The UK is no different. The marginalization of pure language and literature departments is old news; even The Guardian has published editorials lamenting the successive closures of English literature departments. Chinese language and literature, at least, is kept on life support by civil service recruitment, but to say it hasn't been deeply affected would be self-deception.

This is not a problem confined to one country—it is a global phenomenon. Young people everywhere seem to have lost interest in language majors.

However, this does not mean language itself has depreciated. On the contrary, language has never been more valuable—but its form of power has undergone a fundamental shift.

The Swallows of Yesteryear

Looking globally, decades ago, "the ability to organize words" was still a scarce form of social power. In the days before the internet and cheap reproduction, a book, a government notice, or an editorial depended on expensive media and scarce distribution channels. Whoever controlled the organization of words controlled the interpretation of social order. A scholar who could craft elegant memorials to the throne, or a translator who could precisely decipher foreign intelligence, was an indispensable "holder of discursive power."

Take me—I'm a post-80s generation. In my student days, I experienced many "relics" of the old era: finding a distant, stranger "pen pal" through a literary magazine and exchanging letters; cutting out and pasting into a scrapbook a series of works by the same author in a magazine; or, during class, daydreaming while repeatedly copying a modern poem by some local young "poet"—all of which were, in essence, forms of "worship of textual ability."

The internet profoundly transformed human communication, giving everyone a microphone. Now, AI gives everyone the ability to instantly generate structurally sound prose. When something that once required a decade of practice—organizing words—can now yield a 70- or 80-point result with a flick of the finger, the ability to organize words degrades from "power" to "basic skill." This year, when I wrote " Tech Blogs May Have Reached Their End ", I discussed the same thing: AI is hollowing out the value of "standard-answer" textual work. Programmers writing tutorials, translators doing translation, clerks drafting press releases—they are all experiencing the same power transfer.

The market's yardstick for words is no longer rhetoric and logic; instead, it has been replaced by traffic and partisanship. When a long article goes out, readers quickly slap labels on it—whitewashing, marketing account, old pedant—and the speed of labeling far outstrips the speed of reading comprehension. Last month, a crypto billionaire posted a long article in response to rumors about an old relationship, which was widely dissected online. Almost no one believed his explanation, but even his critics had to admit his writing was indeed strong.

Nowadays, textual ability and personal credibility are completely separated in public discourse. Dong Yuhui's knowledge-driven带货, Wang Hailin's criticism of the film industry's ills, Liu Zhenyun's satirical novels—once they enter the public sphere, they are quickly taken over by labels of stance and persona, and are rarely treated as "words" in themselves. The authority of language no longer comes primarily from the text, but as an extension of the person.

Nonsense Literature

If "words becoming a sieve" is a problem on the consumption side, then on the supply side, AI brings another layer of trouble: the sheer volume of language that ordinary people can access is expanding at an unprecedented rate.

In the past, I used to collect all kinds of bestselling e-books online, hoard a large number of humanities and social science books in my cloud drives, and even use Calibre software to build what I called a personal "digital library" on my NAS—essentially using "compulsive hoarding" to cope with knowledge anxiety. And I barely read any of those books. The knowledge and words inside them, unless I opened them, had no intersection with me.

But AI and algorithms are different. Before them, a person only needs to show any subconscious action or linguistic tendency, and they will continuously supply infinite bytes. On short-video platforms, once you click on a cute pet video, your feed is filled with cats and dogs forever; if you comment on a movie, the algorithm assumes you're interested in all similar films. This feeding mechanism is precise and efficient, like an automated conveyor belt in a farm.

The same happens in the textual realm. When you scroll to a post titled "Life Advice: Never Have Deep Friendships with These Three Types of People," click through and finish reading, swipe away, the next one will be "Truly Capable People Usually Have These Three Traits." Same structure, similar keywords. It feels like you've absorbed something while reading, but after finishing, you recall nothing.

The more insidious harm is that this homogenized content is quietly reshaping our linguistic intuition. If a person is fed daily by algorithms with "mindset," "cognition," and "emotional value," what they write will unconsciously grow the same plasticky texture. By the time they really want to express something, they find their mind is full of others' chewed-up phrases—disposable, with no aftertaste.

So we return to the earlier question: in an era where linguistic power has sunk to everyone's hands, where AI writes summaries for you, polishes your prose, and even mimics your tone to reply to messages, how much effort is a person still worth investing in words?

Linguistic Innovation

Yet, in this global descent of linguistic power, Chinese seems to have one extra card up its sleeve compared to English.

For example, I've recently often recalled a line from a song: "The candle flame awake at midnight cannot bear to blame me." Not a single word plagiarizes the ancients, yet every word feels like a living character fished out of the semantic field of Chinese culture. Seeing "candle flame," the image naturally emerges—flickering light, dripping wax; seeing "cannot bear," a personified tender morality instantly floods in. But English is different. Shakespeare's "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" to the average American today is roughly like a Chinese reader opening the Book of Documents. Even if someone imitates Emily Dickinson and writes "Because I could not turn from Time — He gently paused for me," given the average contemporary American's knowledge, it would be hard for them to see the depth behind it.

Interestingly, though, this moat doesn't work in most scenarios. Open any government work report, or watch any domestic news broadcast, and you'll find the same set of vocabulary on repeat. The former almost invariably uses "realize," "advance," "implement," "strengthen" in every paragraph, while the latter favors "emphasize," "point out," "demand," "must"—squeezing complex realities into standardized phrases that are both safe and all too familiar. Occasionally, a local government report quotes a line like "Late spring days show mountains and rivers fair, with fragrant breeze and blooming flowers," which can evoke a sense of "a general's brush opening a new face."

But thinking about it the other way, this also exposes its true utility: when everyone speaks with the same vocabulary bank, a phrase that strays slightly from the mainstream can capture countless hearts. For example, "The sky is blue waiting for rain, and I am waiting for you." Before Fang Wenshan wrote that, I doubt any AI could have produced it. After all, this kind of linguistic innovation truly worth savoring always comes from a specific person, touched by something in a specific context, and then fixed with the most unassuming words—a genuine feeling that operates on an entirely different dimension from AI's probabilistic predictions.

Unfortunately, a Chinese literature student spends four years memorizing periodizations of literary history and verifying the pronunciation of a certain character in the Tang dynasty, yet never learns how to use words to move others or to reshape the world with AI. An English major pores over Victorian novels but is never encouraged to capture real moments in their own life in English. If such skills are replaced by AI, there's really no reason to complain.

Whether English or Chinese majors, their decline is not because language has become unimportant. On the contrary, language has never been so important. What is truly declining is that educational model that treats memorizing literary history as a core skill and polishing rhetoric as a survival skill. After linguistic power has sunk to everyone's hands, what is truly scarce is no longer the ability to "write something," but the weight of what is written—something worthy of being believed by others.

For ordinary Vietnamese who are used to seeing Vietnamese laborers spread across Japan, South Korea, and the Middle East, this scene does look somewhat unfamiliar. Vietnam has been a major labor-exporting country for decades, sending over 144,000 workers abroad in 2025, with a target of 112,000 for 2026. Yet now it has begun to "import" workers into the country.

This is not accidental, but the beginning of a long-term trend. Several structural factors are pushing Vietnam in this direction.

Why Vietnam is Beginning to Import Labor

The first reason, and the most relentless driver, is Vietnam's demographic shift—the population is aging faster than income growth allows. The proportion of people aged 65 and above rose from 6.2% in 2005 to 9.5% in 2025; the age dependency ratio increased from 43.1% in 2013 to 47.7% in 2024. In 2024, Vietnam had 14.2 million people aged 60 and above, projected to reach 20.9 million by 2034. Meanwhile, the total fertility rate has fallen below replacement level, dropping to 1.91 in 2024, and to just 1.51 in urban areas. This means that even as more factories open, fewer young people enter the labor market each year.

The second reason is the intense "involution" among domestic unskilled workers in Vietnam. Foreign-invested factories are expanding too fast, and provinces can no longer fill positions locally. In Bac Ninh province alone, over 230,000 new workers were needed in 2026 to meet industrial park demand. At a job fair in December last year, 30 companies wanted to hire 35,000 people, but less than 10% of positions were filled. One battery factory offered a signing bonus of 9 million VND (about $342) and recruited via TikTok livestreams, yet skilled positions still drew almost no applicants; up to 40% of new hires at some factories quit within three days.

The third reason is economic and industrial upgrading. As Vietnam's economy moves upward, more local workers are shifting to higher-skilled, higher-paying occupations, and fewer are willing to do manual labor. Since 2023, "freelancer" has consistently ranked high in search engine trends. Workers are "voting with their feet," leaving assembly lines to deliver food or set up street stalls, even without social insurance.

The fourth reason is Vietnam's own infrastructure ambitions. For example, the country's prized Long Thanh International Airport reported a shortage of about 5,500 workers in April this year, against a demand of 14,000. VinCons, the construction arm of Vietnam's largest private conglomerate Vingroup, recruited over 100,000 construction workers nationwide, offering monthly wages of 14 million to 33 million VND ($530 to $1,250) for general laborers, yet still struggled to fill positions.

Why Bangladesh?

The question is, why Bangladesh? Why doesn't Vietnam bring in workers from neighboring Cambodia or Laos?

The answer is not complicated. Bangladesh is one of the world's largest labor exporters, with about 2 million new entrants to the labor market each year, and persistently high domestic unemployment. The wages for general labor in Vietnam are already quite attractive to Bangladeshi workers. As for Cambodia and Laos, their labor flows are directed elsewhere—Thailand is the main destination for Mekong-region labor. More importantly, Vietnam has complex historical and territorial entanglements with Cambodia and Laos; large-scale import of their labor could trigger nationalist backlash at home, making it too risky. Thus, geographically distant Bangladesh becomes a "safer" choice.

But this path is not as "safe" as it seems. Many Bangladeshi workers do not enter Vietnam through legal channels; they arrive on tourist visas and then overstay illegally. By one estimate, about 6,000 Bangladeshis entered Vietnam on visas in August 2023 alone, and the actual number in the country may be higher. Vietnamese police have frequently cracked down on illegal Bangladeshi workers in recent years—Dong Nai province once deported 36 people at once, and Tay Ninh province and Ho Chi Minh City have also conducted multiple operations. These "underground" workers operate outside the legal system and thus are not counted in official foreign labor statistics. As of the end of 2025, Vietnam's official count of foreign workers stood at 163,000, of which 86.2% were skilled workers, mainly from China, South Korea, and other countries.

At the same time, Vietnam's own labor force is flowing out in large numbers. This is the most dramatic part of the whole story.

Vietnam Itself is a Major Labor Exporter

As is well known, Japan and South Korea are mired in population aging and labor shortages, and Vietnam has long become their most important source of foreign workers. As of October 2025, Japan had about 2.57 million foreign workers, of which about 606,000 were Vietnamese, accounting for 23.6% and ranking first. South Korea had over 1.1 million foreign workers as of 2025, with about 149,000 Vietnamese, the second-largest group. Vietnamese workers in Japan and South Korea also earn much higher incomes—around $1,200–1,500 per month in Japan, and $1,600–2,000 in South Korea—far above domestic factory wages. South Korea has even introduced Vietnamese skilled workers specifically in shipbuilding and other sectors, with official discussions about further expansion.

This creates a curious loop: Vietnam sends its own workers abroad to work for Japan and South Korea, while importing workers from Bangladesh to fill domestic manual labor gaps. Vietnam has become a "relay station" for labor, occupying an awkward middle position in the regional labor chain.

Even more surprising is the labor flow between China and Vietnam. Most people habitually assume "Vietnamese work in China," but official statistics show the exact opposite. Vietnamese official data shows that in the first quarter of 2024, about 36,000 Vietnamese workers went abroad in total, of which only about 170 went to mainland China, with a full-year target of just 400. The reason is simple: China has little demand for low-end foreign labor, and it is extremely difficult for Vietnamese workers to obtain Chinese work visas. Those "occasionally visible Vietnamese workers" along the China-Vietnam border are mostly border commuters or illegal workers, and are not included in Vietnam's official "contract-based labor export" statistics at all.

Conversely, the number of Chinese legally working in Vietnam exceeds 70,000, accounting for over 30% of all foreign workers in the country. Most of them are "industrial mentors" who have come to Vietnam in recent years amidst industrial relocation, bringing capital, blueprints, management experience, and supply chain connections, filling talent gaps in specific fields where Vietnam lacks domestic capacity. The labor "scissors differential" between China and Vietnam shows that, in the regional industrial chain division of labor, China remains upstream in technology and management, while Vietnam is the downstream supporting link for Chinese investment outflows.

This is the most "fantastical" aspect of Vietnam's labor market. Four completely different economic logics operate simultaneously. First, formal factories face labor shortages and import laborers from Bangladesh. Second, 65% of Vietnam's own labor force remains outside the formal economy, preferring to set up street stalls or motorcycle repair shops, even without social insurance, rather than enter factories. Third, Vietnam's most skilled industrial workers are lured away by high wages in Japan and South Korea. Fourth, the core manufacturing management positions in Vietnam are occupied by Chinese nationals. These four groups live side by side in the same land, with almost no intersection among them.

That 65% of Vietnam's informal workers is the key to understanding the social response in this country. This is also why the Vietnamese public appears quite calm about the large-scale import of foreign labor—because that 65% simply don't feel it concerns them. They don't enter factories, punch clocks, or pay social insurance; importing foreign labor affects the formal economy's employment structure and has no direct conflict with their roadside barber stalls. On the contrary, foreign workers fill positions that Vietnamese youth have "voted with their feet" to abandon, and to some extent, this is seen as an "economic necessity" rather than a threat.

A Highly Contradictory Vietnamese Job Market

By 2024, over 700,000 Vietnamese were working abroad under contract. Now the country is beginning to import workers to keep its factories and construction sites running. If one looks only at appearances, this bears a striking resemblance to South Korea's development trajectory decades ago—which is why many Vietnamese "amateur economists" on social media optimistically predict that Vietnam will become a developed country within a few decades, citing this as evidence. Indeed, in the 1970s and early 1980s, South Korea sent miners and nurses to West Germany, and over one million construction workers to the Middle East; by the late 1980s, domestic wages had risen, South Koreans gradually moved away from manual labor, and the economy shifted to labor import. Today's Vietnam seems to be following the same path.

But looking solely at the pattern of labor in-and-outflow reveals nothing substantial. For Vietnam, a more fundamental contradiction remains in its current economic structure—the problem of unsuccessful industrialization. Think about it simply: if a country has to import even general assembly-line workers to put together mobile phones, where will the engineers who design chips come from? If the top-level design of the economic model dreams of a "Korean-style" leap, but the underlying labor supply is in a "African-style" loose state, how can industrialization be realized? China accumulated the foundation for today's industrial upgrading through generations of solid effort. If Vietnam tries to skip that step and imitate South Korea directly, it may be building only "castles in the air."

Ultimately, against the global backdrop of demographic contraction, no country can stand aloof. Labor is no longer a "territorial resource" but flows like capital to find value troughs around the world for "arbitrage." Vietnam happens to be caught in the middle of this global labor "arbitrage chain," acting as both seller and buyer, both exporter and importer. This is its fantastical reality, but it is also its reality. Yet this reality probably should not be viewed only optimistically; it may more reflect Vietnam's disadvantaged position in the current global economic geography and the helpless choices of its job market.

What does 4 mean? Japan currently retains 19 capital offenses nominally, Singapore over 30, the United States (states plus federal) over 40, and South Korea still has over 80 in its legal code. Vietnam's deletion key is indeed pressed quite hard.

However, beyond the act of "reduction" itself, I am more interested in the reasons behind it.

The Origins of Vietnam's Legal System

When it comes to Vietnam's criminal law, the first impression of many legal professionals is often "familiar yet unfamiliar." Familiar because Vietnamese law has natural ties with ancient China; unfamiliar because it has been overlain with too many layers of complex modern history.

In ancient times, the influence of the Chinese legal tradition on Vietnam was almost all-encompassing. From the 15th-century Le Dynasty's Quốc triều hình luật (National Penal Code), which heavily drew on the Tang Code, to the 19th-century Nguyen Dynasty's Hoàng Việt luật lệ (Imperial Vietnamese Statutes), which followed Ming dynasty models and referenced the Great Ming Code – from the "five punishments" to the "ten abominations," from reverence for filial piety to the maintenance of ritual order, traditional Vietnamese criminal law was essentially an extension of the Chinese legal tradition in Southeast Asia.

But in the late 19th century, French colonizers intervened and forcibly introduced Western continental law principles of legality and codified formats; and in the second half of the 20th century, the modern socialist legal system and related legal concepts left a deep imprint on Vietnam.

This criminal law framework, which superimposed a traditional Chinese legal foundation, French codified format, and modern socialist legal concepts, has long been known for its "rigorous system" and "emphasis on order."

Yet it is precisely this country with such a deep criminal law heritage that has recently made such a noteworthy move in adjusting its penal policy.

What Are the 4 Remaining Offenses?

I checked through the successive revisions of Vietnam's Penal Code and found that this has been a decades-long "subtraction": 44 in 1985, 29 in 1999, 22 in 2009, 18 in 2015, 10 in 2025, and now, within less than a year, it is proposed to cut to 4.

Will it continue to decrease? I tend to think it won't in the short term. Looking closely at the remaining 4, they are essentially the "last line of defense" for the death penalty in modern states.

1. Treason and terrorism – needless to say, these involve regime security and public order底线, offenses that no country with the death penalty would abandon. In the draft's explanation, Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security also stated that this is "institutionalizing the Party's guidelines" – the red line is the red line.

2. Intentional homicide – this falls under the "most serious crimes" in international legal theory, consistent with the UN conventions' standard that "the death penalty shall be imposed only for the most serious crimes." Although Vietnam is only an observer state to that convention, it has been moving toward that framework over the years. Moreover, Article 123 of Vietnam's Penal Code lists 17 aggravating circumstances for intentional homicide, including somewhat vague concepts like "hooligan nature" and "despicable acts," with a starting sentence of 12 years, leaving sufficient deterrence space in judicial practice.

3. Illegal production of narcotics – this is interesting. Vietnam sits on the Southeast Asian drug trafficking corridor, and domestic drug issues have always been severe. However, this draft removes drug trafficking and smuggling from the death penalty list, but retains "production" as the only capital drug offense. I interpret this as preserving deterrence at the source – a "grab the upstream, loosen the mid-to-downstream" strategy.

Which Offenses Are Being Abolished?

Vietnam's biggest move this time is to abolish the death penalty for drug trafficking and rape of minors. Among these, many people's biggest question is: since Vietnam has such rampant drug problems, why abolish the death penalty for trafficking?

I also focused on this when reading the draft's explanation. Minister of Public Security Lương Tam Quang's reasoning was: to "further distinguish criminal responsibility, ensuring that penalties and punishments correspond to the nature and severity of the criminal act." In plain language, previously trafficking was automatically sentenced to death, but it turned out that many who were executed were just low-level runners for major drug lords, while the real kingpins remained untouchable. Abolishing the death penalty for trafficking and replacing it with life imprisonment plus heavy asset forfeiture might actually cut off the financial chains and hit the real pain points.

This logic is not new – similar discussions exist in Chinese legal academia. But Vietnam actually daring to make this cut is indeed a big step.

However, the National Assembly's Committee on Legal and Judicial Affairs also noted in its review report that some committee members "hold a cautious attitude" toward abolishing the death penalty for drug trafficking and rape of minors, fearing it might weaken the deterrent effect of criminal law. So whether the draft will pass as is remains uncertain.

The West Is Not Entirely Convinced

Regarding Vietnam's move, I also looked at reactions from Western media and international observers. I found several pieces, and the pattern was the same old "first affirm, then question."

The criticisms focus on two points: first, Vietnam has not published actual execution data for many years, so outsiders cannot assess the real effect; second, among the retained offenses, the 17 aggravating circumstances for intentional homicide, including vague concepts like "hooligan nature," still leave substantial judicial discretion.

Vietnam's response, in various forms, boils down to one sentence: the life of the law lies in enforcement, and numerical progress is still progress; as for judicial discretion, they are simultaneously revising the Criminal Procedure Code to strengthen the Supreme Court's review authority.

Whether this response is convincing is debatable. But I think, rather than obsessing over whether Vietnam has "progressed" or "not progressed," it is better to see this as a more complex balancing act.

A Balancing Act

To me, Vietnam's penal adjustment this time is indeed thought-provoking. On one hand, it aligns with international rules in legislative technique, streamlining offenses to improve its rule-of-law image and trade environment – both CPTPP and the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) have requirements for legal transparency, and this timing is no coincidence. On the other hand, in actual governance, it must hold the basic line of state order and public security, hence the four red lines of treason, terrorism, intentional homicide, and drug production are never loosened.

The draft is expected to be voted on at the National Assembly session in October, and if passed, it will take effect in March next year. But even if passed, what is more worth observing is how it is implemented at the judicial level. Changing the law is one thing; how precedents evolve and how enforcement operates – that is the real answer.

This article is not meant to defend Vietnam, nor to follow Western criticism. I simply think that beyond the grand narrative of "abolishing the death penalty," every country's reform has its own specific political and public security calculus to make. Whether Vietnam's subtraction is a genuine reform or a carefully staged performance – time will tell.

Some researchers have speculated that it was the Samalas eruption that helped seal the fate of the Mongol Empire, which ended after its last ruler perished in a 1259 epidemic in China that could have been linked with the eruption‑caused climate changes.

This idea instantly set off many thoughts.

A Thunderclap on the Equator

In 1257, the Samalas volcano on Lombok Island, Indonesia, erupted with colossal force. In terms of sulfur emissions, it exceeded 56 teragrams—about twice that of Tambora in 1815 and more than five times that of Krakatau in 1883. In the past few millennia, it may well rank first.

Vast amounts of ash and sulfur dioxide were injected into the stratosphere, forming an aerosol layer that acted like a giant umbrella, shading sunlight. Over the following years, global temperatures plummeted. Tree‑ring studies show significant cooling across North America and Eurasia from 1257 to 1259. England suffered famine from failed harvests, and Japan’s wet, cool summers ruined rice crops.

China was no exception. The West Lake in the Southern Song capital Lin’an (now Hangzhou) froze solid on January 13, 1258—an unprecedented event. Court historians recorded it solemnly as a “portent of calamity,” interpreting it as heaven’s warning against misrule. Meanwhile, crop failures in the Jiangnan region forced the court to establish orphanages to deal with an influx of abandoned infants.

But they had no idea where these disasters came from. Within their cognitive framework, “celestial changes” could only be attributed to “human affairs”—either the emperor’s moral failings, corrupt ministers, or endless warfare. The Southern Song could do no more than issue self‑critical edicts, dismiss chancellors, and offer sacrifices to heaven.

I searched through Song‑dynasty historical materials on the “Shidian Guji” website, looking for any direct record of this volcanic eruption. I combed through Southeast Asian polity names like “Sanfoqi,” “Shepo,” “Zhao‑wa,” and “Boni,” as well as keywords such as “sun without light,” “thin sunlight,” and “pumice” that might relate to volcanoes—but found nothing.

The reason is not complicated. Lombok, where Samalas sits, was still an independent kingdom at the time of the 1257 eruption, though it was later conquered by the Majapahit Empire of Java in the late 13th century. More importantly, Chinese historical records about Southeast Asia focused on tribute and trade, not geological surveys. Envoys and merchants paid attention to ports, cities, and products; they had little interest in or access to information about geological disasters on remote islands.

Thus, this event, which profoundly affected global climate and human societies, left no trace in the Song History or Yuan History. In fact, across all of Southeast Asia, the only written record is found on Lombok itself, in palm‑leaf manuscripts written in Old Javanese.

The Illness Below Diaoyu Fortress

But that is only the first layer of “not knowing.”

In the summer of 1259, the Mongol Great Khan Möngke led his army in a siege of Diaoyu Fortress in Hezhou, Chongqing. This small stronghold, nestled between hills and rivers, held out against the Mongol cavalry for months. At the height of summer, epidemic disease broke out among the troops. In July of that year, Möngke died in camp.

The accompanying shamans and Han Chinese advisors blamed the illness on “miasma”—the damp, hot air of the south, which northern horsemen were unaccustomed to. But in fact, no one knew that the real cause was more complex. It is highly likely that the equatorial volcanic eruption had disrupted the monsoon, making Sichuan that year unusually hot and humid, thus accelerating the spread of infectious disease.

Möngke’s death directly altered the course of history. After his death, the Mongol Empire immediately plunged into a four‑year civil war over the succession between Kublai and Ariq Böke. This vast empire, stretching from the Mongolian Plateau to the Persian Gulf, split permanently and never reunited. The forces attacking the Southern Song were forced to withdraw northward, giving the Song a reprieve of over a decade.

A War Neither Side Knew About

This is the most absurd part of the story—reminiscent of the Singer civilisation in Liu Cixin’s novels.

The Southern Song and the Mongol Empire, like Earth in the war against the Trisolarans, could feel drastic changes in their surrounding universe—crop failures, military plagues, darkened skies, frozen lakes—yet they never knew where the real blow came from. In The Three‑Body Problem, when the solar system is struck by a two‑dimensional foil, humanity is clueless; they only see the stars changing and physical laws failing. For the Southern Song and the Mongols, the 1257 Samalas eruption was their era’s “two‑dimensional foil.”

All their countermeasures—the Song’s political intrigues, the Mongols’ struggles for the throne—were futile responses to an invisible foe. Song ministers busied themselves with rectifying government and praying to heaven after West Lake froze; Mongol princes scrambled for the khanate and carved up the empire after Möngke’s death. No one noticed what was happening on the equator.

It was not their fault. There were no weather satellites, no concept of atmospheric circulation. The world was fragmented; information travelled by word of mouth and slow ships. The local Babad Lombok palm‑leaf manuscripts recorded the “cataclysm,” but at best it became a sailor’s anecdote in maritime trade—far too trivial to reach official circles.

Each civilisation interpreted the physical phenomena they observed through their own cultural and moral lenses, distorting the truth beyond recognition. European monks blamed famine on the “Scourge of God,” Japanese nobles recorded poor harvests as “national calamity,” and Song historians wrote West Lake’s freezing into the Treatise on the Five Elements as a sign of “yin overpowering yang.” Not a single person guessed the real answer.

It was not until 2013 that things turned around. That year, an interdisciplinary team used radiocarbon dating to link the ash, pumice, and other deposits around Samalas on Lombok to the great eruption of 1257. Sulfur deposits in ice cores, suppressed growth in tree rings—all evidence pointed to the same event.

