What I like about them There are so many kinds of fluorite… each of these pieces has unique characteristics in terms of color, texture, shape, size, and interaction with light, thus they attracted me for different reasons. The polished flat slice is the thing that struck me first, and seemed unique in the shop; the pure bright green crystal caught Siqi’s attention; the sphere has a purely symmetrical shape and smooth texture that minimizes distraction from the stone’s colors; I wanted a piece that showcases chaotic sparkly square crystals; and I wanted at least one animal carving.
Other notes I bought two lizards even though I usually don’t buy two similar items. The logic is, if I buy two similar things, then I will probably wind up liking one more than the other, and the less-liked one will cause regret by seeming redundant. I decided that the lizards were both spectacular enough, each in its own way, and that I’d regret leaving either of them behind.
See below for more on how we found the shop where I got all this stuff, and photos of the items. In particular, the crystal on the far left really is bright green, though it doesn’t look green at all in the photo above!
Below are five funny English text samples I saw on a brief road trip with my husband Siqi and his parents to Wuyi, Zhejiang Province (a city with a population of 460,000). On our way back to Hangzhou, we passed through Jinhua, Zhejiang Province (a city with a metro area population of 1,258,000).
There’s a trip.com page about this place, and a couple of stilted English-language news articles that mention it, and that’s all.
Hello, Wuyi Hot Spring Fluorite Museum!
The museum was two floors of rooms, laid out like this.“Schematic diagram of the distribution of fluorite ore resources in China” and “Distribution map of fluorite despots in Wuyi Count” (inset)Guanyin statue outside the museum
I live in China. I’ve had the thought that while I’m here, I should look into buying minerals that are mined locally, since presumably such treasures can be had for a fraction of the price they sell for after being exported.
I had the impression that China is known globally as a source of fluorite. I did an online search, and went to a geological museum in Hangzhou, and learned that the county of Wuyi (population 462,462), which belongs to the city of Jinhua, has fluorite mines and a fluorite museum. Therefore, during the Chinese New Year Holiday, I went with my cooperative husband and in-laws to Wuyi in search of beautiful stones. I assumed, since Wuyi has fluorite mines and a fluorite museum, that it also had shops selling fluorite products. If it does, we couldn’t find them! Nevertheless, our road trip shopping quest was successful.
The trip is documented in this post and five others:
I recently read seven works by E.M. Forster in order of publication:
Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)
The Longest Journey (1907)
A Room with a View (1908)
Howards End (1910)
A Passage to India (1924)
Maurice (written in 1913–14, published posthumously in 1971)
Aspects of the Novel (1927)
Forster is known for the mantra “Only connect,” a quote from Howard’s End. Perhaps his best-known novel, which I read previously, is A Passage To India. My favorite of the novels is A Room with a View, which I read and posted about previously.
Item description / significance
The seller labeled this as a horse, one of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals, but this is obviously a donkey. Approx. 13 cm tall, 24 cm long.
I say “obviously”, but why, exactly? Upon consideration, I can say: It’s a donkey first and foremost because the ears are long. Moreover, the face is short, and the tail is rope-like, like a lion’s tail. Also, there’s not much mane, and although many donkeys are brown, gray is possibly the most typical donkey color. I rest my case.
I have named him Eyeore, because he seems a bit downcast.
Bought where
on Xianyu, the Chinese second-hand marketplace app
Age and origin
like new, age and origin unknown
What I like about it
The realism. He looks like he could get up and walk away, but doesn’t want to. His form and coloring are natural. He isn’t cartoony or cutesey or anthropomorphized. He isn’t decorated with colorful abstract patterns.
The lack of accessories. He’s not wearing a halter, saddle, or saddlebags. He’s not pulling a cart. He’s at rest. Perhaps he belongs in a nativity scene…
See below for something surprising I learned, plus photos from the seller.
“We do not know why we are here. We do not know who built the Silo. We do not know why everything outside the Silo is as it is. We do not know when it will be safe to go outside. We only know that that day is not this day.”
Silo is the grown-up version of City of Ember, which I love (the book version, at any rate). It’s also based on a book series. It’s sci-fi dystopia in which 10,000 people live in a city consisting of an underground silo. The world of the Silo, stratified vertically into different classes of citizens with different roles and lifestyles, is interesting in itself, but the characters bring it to life and drive the plot. The characters all have goals that motivate and explain their decisions (and conflict with other characters’ goals), and they all learn as they go, shifting their allegiance, or not, as suits their aims and principles and the information they happen to have.
Like all good sci-fi, Silo is about big questions made into relatable stories…
If you lived in an underground Silo, wouldn’t you want, first of all, to prevent your fellow citizens from threatening the existence of your world, even if it meant following orders and not asking questions, or concealing (or distorting) the truth? If the stakes are survival, don’t the ends justify the means? Curiosity killed the cat; it could kill you too—and 10,000 others with you! Is knowing the truth so important? On the other hand, is it possible for humans to happily ignore huge unanswered questions? What kind of truth requires such secrecy that people have to die for it? Aren’t we better off finding out whatever there is to find out, and knowing whatever there is to know? And anyway, isn’t it our nature that we will inevitably seek the truth, even if it doesn’t make us better off?
Who do you identify with: those who are willing to kill for the sake of secrecy in the name of safety, or those who are willing to die for the sake of solving a mystery? In probably every dystopia story, the audience is meant to side with the rebels. Silo, while clearly siding with the characters who seek the truth (as per the tagline), makes a pretty strong case for the local tyrant: there’s no twirling of mustaches here. Every issue has as many sides as there are characters, because every character has his or her own individual perspective. And yet, in the end, the truth matters.
Season 1 kicks off with a couple of mysterious deaths, but the greater mystery is whether the world outside the Silo is as inhospitable as the residents have been led to believe. Juliette, a gifted engineer responsible for the health of the Silo’s generator, is thrust into a new role that she leverages to find the answers to increasingly dangerous questions. Above all, she’s tenacious. Whatever she does, you root for her.
Season 2 is gripping in the sense that you want to know what happens to the people you met in Season 1, but it’s less gripping in the sense that the biggest mystery of Season 1 has been revealed. Moreover, Season 2 bounces between two separate plotlines. Circumstances are more strained; Season 1, even when people die, is more about solving intellectual puzzles, some of them political and all of them secret; Season 2 is more political rather than less so, but now there are many more overt physical conflicts: explosions, gunshots, arrows, and more than enough water to drown in!
There’s not yet any release date for Season 3, but it will probably start airing in 2026. 🙁 I’m tempted to read the books, but I also believe that would be a terrible idea, so I’ll wait until I’ve finished watching the show; then I’ll read the book series and compare.
This was fun. Silly, but with strong themes of hope, friendship, and family.
Wikipedia says: Polygon said Carrey’s “gloriously deranged one-man, two-character musical” contrasted with the “utter sincerity” of Reeves, who made Shadow a “weirdly likable little ball of pain”. Sounds about right.
