 inches of space on either side of the car. Miss and you damage your tire or rim—happened to Siqi twice.)

There are no vanity license plates, but sometimes the license plate kinda spells something by accident. My brain constantly wants the alphanumeric inscriptions to be real words; they’re usually not. Electric and hybrid cars have green/white license plates, whereas petrol cars have blue license plates. There are a lot of EVs in Hangzhou, maybe 20%-30%. (Here’s a 2022 report with some statistics.)

The highway infrastructure continually amazes me. It’s new, it’s massive, and from what I’ve seen, there’s no graffiti.

Intrigued? See below for 25 photos of vehicles and vehicle infrastructure.

Continue reading Notable vehicles (Q1 2025)

Zhejiang Lab Campus (Q1 2025)

January and February are kinda bleak, but at least there are red lantern decorations for Chinese New Year. In March, the flowers start to appear, and the green comes back! See below for 30 photos from the first quarter of 2025 at Zhejiang Lab.

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Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

This is one of those books where you know what’s going on, but you have to wait a long time for the characters in the story to catch up. Sigh.

The title is the nickname given to a lawyer who settles in a small town but fails to achieve success because the locals think he’s weird. Partly, he is; as a hobby, he takes people’s fingerprints and compares them. The townspeople aren’t as clever as they think they are, so it’s ironic that they give the young lawyer a nickname that disparages his intelligence (see below). But the book isn’t about the lawyer.

The book is about two boys, one “white” and one “black”, who change places, kind of like the boys in The Prince and the Pauper. This time, however, the change is deliberate on the part of the mother of the “black” boy, who swaps him for her employer’s son to give her own son a better life. That doesn’t really turn out well for anyone, except maybe the lawyer; everyone has to admit that his fingerprinting hobby is actually quite useful for identification purposes.

The “I see where this is going” plot made me impatient, and the dishonest mother and her spoiled son are somewhat and very irritating, respectively. However, the setting is interesting; the themes are interesting; the lawyer is interesting; and the dialect dialog is interesting. Moreover, the wry observations in the narration are interesting (see below).

Continue reading Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

When and Why I Read Pudd’nhead Wilson

Time to read some Mark Twain.

Genre: American Literature
Date started / date finished: 29-Mar-25 to 30-Mar-25
Length: 119 pages
Originally published in: 1894/2004/2023
Source link: Pudd’nhead Wilson

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain

I’m gradually learning that Mark Twain is not exactly my cup of tea, but I have to say, this was a fun book.

Most time-travelers try to pretend they fit in and generally avoid introducing anachronisms. Either they’re just there as spectators to soak it all in on the reader’s behalf, or they’re caught up helplessly in large-scale historical events and are simply trying survive while attempting to return to the time and place where they belong—or, likely, both. But not the guy in this book! He remakes the whole world in his own image. And you know what? More power to him. The past is a terrible place.

Soon, I’ll read Ivanhoe and see how Walter Scott depicts Medieval England. Some Googling indicates that it’s not wholly accurate (though it has many accurate details), and that it romanticizes the past, but that not everything is shown in a positive light.

See below for some quotes I pulled out of Connecticut Yankee that I found amusing or insightful (or both).

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When and Why I Read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Time to read some Mark Twain.

Genre: American literature
Date started / date finished: 23-Mar-25 to 29-Mar-25
Length: 462 pages
ISBN: B0756Z7ZNY
Originally published in: 1889/2017
Amazon link: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

While I admire the intent of the novel, and enjoyed the story as historical fiction to some extent, the theme of injustice came across as overly didactic—and of course the whole plot relies on the absurd coincidence that there exists a literate pauper who looks like the twin brother of the heir to the throne of Henry VIII.

Still, the story is a powerful reminder that, as they say, The clothes make the man. See below for more thoughts on this theme, and a bit more information on the premise, including a sample of the Shakespearean-esque dialog of the novel.

Continue reading The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

When and Why I Read The Prince and the Pauper

Time to read some Mark Twain.

Genre: American literature
Date started / date finished: 21-Mar-25 to 22-Mar-25
Length: 226 pages
ISBN: B075CMK533
Originally published in: 1881/2017
Amazon link: The Prince and the Pauper