Today, we can connect these dots not through ancient records, but through modern science. The Southern Song and Mongol Empire of 800 years ago died without ever knowing what struck them; eight centuries later, we have finally read the source of that storm through scientific inquiry.

The Samalas eruption terminated the process of a unified Mongol Empire and drained the last chances for the Southern Song to survive. But both empires, to their very end, never knew who their real enemy was. Like all other participants in history, they were pushed towards their respective fates by a geological upheaval from the equator, completely unaware.

Which Butterfly in the Butterfly Effect?

Looking back, traditional historical narratives often attribute Möngke’s death to a “two‑dimensional foil” kind of accident: a flying stone from Diaoyu Fortress struck down the Great Khan, changing Chinese history. One stone, one man, and an empire crumbled.

Even more curiously, later historical research added further mystique to that stone. Because Möngke’s death affected not only China’s trajectory but also the entire world. In 1258, Baghdad fell to the Mongols, ending the Abbasid Caliphate. Had Möngke not died at Diaoyu, Hulagu’s western campaign would not have been cut short; the Mongol cavalry might have pushed on through Syria, into Egypt, and perhaps even into Europe. But with Möngke dead, Hulagu had to withdraw his main force eastward, leaving only a small garrison. In 1260, at the Battle of Ain Jalut, they were defeated by the Mamluks. The Mongol advance halted in Palestine, and the heart of the Islamic world was saved.

Ultimately, the butterfly effect spun from this story is that a stone from Diaoyu Fortress saved Byzantium, saved the Islamic world, saved Christian Europe—and even more, the European Age of Discovery and the discovery of the Americas are somehow linked to this event.

That story reads like a piece of satisfying fiction: one man, one stone, tipping the fate of the entire globe. A chance flap of a butterfly’s wings, extrapolated layer by layer, leads to an overwhelmingly grand conclusion.

The real question is: was the butterfly really that stone on Diaoyu Fortress?

Möngke’s death appears as an accident at Diaoyu. But the fortress had held out for months—why was it that very summer that epidemic struck the army? Why was Sichuan so unusually hot and wet that year? The answers lie not on the walls of Diaoyu, but on Lombok Island, south of the equator.

If we must identify a butterfly effect, this volcanic eruption is the true butterfly. A stone is visible and tangible, fitting our simple expectations of cause and effect. But a geological event from the equator lay completely beyond the cognition of anyone in the 13th century.

Yet history’s fascination does not end there. Thirty‑five years after the Samalas eruption, Emperor Kublai Khan of the Yuan dynasty dispatched over a thousand warships to invade Java, with his army advancing directly south of the equator. The same army that had been broken by the “miasma” in Chongqing now dared to cross the equator to attack Java. This, perhaps, is a circular irony of fate: they never knew that the “miasma” in Sichuan in 1259 might well have originated from the very sea they later set out to conquer.

A few days later she came back and told me that after checking on Doubao, she found out the Dayu Mo is considered a forgery. That threw me for a loop.

I genuinely had no idea. I only knew the Four Books and Five Classics were Confucian canon—I never imagined there could be "counterfeit" works among them, let alone that a famous piece like the Dayu Mo could be one.

When we studied Chinese Legal History in university, the very first topic was the idea of "enlightening punishment to supplement education" from the Dayu Mo—using the legal system to make up for the shortcomings of mere moral cultivation, advocating a mutual complementarity between rule by law and rule by virtue. That principle remains a key tenet of the comprehensive rule of law even today.

The Dayu Mo also contains the lines: "Pardon minor faults, but punish deliberate crimes; when in doubt about a crime, incline to leniency; when in doubt about a merit, incline to generosity." This embodies the doctrine of "heavy punishment for serious crimes, light punishment for minor ones," which has been passed down for over a thousand years and is still the theoretical foundation of today's criminal justice policy: "temper justice with mercy."

This left me quite bewildered. If the Dayu Mo is a forgery, then the name I gave my daughter would also have a "major flaw." That could become a significant "mental knot" for her later in life, potentially affecting her forever.

After all, if I had never known about this, I would have gone through life completely unaware of any problem, perhaps always proud of the name. But suddenly being told its source is "fake"—that's hard to accept.

So Where Exactly Is It "Fake"?

I spent a while digging through materials, first to figure out just where the Dayu Mo was "fake."

It turns out that academia has long agreed that the currently transmitted Guwen Shangshu (Old Text Shangshu), especially chapters like the Dayu Mo, were presented by Mei Ze in the Eastern Jin dynasty. They are not the versions handed down from the Western Han, and they would differ even more from the version Confucius was said to have compiled. Zhu Xi in the Song dynasty already had his doubts, and in the Qing dynasty, Yan Ruoqu spent twenty years writing Shangshu Guwen Shuzheng, a line-by-line examination that conclusively established the "fake Old Text" designation.

It should be noted, however, that the forgeries are mainly concentrated in a group of "late-emerging" chapters, such as the Dayu Mo, Tang Gao, Tai Jia, Shuo Ming, and Tai Shi. The entire Shangshu is not all fake. Chapters like Pan Geng, Hong Fan, Kang Gao, and Jiu Gao are generally accepted by scholars as authentic parts of the Shangshu due to their archaic style and corroboration with earlier texts.

Returning to the "fake" label of the Dayu Mo, it refers to the date of composition and authorship—it is not a record by ancient historiographers, nor an authentic pre-Qin version. Many phrases in the Dayu Mo do have echoes in earlier texts, but they have clearly been rearranged by later editors, and some expressions may even have been "concocted."

Speaking of the Shangshu, one more thing is worth mentioning. It is the most difficult of the Four Books and Five Classics; it is absent from primary and secondary school textbooks, and even Chinese literature majors at university rarely study it in its entirety. Han Yu, when reading the Shangshu, famously complained that it was "jiejue aoya"—meaning the Zhou dynasty proclamations and Shang dynasty inscriptions were so tortuous and awkward that they were hard on the tongue and mind. Already more than a thousand years removed from its composition in his time, it was difficult enough for him, let alone for modern readers.

Ironically, it was precisely because the authentic Shangshu was "jiejue aoya" that it nearly lost its transmission, while the Dayu Mo, with its fluent style and refined thought—though a "forgery"—made it understandable and passable to later generations.

The fact that my daughter could learn about its "forgery" through Doubao shows how far this book is from everyday reading. Unless one specializes in classical philology, few people would pick up the Shangshu on their own. The "forgery" claim is something she looked up, not something she read firsthand. Whether the Dayu Mo is fake or not is, in itself, "niche knowledge."

But knowing where it is "fake" is not enough. What really helped me understand was figuring out why it appeared at that particular time.

After the Disaster of Yongjia, the Western Jin capital Luoyang fell, and the imperial library was almost completely destroyed. It wasn't just a matter of tens of thousands of bamboo and silk scrolls being burned—the entire cultural transmission system was uprooted. The classical learning clans that had flourished since the Eastern Han fled south with the Jin court, and many scholars died on the road. Among the gentry who reached Jiangdong, those who could recite the Shangshu from memory were already few and far between.

By the Eastern Jin, scholars faced a dire situation: if they didn't compile what remained in their memories, the Confucian orthodoxy of Chinese civilization might simply break off.

It was in this context that Mei Ze presented the Guwen Shangshu in fifty-eight chapters, including the Dayu Mo. Whether his original motive was to compile fragments, to lend authority through antiquity, or if he truly had access to some transmitted version, in the end it didn't matter much. What really sealed the fate of this text was that it was embraced by the currents of the age and chosen by later generations of scholars.

Even though I understood the reasoning, I still felt uneasy. If the book I had consulted when naming my daughter—specifically that chapter—was largely a later composition, then where did those two characters I used actually come from?

An Unexpected Surprise

The Shangshu itself is a riddle. It records events from the times of Yao, Shun, Yu, and the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. Chapters like the Dayu Mo, which record dialogues among figures from before the Xia dynasty, deal with events from about 4,000 years ago. To put it bluntly, even oracle bone inscriptions may not be that old. By the time Confucius edited the text, 1,500 years had already passed; even if there had been original oracle bone records, Confucius probably couldn't have recognized the characters. It is said that the Guwen Shangshu allegedly found in the wall of Confucius's house during the Western Han was written in the script of the Six Kingdoms, not oracle bone script, and those manuscripts were later completely destroyed in the Disaster of Yongjia.

So, hearing that the Dayu Mo was compiled in the Eastern Jin is jarring at first, but considering the vast time span, it's not unreasonable. Over three to four thousand years, through so many upheavals, the very fact that anything was transmitted at all is a miracle. Even if it was "composed" then, it has now been around for 1,800 years—whether "fake" or not doesn't diminish its place in traditional culture.

But reason aside, I still wanted to find something concrete to confirm.

After thinking it through, I realized that relying on transmitted pre-Qin classics was unreliable. After all, when I originally named my daughter, I had already carefully checked and found that the sole source of those two characters was in the Dayu Mo, with no cross-references in any other texts.

Later works were even less useful. After a series of cultural catastrophes—the burning of books and burying of scholars, the Disaster of Yongjia, the burning of books in Jiangling—later texts like the New Book of Tang, Tang poetry, and Song-dynasty idioms that used those characters all traced back to the Dayu Mo. In effect, those characters were almost an "isolated source."

So I had to turn to archaeology.

Take the Analects, for instance. A few years ago, the Qi Lunyu version unearthed from the tomb of the Marquis of Haihun showed many differences from the transmitted text—and that tomb dates to the Western Han.

With that thought, I began looking into the archaeological findings from the Marquis of Haihun's tomb.

However, after checking, I found that only a very small number of phrases from the bamboo slips have been published so far. For my particular need—searching for a specific word—it was basically fruitless.

Following the same line, I then looked into the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips.

The Tsinghua slips have been published very quickly; so far, 15 batches have been released, each rich in content. Crucially, the slips date to around 305 BCE, about 250 years earlier than the Haihun tomb, making them the earliest large-scale source of transmitted texts we have.

For example, the first batch includes Yin Zhi, Yin Gao, Cheng Wu, Bao Xun, Qi Ye, Jin Teng, Huang Men, Ji Gong, and Chu Ju—many of which have challenged or overturned traditional records.

During my reading, I became deeply absorbed in the Chu Ju and the second batch's Xi Nian.

As a Hunanese, how could I not be fascinated by the origins of the Chu state? In particular, the Chu Ju contains the passage: "Xue Yin (or something similar) migrated to Jingzong and obtained Bi Xian (?). He went against the current, and she was beautiful and virtuous, so he married her. She gave birth to Shu and Li Ji. Li Ji's birth was unnatural—she ruptured from the side, and Bi Lie died and went to heaven. Wu Xian wrapped her side with chu (thorny branches) and buried her, hence the people today are called Chu people." This passage completely records the origin of the state's name: that the Chu ancestor Bi Xian (whose character remains undeciphered) died in childbirth, and a shaman used "chu" (thorny branches) to wrap her side for burial, which gave rise to the name "Chu people." This not only reshaped our understanding of Chu's origins but also solved a long-standing puzzle for me: the origin of the "Lady Xiong" ancestral tablet found in almost every Hunanese household's "spirit altar."

I had previously written a blog post analyzing this question, based on transmitted texts, and had proposed several possibilities—that Lady Xiong might be the wife of the Yellow Emperor, the wife of Fuxi (Nüwa), or the mother of the Daoist sage Mother Shen. But after reading the Tsinghua Chu Ju, I realized that the "Lady Xiong" worshipped in Hunan is almost certainly the "Xiong" clan ancestor mentioned in that passage. For thousands of years, people forgot her real name—even now we can't decipher the character on the bamboo slip—but the identity "Lady Xiong" was passed down accurately nonetheless.

An even bigger surprise came when I looked at the third batch of Tsinghua slips, which includes Shuo Ming (or Fu Yue's Mandate). I suddenly discovered that the two characters I had been searching for were lying quietly in that text. Although the phrasing differs from the Dayu Mo, the meaning is the same. The only difference is that when I named my daughter, I thought those characters were spoken by Emperor Shun in the Dayu Mo, but the more authentic source may be the Tsinghua version, where they are spoken by "Fu Yue." Fu Yue was a figure from the Shang dynasty who assisted King Wu Ding in governing the state and is considered a "sage" even earlier than Confucius.

Of course, the Tsinghua Fu Yue's Mandate is not without its controversies. Some scholars have noted discrepancies between its quotations and those found in transmitted works like the Guoyu and the Liji that refer to "Shuo Ming." This actually confirms a more general phenomenon: during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the various states already had multiple arrangements and adaptations of the materials passed down from Yao, Shun, Yu, and the Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou. Different schools and regions likely had different versions of the same text. There probably never was a single "original version."

Still, seeing that passage in the Fu Yue's Mandate was a huge relief.

It turns out the Dayu Mo was not entirely fabricated. The source of those two characters, though buried for over two thousand years, was incorporated by the Eastern Jin scholars into that compilation through their own cultural memory and learning—knowledge that had been the essence of Chinese civilization since the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

Three Elevations of a "Forgery"

After finding the clue in the Tsinghua slips, I wanted to understand more: what exactly happened later to make the Dayu Mo so important?

If the Eastern Jin had only produced and presented it, it could easily have been neglected or forgotten by later ages. But history didn't turn out that way.

It went through three crucial elevations.

The first was in the Song dynasty. Zhu Xi established the "Sixteen-Character Heart Transmission"—"The human mind is precarious, the moral mind is subtle; be refined, be single-minded, and hold fast to the Mean"—as the secret core teaching passed down from Yao, Shun, and Yu. From then on, this "forgery" was elevated to the highest temple of Chinese philosophy, required for the imperial examinations and essential reading for emperors, becoming the central doctrine of the Confucian orthodoxy.

The second elevation was in the field of legal thought. "Punishment aims at no punishment" set the ultimate goal of penalty—punishment to eventually render it unnecessary; "when in doubt about a crime, incline to leniency" was the earliest formulation of the principle of benefiting from doubt; "better to lose the proper way than to kill an innocent" established the value ranking that it is better to err on the side of judicial imperfection than to wrongfully execute the innocent. These passages were repeatedly cited from the Tang Code to Qing-dynasty judicial practice, becoming the foundational code of Chinese legal tradition.

The third elevation was in political narrative. "No worthy is left in obscurity, and all the states enjoy peace" provided a vision of ideal governance; "rectify virtue, facilitate utility, and ensure the people's livelihood" framed the three tasks of statecraft; "complacency brings loss, humility gains benefit" became the highest maxim of personal cultivation. This narrative allowed all subsequent dynasties to trace their lineage back to Yao, Shun, and Yu, giving Chinese politics an astonishing continuity.

A "forgery" accomplished what many genuine things could not.

Does This Conclusion Hold Up?

Later, I explained the whole process to my daughter in detail.

I told her that when she first told me Doubao called the Dayu Mo a "forgery," I was really worried.

Then, after searching the Haihun slips and finding nothing, and searching the early batches of Tsinghua slips and finding nothing, I almost gave up. Finally, when I found the clue in the Fu Yue's Mandate, I felt like I had hit the jackpot by sheer luck.

My daughter asked, "So is it a forgery or not?"

I said yes and no. From the standpoint of archaeology and textual criticism, the Dayu Mo is indeed not a genuine pre-Qin text. But from a cultural-historical perspective, it is more important than many genuine texts.

"Why?" she asked.

I thought for a moment and said, imagine the situation after the Disaster of Yongjia: the Central Plains were lost, the classics were burned, and scholars could barely fend for themselves. If you were an Eastern Jin scholar trying to pass down the best teachings from Confucius and Mencius, but you had nothing in hand, what would you do?

Those Eastern Jin scholars took on a nearly impossible task: they pieced together a complete picture of Chinese cultural tradition from the fragments stored in their minds. That was the Dayu Mo—containing the compassion of criminal law, the middle way of statecraft, the humility of governance, and the fairness of employing people. Every one of these principles had earlier origins, but they concentrated them into a single text.

History proved them right.

The Southern and Northern Dynasties that immediately followed the Eastern Jin were among the most fragmented and turbulent periods in Chinese history. In the north, the Sixteen Kingdoms rose and fell with frequent regime changes; in the south, the Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen rotated, while the southern gentry were still unsteady. If there had been no complete "Chinese culture" framework to hold things together, cultural transmission might have been replaced in the north by steppe culture and marginalized in the south by metaphysics and Buddhism.

After the Sui and Tang unification, it was precisely this "hard dish" served up by the Eastern Jin scholars—this whole narrative of sage-kings, including the Dayu Mo—that gave the new regimes a common spiritual origin. Emperor Taizong of Tang had Kong Yingda compile the Correct Meaning of the Five Classics, and for the Shangshu he used Mei Ze's version, which included the Dayu Mo. From then on, this text became the official textbook, remaining so until the end of the Qing dynasty.

In other words, China from the Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties operated within the orthodoxy provided by this "forgery." Its ideas shaped the imperial examination system, judicial principles, ruler-minister ethics, and political ideals.

So whether it is "fake" or not no longer matters. What matters is that it continued a civilization that was nearly broken in the Eastern Jin, and that civilization has endured for another 1,800 years, down to us today, still operating within that framework.

My daughter asked, "So did my name come from the Dayu Mo or the Fu Yue's Mandate?"

I thought for a moment and said, those two characters first appeared on Warring States bamboo slips, spoken by the sage Fu Yue in the Fu Yue's Mandate. But that work was lost for over two thousand years, buried underground until it was rediscovered in our own time. When your father named you, he only had access to the Dayu Mo. But there is no doubt that those two characters have existed for at least three thousand years, because individually, they already appear in oracle bone inscriptions.

In other words, the Fu Yue's Mandate gives those characters a more ancient "birth certificate," but it was the Dayu Mo that kept them alive, transmitted them, and eventually brought them to my attention when I chose your name.

If I had to give a final verdict between the two texts, I would only say: one is the origin of your name, the other is the life of your name.

The article described an ancient shipwreck exposed by a storm in 2013 on the beach of Binh Chau, Quang Ngai province, Vietnam. This event has almost no coverage in Chinese-language internet, yet its relevance to Chinese history is extremely high. The long article detailed the types, dates, and origins of the recovered ceramics — highly informative. But for me, what was truly striking wasn't the ceramics themselves, but the geopolitical picture presented by the ship itself.

A Storm and a Precise Date

In 2013, after a major storm, villagers in Binh Chau, Quang Ngai, found exposed ship remains and large quantities of ceramic fragments on the beach. What followed was predictable: villagers scrambling, black market dispersal, private collectors stepping in.

In this chaos, Series I 's subject — the Chinese-Vietnamese collector Lan Duxun (Lâm Dũ Xênh) — rescue-collected a batch of artifacts and even preserved part of the ship's hull timbers. NK Koh made a special trip to Quang Ngai in 2014 to visit him, photographing, recording, and studying these artifacts.

The ceramic dating work started from a fragment of a Yue celadon bowl base. Initially, researchers thought the incised characters read "Qianheng" (乾亨, 917–925 CE), which would point to the Southern Han kingdom during the Five Dynasties period. But later, PhD candidate Yang Yang from Jingdezhen Ceramic University re-examined the fragment and correctly identified the second character as "fu" (符) rather than "heng" (亨). Qianfu (乾符, 874–879 CE) was the reign name of Emperor Xizong of Tang. This correction pinned the shipwreck to the last twenty-plus years of the Tang Dynasty, with an error margin of no more than five years.

874–879 CE — this time window falls precisely within the peak of the Huang Chao Rebellion.

878: The Fracture of Guangzhou's Trade System

In 878 CE, Huang Chao's army sacked Guangzhou. The contemporary Arab geographer Abu Zaid recorded that tens of thousands of foreign merchants perished in the assault.

Guangzhou was the Tang Dynasty's largest foreign trade port and the primary gateway for Middle Eastern and Persian merchants. The 878 massacre effectively destroyed the direct trade route from the Persian Gulf to Guangzhou that had operated for nearly two centuries.

The large green-glazed jars from the ship provide the most direct material evidence for this narrative. Multiple jar bases bear Arabic inscriptions in black ink — identified by experts as religious prayers, roughly meaning "seeking safe passage for the vessel". This wasn't kiln-made decoration — it was a talisman written in ink by the merchants themselves. In an age when voyages depended on wind and experience, these prayers on the cargo are the materialization of fear. Having fled Guangzhou, merchants now redirected their goods via Annam and Champa routes, facing unknown seas and conditions — they needed not just favorable winds but divine protection.

The Southeast Asian Carrier Role

This ship's most unusual feature is its hull structure.

The earlier Belitung wreck (c. 826 CE) was an Arab sewn-plank dhow — coconut fiber stitching instead of nails, typical of Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean shipbuilding tradition. But on the Binh Chau wreck, Japanese underwater archaeologist Dr. Jun Kimura identified Southeast Asian local shipbuilding technology — distinct from both Arab sewn-plank and Chinese junk traditions. This ship was built in Southeast Asia.

This leads to a key question:

This ship's carrier was neither Arab nor Chinese — it belonged to a Southeast Asian maritime group. Specifically, the most likely candidate is the Champa people.

The Champa kingdom (c. 2nd–15th century) occupied what is now central and southern Vietnam's coast — a civilization founded on maritime trade. Cham vessels were active on South China Sea routes for centuries, frequently mentioned in Tang texts alongside "Kunlun ships" — a term for Southeast Asian archipelagic seafarers. The Chams loaded Chinese goods at Chinese ports, transported them to transshipment stations on the Champa coast, and handed them off to Arab merchant fleets for long-distance transport. They were the real "carriers" of 9th-century South China Sea trade.

This discovery overturns an oversimplified historical narrative. Many people (myself included) used to think Tang maritime trade was simply "made in China → shipped in Chinese vessels → bought by Arabs." The Binh Chau wreck shows a much more complex reality: likely a three-party division of labor — or even four-party. Changsha ware was produced FOB at Guangzhou, foreign Arab merchants paid for the goods and hired Southeast Asian vessels for carriage, the Southeast Asian ships carried the cargo from Guangzhou to the Indian Ocean, where it was further distributed to destinations. Chinese manufacturing, Southeast Asian carriage, Middle Eastern procurement. This division of labor closely mirrors modern global trade and supply chain logic.

The Dual-Hub South China Sea Trade

The Zizhi Tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government) records a memorial from the late 8th century:

The Lingnan Circuit Governor reported: "Recently, precious goods carried by ocean-going vessels have mostly been taken to Annan for trade. We wish to send an official to Annan to collect customs, and request that a palace eunuch accompany him." The Emperor was inclined to agree. But Chancellor Lu Zhi argued: "Foreign merchants seek profit alone. If we accommodate them, they come; if we harass them, they leave. Guangzhou has long been where ships gather. If they suddenly divert to Annan, either Guangzhou's exactions have become too heavy or its hospitality has failed. Rather than chasing them to Annan, we should reflect on our own faults and reduce Guangzhou's burdens. Moreover, both Lingnan and Annan are the King's territory. There is no need to favor one over the other."

Lu Zhi's argument is profound: trade diversion is a market response. The reason Annan was replacing Guangzhou was excessive taxation in Guangzhou. The correct response was to improve Guangzhou's business environment, not to chase merchants to Annan with special privileges. Most importantly, both Annan and Guangzhou were Tang territory — there was no need to imbalance local interests with central intervention.

This shows that by the mid-Tang period at the latest, Annan already had the capacity to compete with Guangzhou for trade. This naturally foreshadowed later historical developments.

However, a common geographical confusion must be clarified. Annam and Champa were two completely different entities.

Annam corresponds to modern northern Vietnam (roughly the area north of Thanh Hoa), directly administered by the Tang Dynasty as the Annan Protectorate, with its capital at Songping (modern Hanoi). In the late Tang, it became the Jinghai Military Governorship, which gradually became autonomous after the Five Dynasties period and finally independent. The Champa kingdom, on the other hand, was an independent state maintaining tributary relations with the Tang, controlling what is now central and southern Vietnam's coast — including the area where the Binh Chau wreck was found (Quang Ngai province, south of Da Nang).

Even before the Huang Chao Rebellion, Guangzhou and Jiaozhou (Annan's main port) were already a dual-hub structure for foreign trade. Although Guangzhou was the nominal official foreign trade port, the market voted with its ships, steadily elevating Jiaozhou's importance.

After the Huang Chao Rebellion, Jiaozhou's importance in foreign trade further surpassed Guangzhou's. Now even Guangzhou's goods had to be shipped to Jiaozhou first for consolidation and initial sorting, then carried by Champa carriers southward along the coast, through the Sunda Strait or Malacca Strait, and handed over to Arab merchant fleets bound for the Persian Gulf and Red Sea markets.

The memorial quoted above — "precious goods carried by ocean-going vessels have mostly been taken to Annan" — reflects this northward shift of the trade hub. And the Binh Chau wreck's location on what was then the Champa coastline situates it precisely in the middle link of this relay chain. A Southeast Asian local vessel carrying Chinese ceramics, having just left a central Vietnamese transshipment port, sank in Champa waters before it could enter the deep-sea leg. The wreck's location itself is the coordinate of this fractured route.

One Ship Freezes the Late Tang Transformation

The ceramics on the Binh Chau wreck form their own dating calibration. Changsha ware dominated in quantity, but its late-stage feature of abstract brown-green splashes replacing fine floral motifs is a clear signal of technical decline — which I analyzed in detail in Series II .

Yue celadon was scarce and visibly degraded — crude bodies, uneven glazes — a sharp contrast with the thin, refined Yue wares from the Belitung wreck, showing that late-Tang social turmoil had already affected the Zhejiang kilns.

Xing white ware had also lost its former "like silver, like snow" glory — glaze yellowed, bodies thickened. Xing never recovered, and was completely replaced by Ding ware during the Five Dynasties period. Meanwhile, the Arabic prayers written in ink on the bases of Guangdong green-glazed jars are the merchants' materialized anxiety — directly written on the jar bottoms.

This across-the-board degradation of ceramics was no accident. The late Tang's successive wars destroyed the economic order of the north, and handicraft production and logistics systems collapsed wholesale. The inferior ceramics on the Binh Chau wreck are the material trace of the Tang Empire's collapse.

A Southeast Asian wooden ship loaded with Chinese export ceramics, sunk off the coast of the Champa kingdom. The ship was Southeast Asian-built, the cargo made in Hunan, Zhejiang, and Hebei, the buyers Middle Eastern, the prayers Arabic — and at the time the ship sank, Guangzhou was burning.

This is the last frozen moment of the late-Tang Maritime Silk Road. "Fracture" is not a metaphor: after Huang Chao's massacre in Guangzhou in 878, the direct route that had operated for two centuries was indeed broken. But trade didn't stop — it fractured into segments, each managed by different civilizations' seafarers, reconnected along the central Vietnam coast.

The Binh Chau wreck is the frame frozen on this fractured line. A hundred years later, Annan would eventually break away from Northern Song control, causing a series of lasting consequences — to this day one of the most painful wounds in Chinese civilization's historical memory.

This article is the third in the "South China Sea Shipwreck Series". The first traced the identity of the Chinese-Vietnamese collector who rescued the artifacts and the phenomenon of "Lin-Lan shared clan halls" among Southeast Asian Chinese ( see Series I ). The second analyzed how Changsha ware — the wreck's dominant cargo — became the mainstay of Tang export ceramics ( see Series II ).

References: Author: NK Koh, The Vietnam Binh Chau (Chau Tan) Late Tang Wreck

But this common sense has a huge blind spot.

In 1998, a Tang Dynasty shipwreck was discovered by fishermen near Belitung Island, Indonesia, later named the "Batu Hitam" (Black Stone). This Arab sewn-plank dhow carried about 70,000 Chinese ceramics, dated to around 826 CE. Following the "south green, north white" logic, you'd expect roughly equal amounts of Yue celadon and Xing white ware. But the actual data is shocking: about 60,000 pieces were Changsha ware, accounting for over 85%. Yue and Xing together barely made up the remainder.

The Binh Chau wreck discovered in Quang Ngai province, Vietnam in 2013 — the subject of the Hacker News front-page article I mentioned in Series I — tells the same story. Changsha ware again dominated the cargo, with Yue and Xing wares present in small quantities and visibly inferior quality compared to their Belitung counterparts.

Two shipwrecks, separated by about 50 years and two thousand kilometers, deliver the same verdict: The main force of Tang Dynasty export ceramics was not Yue ware or Xing ware, but Changsha ware — which barely registers in ceramic history today.

The World's First "Color" Porcelain

Changsha ware's core competitiveness was first and foremost technological.

Before the 9th century, ceramics worldwide were essentially monochrome — green, white, or brown, with colors naturally produced by metal oxides in the glaze. Changsha ware broke this pattern, pioneering high-temperature underglaze painted decoration.

In simple terms, Changsha artisans first painted patterns on the bisque body using iron and copper pigments, then applied a transparent glaze and fired everything in a single high-temperature firing. The finished product had the brown-and-green painting protected under the glaze — non-fading, non-peeling, non-scratching. This seems unremarkable today, but in the 9th century it was a technological leap: it was the world's first kiln to mass-produce colored ceramics.

Specifically, Changsha ware had two types of underglaze decoration. One was copper red, using copper oxide in a reduction atmosphere to produce red — the earliest high-temperature copper-red underglaze in Chinese ceramic history, predating Yuan dynasty underglaze red by four centuries. The other was brown and green, using composite iron and copper pigments to fire brown and green, enabling complex painted patterns.

For Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian buyers, the visual impact of these colored ceramics was incomparable with monochrome celadon. Tang Yue ware certainly had its "green of a thousand peaks" reputation, but that was a literati aesthetic — subtle, requiring cultivated taste to appreciate. Changsha ware's brown-and-green painting was vibrant, direct, instantly understandable.

The 9th Century's "Cross-Border E-Commerce" Mindset

What's most astonishing about Changsha ware isn't its technology — it's its understanding of market demand.

The 9th-century Changsha potters had essentially figured out a complete cross-border e-commerce playbook.

First, customized motifs. Changsha ware featured exotic decorative patterns extensively — palm tree motifs, coconut palm designs, Central Asian dancer figures. These patterns had almost no market in China itself, but Middle Eastern buyers found them instantly familiar. More directly, Changsha bowls carried Arabic script painted in brown pigment. The Changsha Tongguan Kiln Museum now houses a "green-glazed brown-and-green Arabic-inscribed bowl", with the Arabic identified as the name of Allah or auspicious prayers. This wasn't graffiti scratched by merchants — it was painted on before firing by the kiln workers. It was product customization by a Chinese factory for the Middle Eastern market.

Second, the cost-performance strategy. Changsha ware's body clay was not high quality — it was coarse clay from along the Xiang River, firing to a gray-brown, porous body. But the Changsha potters used a clever technique: applying a layer of white slip over the coarse body to conceal the rough base color, then painting and glazing on top. This way, low-cost local materials could produce visually decent finished products. In today's terms, this was "cost reduction and efficiency enhancement".

Third, the southward logistics advantage. The Changsha kilns were located in today's Tongguan town, Wangcheng District, Changsha City, right on the Xiang River. The Xiang flows north into Dongting Lake, connects to the Yangtze, and then through the Lingqu Canal (built during the Qin Dynasty) goes south into the Pearl River system, ultimately reaching Guangzhou — the Tang Dynasty's largest foreign trade port. From Tongguan kiln to Guangzhou port, all water route, all low cost. By comparison, the Yue kilns were on the Zhejiang coast and the Xing kilns were in inland Hebei — neither had the water transport advantages of Changsha.

Fourth, the mature maritime shipping system. For Changsha ware to reach the Middle East, maritime shipping was the critical link. Tang Dynasty foreign trade mainly followed the route from Guangzhou along Annam and Champa through Southeast Asia and South Asia to the Middle East. This required advanced navigation and shipbuilding capabilities. Interestingly, the wood and hull structure from the Vietnam shipwreck were identified as Southeast Asian in origin — showing that a Southeast Asian "carrier" played a crucial role in exporting Changsha products. This intermediary role further demonstrates how highly developed the Tang foreign trade system was.

Fifth, the scale of production. The output of Changsha ware was staggering. Dozens of kiln sites have been discovered near Tongguan town, with accumulation layers several meters thick, all Tang Dynasty kiln waste and sherds. This scale of production was born for export — essentially, it was an industrial cluster oriented toward the global market. This is vividly confirmed by the shipwrecks, where Changsha ware dominates the ceramic cargo.

From Peak to Oblivion

Changsha ware went through a rise-and-fall cycle during the late Tang. The Changsha vessels from the Binh Chau wreck already show clear signs of decline: the earlier fine floral patterns, cloud motifs, and Arabic calligraphy were replaced by abstract brown-green splashes, crude execution, and casual composition. In ceramic scholarship, these "abstract splashes" are considered typical of late-stage Changsha production and a signal of technical degeneration.

The decline had multiple causes. On one hand, Huang Chao's sacking of Guangzhou in 878 disrupted the export system. On the other hand, Changsha ware had hit its technical ceiling — the underglaze color palette was limited, and the body quality could never be improved. By the Song Dynasty, Cizhou ware's white-ground black decoration and Jingdezhen's bluish-white ware completely replaced Changsha ware in the market.

What's most telling is Changsha ware's position in ceramic historiography.

Post-Tang literature almost never mentions Changsha ware. In Qing Dynasty ceramic monographs like Tao Lu, Changsha was either mentioned in passing or entirely absent. The reason is simple: Changsha ware was not an official kiln. It was excluded from the orthodox canon, from imperial collections, from literati appreciation. It was a folk kiln whose products were export porcelain with limited circulation in China itself. Chinese ceramic history was written by literati who valued Yue's "secret color", Xing's "like snow", and Ru's "sky blue" — these had aesthetic authority. Changsha ware's coarse body, crude glaze, and paintings of palm trees and Arabic script were beneath literati notice.

It was only with the discovery of the Belitung shipwreck in 1998 that Changsha ware's true story emerged. Shipwrecks don't lie — every vessel in the cargo is hard evidence of real trade. The Belitung wreck and subsequent finds like Binh Chau together proved one historical fact: In Tang Dynasty export ceramics, Changsha ware was the true market leader.

From Xiang River Mud to Persian Gulf Beaches

Changsha ware's story is essentially a tale of folk industry keenly responding to global market demand.

It wasn't an official kiln — no imperial orders or financial support. It was located in inland Hunan, far from the coast. Its raw material was coarse clay from the Xiang River — nothing special. But it got three things right: the right product (colorful = eye-catching), the right market (Middle Eastern customization), and the right cost (water transport + slip technique). These three things today would be called product, market, and supply chain integration — and 9th-century Changsha potters had intuitively figured them out.

The Changsha bowls with abstract brown-green splashes from the Binh Chau wreck may not have been the best examples of Changsha ware, but they traveled across the South China Sea, past the Champa coast, through the Sunda Strait and the Indian Ocean, eventually perhaps bought by a Persian merchant and sold in the markets of Baghdad. This journey says more than any museum label.

Changsha ware's rise and fall is a legend long ignored by mainstream narratives. Two shipwrecks finally brought it back to light from the hold of history.

Speaking of which, this ability of Hunan people to "do business for global markets" — from Tang Dynasty Changsha ware to today's construction machinery — spans over a thousand years, with some intriguing continuities. I recently wrote an article about Hunan's economic development ( Hunan's economic prescription was written long ago — the key is to actually take the medicine ), which mentioned an observation that stayed with me: Hunan people thrive everywhere outside Hunan, but their hometown can never quite replicate that success. Changsha ware was the same — its products reached the Persian Gulf, but the kiln itself was excluded from the orthodox canon, unrecognized by the mainstream narrative. The same people, the same drive, the same external success met with internal silence.

From Tongguan kiln to construction machinery, Hunan people have never lacked the audacity to do global business. The rediscovery of Changsha ware through shipwrecks makes me think: the people of this land have been doing the same thing for over a thousand years — sending products from the banks of the Xiang River to the other end of the world.

The third article in this series returns to the Binh Chau wreck itself, analyzing how Huang Chao's Rebellion severed Guangzhou trade and how the South China Sea trade network restructured itself in the fracture ( see Series III ).

References: Author: NK Koh, The Vietnam Binh Chau (Chau Tan) Late Tang Wreck

By common sense, the sound "Lam" in Vietnamese most commonly corresponds to the Chinese character "林" (Lin). I'm sensitive to surname issues because I've lived in Guangdong for twenty years and have many friends surnamed Lin, giving me an intuitive sense of surname distributions. My instinct told me this person was more than just a "local collector" — very likely of Chinese descent.

I searched his name and found a Vietnamese news article with a photo. One look at his face confirmed he was indeed ethnically Chinese.

Following the trail, I found a YouTube video titled "2021 - Đầu năm du xuân thăm nhà sưu tầm cổ vật Lâm Dũ Xênh..." (Spring visit to antique collector Lam Du Xenh's home). Sure enough, as soon as I entered his home in the video, I could see the remains of that Tang Dynasty shipwreck embedded in the courtyard wall, and hundreds of artifacts from the wreck inside his house.

Of course, that's not the focus of this article. What matters is a line I found in the video description:

Chủ nhân là người Việt gốc Hoa, tổ tiên sang Việt Nam từ thế kỷ 18. (The owner is a Vietnamese of Chinese descent, whose ancestors moved to Vietnam in the 18th century.)

Even more telling was that the visitors greeted him as a fellow clansman ("họ Lâm với nhau"), addressing each other as clan relatives (宗亲). His main hall (大厅) was filled with Chinese plaques and couplets. Mr. Lâm Dũ Xênh clearly participates in the local Lin clan association.

That would have been the end of it, but I happened to continue watching the video and discovered that his Chinese surname isn't "林" (Lin) at all — it's "蓝" (Lan). His full Chinese name is 蓝杜训 (Lan Duxun).

This is intriguing. Why would a man surnamed Lan (蓝) walk into a Lin (林) clan hall?

Why Lin and Lan Became Indistinguishable

Chinese-language internet has very little discussion of Southeast Asian surname culture. Most people would probably attribute this to a "clerical error" during French colonial registration.

During the French colonial period (late 19th to mid-20th century), Vietnam promoted Quốc Ngữ (the Latin-based national script) to replace Chinese characters and Chữ Nôm. Many would assume that when French officials registered households, they couldn't distinguish the subtle difference between "Lin" and "Lan" in Chinese dialects and simply wrote both as "Lâm".

This explanation seems plausible but doesn't hold up under scrutiny. After researching Vietnamese historical studies on this issue, I found the real reason goes much deeper. Centuries before the French arrived, "Lin" and "Lan" were already the same sound in Vietnamese phonology.

This involves a linguistic phenomenon called "Hán Việt" (Sino-Vietnamese). From the Tang Dynasty to the Lý Dynasty (approximately 9th–11th centuries), Chinese characters were the standard written script for educated Vietnamese, but because the pronunciations differed significantly from local speech, Vietnamese systematically adapted Chinese character readings according to their own phonological rules, forming a complete Hán Việt reading system. This system still forms the basis of Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary today.

In Middle Chinese (the phonology of the Tang era), the character 林 (lin) belonged to the shen-she qin-rhyme third division (深摄侵韵), reconstructed as lim; the character 蓝 (lan) belonged to the xian-she tan-rhyme first division (咸摄谈韵), reconstructed as lam. Both share the same initial (l-), but their finals differ: -im versus -am. However, the Vietnamese phonological system did not maintain the independent distinction between the -im and -am finals. In absorbing Chinese character readings, Vietnamese merged these two different rime categories. The result: 林 = Lâm, 蓝 = Lâm, pronounced identically.

This wasn't a French transcription error — it was a "filtering" effect of Vietnamese phonology itself. Like how native English speakers can't distinguish the tones of Chinese "sì" (四) and "shí" (十) — not because they're careless, but because their phonological system lacks that distinction.

In the era when Chinese characters and Chữ Nôm were still in use, Lin and Lan, though pronounced the same, looked completely different in writing. The real turning point came in the mid-20th century, when Quốc Ngữ completely replaced Chinese characters as Vietnam's official writing system. The visual distinction maintained by different characters disappeared. Both surnames became "Lâm" on ID cards, household registers, and passports. After a few generations, descendants only know their surname as Lâm — whether their ancestors were Lin or Lan is lost to memory.

A shared clan hall is the most tangible evidence of this process.

The "United Surname" Survival Mechanism

The phenomenon of "Lin and Lan sharing a clan hall" would be almost impossible in China itself. China's ancestral hall system is based strictly on blood lineage — Lin is Lin, Lan is Lan, clearly demarcated.

But in Southeast Asian Chinese society, the situation is completely different.

Early Chinese migrants to Southeast Asia, far from their ancestral clan networks, found that a single surname group in a foreign land had very limited resources. Small surnames had too few people to build clan halls or form mutual aid networks. Faced with this situation, Southeast Asian Chinese developed an extremely pragmatic clan strategy: same-sound surname federation, same-origin shared halls.

The most classic example is "Six Laurels Hall" (六桂堂) — the Hong (洪), Jiang (江), Weng (翁), Fang (方), Gong (龚), and Wang (汪) surnames claiming common ancestry (a constructed blood narrative). Another is "Lieshan Five Names" (烈山五姓) — Lü (吕), Lu (卢), Gao (高), Ji (纪), and Xu (许). There's also the "Zhaolun Association" (昭伦公所) — Tan (谈), Tan (谭), Xu (许), and Xie (谢). These organizations are found throughout Southeast Asian and North American Chinese communities, essentially surname-based mutual aid societies — using the form of clan organizations to perform the functions of hometown associations.

The emergence of Lin-Lan shared halls in Vietnam falls between two logics:

On one hand, it follows the pragmatic tradition of "same-sound surname federation" — since both are pronounced Lâm in Vietnamese, why not share a hall? It saves effort and resources while strengthening the group.

On the other hand, it has an objective phonological foundation — the merger of Lin and Lan in Hán Việt wasn't a deliberately constructed "common origin legend" but the result of natural linguistic evolution. This gives the Lin-Lan shared hall less of the "story-making" quality of Six Laurels Hall or Zhaolun Association, and more the character of natural social fusion.

The Clan Hall: More Than Bloodline, It's Insurance

Mr. Lan Duxun's story provides an extremely vivid window into this phenomenon. From the video interview, we can see that in Quang Ngai province, he not only collects shipwreck artifacts but also acquires, restores, and reassembles ancient houses from various places — transporting old landlords' residences from Ly Son Island and elsewhere, rebuilding them into a Chinese-style architectural complex. His main hall displays "Five Blessings Arrive at the Door" (五福临门) plaques, and his beams are carved with Chinese couplets. This isn't pure cultural preservation — it's a material expression of identity.

A Vietnamese of Chinese descent, centuries after leaving China, rebuilt a "Chinese" space in central Vietnam with every brick, tile, plaque, and couplet. In this space, he is a member of the Lin clan, even though his ancestral surname may have been Lan.

Overseas Chinese clan halls have never been just places for ancestor worship. They are mutual insurance systems — the food and lodging for new arrivals, education for children, startup capital for businesses, shelter for the elderly without support — all provided through the clan hall network. Which surname you bear doesn't matter; what matters is that you have a place in this network. The Lin-Lan shared hall is the ultimate expression of this pragmatic clan logic.

Mr. Lan Duxun also hosted Japanese underwater archaeologist Professor Nishimura Masanari at this ancient house, collaborating on research of the ship's timbers and classification of the wreck. A Chinese-Vietnamese collector, a Japanese archaeologist, a Southeast Asian wooden ship loaded with Chinese ceramics, and ink-written Arabic prayers — this cross-temporal combination explains the true nature of the South China Sea trade network better than any academic paper. It was never a narrative of a single civilization, but the interweaving of multiple ethnic groups, languages, and belief systems.

And the first brick of this story is that seemingly contradictory pair of surnames — Lin and Lan, side by side in the same clan hall. To Chinese readers, this may seem strange. But placed in the centuries-long survival history of Southeast Asian Chinese, it's exactly what they do best: blur the differences, build consensus, and ensure everyone has a place.

This article is part of the "South China Sea Shipwreck Series". The second article explores the true origin of the ceramics carried by the Binh Chau wreck — the Hunan Changsha kiln, severely underestimated by mainstream ceramic history ( see Series II ). The third article focuses on the wreck itself, analyzing the fragmentation and reorganization of the late-Tang maritime trade network ( see Series III ).

References: Author: NK Koh, The Vietnam Binh Chau (Chau Tan) Late Tang Wreck

I must mention here that the server I am using to write this article with code-server is hosted in Oracle's data center in Hyderabad, India. While using India's infrastructure to deconstruct India's narrative, it feels like destiny in a way.

My months of hitting walls in Indian subreddits

Let me start with my experience on the American forum. During my time in Indian subreddits, my new account's karma (similar to likes on various social platforms) remained in the single digits for the first month, with no improvement. In threads, whether I agreed or disagreed with Indians, I got downvoted. Some comments went negative, were collapsed by the system, and then deleted by moderators. The account was basically ruined.

"Karma" on the Internet

Later I realized that the word "karma" itself comes from Hinduism, meaning "deeds" or "cause and effect." My collapsed comments on the American forum and the collapsed afterlife in Hinduism operate on the same mechanism: your past actions determine your current visibility. This coincidence made me start seriously thinking about how Indians perceive things.

Three stages of "karma" I earned

I went through three stages in the Indian subreddits, and the results were quite telling.

The first stage was going along with them. When I saw someone say that India's railway electrification rate is second in the world, I chimed in with "Bravo India, India is the best, India will surpass China soon," and so on. Logically, I was cheering them on, feeding their self-congratulatory mood, and should have received approval. Instead, I got downvoted heavily.

This confused me at first. For example, we often see comments under videos about China like "Amazing China! Love from Ethiopia," and everyone gives them likes. Why, when I sang praises to Indians, did I get that treatment? Later I figured it out. Indian netizens don't need me to hype them up; they have their own system of praise among themselves. If an outsider suddenly jumps in to say "Bravo India," in their eyes it's not goodwill—it's performance, even condescending—a foreigner coming to amuse us. I crossed the boundary of authenticity. Praise must be sincere, and mine was strategic; they could probably tell.

The second stage: I changed tack. Since agreeing didn't work, I tried to be objective and offer some substantive information. For instance, when Indians posted "India becomes the world's second-largest freight carrier, surpassing the US and Russia," I would question the data—pointing out that it only covers rail transport, excluding road, water, and air, and only counts total tonnage without turnover. But I got downvoted even harder. Later I gradually understood: in India's order, pointing out flaws in one's own group is an offense to the group, even if what you say is factual. In the caste logic, a Brahmin's mistake is not for a Shudra to point out. As an outsider, I had neither the status nor the qualification to question their narrative. I crossed the boundary of discourse rights. This space does not welcome outside evaluation, whether praise or criticism.

After two failures, I started observing what kind of outside comments they actually accept. Later I asked Gemini for help, to see how to properly converse with Indians, and learned to reply with: "That's an impressive Indian statistic."

Unexpectedly, that single line got over 60 upvotes and finally pulled my karma up.

Looking closely at Gemini's suggestion, the sentence carries three implications. First, it acknowledges that the data Indians posted is impressive, satisfying their desire for recognition. Second, it does not verify the story behind the data—doesn't question the methodology—avoiding the minefield of skepticism. Third, it does not hype India for them—doesn't claim they're world No.1—avoiding the minefield of performative praise. The actual meaning is simply: I see your data, I acknowledge it's impressive, and I say nothing about its underlying issues.

That was my first lesson in Indian subreddits on the American forum. This space does not reward reflection, only staying in one's place. It accepts only one outsider posture: quietly admit they are great, and then shut up.

After these three stages, I roughly grasped the grammar of that space: it doesn't reward praise, nor does it reward questioning—it only accepts acknowledgment without evaluation.

However, this conclusion only applies to those heavily patriotic subreddits. Later I visited some critical Indian subreddits and found that the Indian public sphere is far more complex than I thought. More on that later.

Hindu culture on the American internet

I was particularly sensitive to the word "karma" because it itself is meaningful. When Americans invented social platforms like Reddit, they chose "karma" to name the upvote/downvote system. And karma in Sanskrit originally means "deeds," cause and effect.

Reddit's karma mechanism works like this: if you say something that aligns with community consensus, you get upvoted, karma rises, and your comment moves up. If you say something against consensus, you get downvoted, karma goes negative, your comment is collapsed, or even deleted. This is exactly the same logic as Hindu karma. You fulfill your dharma, stay in your place, accumulate good karma, and have a better next life. You overstep, accumulate bad karma, and have a worse next life.

Actions, evaluations, rewards and punishments—both mechanisms maintain order. Reddit uses algorithms to maintain the order of community consensus; Hinduism uses karma to maintain the order of social hierarchy. My being downvoted in Indian subreddits essentially meant I had violated that community's dharma. I said things not in line with the Indian subreddit consensus, so I was collapsed by karma.

This discovery led me to seriously study how this Indian order logic works. The first step was to break down the data that Indians constantly tout as "impressive."

The "win narrative" of Indians choosing their own yardsticks

I spent a great deal of time arguing with Indians on the American forum about some data points. But the preliminary conclusion genuinely surprised me: many of the data they use are indeed real and verifiable. However, every data point holds true only under a specific statistical scope.

India's railway electrification rate world No.1

First, railway electrification rate. The Indian government claims that the broad-gauge network electrification rate is 99.6%, making it world No.1 among countries with over 10,000 km of railway lines—or world No.2 if you insist on including small countries like Switzerland. This number itself is real; it was officially released by the Indian Ministry of Railways and widely reported by Western media.

Yet this number feels very contradictory. The impression of Indian trains on Chinese internet is basically "hanging passengers"—people sitting on top of train roofs and hanging off the sides, with dirty and chaotic carriages. How could there suddenly be such a strong indicator?

So I looked into it carefully.

Note that India is comparing the electrification rate of the railway network, not the total electrified mileage. India's total railway network is about 68,000 km, while China's exceeds 160,000 km. In absolute terms, Indian railways simply cannot compare to China. But in terms of electrification rate, China is only about 82%, while India is close to 100%.

Why is India's electrification rate so high? Mainly because India's railway network is small. With a small base, electrification progresses quickly. Modi himself said that Indian railways only electrified 30% in 90 years, but 70% in the last 10 years. This indicates that India's high electrification rate is precisely because it started late, had a small base, and concentrated the work in the recent decade.

Using ratios to overshadow total volumes is the first step of the win narrative. The same rhetoric applies to market share, growth rates, and other indicators. A tiny base, as long as it grows fast, produces a beautiful ratio.

But no matter what, India's 100% electrification rate cannot compensate for the value of a self-developed high-speed rail—and India's high-speed rail is still nowhere in sight.

Of course, when I brought these points up to question Indians, I naturally earned a heap of "karma" (downvotes).

Delhi Metro punctuality rate world No.1

Second, the Delhi Metro punctuality rate. Indian media claims that the Delhi Metro has a punctuality rate of 99.95%, with the standard being a train arriving within 60 seconds of its scheduled time—stricter than New York's 5 minutes and Singapore's 2 minutes—thus world No.1.

This is another counterintuitive number. Having frequented the China City subforum for years, I always knew Chinese metros to be far superior to foreign ones, and Indians were stereotyped as "not punctual." So where does this world No.1 punctuality for Delhi Metro come from?

Although this number is also reported by reputable media and sourced from the International Metro Association (CoMET), which presumably leaves little room for fabrication, I still broke it down.

First, the Delhi Metro opened in 2002, is fully enclosed, has dedicated right-of-way, and spans over 300 kilometers—it's a brand new system. High punctuality in a new system is determined by hardware, not operational miracles. Comparing a new metro that opened in 2002 with century-old systems in New York and London is like switching playing fields.

Second, the 99.95% figure measures arrival time at stations, not headways (intervals between trains). Lines with longer headways naturally have an easier time being punctual, since a one-minute delay can be absorbed by scheduling. Moreover, the Tokyo Shinkansen also uses a 60-second standard and consistently achieves over 99% punctuality, despite being a system built in 1964.

Third, and most importantly, punctuality has long lost its discriminative power among modern metros. Fully enclosed, signal-controlled metro systems generally achieve above 99%. An indicator that has lost its distinguishing value is the easiest to use as "world No.1" material. Delhi uses it, and others do too. For instance, according to CoMET data, top-tier metros like Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Delhi, and Singapore consistently maintain punctuality rates between 99.9% and 99.98% over the long term, with differences only from occasional accidents like typhoons, heavy rain, or earthquakes. It is not impossible for Delhi Metro to top the list in a given year.

Interestingly, in those electrification discussion threads, Indians themselves were arguing. Some complained that India's express trains often run late because they have to yield to local trains, and once local trains stop and delay, the expresses cannot run fast either. Others questioned why Hong Kong Metro was excluded from such rankings—Hong Kong's punctuality is 99.9%, but its statistics only retain one decimal place, with much shorter headways and higher reliability. Still others shared personal experiences, saying they traveled from Chennai to Delhi a few times and the trains were always on time or even early. These voices show that not all Indians are just chanting "No.1"; some understand statistical methodology, and some complain about their own railways. Official propaganda and grassroots experience are two different things in India as well.

India's freight world No.2

This is a typical "clickbait" title. When I saw the post title "India becomes world's second-largest freight carrier, surpassing US and Russia," I was baffled. Clicking in, I found it was about railway freight only.

The Indian government claims that in fiscal year 2025-26, railway freight loading reached 1,670 megatons, surpassing the US and Russia to become the world's second-largest railway freight country. This number is indeed true: China's national railway freight volume in 2025 was 4.066 billion tons (No.1), India's 1.67 billion tons (No.2 by tonnage).

But there are two pitfalls here.

First, the comparison is based on loading tonnage, not freight turnover (ton-kilometers). It does not distinguish between short-haul and long-haul transportation. Although US rail freight by tonnage is lower than India's, US hauls are much longer. In ton-kilometers, the US likely still leads India. Tonnage and ton-kilometers are two different metrics; India chose the one favorable to itself.

Second, India's railway freight is heavily dependent on coal—about 70% is coal transport. Even India's parliamentary panel has publicly warned that the railway must reduce coal dependence and diversify cargo types, otherwise growth is unsustainable. Using a single-commodity dependent number to claim "world No.2" devalues that ranking.

India's electric vehicle efficiency world No.1

Another post title that shattered my worldview. China's lead in electric vehicles is undeniable, with an absolute generational lead over all countries except the US. How could Tata Motors suddenly claim to have the world's best EV energy efficiency?

Looking closely, the content said that in 2026, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) released a global auto energy efficiency rating, with Tata Motors ranking first at 106 Wh/km average electricity consumption, Mahindra second at 113 Wh/km, surpassing Tesla and BYD. Indian media erupted in celebration, claiming India's EV efficiency is world No.1.

This ranking is indeed real; ICCT is an authoritative institution. But the caveats may be even greater than the previous three.

First, ICCT uses official certification test cycle data from each automaker, converted to comparable consumption, averaged across their entire EV fleet. Note: official certification data. India's official certification uses the MIDC (Indian Driving Cycle), which has lower average speeds and fewer acceleration/deceleration events than the internationally used WLTC or CLTC. Simply put, a car with a 500 km CLTC range in China might become 600 km in India's MIDC. And if you were to drive at 120 km/h from Beijing to Shanghai like Xiaomi's Lei Jun did, that Tata car would likely need to charge seven or eight times.

Second, ICCT itself admits that Tata and Mahindra win because their cars are small, light, and low-powered. Models like Tata Sierra have curb weights around 1.5 tons and motor power under 100 kW, focusing on urban commuting. Tesla and BYD have cars weighing 1.8 to 3 tons. For the same weight and drag coefficient, Indian cars have no efficiency advantage. It's like Tian Ji horse racing—India uses its inferior horses to compete in a single category.

Third, ICCT's ranking only measures distance per kWh, not acceleration, charging speed, or price. And precisely charging is India's EV shortcoming. The ICCT report points out that Tata is one of the slowest charging automakers—on the same list, it is both efficiency No.1 and charging worst.

Trying to communicate amicably, then getting deleted by Indians

In those threads, I also experienced something frustrating while conversing with Indians.

Regarding Indian railway freight, I posted a chart beneath showing transport data for China, US, Russia, and India.

• China total freight 59B MT (billion metric tons), of which road 43.28B MT, water 10.12B MT, rail 5.28B MT.
• US total freight 19B MT, road 12B MT, rail 1.4B MT, water 1.3B MT.
• Russia total freight 9B MT, road 7B MT, rail 1.2B MT.
• India total freight 6B MT, road 4B MT, rail 1.67B MT, water 0.3B MT.

The table objectively displayed the four countries' data and acknowledged India's rail freight of 1.67 billion tons as world No.2, second only to China's 5.28 billion tons. But it got downvoted a few times and then deleted. The reason given: "does not meet subreddit rules."

I later checked the subreddit rules. It was an Indian railway enthusiast fan community, used to discuss Indian railway news, issues, updates, photos, videos, and travel stories. The rules required respect when sharing experiences and information, abiding by subreddit rules, and keeping discussions civil. In short, it's a place for railfans to celebrate and share their passion.

My comparison table had all correct data and acknowledged India's railway as world No.2, but it carried an implicit untimely message. The original post said India is the world's second-largest freight country; my table essentially said, "No, India's total is only 1/10 of China's, and it ranks fourth globally."

Posting such a table under a celebratory fan post, even with correct data, is like crashing a party. Getting downvoted and deleted was normal.

But this incident taught me more than just getting downvoted. Being downvoted could still be interpreted as me saying something wrong. Being deleted made me see the nature of that space. It's a fan community, whose function is to share pride, not discuss data. I was looking for facts there, like posting rival team's tactical statistics in a football club's forum. Not wrong, just out of place.

This again aligns with the caste logic. The rule of a fan community is: you can share your passion, but do not question the narrative. Questioning must come from a qualified position. And I, a Chinese railway enthusiast, have no qualification to point out in an Indian railway fan community that the total is actually not No.2.

Later I realized another thing: that table I made was essentially a product of "problem-seeking" thinking. An Indian posts celebrating world No.2, and my first reaction is to check data, make comparisons, and point out statistical scopes. That's my "reflection code" running. And that subreddit runs on "contentment code"—sharing pride, not questioning. Two codes met in the same comment section, and the result was my deletion. The table wasn't wrong; it was wrong for me to bring problem-seeking code into a space meant for highlighting positives.

After these experiences, I was once inclined to think that India just loves to boast, "win narrative brainwashed." But then I realized: this "win narrative" is not unique to India.

How do Chinese people view these issues?

For instance, while verifying the Delhi Metro data, I found that Guangzhou Metro also promotes its own on-time rate as "world No.1 for many consecutive years," including on the Guangzhou municipal government's English website, which claims that multiple operational indicators of Guangzhou Metro are globally leading. However, when we see Guangzhou Metro's achievements, we don't find such data particularly boast-worthy; it seems ordinary. But when the protagonist becomes "Delhi," it immediately feels "unreliable." Digging deeper, I think the main reason is the inherent "modesty" in Chinese cultural DNA.

Calm over surpassing Japan, celebration over surpassing Britain

In 2010, China's GDP surpassed Japan to become world No.2. What was the reaction of mainstream Chinese media at that time? Global Times' headline was "China should be wary of the 'world No.2' hat." The Chinese News Service (Xinhua) published articles analyzing why China responded low-key to the "world No.2" title. The entire public sphere was wary and cool toward the No.2 title.

In 2022, India's GDP surpassed the UK to become world No.5. What was the Indian media's reaction? Full media celebration, headlines directly declaring "India's shining moment," social media flooded with talk of karma and surpassing the former colonizer, even drawing British people into the debate.

Both were cases of overtaking another country, both economic milestones. China surpassing Japan was treated as a matter of course, with the first reaction being caution. India surpassing Britain, which is only world No.5, resulted in celebration. The bigger the target, the cooler the reaction; the smaller the target, the hotter the reaction. This contrast is more telling than any data.

Purchasing power parity: a joke in China, national policy in India

The World Bank's Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) method for calculating GDP is a set of data metrics designed to help developing countries "mask anxiety." While it has some validity, in a globally interconnected environment, it has significant limitations.

In China, PPP is basically a joke. Government reports don't use it; the public largely ignores it; occasionally someone brings it up and everyone laughs. Because Chinese people know that PPP converts a basket of goods to compare purchasing power, and since goods and services in China are cheaper, PPP makes the total seem inflated. China's official preference is to use the exchange-rate method, accepting a smaller number to stay clear-headed.

For example, in 2015, the World Bank calculated by PPP that China's economy had surpassed the US that year. But the National Bureau of Statistics directly responded that it did not recognize this data, did not agree that China's GDP had surpassed the US, and even issued a special statement emphasizing that the claim was unscientific. In 2020, the World Bank again calculated by PPP that China's economy had long surpassed the US. This time, Tsinghua professor Xu Xianchun also wrote an article stressing that China remains the world's largest developing country and should be wary of using PPP to calculate GDP.

In India, however, the situation is entirely different: PPP data is widely used. After all, by this metric, India's PPP has reached $17 trillion, ranking third in the world after China and the US, far ahead of Japan and Germany. Indian media predict that India will become the world's second-largest economy by 2038, also using PPP.

The same indicator: China fears it will mislead itself; India relies on it to boost itself. The attitude toward the same yardstick says more than any data about which country is in the phase of quantitative change or qualitative transformation.

This raises the question: why is there such a big difference between China and India? Why are Chinese people always wary of their own data, while Indians are always confident in theirs? After much reflection, I traced it to underlying cultural codes.

Differences in cultural underlying codes

Reflection and participation

Regarding the "win narrative," I feel it is influenced by China's culture of reflection, always preferring to be conservative, unwilling to expose itself before higher goals are achieved. Especially traditional cultural values like "cultivate oneself, regulate the family, govern the state, and bring peace to the world," "examine oneself three times a day," "do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself," etc.—their commonality is focusing first on one's own problems. Even the phrase "are kings and generals born noble?" essentially means that we are no different from kings and generals—in modern terms, we can look at America on equal footing.

So when Chinese people see economic achievements, see the skyscrapers of Shanghai and Shenzhen, their first thought is: what does this have to do with me? Second: is some of this achievement also my contribution? They even imagine when they themselves can go to such places, when their hometowns can also develop like that. I call this mentality "participation." National achievements are my possibilities; I am related to them; I can participate through effort.

Contentment and disorder

The underlying code of Indian culture, I pondered for a long time, can only be summed up in one word: "contentment" (安分). This word contains three layers.

The first layer is acceptance: karma explains why you were born in your current position—it is the result of past lives; accept it first. The second layer is staying in one's place: dharma dictates that you must fulfill the duties of your position and not overstep. The third layer is non-contention: the caste hierarchy tells you that this differentiated order is sacred; individuals do not seek to change positions, only to do what is right for their position.

However, it must be noted that the Chinese word "安分" often evokes obedience to rules, such as public hygiene and queuing. But obviously, Indians mostly don't adhere to those. The "contentment" I refer to in Indian culture is not that horizontal kind of self-discipline in public spaces, but vertical hierarchical contentment. Indians can be messy on the ground, yet highly obedient to caste, religion, and authority. This is not a contradiction; rather, "contentment" only covers vertical order, not the horizontal public sphere. In summary, India's underlying code is: vertical contentment, horizontal disorder.

So when Indians see the skyscrapers of Hyderabad, they comment below with "Our country is truly great." I call this mentality "pride." National achievements are the pride of ordinary Indians, but not necessarily something they can participate in. A Shudra will take pride in a Brahmin's life because it is the glory of the same order—elite achievements are the collective spiritual asset of all lower-caste people.

Participation vs. pride

Participation and pride are the key to understanding the China-India difference.

Chinese pride generally comes with a sense of participation. National achievements must fall upon me personally; my life details are the battlefield of discussion. So Chinese netizens, when discussing any China-foreign comparison, instinctively ask: what does this mean for me? Thus the discussion naturally spreads to social security, wages, healthcare, housing, education, mobile phones, lithography machines, aircraft carriers, electric vehicles, and even traditional Chinese medicine. Because everyone seeks problems from their own interests, and those interests are infinite and multidimensional, the discussion is always divergent, never convergent, leading to endless tug-of-war, with no one convincing anyone.

Indian pride is a kind of pride with caste order. National achievements are everyone's pride, but do not need to fall upon me, so abstract rankings are enough. Indian netizens, when discussing China-foreign comparisons, instinctively ask: what does this prove about how great we are? Thus they focus on what best proves greatness: numerical rankings, GDP No.3, electrification rate 99.6%, punctuality rate 99.95%. Because numerical rankings are abstract, singular, and do not need to fall upon individuals, discussions naturally converge and satisfaction comes quickly.

Problem-seekers are always anxious; highlight-seekers are always buoyant. These two thinking habits determine the undertones of the two public spheres. China's public sphere is problem-oriented and serious; India's is highlight-oriented and buoyant.

Even tea leaves are compared with China

I spent some time in an "Indian Statistics" subreddit and noticed a phenomenon: at any given time, nearly half of the front-page post titles are comparisons between India and China. Tea production: India is world No.2, second only to China. GDP: India vs China. GDP per capita PPP: India vs China. Manufacturing value added: compare. Exports: compare. Services exports: compare. Semiconductor policy: compare. Number of medical colleges: compare. Some even made a chart showing India's GDP per capita PPP equivalent to which year of China, concluding that it's currently at China's 2007 level.

Such comparisons are not inherently problematic, but even tea leaves being reported as "second only to China" is telling. Tea is grown in both China and India; whoever produces slightly more does not affect anyone's life, but Indian netizens still feel the need to announce it. This shows that under the logic of pride, China is India's most natural reference point. Indians need a mirror, and China is that mirror. This reference itself carries a certain obsession: if a country's confidence is built on comparison with another, that confidence is somewhat uneasy. A truly confident country does not need to constantly confirm that its neighbor is inferior.

But in the same subreddit, Indians also criticize themselves mercilessly. There are posts citing US university professors' papers with titles like "Many failures of Modi government." Posts saying that audit departments found a 98% shortfall in forest cover targets under the Green India plan. Posts asking why Indian cities are hell on earth. And posts with titles like "Can we stop posting those AI-written fluff pieces saying India has become paradise since 2014?" These posts all have decent upvote counts. So within India's public sphere, praise and criticism coexist, and both are real. Pride and self-doubt exist simultaneously in the same subreddit.

Indians habitually say they are equivalent to China in 2007

Among India-China comparisons, a particular narrative is very telling. Indians often say that India today is equivalent to China in 2005, 2006, or 2007—some year after 2000. I've seen this many times in Indian subreddits; Indians themselves like this comparison, citing a host of indicators to argue whether it's 2007 or 2006, and they argue fiercely over it.

But in China, I have almost never seen anything similar. Chinese people do not say "we are equivalent to the US in 1995" or "equivalent to Germany in 2008." China has overarching goals, such as surpassing the US in total GDP by 2035, reaching the level of moderately developed countries in per capita GDP by 2050, and so on. Even decades ago, China might have made such retrospective comparisons, but today, that phrasing has completely disappeared from Chinese public discourse.

Facing the same stronger reference, the two temporal perspectives are completely opposite. Indians anchor today's achievements to China's past: "We are equivalent to you 20 years ago," implying that we will eventually reach where you are now. This superficially acknowledges the gap, but in fact implies that the gap will inevitably be closed. It is a self-soothing statement that translates the current lag into a timeline to the future.

Chinese people anchor the present to future goals: we don't talk about "equivalent to whom," only "when we surpass whom." This phrasing doesn't even want to confirm the gap, jumping directly to the finish line coordinates. It is self-motivation that translates the current position into a task that must be accomplished.

One looks backward, using the past to cheer itself on. The other looks forward, using the future to pressure itself. Those who look backward constantly check how far they've come, so their anxiety carries expectation. Those who look forward only stare at the finish line, so their silence carries urgency. Which is better? I can't say, but placing the two mindsets side by side explains why China's and India's public spheres are one lively and the other restrained.

Different logics of opposition in similar public spheres

At this point, I discovered another counterintuitive thing: how each handles external negative evaluations.

To be honest, online, foreigners who praise China or India are in the minority; negative attitudes are the norm. But in dealing with these negative evaluations, China and India show completely different opposition logics.

For example, when foreigners question China's high-speed rail online, Chinese netizens often respond with arguments such as China's air transport is underdeveloped, Western countries don't have as much demand for high-speed rail, China has different national conditions, etc. Obviously, this is because they can't outperform in high-speed rail, so they use air transport demand to rationalize—although there is some truth, it clearly shows defensiveness. In the face of such evaluations, Chinese netizens still tend to discuss issues on their merits, highlight the advantages of high-speed rail, emphasize convenience and comfort, and argue properly. At worst, they can bring up the "California high-speed rail" joke to shut people up.

But India's handling of external negative evaluations operates on a completely different logic.

Indians' defensiveness has a clear hierarchical order: questioning India requires a "qualification" prerequisite. If the negative evaluation comes from a caste level comparable to Brahmins, they may accept it internally even if dissatisfied on the surface. But if the evaluation comes from regions or groups they consider lower caste, it will inevitably provoke the fiercest opposition.

In short, Chinese people usually still consider whether the other side's argument makes sense—even if BBC routinely inserts "at what cost?" into its articles, we still want to see what "cost" it refers to. But Indians directly judge external evaluations by hierarchical order, without any regard for whether the argument is reasonable.

We often see online videos of Indians coming to China "penniless" for "poor travel," relying on "begging," staying in hostels, hitchhiking, and mooching meals. But if you look at their names and appearances, you'll find they mostly belong to higher castes. We see such "freeloading" as low-class and unreasonable, but in their eyes, it's the daily "special treatment" of high castes. They don't think that by changing countries—China, the US, or the UK—caste distinctions disappear; this mindset is ingrained in their DNA. The only question is what caste they perceive you as.

India's win narrative is not entirely boasting

They are building substance too

Over the past two decades, many of India's indicators have indeed surged. One could even say India is probably the most successful country globally in economic development after China since 2000.

A quick review of posts I've seen in Indian subreddits—the same "India has become paradise" arguments mentioned earlier, besides the ones already noted—include: India's population with electricity access grew from about 60% in 2000 to nearly 100% today. India's forest coverage has long been slightly above China's (China ~24.43%, India ~24.72%). India's medical colleges grew from over 300 before Modi to over 830 now, with clinical medicine enrollments rising from 30,000–40,000 per year to 140,000. Foreign direct investment as a share of GDP is also higher than China's currently.

Overall, India's relative gap to China is roughly equivalent to China's gap to the US in 2006. China's GDP in 2006 was about $2.75 trillion, the US about $13.8 trillion—a gap of about 5 times. India in 2025 is about $4 trillion, China about $18–19 trillion—a gap of about 4.5 to 4.7 times. That is, today's India stands where China stood in 2006.

India also has its own development philosophy. Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan openly advocates that India need not copy East Asia's industrialization model; services plus high-skill human capital could also work. Indians themselves believe that industrialization is East Asia's approach, and India doesn't need to copy it. The expansion of medical colleges is the implementation of this philosophy: medicine is the hardest service in the tertiary sector, selling services doesn't require factories, just trained people.

So behind India's win narrative is not just bragging. The boastful component is large, not because Indians are stupid, but because they are impatient—impatient to be seen by the world. A country that solved electricity access for 600 million people in 20 years indeed experiences such indicators differently from a country that has long forgotten what blackouts were.

Optimism third in the world

Recently a post mentioned that Indians rank third globally in optimism: 69% of Indians believe their country is heading in the right direction, second only to Singapore (79%) and Hungary (72%). By comparison, France is 10%, Germany 13%, and the global average is 38%. 75% of Indians are confident in India's economic outlook, compared to the global average of 36% (China not included in this ranking).

But in the same report, what are Indians most worried about? Unemployment, followed by financial and political corruption, poverty and social inequality, crime and violence, and inflation re-entering the top five. The report's producer, Ipsos's India CEO Ramalingam, put it bluntly: "Indians are confident in the country's future while calling for stronger action on issues affecting daily life. This combination of hope and responsibility is often a hallmark of an actively engaged and aspirational society."

The most interesting part of this report is that optimism and worry coexist in the same country, in the same people. Indians simultaneously believe the country is on the right track and worry about unemployment. They are optimistic about the future and dissatisfied with the present. This does not contradict the win narrative we see online; the win narrative is one side, anxiety is the other. Optimism is a judgment about direction, worry is about life experience—both can coexist. This is why I keep saying that judging India in black and white is impossible, because even the country's own emotions are layered.

Data manipulation is not that simple either

Some might say Indian data is inflated, even cow dung is counted in GDP. This claim is widespread, but the reality is more complicated than the meme.

The "cow dung in GDP" meme originates from 2015. That year, India revised its GDP calculation method, adopting a new base year and new algorithm, incorporating more non-market self-consumption activities into the statistics, including rural self-production and self-consumption, livestock manure, etc. Growth rates were suddenly revised upward, drawing international skepticism and ridicule as "cow dung GDP." But to be precise, it was not counting cow dung as GDP; it was that the new algorithm included some previously omitted non-market activities.

And in early 2026, India did something few countries do: it actively "deflated" its data. India released a new GDP series with the base year updated to 2022-23, resulting in a reduction of total economic size compared to the old series—nominal GDP, per capita GDP, and growth rates all revised downward. Financial media noted that India is now further from the $5 trillion economy goal. In effect, the Indian government admitted that the previous scope was overly optimistic.

The IMF also gave India's statistics a poor rating. In its 2025 assessment report, it gave India's national accounts a C-grade, noting that outdated base years and data quality hindered judgment. Indians themselves are also reflecting: for example, last year a popular post was "IMF's criticism of Indian economy is not an alarm, but a signal to improve data quality," and the thread still has many active debates.

At the same time, India's GDP also suffers from undercounting. For instance, Mumbai's Dharavi, the world's largest slum, on a few square kilometers of land, hosts countless leather, ceramic, food processing, and other cottage industries, supporting millions of people. These slum economic activities are essential lubricants for big cities like Mumbai, but all operate outside official statistics. Some economists estimate that India's informal economy accounts for 30-50% of GDP, with wide fluctuations, indeed hard to verify precisely.

Because overestimation and underestimation coexist and pull in opposite directions, some believe India's GDP is greatly understated, while others say it's significantly overstated. Both sides choose the half of the picture they need, and no one can convince the other.

However, if we cross-reference PPP and market exchange rates, India's GDP of under $4 trillion is not unreasonable.

Every generation has its own opportunities

Looking deeper, behind India's win narrative is also the issue of generational opportunities. Every generation has its own opportunities—that's my perspective.

From East Asia, Japan and South Korea's development seized the opportunities of the Cold War and the unified Western market under the US, including early US-Europe industrial transfers and the spillover of the US IT industry. China's biggest external opportunities over the past 40 years include the collapse of the Soviet Union, deindustrialization in Europe and America, and the boom in information technology.

India now has new opportunities as well. The US-China rivalry gives it room to play both sides. Trump's immigration policies and the West's turn toward conservatism are also good for India, because previously Indian migrants almost never returned, but now if the West doesn't accept them, more talent can come back to India. The development of AI can also significantly affect education, workforce training, and potential technological innovation.

However, while opportunities are fair, whether they can be seized is another matter. Japan and South Korea gained Cold War dividends through government-led industrial policy and education systems. China completed its industrialization transition on the foundation of industrial systems built in the previous three decades, strong macroeconomic regulation, and talent cultivation. Facing US-China rivalry and AI, India has a young workforce and diplomatic space, but its female labor force participation is globally the lowest, its education and skills gap is enormous, and its IT outsourcing is being hit first by AI. Whether it can go further is uncertain.

For example, AI is a paradoxical opportunity for India. India's IT industry generates over $300 billion in annual revenue, and AI automation is causing massive layoffs in that sector. India wants to ride AI to take off, but AI may first destroy its existing pillar industry. When China developed its IT industry, it was in an incremental environment; India now faces AI impact as a stock crisis. Whether it can turn crisis into opportunity is hard to predict.

Indians are also sober-minded

After spending more time on the American forum, I found that beyond those patriotic subreddits, there are also some critical public spheres where Indians themselves reflect.

For example, in a "Critical Thinking India" subreddit, someone asked: India was able to borrow to write its own constitution, so why can't it directly copy foreign laws and successful policies today? I replied with a case study: in the early 2000s, Andhra Pradesh copied Bangladesh's Grameen Bank microfinance poverty alleviation model as a perfect solution, but it triggered a disastrous wave of farmer suicides—hundreds killed themselves because they couldn't repay high-interest loans. The state government urgently legislated to restrict or even shut down microfinance institutions. Bangladesh's model was the easiest to copy in terms of policy, yet the result was disastrous.

Interestingly, this answer received rational responses from Indians. Some said the Grameen Bank model can only serve as a supplementary financing channel, not a magic bullet; it cannot raise the productivity of illiterate, uneducated, or unskilled people. Also, Bangladesh had simultaneously done economic liberalization, signed free trade agreements with the US and Europe, developed textile exports, and raised female literacy—India remains highly protectionist and relies on IT. Others said that laws from Singapore or Switzerland can be copied, but laws cannot change a country's culture; changing people's minds is a multi-generational project, not something legislation can solve. Still others said politicians only care about elections, and there is a huge disconnect between top and bottom. The depth of these discussions rivals any country's economic forum.

For instance, in the same subreddit, someone asked why India is the third-largest importer of US ethanol. I commented that India's massive ethanol imports are purely the result of politicians forcefully pushing a 20% ethanol blending plan with gasoline; in reality, ethanol has low calorific value, offsetting cost advantages, and has almost no effect on daily gasoline prices. This time, Indians couldn't refute, only replying that the government says blended ethanol fuel is domestically produced and from farmers.

What do these exchanges show? That there are people in India's public sphere who understand economics, can question, and can discuss rationally. The loudest win narrative subreddits are only the most visible part of Indian public discourse, not the whole. Official propaganda and grassroots awareness are two different things. There are sober Indians, but their voices are drowned out by patriotic narratives. This is why I say India cannot be judged in black and white.

In fact, from the numerous India-China comparison posts, it's not hard to see that Indians are generally convinced of China's superiority—at least half convinced. They know the total gap is huge, know per capita lags by more than 20 years, know the specific indicators are far behind. Yet they still post repeatedly to confirm these gaps, repeatedly laying out the differences. This is less about "winning" and more about unwillingness—reluctance to accept the gap, so they must compare daily.

This mentality I know too well: in my early days on Chinese forums and Tieba, Chinese netizens had the same attitude toward Europe and America. The difference is that Chinese netizens' comparisons automatically spread to areas related to each individual, while Indian netizens' comparisons stop at the numbers.

Some conclusions that need long-term verification

The Indian EV story I mentioned earlier really struck me. When I saw that post, I did not immediately question the conclusion; instead, I recalled China's own EV development path. For example, after China launched EV subsidies in 2009, up to around 2016, there were countless cases of subsidy fraud. If you looked at China's EV industry in 2016, it didn't look much different from India's EV industry today—lots of fraud, lots of PPT cars, lots of policy dependence.

India's current EV efficiency propaganda is essentially a stance of overtaking on a bend. When traditional tracks can't win, create a new track. Just like China's decision to develop EVs in the early 2000s—initially, the products were also subsidy scams, but later quantitative change became qualitative change.

But there is a key difference. China was forced into it—high oil dependency, environmental pressure, industrial upgrade needs—no way out. And China had four cards: a complete industrial system, battery industry chain, engineer dividend. India now does not have that pressure, nor that system. Indian EV batteries rely on imports, the supply chain is missing, and charging infrastructure is insufficient. Starting with fraud, China actually succeeded through fraud; India is still stuck in the fraud stage.

Without urgency, there is no real driving force for quantitative change. Quantitative change does not accumulate with time; it accumulates under pressure. India currently lacks the urgency to build an industrial system—that's understandable—but if it truly wants to surpass China or the US, the situation could be severe. But that's a long way off.

India's other direction

India also has a path that China does not: the elite route.

For example, as mentioned, India's medical colleges grew from over 300 to over 830. Training at that scale, India's future supply of doctors will surely exceed demand.

But this problem is almost non-existent in India, because the doctors India trains are largely meant to emigrate. The UK's NHS, the US, the Middle East—all absorb large numbers of Indian doctors. Modi's expansion of medical colleges over the past decade is not entirely for "domestic demand." When doctors go from scarce to surplus, export becomes the only outlet.

From the perspective of Indian culture, India has never worried about brain drain; in fact, they have been scaling it up and using labor export as a major source of remittances. As a result, India's remittance income has been the world's No.1 for years, far ahead.

This phenomenon is actually highly self-consistent within Indian society, rooted in caste culture. Indians are born with a methodology for identifying caste, applicable everywhere. The caste system is essentially a system of lower classes serving upper classes. In Indians' eyes, people serving people is a natural thing. Exporting labor to serve foreigners is not something worth criticizing; rather, it leverages India's human resources. The only dispute, as mentioned earlier, is that such export assumes lower castes serve higher castes, not the reverse.

India also has the "100 million people" model online. It suggests that India's top 100+ million people support a high-value service market the size of a developed country—IT, finance, pharmaceuticals, healthcare—all supplied and consumed by the elite. India does not need to modernize the entire population; just 100-200 million people reaching developed-country levels is enough to support high-value services GDP. This model is extremely attractive to rulers—no need for the arduous task of nationwide industrialization; just concentrate resources on the elite.

This line of reasoning is not without merit, after all, Indians themselves believe in karma and fate; high castes are not responsible for low castes.

But this culture is naturally a breeding ground for the "Latin American trap." The economic elements and manifestations of the "Latin American trap" are almost all present in India.

Yet Indians may not see "Latin Americanization" as a flaw. Just like Mumbai's Asia's richest man Adani, whose 27-floor luxury villa sits next to slums—both high and low castes see that scene without any sense of incongruity.

Two sets of codes need translation

Originally, I just wanted to complain about some frustrations in communicating with Indian netizens. But unexpectedly, I couldn't stop writing; the entire weekend was spent pondering this.

At first, when thinking about India's "win narrative," my immediate impression was that Indians talk big, constantly compare themselves with China to seek a sense of existence—a typical "win narrative" culture.

But after checking the data, I realized I may have "misunderstood" them.

They are not "showing off everywhere" in the world; rather, they treat the "outside world" as their own living room, completely unaware that those are other people's territory—perhaps they don't even have the cultural psychology of "inside vs. outside."

I've often heard that Indians hold a "P5" status on some global internet platforms, such as "YouTube P5," with India ranking first. Checking the data, it turns out that the top social, news, and entertainment platforms of US internet giants are largely used by Indians as their "national" apps. For instance, YouTube's user base in India is far ahead of any other country. The American forum (Reddit) I've been browsing likely has the same situation.

For Indians, almost every Silicon Valley giant has a large number of Indian diaspora; they treat Silicon Valley products as their "own living room," which is logically self-consistent.

Looking around, this issue is not unique to India. For most countries outside China, no one can escape Silicon Valley products. What Chinese see as "international" platforms are actually the daily norm for most of the world—only we Chinese find it unbelievable.

Ultimately, in Indians' eyes, they are not deliberately "showing off everywhere" to make me, a Chinese, see it; rather, I happen to see them dancing in their "own living room" through a telescope from outside.

We Chinese find it hard to understand a culture that lacks a sense of "inside vs. outside"—how can a person behave in public as casually as in their own living room or bathroom?

Once we understand that "they are not deliberately showing off to foreigners," the next step is to learn how to get along with this code.

Returning to Reddit's karma: this core feature has persisted for so many years, showing that Silicon Valley executives indeed have some skill—they seamlessly grafted "karma culture" into American culture. This further indicates that American culture likely shares common underlying interfaces with India.

Overall, Indians thrive on the American internet, not because they are like Americans, but because the American internet is like India.

Take Reddit, for example: within each subreddit, any comment deviating from community consensus is treated like a "low soul" that has violated its moral duties in Hinduism—its weight is reduced, hidden, collapsed. This screening ostensibly maintains community order, but in fact constructs information islands and echo chambers, reinforcing cognitive conditioning of segmented groups, allowing modern digital platforms, in the name of technology, to re-enact the most ancient caste logic.

I often think: on Chinese domestic networks, you only need to follow a unified legal framework to move freely. But on foreign platforms like these, you must carefully read each small circle's "self-made rules," agree with each small group's "values," to be accepted; otherwise, "karma" strikes and drives you out of the system. Within this system, there is no room for "moderates" or "objectivists"—either you support, or you oppose; no other options. Those who can stay are only the most steadfast "believers."

And these are all things we Chinese are not good at or find difficult to understand. "Moderation" (中庸) culture is too passive when dealing with American and Indian cultures.

This article took several days to write. The real gain is not exposing how much of India's "win narrative" is propaganda, but gaining a deeper appreciation for the diversity of the world.

After all, India's population is already the world's largest, and we will inevitably face more and more incomprehensible things related to Indians in the future.

The comments exploded into chaos. Someone complained about losing their mind over "8 tablespoons of celery" in an English recipe; someone else dragged out the old story of NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter crashing in 1999 because imperial and metric units weren't converted; and a few seriously defended the imperial system, arguing that base-12 is easier to divide than base-10. One joker even said, just think of it as about 0.0000035 trucks. Reading it all, I couldn't help thinking: this is not that simple.

We do have standard measurements. Quite the opposite—the standard units humanity has are frighteningly precise: the metre is now defined by the speed of light, and the second is pinned to caesium atoms. But back in daily life, we simply don't like using them. In the kitchen we use cups and spoons instead of a scale; in the news we say "the size of 5 football pitches" rather than 7,140 square metres; someone in debt says they owe "a buttload of money"; a taxi driver taking you home says "just two taps on the gas"; and then there's the eternally mysterious "I'll be there in a minute".

Why?

Born of the Heavens

To answer that, we first need to see where standard units came from. Here's an easily overlooked fact: the earliest "standard units" of humankind were born of the heavens themselves.

During the French Revolution, scientists were fed up with every province using its own "feet" and "cubits", and decided to invent a unit that belonged to no king and would never change. Their idea was to ask the Earth for help: cut the meridian running from the North Pole through Paris to the Equator into ten million parts, and one part is one metre. To measure that number, two astronomers spent seven years amid the chaos of war, triangulating their way from Dunkirk to Barcelona.

The whole logic cascades from there: the metric system is essentially an "ecological model of the Earth".

• Length (the metre) comes from the Earth's waistline;
• Volume (the litre) is a cube with 10 cm sides;
• Weight (the kilogram) is the mass of one litre of pure water at 4°C;
• Temperature (Celsius) is the freezing and boiling points of water under the Earth's atmospheric pressure;
• Time needs no explanation: the day comes from the Earth's rotation, the month from the phases of the Moon, the year from the Earth's orbit around the Sun, and even the "second" was originally 1/86,400 of a day.

Standards anchored to the heavens and the Earth are accepted without any resistance—taken for granted, no question asked. The ancient Chinese divided the day into twelve double-hour periods; the West uses a 24-hour clock; the 360 degrees of a circle are generally believed to come from the Babylonians' base-60 system and their observation of the Sun's annual path. Different civilisations arrived at the same choices because they share the same sky and stand on the same Earth. These "standards" are less man-made rules than notes humanity took on the motion of the heavens.

So the problem is not "standards" themselves, but what happens to them once they come down from heaven to earth.

Standards Cannot Escape Historical Accident

The best example: the width of a Roman chariot was set by the hindquarters of two horses. Cart wheels wore deep ruts into the stone roads, and later wheels had no choice but to fit those ruts. When the British built railways, they simply inherited the cart gauge—1,435 mm, or 4 feet 8.5 inches. America copied the British gauge, and when oil from Pennsylvania's fields had to be moved by rail, the 42-gallon whiskey barrel—the size that best fit the wagons—became "a barrel", a unit still in use today. And later still, NASA's space shuttle solid rocket boosters had to be built in Utah and shipped by rail to Florida, so their diameter ended up constrained by the width of the tunnels along the way. The most popular version of the story: the dimensions of humanity's most advanced spacecraft were decided two thousand years ago by the hindquarters of two horses.

I first read this story in popular-science books as a child and still find it fascinating. It shows how a standard, once locked in by historical accident, is passed down like a gene, even after the original reason has vanished. The foot is said to be the length of some king's foot (Henry I, according to one account). And the word "ounce" is even more absurd: 31.1 g in troy weight, 28.35 g in avoirdupois, 29.57 ml behind a US bar, 28.41 ml in Britain—and in the circuit-board industry it somehow became a unit of thickness: spread 1 ounce of copper evenly over one square foot and you get a layer about 35 micrometres thick, known as "1 oz copper".

A unit used for weighing gold ended up as the thickness unit for PCB substrate, with copper's density implicitly bundled in. This kind of "unit drift" could only have been invented by someone who was drunk.

The most expensive tuition ever paid for a unit conversion failure was NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999. Lockheed Martin supplied data in imperial units; NASA calculated in metric; the spacecraft entered the Martian atmosphere at too shallow an angle and broke apart—about $125 million gone. So the commenters' worry that "automatic unit conversion in browsers will go wrong" is hardly paranoid. During my years as a sysadmin, units were what I dreaded most in English documentation: the same word "pound" could mean currency or weight, and after an automatic replacement you'd end up with news like "bus fares rise from 1.50 kilograms to 1.70 kilograms".

The Pitfalls of Standard Units Themselves

If what I described above is standards being polluted by history, then there are also standard units that were simply never designed with ordinary people in mind.

The decibel is the classic case. It's a logarithmic unit: from 50 dB to 60 dB, the number only grows by 10, but the acoustic energy increases tenfold; from 50 to 70, a hundredfold. When you buy a range hood, the seller lists "quiet mode: 50 dB, powerful mode: 60 dB"—they sound similar, but once you get it home, one is comfortable cooking and the other is a plane taking off. Earthquake magnitude is also logarithmic—one notch up means roughly 31.6 times the energy—but everyone "gets" it, because we have physical memories of lamps swinging, walls cracking and buildings collapsing; the decibel has no such memories, which is why we've been fooled by number games for so long. Science's original intention was to compress the trillion-fold range of acoustic energy the human ear can perceive into a readable table; the result was grinding consumers' intuition into the ground.

The farad is absurd too. By definition it's coulombs per volt, and the scale is so oversized that real-world capacitors all live in microfarads, nanofarads and picofarads—10⁻⁶, 10⁻⁹, 10⁻¹². The "beautiful unit" scientists conjured up in their offices for the sake of tidy formulas keeps engineers patching things up every day.

Then there's the candela. It's one of the seven SI base units; its name comes from the Latin for "candle", and it originally meant "the brightness of one candle"—how intuitive. But the modern definition redefined it as "the luminous intensity, in a given direction, of a source emitting monochromatic radiation of frequency 540×10¹² Hz with a radiant intensity of 1/683 watt per steradian"—pure gibberish. You never see candela in daily life: you buy bulbs by lumens, phones by nits, desk lamps by lux. The base unit closest to "light" has been hollowed out by its own derived units.

Three Faces of Non-standard Units

After all these complaints about standard units, let's get back to life itself. The "non-standard" units of daily life actually serve legitimate functions. I'd group them into three types.

Volume Units in the Kitchen

It's indeed maddening to see "8 tablespoons of celery" in an English recipe, but why do American recipes prefer volume units? Because a loosely scooped cup of flour weighs very differently from a packed one, and a tablespoon of coarse salt has a different mass from fine salt. When density is uncertain, volume can't be directly converted into weight. Europeans solved the problem by printing both millilitres and grams on measuring cups, but celery chopped coarsely or finely still changes the volume. In the end, "one tablespoon" is closer to what actually happens in the kitchen than "15 grams"—you have a spoon in your hand, not necessarily a scale. Mock it all you like; the system is self-consistent within its own context.

Visual Units in Documentaries

Documentaries and the news love to translate abstract numbers into "visual imagery":

These units carry cultural memory and emotion. The Eiffel Tower carries a sense of history, the Hiroshima bomb carries fear, a strand of hair carries wonder. Standard units are neutral and emotionless; visual units are loaded with emotion. Documentaries convey not just data but emotion. Every culture also has its own "local rulers": China uses West Lake and Zhejiang province, America uses Lake Michigan and Rhode Island, Britain uses Wales. This shows that intuition about scale must be built on shared cultural memory—exactly what standard units cannot provide. I do the same when explaining science to my kids: "this whale is as long as 5 buses" and they get it instantly; say 25 metres and they just stare blankly. When I was a child watching wildlife documentaries, it was the same—only "the size of three football pitches" could get through to me.

A Buttload of Debt and Two Taps of the Gas

This is the best part. Scientists assume humans need units for precise calculation; the media assume we need them for vivid imagination; but most of the time, ordinary people use units just to vent: someone in debt says "a buttload of debt", someone waiting says "the flowers have withered while I waited"—nobody cares about the exact amount of money or minutes. When a man from Northeast China says "just two taps of the gas and we're there", what he means is "it's ten kilometres, but I'm driving you, so don't feel obligated"—here the unit is not measurement but rhetoric. Even diplomatic language can't escape it: when Israel says the UN "no longer has an ounce of legitimacy", that "ounce" carries the ferocity of "cut it into a thousand, ten thousand pieces, and you're not worthy of the smallest one"; say "not a gram of legitimacy" instead, and it instantly becomes a lab report.

The Body as a Ruler

If the three faces above are about convenience, the next reason is closer to instinct: using the body as a ruler.

The ancient Chinese ruler was literally the body. Stretch out your hand and the distance from thumb to middle finger is a "handspan"; extend both arms and it's an "arm span"; the "跬" (half a step) in the proverb "不积跬步，无以至千里" (without piling up half steps, one cannot walk a thousand li); a bowl of water, the time it takes for an incense stick to burn—all refer to things at hand. When I was a child back home, adults never used rulers: a span and a half, two spans—"is it a full arm span?"—everything was measured by the body.

This "body-ruler" logic holds worldwide, and the defence of imperial units rests on the same logic. The foot comes from a foot, the inch from a thumb; base-12 divides better than base-10: 10 is divisible only by 2 and 5, while 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6. A carpenter with a rope can fold it into halves, thirds and quarters and get whole numbers: half a foot is 6 inches, a third of a foot is 4 inches—whereas a third of a metre is 0.333… metres, never ending. It's the same in the kitchen: halve a gallon and you get half a gallon; halve it again and it's a quart; again, a pint; again, a cup. Fahrenheit is defended on the same grounds: 0°F is biting cold and 100°F is scorching hot—exactly the range of human comfort—whereas 0 to 100 in Celsius is the story of water, nothing to do with people. "Why should the boiling point of water decide whether I wear a coat today?"

There's some truth to this, but it explains "intuition", not "standards". The imperial system is a system of measurement centred on the human body; the metric system is centred on the Earth and the universe. The former is indeed closer to hand, the latter better for collaboration. The problem is that the modern world has made the latter the default language, and because of the influence of the West's modern industry and technological revolution, we often have no choice but to use those awkward units too.

Business Turns Units into Magic Props

If it were only chaos, we could tolerate it. What's more annoying is that some units are deliberately kept non-standard, because non-standard is good for business.

Phone and TV screen sizes are the textbook case. Why do they always quote a diagonal like "6.7 inches" instead of the area? Because a one-dimensional number is easier to spin. 6.7 inches sounds bigger than 6.5 inches, but consumers can't work out the real difference in area; add a unit like "inch", which almost nobody has intuition for, and the number game leaves no trace. Nits are the same: vendors tout "peak 4,500 nits"—nobody knows what that means, only that it's bigger than "2,000 nits", and bigger means more premium. To be honest, to this day I can't tell you the real difference between 600 nits and 1,000 nits; I only know the bigger number costs more. But what consumers really want to ask is "can I see the screen clearly in direct sunlight?"—a question no spec sheet answers.

Look at the office, and Word is full of the same measurement mess: A4 paper has a √2 aspect ratio, a properly metric design, yet its actual dimensions are the odd-looking 21 × 29.7 cm; the "No. 3" font size is the Chinese letterpress system's conversion of the European "point" (1/72 inch)—No. 3 is about 16 points, but if you pair No. 3 text with 16-point line spacing, you'll find the two lines are virtually touching. Meanwhile everyday layout jumps between points, centimetres and character counts, and most of the time you just eyeball it and hope it doesn't look too wrong.

Using "K" for salaries follows the same logic. The Chinese tradition counts in groups of four digits, so "万" (10,000) is the natural unit; but people now say "a 3K monthly salary" instead of "0.3 万", because monthly salaries fall in the 3,000–30,000 range: with "K" you stay in the comfortable integer band of 3–30, while "万" drags in decimals like 0.3 or 0.8. The choice of units obeys cognitive comfort first, and "standards" second.

The AI era has also given birth to a new "monster of scale": the token. In the early ChatGPT days, one token was roughly half a Chinese character and a conversation consumed a few hundred to a few thousand tokens—still vaguely perceptible. Once agents started running at scale, you press Enter (an intent of a few dozen tokens) and behind the scenes the agent thinks, decomposes steps, self-corrects and re-reads context, burning through hundreds of millions of tokens. When a unit routinely needs prefixes like "million" or "billion" attached, it loses its meaning as a measurement. "Used 500 million tokens today" and "5 trillion tokens" are equally incomprehensible bookkeeping. I wrote some thoughts on AI not long ago in Paper, Pencil, and AI , and a point there applies here too: tools don't change the units; they change what we decide is worth caring about.

A Scientific Ruler and a Tongue Ruler

Last, the most mysterious of all: spiciness.

Science has actually built a precise ruler for spiciness. In 1912, pharmacist Wilbur Scoville invented the SHU (Scoville Heat Unit) using a delightfully crude method: dilute chili extract with sugar water, have five tasters sample it, and keep diluting until three of them can no longer taste the heat—the dilution factor is the SHU value. Bell peppers score 0; Naga Viper peppers score about 1.38 million; the widely circulated comparison tables mark pepper spray at up to 2 million, and pure capsaicin at 16 million. This unit carried the gene of the tongue from birth: it wasn't measured by an instrument, it was tasted by humans.

But however precise the numbers, they can't save reality: nobody has any idea what the difference between 50,000 SHU and 500,000 SHU feels like. So people invented their own scale—"mild, lightly spicy, medium, hot, extra hot"—and even then, Hunan's "mild" and Guangdong's "extra hot" may belong to completely different systems. When a Cantonese person orders "mild" spice, they mean "please, don't let me feel any heat"; when a Hunan chef hears "mild", they understand "this guy can't take spice—throw in a smaller handful of wild peppers". I've lived in Guangdong for nearly twenty years, and when relatives from my hometown in Hunan come to eat in Foshan, the first thing they always do is tell the owner "don't make it mild the Guangdong way". On this question, SHU values won't save you. All you can do is ask, honestly: boss, is your "mild" a Cantonese mild or a Hunan mild?

Two Systems of Measurement

Back to the original post. Browser auto-conversion of units sounds thoughtful, but in practice it would almost certainly fail: is "pound" currency or weight? How do you convert "a meteorite the size of three washing machines" into tonnes? What multiplier do you use for "the weight of 1.5 blue whales"? Because units are never just numbers; they carry cultural memory, bodily intuition and emotion. Standards give civilisation the order of collaboration: the metre, the kilogram and the second let engineers all over the world connect seamlessly—that is the metric system's greatest achievement, beyond dispute. And the "non-standard" units keep the texture of life itself: a teaspoon, a pinch of salt, two taps of the gas, a buttload of debt, five football pitches.

Humans are curious creatures: spiritually, we define rules on the scale of the universe and the Earth; physically, we still perceive life with our own palms and eyes. Standard units manage collaboration; non-standard units manage the warmth of everyday life. That the two systems coexist is less a flaw of civilisation than its wisdom—after all, if even "mild" had to be labelled with an exact SHU value, life would be measured a little too precisely.

Tang poetry, Song ci, Yuan qu, Ming novels—so what exactly does the Qing dynasty have?

Introduction: The Historical Health Check Ruler—A Cold-Eyed Examination Stripped of Emotion

"Tang poetry, Song ci, Yuan qu, Ming novels—what does the Qing dynasty have?"—folk wisdom usually answers with Dream of the Red Chamber or "the Manchu-Han Imperial Feast." But if we elevate our perspective to the horizon of a thousand-year civilizational evolution, this question is, at its core, a historical health check problem.

Evaluating a dynasty cannot rely on ethnic sentiment, nor can it use modern moral sensibilities to indict the ancients. We need an objective "civilizational health check ruler" that takes physical measurements across two dimensions:¹

• Survival Dimension: Have the three bedrock elements—language and script, cultural customs, and geographical environment—persisted? Has the territorial chassis been consolidated?
• Development Dimension: Has productive capacity broken through? Has technological innovation iterated? Has culture popularized and trickled downward?

Measuring with this ruler, the Qing dynasty presents an extraordinarily striking specimen: it scored a near-perfect high score on "survival," yet handed in an almost entirely blank sheet on "development."²

This is neither a "verdict of conviction" nor a "petition for exoneration." It is merely a dispassionate dissection: what kind of tearing and cost occurred within an agrarian land-power civilization when it confronted the冲击 of an industrial sea-power civilization.

Volume I: The Cultural Incision—From Marketplace Trickle-Down to the Elite Literati's "Desk-Bound Swan Song"

The cultural evolution of Chinese civilization originally advanced along a clear main thread of "privilege devolution and cultural trickle-down": Tang poetry belonged to the aristocratic elite, Song ci devolved downward to the scholar-official class, Yuan qu entered the marketplace and entertainment quarters, and Ming fiction was thoroughly embraced by the masses. This was a thousand-year-long, irreversible process of cultural democratization.³

1. Story Genes vs. Desk-Bound Symbols

The novels of the Ming dynasty (The Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, Journey to the West) were products of "generational accumulation." They were honed over centuries in teahouses and storytelling arenas, and their story genes are extraordinarily hardcore:

• Havoc in Heaven, Borrowing Arrows with Straw Boats, Wu Song Fights the Tiger—these plot points constitute the bedrock skeleton of Chinese collective memory. Even peddlers and porters who have never flipped through the originals can recite these stories backward and forward from New Year prints, pingshu storytelling, and shadow puppetry.
• They circulated among the folk for centuries before being compiled into books; their plots are "skeletal" in structure—understood at first hearing, spread as soon as told, remembered for a lifetime. They are not "literature"; they are "language itself"—"Borrowing Arrows with Straw Boats" is a chengyu idiom, "the Empty Fort Strategy" is a stratagem, "Wu Song Fights the Tiger" is courage. These stories have melted into the daily expressions of the Chinese people.⁴

The Ming dynasty even achieved "hardcore popularization," with an intensity unimaginable in previous dynasties:

• Zhu Yuanzhang's "Sentence-Reduction Literacy Drive": This beggar-born founding emperor mandated nationwide study of The Grand Pronouncements (Da Gao), a vernacular legal case collection he personally wrote, stipulating that every household must possess a copy. The most brilliant twist—if a criminal's household possessed The Grand Pronouncements and could recite it, the sentence was reduced by one degree. This was tantamount to using "a knife" to force commoners to learn characters—the method was crude, but the effect was immediate.⁵
• The Full Rollout of the Community School (Shexue) System: The Ming dynasty widely established community schools (equivalent to village elementary schools) in the countryside, enrolling commoner children aged 8 to 15, tuition-free or charging only a nominal bundle of dried meat as a token fee. The teaching materials were vernacular primers like the Three Character Classic, The Hundred Family Surnames, and The Thousand Character Classic, with a single goal: literacy—enough to keep accounts and understand contracts.⁵
• Printing Technology Thoroughly Trickled Down to the Marketplace: Ming dynasty block-printing costs were extremely low, and daily-use encyclopedic handbooks (riyong leishu) exploded onto the scene—titles like Everything You Need Without Asking Others, Household Essentials, Agricultural Manuals, and Medical Formularies flew everywhere. An ordinary peddler, artisan, or peasant could save up a bit of money and buy a "look-at-the-picture-learn-the-character" type of almanac.⁵
• The Comprehensive Devolution of Folk Writing Rights: Zhu Yuanzhang personally stepped in to promote duilian (antithetical couplets), decreeing that "on the gates of all officials, ministers, scholars, and commoners, a pair of spring couplets must be affixed." He even personally composed an imperial brush inscription for a butcher—"With both hands cleave open the path of life and death; with one blade sever the root of right and wrong"—the emperor himself taking the lead in play, culture directly trickling down to the bottom stratum. The right to compile genealogies was liberated from the hands of powerful aristocratic clans; villages across the country, every surname, began compiling genealogies on a large scale, creating a situation where "every family has its genealogy, every county has its gazetteer." The right to record history was handed from the imperial historiographers into the ancestral halls of ordinary people. Gazetteer compilation during the Ming reached a feverish pitch—recording not only taxes and population but also customs, dialects, local products, and even folk legends and strange anecdotes—this was essentially using writing to compose biographies for the daily lives of ordinary people.⁶

The daily life of a Ming dynasty commoner looked like this: listening to Journey to the West storytelling, pasting the spring couplets promoted by the founding emperor, compiling their own family genealogy, memorizing the sentence-reducing Grand Pronouncements, sending their kids to the village community school to learn a few characters. This was an era of culture permeating on a massive scale from the elite to the folk.⁵

By the Qing dynasty, however, the trend of cultural trickle-down experienced a "reverse backwash." Dream of the Red Chamber, while representing the artistic pinnacle of the Chinese classical novel, was a "literati-solo-creation-type" desk-bound swan song. It depicts the domestic affairs of the aristocracy, employs exquisitely refined literary brushwork, and has an extremely high reading threshold. It did not grow out of teahouses; it "admired its own reflection in solitude" from within the literati study. For 95% of the general public, Dream of the Red Chamber is an elite symbol "heard of but with no idea what's written inside"—"99% of people can't recall any plot, 95% or more have no clue what's written in it, at most they know a few names."⁴ Even regarding who its author is, the controversy that "it was written by Ming dynasty loyalist elders" still echoes within Redology circles—Mao Pijiang, Fang Yizhi, Wu Meicun, and Hong Sheng have all been nominated as candidates for the "true author."⁷

The Qing dynasty did not carve out any new popularizing cultural products on the track of cultural trickle-down. The literary inquisition (wenziyu) drove intellectuals into the "safe lane" of textual criticism (kaozheng) and exegetical studies (xungu); antithetical couplets shrank from a marketplace game back into a word game within literati studies; genealogies dared not record genuine sentiments; gazetteers dared not record sensitive local customs. That door of "folk writing rights" that the Ming had opened was shut again, panel by panel, by the Qing.³⁶

And the so-called "the Qing dynasty's grand synthesis is treaties" of folk black humor precisely reflects the historical sensation that literary achievement cannot conceal real humiliation—the late Qing signed a pile of unequal treaties, a pain shared by the entire nation. No literary achievement can "offset" or "whitewash" this period of history. No matter how fine the poetry or how exquisite the ci lyrics, they cannot fill the holes blasted open by gunboats.⁸

Tang: has (poetry); Song: has (ci); Yuan: has (qu); Ming: has the most (novels); Qing: nothing.

Volume II: The Institutional Bottom Card—The Manchu Qing's Anti-Han Logic and the Industrial Cost of "Active Blindness"

Why could the Ming promote cultural trickle-down and technological exploration, while the Qing headed toward closure? The root cause lies in the institutional ecology difference between the "small government" and the "big government."

1. Institutional Ecology and "Anti-Han" Anxiety

The mid-to-late Ming displayed "small government" characteristics: after the silver monetization of the Single Whip Reform, the court fiscally washed its hands of many responsibilities; grassroots governance relied on the self-rule of the gentry, clans, community schools, and charitable estates (yizhuang); "imperial power did not descend below the county level." After state power contracted, folk society obtained the free space to compile novels, repair genealogies, run private schools, and play with couplets. This was a "loosely managed" system—although it led to end-of-dynasty chaos, it gave society room to breathe.⁹

The Qing, by contrast, as a minority-conquest regime, bore a profound "anti-Han anxiety" branded into the底层 of its rule. Driven by this fundamental "anti-Han" anxiety, the Qing established an exceptionally tight "big government" control system: the Eight Banners garrisons, the baojia mutual surveillance system, and the literary inquisition network were comprehensively rolled out; the intensity of surveillance over grassroots society far exceeded that of the Ming; intellectuals were herded into the "safe lane" of textual criticism, not daring to touch political critique or scientific-technological exploration; folk creativity was systematically compressed. The Ming's "small government" tossed a great many social functions to the folk, whereas the Qing kneaded society into a dead knot—wanting to control everything, the result was that nothing was allowed to move.⁹

This institutional difference manifested itself with particular brutality in knowledge management:

• Knowledge Blockade: Under the pretext of compiling the Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasuries), the Qianlong Emperor had vast quantities of ancient books burned and tampered with—by some estimates, the number of books wholly destroyed or partially expurgated reached into the thousands. This differs in essence from the Vatican Library's "offline backup" of Chinese ancient texts: the Vatican's "lock" was for preservation—missionaries brought books back to Rome, objectively preserving for China a large number of editions that had been destroyed or lost domestically; whereas the Siku Quanshu's "lock" was for destruction—the court actively deleted system files, severing the flow and renewal of knowledge at the societal level, directly dragging Chinese scholarship from "exploration" into the dead end of "textual criticism." When we today study Ming history or the history of Sino-Western exchange, we sometimes have no choice but to go to the Vatican and scroll through microfilm—because the Qing empire's "anti-Han firewall" filtered out far too many things; it was instead that "book-locking cabinet" ten thousand li away that preserved for us the shadow of the truth.¹⁰

• Technological Discontinuity: The Ming dynasty's Zheng He voyages to the Western Ocean possessed ten-thousand-ton-class treasure ships with watertight compartment technology (Columbus's contemporary Santa María was a mere 25 meters long); Xu Guangqi collaborated with Matteo Ricci to translate the first six volumes of Euclid's Elements (1607); in the late Ming, "red-barbarian cannon" (hongyi dapao) were deployed on a large scale, and Western ballistics was systematically introduced. Yet the Qing, in order to prevent Han people from "going down to the sea," burned coastal ships and destroyed archives, causing the entire nation's naval warfare knowledge system to be "formatted." The final nine volumes of the Elements were not supplemented in translation by Li Shanlan until 1857—a gap of a full 250 years in between. Red-barbarian cannon were locked away in warehouses; firearms technology regressed rather than advanced. The most absurd case: by the 1860s, when Peng Yulin was building the Xiang Army's naval force to fight the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he could only flip through Gongjin's Methods of Naval Warfare, a text from the Three Kingdoms period 1,600 years earlier, as his teaching material—a nation that had once possessed Zheng He's treasure ships, in less than two hundred years, saw its naval warfare knowledge degrade to the point of needing to find inspiration in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.¹¹

2. "Selective Blindness" and the Shackles of the Self-Strengthening Movement

The Qing upper class was not ignorant of the Industrial Revolution—a single glance at the Western architecture of the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) reveals European court design; the Qing court had in fact continuously maintained very close contacts with Europe within the ruling class. The Kangxi Emperor conducted scientific experiments, studied astronomy and mathematics, directed cartographic surveys, and even set up a "laboratory"; the Qianlong Emperor received the Macartney Embassy, and the achievements of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution were all reported to the throne. Yet they made a sober choice of self-preservation:¹²

Introducing industrialization and new thought would equal the awakening of Han power and the collapse of the ruling system; maintaining an agrarian society could at least preserve the rule of the Aisin Gioro clan.

This was a cold-blooded political arithmetic problem: once the fruits of the Industrial Revolution were systematically introduced into China, the difficulty of the Manchu Qing's continued rule would grow exponentially. This was not "ignorance," not "obscurantism," but an alien ruling clique, in order to preserve its own privileges, actively choosing to make the entire nation stop growing.¹²

This "private-interest-first" logic directly produced the dead knot of the Self-Strengthening Movement. Why did the Self-Strengthening Movement originate from Han bureaucrats? Because the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had smashed the Eight Banners and Green Standard armies into dregs; Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and this cohort of Confucian-bred Han landlords were forced to raise funds themselves, train troops themselves, and run factories themselves. The core interest of the Manchu Qing aristocracy was "mounted archery as the foundation"; they had run the numbers: once Han people controlled machine manufacturing, they would control war potential; once they controlled war potential, they would control discursive power. With money in Han hands, guns in Han hands, railways and telegraphs in Han hands—what "privilege" would remain for the Manchu Qing aristocracy?¹³

Thus the Self-Strengthening Movement was locked from beginning to end within a contorted framework: the Manchu Qing court could tolerate Han bureaucrats buying a few cannons and opening a few shipyards, because such gadgets did not threaten "the Heavenly Mandate of imperial power." But the moment anyone proposed reforming the civil service examinations, establishing a parliament, or enacting a constitution, the Manchu Qing's "political red line" was breached. They permitted Li Hongzhang to buy warships, but not to reform institutions; they permitted Zuo Zongtang to plant cotton, but not to liberate productive forces. The fundamental reason for the failure of the Self-Strengthening Movement was not that too little technology was purchased, but that the Manchu Qing ruling stratum never treated it as a "national strategy" from start to finish—they treated it as "Han people messing around."¹³ In the end, with a single Sino-Japanese War, the paper-pasted scaffold collapsed at a poke—China's productive development was forcibly smothered for several centuries.¹³

Volume III: Geopolitical Reconstruction—Land-Power Obsession, the Tributary Perspective, and the Fate of the Firefighters

Evaluating the Qing dynasty's "territorial expansion" must be examined within the coordinate system of 17th–18th century global great-power expansion.

1. The Collision of Global Expansions

The 17th–18th centuries were precisely the critical period of expansion for the globe's great powers; nearly all great powers benefited from that round of expansion. But different expansion directions brought radically different civilizational consequences:¹⁴

[Comparison of 17th–18th Century Global Expansion Models]
┌──────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┐
│   Nation     │   Expansion Direction & Means    │   Geopolitical & Economic Outcome │
├──────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ Britain/     │ Maritime routes, trading ports,  │ Acquired industrial capital;     │
│ Netherlands  │ colonies                         │ the more they fought, the more   │
│              │                                  │ open they became                 │
├──────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ Tsarist      │ Siberian furs and minerals       │ Desperately sought ice-free      │
│ Russia       │                                  │ ports; integrated into trade     │
├──────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ Qing Dynasty │ Dzungaria, Xinjiang, Tibet,      │ Military blockade and isolation; │
│              │ Mongolia                         │ annually subsidized military     │
│              │                                  │ expenses out of pocket           │
└──────────────┴──────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────┘

The Qing fought the Dzungars for seventy years and took control of vast frontier territories—but after taking them, what did it do? Blockade! Han immigration was forbidden, mining and commerce were forbidden; the new territories were treated as imperial hunting grounds and penal exile destinations, generating no capital circulation whatsoever, while instead bleeding enormous annual military expenditures just to garrison them. Western great powers, the more they expanded, the more open they became; the Qing, the more it expanded, the more心虚 it became—because as a minority-conquest regime, it harbored an extreme fear of Han people putting down roots in the new territories. Thus its "expansion" was, in essence, a "military cordon sanitaire"—not for development, but to prevent the "spillover" of interior Han people from threatening its ruling foundations.¹⁴

In this "open-book exam" of global great-power expansion, all the other great powers were answering "modern chemistry," while only the Qing dynasty, with utmost seriousness, scored full marks on "agrarian-topography anatomy"—it gained on the map, but in civilizational evolution, it lost the entire future.¹⁴

Concerning territory, there is an even more vexing logical paradox: if one counts the Qing as having "opened up new territory and expanded the realm," that is tantamount to admitting that places like Xinjiang and the Northeast were not within China's territory during the Ming—this directly negates the legal principle of "since ancient times." In fact, the Ming exercised loose-rein (jimi) rule over the Northeast (the Nurgan Regional Military Commission) and the Western Regions (Hami Garrison); although loose, these were legally territories within the tributary system. The Qing's merit was, at most, turning these "nominal territories" into "directly administered provinces"—in essence, "strengthened administration" rather than "creating new land." If one counts it as "internal unification," then its "martial achievement" was merely a tardy administrative consolidation, hardly an "epoch-making feat of territorial expansion."¹⁵

As for the other argument frequently used to "rehabilitate" the Qing—the population explosion—it likewise cannot withstand scrutiny. Corn, sweet potatoes, and potatoes, introduced in the late Ming, were only truly popularized during the Kangxi-Qianlong period, whereupon the population exploded from 100 million to 400 million. What if it had been a different dynasty? Had the Ming persisted, or had another Han dynasty taken over, getting hold of these seeds would have nurtured just as many people. This was purely a species dividend brought by the global Age of Discovery; the Qing merely had the good luck to "catch" it—it was absolutely not a testament to its skillful governance. More ironically, the pressures brought by the population explosion were shifted onto the底层 through even more brutal exploitation (land rents, taxes), ultimately leading to the massive explosion of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom—which is precisely proof of the Qing's governance failure.¹⁶

2. The Tributary Perspective: Vietnam and Mongolia in Contrast

Re-examining the Qing from the perspective of tributary states reveals key facts obscured by mainstream narratives.

In treaties such as the Treaty of Shimonoseki and the Sino-French New Treaty, the Western powers recognized the Qing's suzerainty over its tributary states. This meant that the independence or transfer of a tributary state had to obtain the Qing's consent through treaty form—in legal principle, this is similar to the logic that colonial independence required the approval of the suzerain. Tributary and directly-administered were merely two different modes of governance. Viewed from modern history, tributary tribute and colonial taxation were, in essence, the same thing.¹⁷

The case of Vietnam merits even deeper reflection:

• Vietnam: Before 1644, it was highly Sinicized—Chinese characters, civil service examinations, and Chinese surnames were all present; its "degree of Sinicization" was even higher than that of the Manchus. The Ming had established the Jiaozhi Provincial Administration Commission and exercised direct jurisdiction over Vietnam. Vietnam's independence (938) and the cession of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun (936) occurred almost simultaneously—the time difference between the two breaking away from central-plains jurisdiction was less than two years. If it had been a Vietnamese regime that entered and took over the Central Plains in 1644, it would most likely not have implemented "queue-and-robe imposition" (tifa yifu), nor would it have carried out "literary inquisitions to guard against the Han"—because it was itself a "top student" within the Han cultural sphere. But history chose the Manchus, not because they were "more Sinicized," but because they were "closer to Beijing, had cavalry superiority, and happened to catch the window when Li Zicheng breached the pass."¹⁷¹⁸

• Certain contemporary Vietnamese "pure Vietnamese genes" narratives—claiming that "the Kinh people are completely unrelated to the Han people"—are, in essence, political operations to construct modern national identity. Through selective sampling (selecting only Kinh samples, concentrating sampling in the south to dilute the influence of northern genes), a kind of ethnic severance is manufactured under a veneer of "science." But a single simple counterexample suffices to puncture this narrative: to this day, the surname Jiang (姜) still exists in Vietnam—Jiang is one of the eight great ancient surnames, originating from the Yan Emperor, a purely authentic ancient Huaxia surname. A single character "姜" proves the indelibility of millennia of bloodline exchange more powerfully than a pile of academic papers.¹⁹

• The Mongol Lady Sanniangzi: Lady Sanniangzi (daughter of the chief of the Qilagute tribe, wife of Altan Khan, chief of the Tümed Mongols) of the Ming-era Mongols promoted the Longqing Peace Accord, presided over border trade markets for forty years, and constructed the city of Guihua (present-day Hohhot). The Ming-dynasty text Records of Pacification in Two Reigns (Liangchao Pingrang Lu) by Zhuge Yuansheng records that she "venerated China, esteemed the Buddha, and every time before the Buddha repented, prayed for rebirth so that she might dwell in the Central Plains." "Prayed for rebirth so that she might dwell in the Central Plains"—this is the classical Chinese version of "in the next life, may I enter Huaxia," and also the historical prototype of the online meme "would rather be a dog of the Ming." Sanniangzi's original words prove that the Ming dynasty's "cultural吸引力" had already penetrated deep into the steppe, causing even a Mongol aristocratic woman to yearn for it in her heart. This kind of attraction relied not on mounted archery, but on the allure of "living a better life." The Qing's control over the Mongols, by contrast, relied more on religious division and marital alliances than on cultural attraction—because "Huaxia" under the Qing had already been locked by literary inquisitions and maritime prohibition into a dried-up well, incapable of even激发 the willingness of Mongol aristocrats to "in the next life, may I dwell in the Central Plains."²⁰

3. The Deceptiveness of the Manchu Qing Entry into the Pass

The reason the Manchu Qing's entry into the pass possessed "acceptability" in history—a key point often overlooked—is that it was itself a tributary state recognized by the Ming, and moreover, including Liaodong, many places had historically been areas under commandery-county administration. This identity switch from "tributary" to "overlord" was not unfamiliar within the Chinese discursive system—southern barbarians, western Rong, northern Di, eastern Yi; you exit, I enter the stage—it was, in essence, a matter of long separation inevitably leading to union. The Manchu Qing entry into the pass was cloaked in the guise of "internal affairs of a tributary state," rather than the visage of "alien civilizational invasion," which made evaluations at the time and in later generations extremely complex.²¹

But one must distinguish between two types of "entry into the pass" that are completely different in nature: from the perspective of land-power theory, the Mongols and Manchus were themselves populations from the peripheral zones of the Chinese world; although for a long time not regarded as "Tang people," they were in essence no different from the Five Barbarians (Wu Hu) or the Shatuo Turks—all had considerable space for assimilation. Cross-ocean European powers, however, were entirely different—different languages and scripts, different religious beliefs, different civilizational genes, with virtually no space for assimilation. Historically, cases like the Khitans changing their dynastic name to Liao, or Yelü Deguang proclaiming himself emperor at Kaifeng—although not recognized by the orthodox line—it is undeniable that the vast region north of Hebei was precisely under the governance of the Liao and later the Jin that it achieved Sinicization. What essential difference is there, after all, between Yelü Deguang and the Shatuo people?²²

Some raise the counterargument: even if the Manchu Qing had not entered the pass, what if the Dutch, the Spanish, or, a century or two later, the British and French had come—would the Ming's outcome have been even worse? Lao T considers this a classic confusion of the deceptive aspect of the Manchu Qing. In reality, if the Great Ming had truly persisted without collapsing into the 18th century, at the very least, in East Asia, only the Great Ming would have been doing the steamrolling. The development of science could not possibly have been a European monopoly either—the Ming's maritime technology was not bad from the very start. The Ming dynasty was a systematic era of reconstructing Chinese historical culture.²²

4. Zeng Guofan and the True Role of the "Firefighters"

After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom smashed the Eight Banners and Green Standard armies to pieces, Han bureaucrats such as Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, Hu Linyi, and Peng Yulin were forcibly pushed onto the stage of history. They were originally people of no consequence whatsoever—before the Taiping outbreak, Zeng Guofan was merely a capital official of modest rank; Zuo Zongtang, in his forties, was still teaching school in the Hunan countryside; Hu Linyi and Peng Yulin were either frustrated local officials or scholars who had resigned and returned home. Had the Taiping not riddled the Eight Banners and Green Standard armies into sieves, these men would never have touched military command in their lifetimes. They were "temporary workers" forcibly promoted by "crisis" after the Qing ruling system had completely failed.²³

Nowadays, some online label Zeng Guofan a "Han traitor," but this in fact does not help construct that set of discourse. Because the real situation Zeng Guofan faced was this: had he raised the banner of "expel the barbarians" in the 1860s, not only would there have been no chance of victory, but it would also have caused China to prematurely fall, fifty years early, into the contraction dilemma of the "Eighteen Han Provinces." Sun Yat-sen, on his way back from abroad after the Wuchang Uprising, still clung to the view of the "Two Capitals and Thirteen Provinces"—it was only after returning and discovering that the Beiyang forces actually had the capacity for "Five Races Under One Union" that he changed his stance. But this kind of opportunity显然 did not exist in Zeng Guofan's era.²³

Stripping away the "Han traitor thesis" or the "class thesis," and viewing Zeng Guofan from the perspective of civilizational theory:²⁴

• In eliminating the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, what he preserved was the middle and lower Yangtze region, the core granary and cultural carrier of Chinese civilization. The Taiping's "class solution" was to smash Confucian temples, abolish Chinese characters, and establish a theocracy—at the time, this was tantamount to performing a "frontal lobotomy" on Chinese civilization. Zeng Guofan's choice, though conservative, at least preserved the traditional chain of "clan—gentry—imperial power." "Not losing order" is itself the highest form of productivity protection.
• That Zuo Zongtang could subsequently "carry his coffin" to recover Xinjiang depended precisely on this Xiang Army legacy. What they prolonged was not the Manchu Qing imperial power, but the physical vessel of the Great Unity of Chinese civilization. That Zeng, Zuo, Hu, and Peng prolonged the Qing's life was, from a later perspective, not necessarily a bad thing—they allowed China to survive the most dangerous "total colonization" window period.

The absurd detail of him flipping through Gongjin's Methods of Naval Warfare precisely proves that he was a realist who prioritized "survival," not a pioneer who prioritized "development." He had no concept of "system upgrade" in his mind. He was neither a hero nor a Han traitor—he was the man who, amidst a great fire, desperately clutched the family land deeds and ancestral spirit tablets to his chest. Although he could not prevent the house from becoming obsolete, he at least did not let the house collapse directly into ruins amidst wind and rain.²⁴

Volume IV: The Land-Sea Paradox—The Three Elements of Civilization and the Dual Tear Between "Survival" and "Development"

Many people often fall into the emotional narratives of "After Yashan, there was no more Huaxia" or "the civilizational rupture of 1644." But these cannot stand in the face of civilizational facts.

1. The Hardcore Measurement of the Three Elements of Civilization

To measure whether a civilization has ruptured, one cannot only look at "who sits on the imperial throne"; one must examine the three core bedrock elements:²⁵

1. Language and Script: Chinese characters and the Chinese language were always the official and folk mainstream (unbroken). The Manchu language, by contrast, became endangered. Although the Yuan dynasty revered Tibetan Buddhism, it never abolished the Han civil service examinations; the Qing pushed the official status of the Chinese language to the extreme.
2. Cultural Customs: Confucian ethical principles, clan networks (compiling genealogies, building ancestral halls, establishing clan fields, setting clan regulations), and annual seasonal observances were completely continuous (unbroken). The Zhang Heavenly Masters were enfeoffed as usual; the worship of Lord Guan, Mazu belief, the local Earth God (Tudiye), and the City God (Chenghuang) were never suppressed by Qing authorities—on the contrary, they were frequently granted inscribed plaques and honorific titles. A late-Qing Jiangnan peasant, from birth to burial—naming, schooling, marriage, household division, funeral—completed the entire process within the clan network, with virtually no essential difference from the Tang, Song, and Ming.²⁶
3. Geographical Environment: People still farmed in the Yellow River and Yangtze River basins under a monsoon climate, and still needed to manage floods—the survival imperatives of this land determined that the "civilizational kernel" could not be replaced (unchanged).

The "queue-and-robe imposition" (tifa yifu) is often treated as ironclad proof of "civilizational rupture," but re-examined through the three-element framework, it was merely a "skin reinstallation" at the level of cultural customs, not a "replacement of the underlying system." The queue-and-robe imposition forced Han people to change their external attire and appearance, but it did not alter the kernel of "ritual" (li)—the procedures for weddings and funerals, the rules for ancestral worship, the grades of mourning attire, and the hierarchical order between ruler and minister, father and son all remained exactly as before. Contrast this with genuine civilizational rupture—the Spanish in the Americas forcibly converting indigenous peoples to Catholicism, burning Maya codices, abolishing native calendars—that was a thorough replacement of "the底层 code of the worldview." The Qing merely changed the Han people's hairstyle and official dress style, but still permitted Han people to worship ancestors in their ancestral halls, read the Four Books in their academies, and observe the twenty-four solar terms in their fields.²⁶

"After Yashan, there was no more Huaxia" looks only at "who sits on the imperial throne," not at "who is writing, farming, trading, and marrying." It is, in essence, the projection of ethnic sentiment onto the dimension of history, not an objective description of civilizational realities.²⁷

If "After Yashan, there was no more Huaxia" were true, then during the ninety-eight years of Yuan rule, Chinese civilization should have already thoroughly "vanished." But the fact is: the moment the Yuan fell, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately picked up the banner of "Restore Huaxia," and the social structure and cultural traditions seamlessly connected. This shows that the core of Chinese civilization is the "operating system," while the person sitting on the dragon throne is merely the "user"—the user changed, but the system kept running as before. Contrast with cases where civilizational rupture genuinely occurred—after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Latin disappeared, cities atrophied, and centralized authority disintegrated; after the Aztec civilization was destroyed by the Spanish, its script was lost, its religion was banned, and over 90% of its population died—China during the Qing period not only did not rupture, but reached its greatest historical extent in physical territory.²⁷

2. Chinese Civilization's Own "Development Resistance"—Not Entirely the Qing's Fault to Bear

But the three-element framework also reveals a deeper problem: the Qing's low score on "development" cannot be entirely blamed on the Qing. Chinese civilization's own cultural inertia constituted, over a longer time span, a "chronic drag" on technological progress and social change:²⁸

• The Rigidity of Language and Script: "For example, the development of language and script—the promotion of vernacular Chinese and the massive use of new terms—this was, in fact, mainly a problem of the Han people themselves." Classical Chinese (wenyanwen), as a highly instrumentalized written language, served in agrarian society as a "technical barrier for the ruling stratum," maintaining knowledge monopoly. It was neither a problem of Chinese characters per se, nor something forcibly caused by the Manchu Qing, but rather a stylistic old habit long maintained by the Chinese scholar-official class to protect its own "right of interpretation."
• Cultural Conservatism: "For example, cultural development—in reality, this was also millennia of Han culture tying its own hands and feet. The New Culture Movement was very difficult to pull off within the original system; after all, practices like 'Down with the Confucian Shop' would, if placed before the late Qing years, have been even more synonymous with 'destroying Huaxia.'" The Confucian system achieved the ultimate in maintaining "survival," but it treated "stability" as the highest value and "change" as the source of "chaos." This "self-binding" was a genetic defect of Han culture itself: it was too excellent in the agrarian age, so much so that it did not believe any civilization could surpass it.
• Resistance to Technological Popularization: "When Hunan and Jiangxi were building the Canton-Hankou Railway, there were still great Confucian scholars opposing it, saying it would 'crush the dragon veins'—this shows that the阻碍 to industrial civilization was the continuation of a civilization's deep 'geographical cognition model.' Even if you swapped in a Han emperor, when building railways there would still be Jiangnan great Confucians submitting memorials like A Memorial on Railways Crushing Dragon Veins."

Thus, the more precise stratified judgment is: The Qing dynasty exploited and reinforced the "stability-maintenance capacity" within the existing conservatism of Chinese civilization, but at a specific historical juncture, it suppressed the civilization's endogenous "innovative试探"; meanwhile, Chinese civilization's own cultural inertia constituted, over a longer time span, a "chronic drag" on technological progress and social change. The combined force of the two led to modern China's "passive transformation."²⁸

3. The Structural Contradiction Between Land-Power Centralization and Industrial Civilization

Chinese civilization is a quintessential land-power civilization, whose survival code is centralized authority and stability; the core of industrial civilization, by contrast, is decentralized trial-and-error, risk investment, and global exchange. Several millennia of Chinese civilization, viewed from its roots, is precisely the representative of the land-power civilization that Mahan spoke of—a very large characteristic being centralized authority—and this has a structural contradiction with the development of industrial civilization.²⁹

Under the fiscal and communications conditions of the 18th–19th centuries, the Qing had to prioritize ensuring the security of the northwestern land-power axis (guarding against the loss of control over the Mongolian Plateau and the Western Regions), which consumed the overwhelming majority of agrarian fiscal revenue. Land-power expenditures—northwestern garrisons, the post-station system, annual banquets and stipends for Mongol princes—were "fixed expenditures" that had to be spent every year; sea-power expenditures—building large sailing warships, training naval personnel—were an "astronomical incremental investment." Under the limited tax revenues of an agrarian fiscal system, if the Qing threw its full weight behind building a navy, it would inevitably have to cut northwestern military expenditures, leading to the loss of control over the Mongolian Plateau—once the "land-power hub" snapped, the empire's physical chassis would fall apart. Even more critical was the technological bottleneck: before the mid-19th century, an order from Beijing took two months to reach Ili and one month to reach Guangzhou. If it tried to simultaneously manage the ocean and the interior, the court simply could not rapidly allocate resources in a crisis. An empire with an excessively large management radius and lacking modern communication means could only choose "one heavy end."²⁹

At the same time, Chinese civilization had, at the psychological level, a deep-rooted "coldness toward the sea." The底层 peasants, bankrupt aristocrats, and religious dissenters of Europe's colonial era faced the single-choice question of "go to sea and possibly die, or don't go to sea and definitely starve," and what they encountered in the Americas and Africa was a "technological gap"—firearms against bows and arrows, steel against stone tools—able to acquire enormous land and wealth. But China's periphery (Southeast Asia, Japan) consisted of mature civilizations; there was no expected payoff of "one man, one gun, seizing a piece of land." Several millennia of agrarian experience proved that "land is life, mobility means risk." "Being attached to one's native land and reluctant to relocate" was not moral preaching but the internalization of physical rationality. Even today, the Chinese people's obsession with "buying a home" and their attachment to "returning to one's roots in old age" are, in essence, still psychological residues of a land-power civilization. In folk narratives, the sea was never "opportunity" but the归宿 of "lonely wandering ghosts"—the core of Mazu culture is "rescue from disaster," not "conquest."³⁰

The课题 of land-sea coordination—human history has yet to produce a single successful precedent. At present, it is merely a slogan, with little resonance among the populace. The most直观 case is the Korean Peninsula: North Korea has taken the land-power direction, and South Korea the sea-power route—the two have thoroughly parted ways and to this day cannot be reconciled. Letting go of sea power was not only suicide for the Manchu Qing; under the格局 of the 17th–19th centuries, it very likely meant thorough fragmentation. Because the contradiction between the two had virtually no room for reconciliation at the time. The outcome would very likely have been the model of Europe versus Russia, or the kind of Southern Song versus Jin.³¹

4. The "Territorial-Expansion Apathy" of Southern Regimes and the Exception of Zhu Yuanzhang

An observation that runs through Chinese history is: whether it was Zhuge Liang's Northern Expeditions, Huang Chao's Northern Expedition, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Northern Expedition, or the Guangzhou Government's Northern Expedition—none had particularly great ambition; their goals all stopped at "regime change" or "defensive counterattack." Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition is very typical—its main objective was simply to unify the interior within the passes. Although "Five Races Under One Union" had been in place for decades and the Northeast had been established as provinces for decades, in reality, southerners all felt those places mattered little; the Northeast was dispensable and not treated as a major affair. The exceptions to the Northern Expedition pattern are mainly the two special cases of Liu Che (Emperor Wu of Han) and Zhu Di (the Yongle Emperor).³²

Behind this lies a logic of geographical determinism: the South was commercially and agriculturally oriented and had no addiction to "land area." Northern regimes, arising from bitter-cold lands, had a natural hunger for "pastureland, warhorses, population, and strategic depth" and had to keep卷 outward ceaselessly to maintain survival. A southern regime, so long as it held onto the tax revenues of Jiangnan, the canal grain transport, and the channels of maritime trade, could live quite well—to them, "conquering the Gobi Desert" was a money-losing business. In Chinese history, "Great Unity" was mostly accomplished from the north or northwest—because only a regime coming from that direction possessed the impulse to treat the entire eastern end of the Eurasian continent as a "strategic chessboard."³²

Zhu Yuanzhang is a critical exception. Although he raised his troops in the Yangtze basin and proclaimed himself emperor in Nanjing, he himself and his core inner circle were, in their bones, "northerners"—his ancestral home was Pei County in Jiangsu (hometown of the Han founder Liu Bang), and later the family migrated to Fengyang in Anhui. Fengyang lies on the south bank of the Huai River, but geographically sits right on the midpoint of China's north-south dividing line, historically belonging to the southern fringe of the "Central Plains cultural sphere." His core team (Xu Da, Chang Yuchun, Tang He, Li Shanchang) were all men from around Fengyang; they did not fear the great plains of the north, did not dread steppe cavalry, and had no psychological障碍 toward "Northern Expeditions." Contrast his true "southern rivals": Chen Youliang (a native of Mianyang, Hubei) was invincible in naval warfare but strategically narrow-visioned in land combat against Mongol cavalry; Zhang Shicheng (a native of Taizhou, Jiangsu) was content merely guarding the prosperity of Jiangnan. Zhu Yuanzhang ultimately defeated these two "purely southern" rivals by relying on having both mastery of southern naval superiority and retention of northern land-combat ferocity.³³

A more precise formulation is: a regime's "territorial-expansion ambition" does not depend on where it raises its troops, but on whether its core decision-making stratum possesses "northern survival experience." Zhu Yuanzhang's group had it (Fengyang is close to the north); Chiang Kai-shek's group did not (Fenghua, Zhejiang, is purely Jiangnan); the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not (Liangguang is purely southern)—only those regimes that are "physically in the south but mentally in the north" possess the capacity to truly integrate the whole of China.³³

And if, in 1644, a highly Sinicized Vietnamese regime had entered and taken over—Vietnam at that time was also entirely using Chinese characters and Chinese surnames, even more Sinicized than Nurhaci—China might have turned toward the sea earlier, but it is also extremely likely that, due to a southern regime's "natural apathy" toward the northern frontiers, it would have lost control over Mongolia, the Western Regions, and the Northeast, ultimately falling into a fragmented格局 similar to the Southern Song–Jin standoff. This cruel "either-or" equation is the rigid constraint of geographical determinism.¹⁸

Volume V: The Contemporary Mirror—The Psychological Structure Behind the "1644 View of History" and the Ultimate Examination

1. The "Want-It-All" Perfect Fantasy

In contemporary online public opinion, the demographics of "anti-Qing" and "anti-capital" heavily overlap. This mentality折射 the instinctive entanglement of a land-power civilization confronting the冲击 of industrialization:³⁴

"Want both Silicon Valley's high income, and Northern Europe's high welfare, and also Japan-Korea's mono-ethnic environment and Russia's landmass and nuclear arsenal."

This "perfect fantasy" craves the wealth-and-power fruits of industrial civilization, but deeply fears the social撕裂 and capital costs that industrialization brings. Hidden behind it is a logical裂缝: being anti-Qing is because of "missing out on the benefits of industrialization"; being anti-capital is because of "loathing the costs of industrialization." The two combined form a fantasy of "wanting only the dividends of industrialization while rejecting its costs."³⁴

But every civilizational model is a "local optimum" evolved over the long term under specific geographical, historical, and security constraints—Northern Europe's high welfare comes at the cost of high taxes, high trust, and high cultural homogeneity; Silicon Valley's high income comes at the cost of extreme inequality and social撕裂; Japan-Korea's mono-ethnicity comes at the cost of low fertility and insufficient吸引力 for external talent; Russia's landmass and nuclear arsenal come at the cost of a severely weak economic volume and backward infrastructure. To envy its "fruit," one must accept its "cause." But history has no sterile, aseptic version of industrialization.³⁴

2. The Deep Psychological Structure of the "1644 View of History"

The online "1644 View of History"—the emotional historical narrative that treats the Manchu Qing entry into the pass in 1644 as the "rupture of Huaxia civilization"—is, in essence, a compound of "rage at what was missed" and "fear of the cost."³⁵

The core narrative of anti-Qing is that "the Qing dynasty's maritime prohibition and闭关锁国 caused China to miss the Industrial Revolution," whose implicit premise is "if we had seized the opportunity of the Industrial Revolution then, we wouldn't be so passive today"—this narrative tacitly accepts that "industrialization" itself is progressive and worth pursuing. The core narrative of anti-capital is "capitalism's掠夺性, exploitativeness, and oppression of the底层 people," whose implicit premise is that "the fruits of industrial civilization have been monopolized by a minority, and ordinary people have not enjoyed a fair distribution"—this narrative tacitly accepts that "the inequality brought by industrialization" is unacceptable.³⁵

The reason these two demographics overlap is that both stand on the observational perspective of a land-power civilization: both crave the fruits of industrial civilization (strong national power, modern technology, wealth accumulation), and loathe the costs of industrial civilization (social撕裂, cultural conflict, the alienation of human nature by capital). Subconsciously, they believe that "if China had originally been led by 'our own people' (a Han regime) to主导 the Industrial Revolution, it could have walked a path both advanced and fair"—but history has no such precedent.³⁵

The "1644 View of History" is not a rigorous academic school, but rather reflects the intense expression of public sentiment. It forms an interesting echo with the "framework disputes" within Qing historiography—the "New Qing History" school emphasizes the "Manchu characteristics" of the Qing, provoking strong opposition from domestic scholars; the official compilation of the History of the Qing (Qing Shi), launched at the beginning of the 21st century and still undrafted more than twenty years later, is precisely because a balance must be found between "consolidating territory" and "maritime prohibition and闭关锁国," between the "High Qing Prosperity" and the "literary inquisitions." A historical period on which even professional scholars cannot reach consensus precisely proves that history is not a "standard answer" but a battlefield of "interpretive authority."³⁵

3. The Ultimate Reading of the Civilizational Health Check Ruler

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                Civilizational Health Check Ruler         │
│                  (Civilization Scale)                    │
└────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┘
                     │
     ┌───────────────┴───────────────┐
     ▼                               ▼
【Survival Dimension】          【Development Dimension】
(Survival)                      (Development)
• Core Elements:                • Core Elements:
  Language/Customs/Geography      Productivity/Technology/
                                  Cultural Trickle-Down
• Qing Score:                   • Qing Score:
  High Score (80+)                Blank Sheet (Low Score)
• Achievements:                 • Costs:
  Preserved civilizational        Locked down the ocean
  main body                       Suppressed thought
  Consolidated an unprecedentedly Missed the Industrial
  vast territorial chassis        Revolution

This ruler has measured a Qing dynasty torn along the dual tracks of "survival" and "development":³⁶

• Civilizational Continuity: During the Qing dynasty's 268 years of rule, none of the three core elements of Chinese civilization—language and script, cultural customs, and geographical environment—experienced rupture. This is a "high shock resistance" rarely seen in human history.
• Developmental Rupture: During the same period, Chinese civilization virtually stagnated on the "development" dimensions of productivity enhancement, social vitality release, and external exchange expansion—not because of "ignorance," but because of the structural contradiction between the land-power civilization's "survival-first" algorithm and the industrial civilization's "risk-investment" algorithm.

These two definitions can explain why China in the 19th century, confronting the Western冲击, presented the paradox of being "large but not strong": "large" because the Qing left behind an unprecedentedly vast territorial chassis—this is the high score on "survival"; "not strong" because the entire civilizational system was locked into the operational mode of the agrarian era—this is the low score on "development."³⁶

4. Conclusion: A Ruler That Requires No Taking of Sides

The true tragedy of the Qing dynasty lies not only in its being the self-preserving governance of an "alien ruling clique," but even more in its being the systemic incompatibility exposed when an entire agrarian land-power civilization confronted the冲击 of an industrial sea-power civilization.³⁷

It bequeathed to modern China an unprecedentedly supersized "survival container"—the Qing's "historical contribution" was leaving Chinese civilization a supersized physical chassis; its "historical crime" was plugging up every ventilation opening of this container, giving this civilization enormous strategic depth as it faced the industrial age, but simultaneously saddling it with a heavy transformation burden. The ultimate value of this container was verified in the 20th century: after the Qing dynasty fell, China was not thoroughly dismembered like the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman Empires—that "supersized chassis" gave the later Chinese regimes the standing to重新 negotiate their own place in the world.³⁷

But the cost was this: China took the冲击 of the "industrial age" hard on the底板 of the "agrarian age"; this process lasted nearly a century and is still being digested today.³⁷

Using this ruler to measure the Ming dynasty yields a symmetrical mirror image: it was not perfect on "survival" (late-period fiscal collapse, the Little Ice Age catastrophe), but it was extremely vibrant on "development"—cultural trickle-down, bustling marketplace prosperity, maritime起步, firearms exploration, preserving for Chinese civilization a "window for breathing outward." Using this ruler to measure Zeng Guofan: he was an extreme realist who prioritized "survival," preventing the physical collapse of the civilizational main body, but on "development" he was extremely conservative, with no concept of "system upgrade" in his mind.³⁷

Setting aside the sets of ethnic narrative, class narrative, and Western human-rights-and-freedom narrative, in China's several thousand years of history, the evaluation of a dynasty fundamentally comes down to the two questions of a civilization's survival and development. The highest historical evaluations—such as those of Liu Che (Emperor Wu of Han) and Li Shimin (Emperor Taizong of Tang)—also affirm their contributions to civilizational survival through opening up territory and expanding the realm.³⁷

When we learn to use this "health check ruler" to strip away立场, ideology, and emotion, history is no longer a battlefield for taking sides, but a bright mirror reflecting a civilization's path here and its choices for the future.

The ultimate value of history has never been remembering conclusions, but learning how to analyze.

Footnotes:

That evening, I was playing games when I got a call from my cousin. There was a clear unease in her voice. She said the village party secretary had contacted her—my uncle, back in our hometown, had been drinking and riding a motorcycle, and he'd crashed into someone else's car. He wasn't hurt, but they couldn't reach his family. My cousin is the daughter of my mother's second sister; my uncle is her uncle too, and since she's well-connected in the village, it naturally fell to her to handle this.

I hung up and called my male cousin right away—my uncle's only son. He answered quickly, said he already knew, and that he also couldn't reach his father. Less than half an hour later, he called me back, asking for our eldest aunt's number—my mother's oldest sister, who still lives in the village. He was hoping she could go over and check on things. He'd heard that after the accident, my uncle had only taken a breathalyzer test, not a blood draw, and he was still hoping there might be some way to turn things around.

Another hour passed, and my cousin called again. He said that after the accident, my uncle's first move was to hop back on the bike and ride to the next county over—probably thinking he could just hide out. The next time we talked, he said he'd already arranged for my uncle to take a hired car back to Guangdong overnight.

I've worked in law for years, and frankly, I found this approach a bit absurd. So I asked: how was he able to leave at all? My cousin relayed what my uncle had told him—that the traffic officer who responded was a former student of his, and the officer let him go. To be honest, I've heard enough about the state of judicial affairs in certain parts of Hunan that this explanation didn't really surprise me. In the countryside, personal connections trump rules—this kind of thing isn't uncommon.

But before I could even breathe that sigh of relief, less than half an hour later, the phone rang again. My uncle had been taken to the hospital for a blood draw, and his blood alcohol content was very high. A DUI conviction was all but certain. From "a student officer let him go" to "a blood test on the spot," the facts had split wide open. Which version was true, and which was made up to reassure the family? I didn't bother to ask, and I'll never know for sure.

What followed was a long phone call. My cousin talked about his son—a student at the best high school in our area, with good grades. The family had been hoping he might go on to a military or police academy. But those schools conduct a political review that goes back three generations. With this DUI on his grandfather's record, no one knew if it would block the grandson's path. On my end, I tried to reassure him—minor criminal records can sometimes be sealed these days, so it might not necessarily affect the third generation. But even as I said it, I knew I wasn't sure.

The real tragedy, though, was my uncle himself. He'd spent his whole life as a teacher. His pension alone would have been enough to see him through a comfortable, dignified retirement in the village. But now, with a criminal conviction on the horizon, the bulk of that pension was likely gone, leaving only the bare minimum. A lifetime of stability, undone by one drink, one reckless decision, one moment of foolishness.

Thinking back now, I remember that fabricated detail about the "student officer." Maybe my uncle made up that detail not just to calm the family, but to calm himself—in that moment, he must have desperately wanted to believe that somewhere in this world, there was someone who would cut him some slack. But that's not how reality works. It wasn't just one foolish decision; it was an entire mindset—the ingrained habit of thinking, "If I run, it'll blow over," "If I pull some strings, it'll be handled." Drunk driving was foolish. Running away was even more foolish. And believing that human connections could override the law—that was the biggest foolishness of all.

And yet, I can't bring myself to blame him. In the countryside, there are many old people like my uncle who have never left the logic of a close-knit, familiar society. They don't understand procedural justice. They only know that when something goes wrong, the first instinct is to run, to call in favors, to make a big problem small. But that deeply ingrained way of living is worthless in the face of the law.

In the end, there was no way out but to face it. As his nephew, all I could do was think about the kid's education and try to comfort my cousin. "The law is merciless"—this time, my uncle's family had learned that lesson the hard way.

Two

Now that I've told that story, I think it's worth tracing who my uncle really is. Otherwise, it's hard to understand how a man who spent his whole life as a teacher could do something so foolish—drinking and driving, crashing, and then trying to run.

My uncle was born in 1962, the Year of the Tiger. But in the village, he had a more famous nickname: "Niú Yá Zǐ." Actually, it's not really a nickname—it's his childhood name, the one my grandmother always called him. And he lived up to it: my uncle's defining trait was stubbornness. He had a way of "bàn mán"—a Hunan dialect word for throwing yourself into something with brute, unyielding force. Once he'd made up his mind, nothing could change it. When he was young, that stubbornness was drive. In old age, it curdled into rigidity—and even foolishness.

He was the only son in the family, with three older sisters and my mother, the youngest. My grandfather died early, leaving a household full of women. In a rural village in those days, without a man to hold things together, life was unimaginably hard. After graduating from high school, my uncle started working as a substitute teacher. By that time, his older sisters had already married off one by one, and my mother was still a student at the school where he taught. You could say that from the time he was a teenager, my uncle was the pillar of the family. He did his utmost for all his sisters—especially my mother, the baby of the family.

Around 1979, my uncle began his career as a substitute teacher and kept at it until 1998. In those days, rural teachers had a tough time—a monthly salary of twenty or thirty yuan, and even that was often delayed by the government. Later, the education department encouraged teachers to take unpaid leave. My uncle gritted his teeth, borrowed two hundred yuan, and headed south to Guangdong.

A rural teacher, he started out in a hat factory, then a plating factory, then bounced around a few more places before he and my aunt rented a stall in a computer mall and started a small business. They scrimped and saved, penny by penny, and around 2010, they finally scraped together enough to buy an apartment in Guangdong—5,000 yuan per square meter, total price over 700,000. That was the peak of my uncle's life. That apartment became the home for three generations of the family, and it still is. Honestly, for a former rural substitute teacher to make it that far—my uncle really fought his way up.

But there was a price.

My uncle and aunt were away working in Guangdong for years, and my male cousin was only about ten at the time—the age when he needed his parents most. With only my grandmother looking after him, he was more or less raised on his own. Internet cafes and arcades were everywhere. My cousin's grades had been excellent, but slowly he started going down the wrong path. On top of that, with his parents doing okay in business, the family was relatively well-off by village standards; he had spending money and fell in with the wrong crowd. By high school, he'd gotten into everything: early dating, partying, the works. My uncle, frustrated beyond measure, made him repeat his senior year twice. Eventually, he barely scraped above the cutoff for the college entrance exam and got into a university.

During those four years of college, my cousin didn't really make much of himself academically, though he had a whirlwind romance. Fortunately, his girlfriend had a good character, and after graduation they got married and had a child—all things considered, a silver lining in an otherwise tough story.

Around 2010, after graduating, my cousin took over his parents' small business. It's a common ailment of the young—you read a few books and think you know everything. He refused to settle for a small-time trade and insisted on starting his own ventures. In the end, he lost money on every one. Worse, he fell into the real estate industry, which is currently in a downturn, and pretty much squandered the savings my uncle and aunt had worked so hard to accumulate.

Around that time, the school started calling my uncle back to teaching—his unpaid leave was up, and if he didn't return, he'd lose his permanent position and his pension. So in 2013, my uncle went back to that rural school, returning to the lectern until his retirement in 2022.

Think about that: a sixty-year-old man, after spending more than a decade away, finally buying a home, then going right back to the starting line—all for a pension. A lifetime like an ox pulling a cart, and in the end, right back to the ridge of the same field.

Because of all this, my uncle occupied a special place in the family. He was the one who held up the family's dignity, the one who bore the most hardship, the one everyone rushed to protect in times of trouble. That's why my female cousin immediately started making calls; that's why my male cousin's first thought was to work connections; that's even why I initially believed the story about the "student officer letting him go." It wasn't that we were stupid—it's that deep down, none of us wanted to see him take another fall.

And yet, he fell.

A man born in the Year of the Tiger, nicknamed "Ox," who pushed forward with brute force his whole life—in the end, it was that very brute force that tripped him up. Drinking and riding was brute force. Running after the accident was brute force. Believing that connections could fix it—that was brute force too. He got through his whole life on that force. But this time, he couldn't get through it.

Three

Believe it or not, for all his tough-guy act, my uncle had one well-known weakness at home: he was terrified of his wife.

My aunt came from a much better background. Her father was a railway worker; in the 1980s, the whole family moved to Guangdong. But my aunt was the eldest daughter, and she married my uncle in '82—by the standards of their circumstances at the time, it was marrying down. That disparity stayed with my aunt for life. In her eyes, my uncle was good for nothing except teaching, drinking, and bragging. They fought for decades, but from what I could see, it was mostly one-sided—my aunt doing the shouting, my uncle taking it.

The fights were always about lifestyle differences and clashing values. My grandmother had never left the village; she lived by a thousand-year-old rural way of life, including cooking and hygiene habits that drove my aunt crazy. Before my mother got married, she was also scolded by my aunt for supposedly stealing from her. The house was in an uproar. Later we found out that my male cousin had lost those things—it had nothing to do with my mother. Back then, when material goods were scarce, every little thing seemed like a huge deal. But decades later, none of it really mattered.

The strange thing is, for all the fighting, the family never broke apart. They stuck together for decades, through arguments and noise, and somehow managed to keep things going. No matter how bad the fights got, they still ate at the same table and slept in the same bed. Sometimes I think that's just how older generations' marriages worked—not romantic, not even warm, but held together by a stubborn resilience that wouldn't let them break, no matter what came.

One thing that stands out: I haven't seen my uncle in two or three years. Even though we live in the same city, every time I say I want to visit, he refuses. Same for the New Year. At first I didn't understand, but eventually I realized: he probably didn't want us to see him like this.

The last time I saw him was during the Spring Festival three years ago. He looked so much older than his years. Half his teeth were gone. He was curled up in the sofa, listless—a far cry from the "Niú Yá Zǐ" of his youth. He couldn't stand being cooped up at home, so after retiring he took on odd jobs—security guard, storekeeper, shop assistant. Not just for the extra money, but to give himself something to do, to avoid listening to my aunt's nagging all day.

So when he went back to the village alone this time, honestly, I understood. It was his chance to let loose. After all those years of being stifled—away from home, at home, under his wife's thumb—finally, no one was watching him, no one was nagging him. He was like a penned-up ox let out of its stall, running wild. Drinking, riding motorcycles, boasting—these were the things he'd loved in his youth. He couldn't do them in Guangdong, couldn't do them in front of his wife. But back home among old friends, he could finally do them again.

He just didn't expect that one wild run would end in disaster.

A man held in check his whole life, finally cut loose—and that freedom turned into pain. When I think about it, I can't describe the feeling. He's not a bad man. He's just an ordinary old man, crushed by life, by his wife, by a thousand responsibilities, and the one time he tried to catch his breath, he spent the peace of his later years for it.

Four

When it comes to my uncle's drinking, I've got a mental catalog of images.

He was practically pickled in alcohol his whole life. No drink, no day—that's no exaggeration. Over the years, I've seen and heard about so many of his drunken episodes. Back on his bicycle, later on his motorcycle—after every drinking session, the bike ended up beaten and battered. The worst was when he just passed out on the roadside and slept there all night, then woke up the next morning, dusted himself off, and walked home like nothing happened.

To be honest, by any strict definition, pretty much everything he did before this counted as drunk driving. But before this, he'd always been lucky—the only person he hurt was himself, and there was no one around to stop him. Fall off the bicycle? Get back on. Wipe out on the motorcycle? Get back on. In those days, in the countryside, nobody checked for drunk driving. As long as no one else got hurt, it was your own business.

But this time was different. This time, he crashed into someone else's vehicle. And finally, the law caught up with him.

To put it bluntly, the bill he'd been dodging for most of his life—this time, it came due with interest.

But here's the thing: as long as my aunt was around, he wouldn't touch a drop. She'd curse him, and he'd take it; she'd hit him, and he'd duck. Forget drinking—if she even smelled it on him, he'd be in for a beating. So his years in Guangdong were probably pure frustration. Going back home, free of the "monkey on his back," gathering with old classmates and colleagues, raising his glass—he threw all caution to the wind.

That was classic him: when no one's watching, he'd completely let go, no sense of proportion.

There's another story I think captures his personality perfectly. When I was in middle school and staying at his house, he had a terrible toothache. But instead of going to a doctor, he took a pair of needle-nose pliers, yanked the bad tooth out himself, blood and all, without even disinfecting it. That's the kind of "bàn mán" approach he used his whole life. If his body acted up, he'd tough it out. If he hit a wall, he'd bull through it. If something went wrong, he'd handle it himself—badly. If it could be solved alone, he'd never ask for help. If it couldn't be solved alone, he'd insist on solving it alone anyway.

Call it grit if you want to be kind; call it pigheaded if you don't.

Five

But when it comes to the most complicated, contradictory feelings I have about my uncle, there's one other story.

After my father passed away, my mother's mental state changed drastically. She became hazy, detached from everything, like she'd lost her soul. At the time I was away at college and couldn't be there. She was staying with my uncle and grandmother. For a while, she became severely disturbed—lashing out at my uncle, at my grandmother, seeming not to recognize anyone. My uncle panicked and couldn't think of any other solution. His "bàn mán" reflex kicked in: he gave her seven or eight sleeping pills at once. She slept for three full days, and when she woke up, her mind had somehow returned to normal.

Frankly, my feelings about this are very mixed.

On one hand, I'm truly grateful. I was still a student then and couldn't have gone back to take care of my mother. If he hadn't taken that drastic step, I don't know what would have become of her. His method was frighteningly rough, but under those circumstances, there might not have been a better option.

On the other hand, I'm also very resentful. Ever since that incident, every time he sees me, he tells the whole story again. No matter who's around, no matter the occasion, he'll announce it in front of others: "Your mother went crazy and was hitting me, so I gave her seven or eight sleeping pills, she slept for three days, and she was fine—but I wasn't sure if she'd wake up, I was really worried..." He says it with this smug look, like he's recounting a heroic rescue. And I just have to sit there, hearing it over and over—my mother's breakdown turned into one of his "legendary tales." He never seems to consider whether I want to hear it, whether I want others to know.

But he's my uncle. My mother's older brother. What can I do? Every time, I just sit there, smile, and listen to the whole thing from start to finish.

That's my uncle. He never asks if you're okay with something. If he thinks it's right, he does it. Sleeping pills, pulling teeth, drinking and driving—same instinct. He spent his whole life operating on that "bàn mán" logic. Ask him to do it any other way—he can't, and he won't.

In the end, that brute force raised him up, and that same brute force brought him down.

Six

There's another story that creates a striking contrast with my uncle's fear of his wife, and it also helps me see his life more clearly.

In front of my aunt, my uncle was a total pushover. But in front of outsiders, he was always the epitome of a "real man." He said what he meant and meant what he said; he acted decisively and would see things through once decided. When he lectured us nephews, he'd always get this grand, stirring tone: "A true man, standing between heaven and earth, should hold his head high and act with honor!" He sounded like a rustic philosopher. As kids, we'd get all fired up, thinking our uncle was the manliest man on earth.

Then he'd go home, my aunt would yell, and he'd shrink. A tiger outside, a mouse at home. We younger generations had seen this since childhood and were used to it; we even found it kind of endearing. My grandmother used to say it was fate—he was born in the Year of the Tiger and she was born in the Year of the Dragon, a "dragon-tiger rivalry," and a fortune-teller had predicted it long ago. It was only natural. The tiger may be king of beasts, but under the dragon's watch, he's no match. And besides, a man being afraid of his wife isn't really shameful—it's almost charming.

But another story gave me a deeper understanding of my uncle's "manly" side.

My mother's second sister—my second eldest aunt—was born around 1954. In the mid-1970s, she married a man from a neighboring village whose surname was Zhu. He was a local "legend," nicknamed "Commander Zhu"—a typical Red Guard leader with little education and a lot of recklessness. During the Cultural Revolution, he'd led hundreds of commune members to besiege the Provincial Revolutionary Committee in Changsha. Bold and short-tempered.

But at home, he was a monster. My second aunt's first two children were daughters, and he despised her for it. In 1985, she finally had twin sons, thinking things might improve—but he only got worse, treating her even more harshly. The worst incident: he dug a pit more than a meter deep in his own living room and said he was going to "bury his wife."

To my uncle, a "scumbag" like that was an eyesore—a thorn in his side.

My second aunt withered in that environment, her health and spirit declining day by day. Her twin sons had polio and didn't get much education. In 1992, she finally couldn't hold on and died young, barely in her thirties.

My uncle, however, had cut ties with this "Commander Zhu" long before her death. He was the first to see the man's true nature, and the most resolute in his stance. After my second aunt died, my uncle treated that side of the family like enemies. Later, one of my second aunt's daughters—another cousin of mine—got married without inviting my grandmother to the wedding. When my uncle learned of this, he announced on the spot that he was cutting off all contact with that cousin. And he stuck to it—decades, no communication.

That's the other side of my uncle. He feared his wife, but when it came to right and wrong, he never wavered. Anyone who bullied his sister, he'd break with completely, even if it was the notorious "Commander Zhu." Anyone who disrespected his mother, he'd cut off, even a niece. This vengeful, morally absolute streak ran straight through his "bàn mán" character—in his mind, right was right, wrong was wrong, and there was no middle ground.

But ironically, that very character failed him when it came to his own mistakes. He could cut off "Commander Zhu" cleanly, but he couldn't cut off his own vices. He couldn't quit drinking, couldn't change his stubborn temper, couldn't let go of his wishful thinking. He could stand up for his sisters, but he couldn't control his own foot on the motorcycle pedal.

In the end, my uncle was a bundle of contradictions. Tough on outsiders, soft on his wife; harsh on villains, lenient with himself; teaching us to be upright men, yet repeatedly tripping over liquor bottles and motorcycles. He's no saint, not even what you'd call a smart man. But he is who he is—real enough to make you both admire and resent him, both love and pity him.

A person's light and shadow often coexist.

Seven

After all this talk about his "bàn mán," stubbornness, fear of his wife, and loyalty, I can't help but wonder: how did he become this person? So timid and so tough, so principled yet so brutish—a mass of contradictions packed into one man.

But if you step back and look at the times he grew up in, it all makes sense.

My uncle's character was forged by survival in the Hunan countryside of the 1960s and 70s.

Back then, in the commune era, every family lived on work points. If no one in a household stood up for themselves, they'd get shoved to the back of the line for grain, assigned the hardest labor, and pushed around constantly. The rules were primitive: the fiercer you were, the more right you had; the harder you were, the less you suffered. My uncle was the only son, and with my grandfather gone early and the house full of women, if he hadn't gone full "bàn mán"—if he hadn't armored himself as someone not to be crossed—that family would have been trampled into the mud.

My grandfather's older brother—my uncle's uncle—died in the Cultural Revolution. He was executed, implicated in the "AB League" incident in Hunan. I don't know much about it, and the family rarely talks about it. But think about it: a teenage boy, watching his own uncle executed in a political purge—what conclusion would he draw? That the world was irrational. That the world devoured people. To survive, you had to be meaner and harder than it. No room for gentleness or deference—under those conditions, you wouldn't last three days.

So my uncle turned himself into an "ox." Not because he wanted to—but because if he didn't, he wouldn't survive. He went to high school and became a substitute teacher, which by rural standards made him an educated man. But education alone wasn't enough. You also needed a temper and a firm hand to hold your own, to protect your patch of land. He was strict with students, blunt with colleagues, relentless with anyone who bullied his family—all of it shaped by that environment.

He was also fiercely loyal to "his own." Whenever one of his sisters was mistreated by her in-laws, he was the first to rush over and back her up. After my second aunt married "Commander Zhu" and suffered terribly, my uncle had the guts to break with that fearless "Commander" completely, cutting him off for good. And that took nerve. "Commander Zhu" was a more extreme alcoholic—a "drunk lunatic" capable of anything. But my uncle wasn't afraid, because he was certain of one principle: mess with my sister, mess with my whole family—and there's no room for negotiation.

That "us versus them" logic was also a product of that era. To outsiders, you were the fiercer beast. To family, even if they were in the wrong, you protected them. This is the same thing as his "cowardice" in front of his wife and his "toughness" in front of his sisters—his wife was "inside," and he accepted that; his sisters were "inside," and he carried them; but if anyone outside dared touch that "inside," he went all out.

But when that survival logic is brought into today's world, it falls apart.

The era that taught him to be "bàn mán" in order to survive is long gone. But he carried that era's way of living into the present. He thought drinking and riding a motorcycle in his hometown was no big deal—hadn't he been doing it forever? He thought running away and calling in favors would fix it—hadn't that always worked? He thought laws were dead and people were alive—hadn't things always been decided by "people"?

He forgot—or maybe never realized—that the world outside had changed. The law doesn't care about "how things used to be" or "I'm the only man in my family holding it together."

It's ironic. All his life, my uncle wanted to protect his family, his sisters, his dignity, his stability. And in the end, it was his own "old ways" that pushed all of those things to the cliff's edge. His pension may be gone. His grandson's military academy dreams may be shattered. The family's respectability may be lost. Everything he tried to shield was ultimately destroyed by his own hands.

He's not a bad person. He's just someone living in a bygone era, using outdated rules to deal with a problem that belongs to an entirely different age.

Sometimes I think that in the rural villages of that era, there were many people like my uncle. They used their shoulders to hold up large families, lived with dignity in their own way, and in doing so, locked their minds firmly in the experiences of that era. When the times shifted, they found themselves unable to keep up—and no longer knew how to adapt. Or refused to.

An ox that's pulled a cart its whole life—you can't suddenly tell it the gate's open, the road's changed, the rules are different. It won't understand. It can't learn. All it can do is keep charging forward with its old habits, smashing its head bloody.

My uncle is that ox. It's not that he isn't smart. It's that the world moved too fast, and he didn't look up in time.

Eight

What's most heartbreaking about this whole thing is that it could have been avoided in so many ways.

My uncle had choices. He was retired, drawing a pension. Not rich, but more than enough to live a stable, comfortable life. He could have gotten rid of that beat-up old motorcycle and bought an electric scooter—slower, quieter, no license needed, and no one would ever check him for drunk driving. With an electric scooter, that night he could have drunk as much as he wanted, weaved his way home, maybe hit a curb and fallen over, gotten up, dusted himself off, and been fine.

Or, if he'd been just a little more "cunning," he could have not run after the crash. He could have settled it on the spot, paid the other guy off—the other guy was an old man, a friend of a friend, maybe a few hundred yuan would have been enough. The drunk driving part would never have gone to the cops.

Or at the very least, after the meal, someone at the table could have given him a ride home. These were all retired rural schoolteachers—every one of them had a tricycle or electric scooter. It would have taken a minute. But not a single person offered. It wasn't that they didn't care. It's that not one of them thought anything was wrong with "drinking and riding home." They'd seen it a thousand times—hell, every one of them had probably done it themselves.

That dinner party was just a bunch of old retired teachers, gathering over drinks, and after it ended, each went home. No one stopped him. No one warned him. Because in their circle, drinking and driving wasn't a big deal—it was normal. They'd grown up that way: drink, ride, fall, get up, and if you got hurt, tough luck. None of them had ever heard of anyone getting caught for it.

But that era is over.

My uncle had a progressive side and a backward side. In his youth, he was bold and enterprising, going from a rural substitute teacher to buying a home in Guangdong—that was progress. But deep down, he never caught up with modern society's rule of law. He always felt that "this is how we've always done it, what's the big deal?"—that was backwardness. The drunk driving incident was the culmination of that backwardness.

When I think about it, his entire "bàn mán" survival logic was a shield in the 1960s and 70s—but in today's world, it's a death warrant. The era of relying on guts, connections, and "running away" to fix everything is long over. But my uncle didn't make the transition, and neither did his old buddies. So they stayed stuck in the inertia of the old days, until reality gave them a hard, hard knock.

This should serve as a clear lesson for everyone.

For my male cousin, his father's one moment of foolishness might have ruined his son's chance at a military academy. Is there any sharper pain for a father? For my female cousin, she'll surely be more vigilant about advising the older folks in the family, not letting them keep "doing things the old way." For me—someone who studied law for years—this whole affair reminds me that the dignity of the law isn't in how harsh it is, but in how inevitably it comes for you, no matter how far or how long you run.

For my uncle, the price has already been paid. His pension will shrink drastically. His grandson's future is clouded. A lifetime's dignity, shattered by a single verdict. I don't know whether he regrets it now, but I hope he does. Because only regret can teach a person that some rules are not meant to be skirted, but to be kept.

In the end, each generation has its own mission. My uncle's generation's mission was to survive, to hold the family together, to give their children a better life than they had. He did it, and not badly. But the mission is accomplished, and the road isn't over. The rest of the way, he has to walk it differently—lawfully, cautiously, without wishful thinking.

I hope this time, he truly wakes up.

Nine

Finally, I want to say a few more words about the relationship between me and my uncle. Maybe that will explain why, when I write this, my feelings are so complicated.

On my father's side—my grandparents, my father, and his four siblings—they were all on the "quiet" side. My grandfather, even though he'd been village party secretary for thirty years, was always steady and reserved, not flashy or confrontational. That temperament passed down to my father and influenced our generation too. So within our extended family, my uncle's "ox temper" and "bàn mán" ways always seemed a bit odd, even out of place.

As a child, I was actually a little afraid of my uncle. Every time I went to my grandmother's house, I'd be on edge, worried about doing something wrong and getting scolded by him. He was loud, direct, and wore his feelings on his face—unlike my father, who bottled everything up. As a kid facing that kind of elder, the instinct was to keep a low profile.

But my uncle actually held my father in high regard. I remember my father once told me, before he passed away, that of the four brothers-in-law in the family, only my father really clicked with him. My father was stable, unflappable, rarely arguing over things, always giving more and taking less. My uncle, with his quick temper and his tendency to argue, knew in his heart that a person like my father was someone you could get along with for a long time.

Funny how that works—the things my uncle admired were exactly the opposite of his own character.

And between me and my uncle, there's another layer—deeper, unspoken.

I found a blog post I'd written in 2013, What Accidents Bring Us . In those years, my father was repeatedly in critical condition, and my uncle's calls came one after another. He wasn't just passing messages from my mother. He was the one making the calls—the one handing me the bad news.

But he was also the one, during one drunken moment after my father died, who came up to me unsteadily and asked: "The tree desires stillness, but the wind will not cease"—what comes next? I was struck dumb, cold sweat running down my back. He saw I couldn't answer—and though he was dead drunk, as a middle-school Chinese teacher, he earnestly analyzed the whole line for me. He used to complain that no one understood his inner pain. But after that night, whenever he saw me, he never said that again.

In that moment, I understood. He had lost the brother-in-law he got along with best. And I had lost my father. That shared understanding between us needed no further explanation.

As for me—raised under my father's influence, I leaned more toward the "quiet" side. After graduating and entering the workforce, to my uncle's family, I was always the "extremely introverted" one. They'd often call me a "mute drum"—hit it and it makes a sound; otherwise, it sits there silent. And that was true: when I visited my uncle's house, I'd spend most of the time not speaking, just listening.

It wasn't just personality. My family wasn't well off, and around them I always felt a kind of inferiority, like I was "looking up" to them. Even though I knew we were family, I couldn't get past that barrier. Plus, my mother was the youngest, which made me the youngest of all the cousins on that side. So beyond listening to elders and older cousins, it didn't feel like my place to say much. That was just the "nephew's duty," I suppose.

But my uncle probably never knew how deeply he actually shaped my character. Even though I never learned his "boldness," and even though in his eyes I was always a "mute drum," as a child I watched him stand up for his sisters in the village, confront unreasonable people—and I secretly admired him. The seed of "knowing when to be tough" was planted by him. I just didn't learn much of it, or rather, I digested it differently—quiet, but with a bottom line; easygoing, but knowing what I couldn't tolerate.

Now that my uncle is in this mess, my feelings are a tangle. On one hand, I ache for him—an old man who worked so hard his whole life, now facing such upheaval in his later years. On the other hand, I can't help thinking: if only half his stubborn force could be transferred to me, or half my quiet calm to him, maybe we wouldn't be where we are today.

But there are no "ifs."

What my uncle taught me—some of it intentional, some unintentional. The intentional lesson: "A true man stands tall between heaven and earth." The unintentional lesson: "Bones too hard break too easily." Over the years, I've slowly come to understand: in life, you need both the strength to hold up a family and the clarity to stay within boundaries; both the courage to face trouble and the awe to respect the rules.

My uncle, through the rise and fall of his entire life, gave me the hardest lesson of all.

But after thinking about it more carefully, and looking at those anguished comments, I suddenly found it absurd. If these people truly cared about culture, where were they when those old books were selling for a few yuan per kilogram in second-hand markets and no one wanted them? To put it bluntly, this moral outrage only exists on trending topics; it never translates into a purchasing decision. It is a cheap form of self-gratification, using others’ actions to coat oneself with a layer of gilded "cultural defender" status.

In this process, I also seriously pondered a question: among those old books we enshrine on pedestals, how many are truly valuable, and how many are just emotional baggage we cannot bear to discard?

The essence of knowledge is flow

In my cabinet, I have a stash of the 1960s–70s edition of The Hundred Thousand Whys. To be honest, apart from a bit of collectible value, the content is a whole era behind today's. A casual flip reveals that the "whys" it answers now seem almost laughable to today’s children. This set is still kept not because it is still useful, but because it carries some personal memories. But that value belongs only to me; it has nothing to do with the progress of human knowledge.

Then there are those self-funded books written by retired old comrades after they left office. I have a few at home. After they passed away, these books became, in legal terms, unique copies. What value do they have? Their only use is to prove that the author once lived. But does that proof mean anything to anyone else? I don’t think so. In tens of thousands of years of human history, there is no need for an unread memoir to prove that someone existed. To put it bluntly, these books being swept into the dustbin of history is not a tragedy; it is a law of nature.

The problem is that our entire social system for preserving knowledge happens to keep these things alive as well. Copyright law protects works for fifty or even seventy years after the author's death. They have neither commercial value nor can they be legally made public; they can only quietly rot in the cage of the protection period. This is called protecting knowledge, but in fact it is a long suspended death sentence for knowledge. By the time the sentence is up, the paper has long since decayed.

I have always believed that truly valuable knowledge does not need to be printed as a book to gain dignity. I have been blogging for nearly twenty years, with over four hundred posts and more than a million words. By the time they were written, they had already been read by tens of thousands, reposted, and discussed. They have lived. If I were to collect them and print them as a book after retirement, it would merely be taking something that has already fulfilled its mission, packaging it again, locking it on a shelf, waiting for people of the next era to come gawk at it. That is not dignity; it is superfluous. Of course, the quality of what I write is not particularly high, but it would not be fair to say that some of it is completely worthless. Still, so what?

History never cares about truth; it only cares about what the present needs

Someone once argued with me, saying that rare books must be preserved, because if discovered by future scholars centuries later, they might rewrite the entire understanding of history. This argument sounds plausible at first, but upon a little reflection, it does not hold up.

History itself is a ruthless compression machine. In the year 0 AD, history was the minutiae of the preceding centuries. By the year 1000 AD, that part had been heavily compressed; people cared more about what happened in the past five hundred years. Even in modern times, once World War II ended, how many of the anti-war novels, memoirs, and strategic analyses from World War I are still taken out and read? It is not that they were banned or destroyed, but that they have been overwhelmed by newer, more recent war traumas. Even texts that were once followed by hundreds of millions will sink. How could a rare book that no one cared about in its own time hope to make a comeback in the next era? The odds are lower than winning the lottery.

And the cruelty goes further. Even if a book that gathered dust for centuries were to be miraculously unearthed by later generations, what meaning would it have?

Even those books that have been passed down through the ages have been altered beyond recognition. For instance, the Analects we read today was compiled during the Han dynasty. The Han Confucians did not want Confucius’s original words; they wanted a thought that served Emperor Wu of Han's grand unification. Or take the Three Hundred Tang Poems, which some scholars have verified as having been altered in over a hundred places; even the line “Moonlight before my bed” in Quiet Night Thoughts, a line etched into the national memory, was tampered with. Not to mention books that were rediscovered. A typical example is the Collected Poems and Essays of Wang Chuanshan, which I was reading earlier this year. Wang was a Ming loyalist obsessed with the distinction between Hua and Yi and the restoration of the Ming. Yet his manuscripts were unearthed by Zeng Guofan, who edited and altered them, turning them into the orthodox voice of late-Qing Neo-Confucianism. You see, even if a book is tough enough to survive centuries without decaying, by the time it is finally discovered, it cannot escape being dismembered and reshaped. Later generations are not there to understand the author; they are there to borrow a shell. The author meant A, but later generations have their own script and need it to say B, so it becomes B.

I used to believe that preserving rare books was about leaving a fair reader for the future. Now I understand that fair reader does not exist. All that exists are generation after generation using old books as props to perform their own plays. So, preserving a rare book is essentially preserving a shell that can be freely borrowed by the future. Its value does not depend on what it recorded in itself, but on what prop a future era happens to need.

Letting AI devour these books is not a bad thing

Once I worked through this, looking back at the Anthropic incident, my feelings were completely different.

That AI company bought a century-old encyclopedia compiled by an individual—thousands of pages, hand-compiled, locked in a private bookcase, never opened by anyone. But after scanning it and feeding it into the model, hundreds of millions of people can now ask it questions in their own languages. And then they destroyed the originals.

Some called it book burning. I laughed. Book burning is about destroying content and preventing dissemination. Scanning and then destroying—this means the content has been fully extracted and activated, and then the redundant physical container is disposed of. Book burning is snuffing out the flame; this is after the flame has already been passed on, throwing away the spent torch. To conflate these two things is either lazy thinking or deliberate sensationalism.

And frankly, AI is doing something that humans themselves cannot do and would not deign to do. It does not care whether a book is rubbish, whether anyone has read it, or whether it was written by an academic authority or the memoirs of a retired old comrade. It swallows all these texts that humans do not even glance at, digests them, extracts from them, and turns them into a callable data layer. The essence of this process is knowledge recycling. Humans have produced massive amounts of knowledge waste. In the past, it rotted in piles of paper and in libraries, untouched and unprocessable. Now AI has arrived, like a giant knowledge recycling truck, hauling all this waste away, breaking it down, and extracting even the tiniest bit of useful raw material.

That is ten thousand times better than letting them mould on bookshelves or be imprisoned by copyright law until they rot.

Of course, some will say that AI may learn knowledge wrong and produce biases and hallucinations. But I would counter: is the human way of preserving knowledge perfect? Libraries also remove certain books under pressure; archives also redact sensitive documents before making them public; publishers also alter content in reprints. The human knowledge preservation system has always been selective and shaped by the times. Those so-called neutral public institutions erect paywalls, locking public knowledge away in places only the privileged can access. Why should these institutions be trusted more than AI?

At least AI does not pretend. It does not pretend to be passing on orthodoxy, does not pretend to show respect, does not pretend to be an impartial guardian. It just swallows everything and spits it out when you need it. Crude, but not hypocritical.

My modest understanding of knowledge

In fact, when you think about it, our expectations of knowledge are perhaps the same as our expectations of human relationships. We do not need it to be enshrined in a temple, polished until shiny, or always correct. We need it to be alive, to be within reach when we need it, to let it engage with the problems we are thinking about, to allow something new to emerge because of it.

An old book devoured by AI has not died. It has become a fragment, a data point, a mode of thinking that hundreds of millions can call upon at any time. It is no longer a complete book, nor does it belong to any single author. It has merged into the torrent of knowledge and become a part that anyone can reach out and take. Isn't that a greater form of existence?

I have been blogging for so many years, and I have never cared whether it can be preserved. I only care whether it has been seen in the present moment, whether it has made some reader feel understood at some instant. If so, it has already fulfilled its mission. I do not need that kind of dignity—bound into a book and locked in a library. How long my ideas last is left to drift in time. If one day no one needs them anymore, let them disappear.

True knowledge should flow like air, not sit like a stone in a temple, waiting for people to kowtow.

Yes, it was fraud, but the comments from netizens were actually quite fair; most could view the outcome objectively. In the process, I kept asking myself one question: since you could easily figure out the result with a satellite or a simple yield estimate, why did it take so long for this fraud to be exposed?

Then it dawned on me. Because a deeply entrenched idea is stuck in many people's heads: the countryside must remain stable, it must serve as a safety net, it is the ultimate fallback. In order to uphold the correctness of this idea, a respectable number must be maintained on paper. Whether reality can hold up — no one really bothers to check.

Those over 100,000 mu of fictional rice in Jianghua didn't just appear out of thin air. They were scripted in advance by a notion that has been popular for decades.

I Used to Believe the Countryside Was a Fallback, Too

To be honest, when I was a kid, I really believed the phrase "the countryside is a fallback."

Back then, it was a simple thought: at worst, I'll just go back and farm. I'd done it since childhood, having become the main farm laborer at home by the age of ten or so. Could I possibly starve?

Later, after spending a long time in the city, I went back to my hometown for Chinese New Year less and less. Earlier this year, when I returned to the village to visit my uncle, he told me that my cousin's daughter — his granddaughter — was the only baby born in our entire village the previous year.

Those words hit me hard. At its peak, our village had over 600 registered residents. Now, in a whole year, only one child was born. And this little girl, in all likelihood, will leave the village someday, just like my other female cousins who married out. Other young people who start families outside certainly won't bring their children back to the village to raise them.

I tried to think a bit further ahead. In twenty years, thirty years at most, our village will probably be left with only a dozen or two retired old people — and that's only if you count the generations from the 1970s and early 80s who still have some attachment to the land. Beyond that, there may not even be such people.

At that moment, I suddenly realized that the phrase "at worst, I'll just go back" rolls off the tongue easily, but if I really went back, I probably couldn't even support myself.

Later, I took a closer look and found that the people who still believe this phrase fall roughly into two groups: those who have already left, have no intention of returning, and use it to comfort others as well as themselves; and those who don't have to worry about making ends meet anyway and are fantasizing about a happy rural life.

And those truly affected by this phrase are the ones tacitly assumed to be "able to go back." They are assumed to have an exit option, forever. Because of this, their difficulties in the city become less urgent, less deserving of attention, and fewer people care. "Who cares, if they can't make it there, they can always go back and farm anyway."

A Fallback Without Large-Scale Feasibility

After the Jianghua story broke, I deliberately went and looked up some public data — things like national grain output, hybrid rice planting volumes, agricultural output value, and planting areas for various crops.

In the process, I came across the statement that "China's agricultural output value is six times that of the United States." This completely reset my understanding of the country's capacity.

I used to think that the U.S., with its massive farms, heavy machinery, and huge output as a major agricultural exporter, would have far higher output value than China. But as it turns out, China's per capita agricultural output value is actually 50% higher than that of the U.S. Feeding the entire nation hasn't been a problem for a long time.

But what’s more interesting isn't the value itself, but how it is generated.

When I pieced the data together, I realized it’s essentially the work of a small group of professional farmers, plus hundreds of millions of migrant workers in cities putting in their "spare time."

In other words, very few people in the countryside are truly farming full-time nowadays. Large tracts of land have been transferred to large-scale grain growers, cooperatives, and agricultural companies, propping up yields through mechanization and scale. The vast majority of the remaining smallholders are basically retired elderly people or migrant workers who come back to help for a few days during the busy season — that's all it takes.

In this state alone, the output value has already reached the historical peak of human agricultural production. Piling more people into it would be utterly meaningless.

After all, there’s a very simple principle in economics: human demand has an upper limit, especially for biological necessities. One and a half billion people, three meals a day — you can only eat so much. It’s not as if you can change from three meals to five or ten.

Throwing one more person into agriculture won't increase output by much. It will only dilute the already meager farming income, turning one person's subsistence into two people barely scraping by.

So the issue of "going back to farm" isn't about whether it's possible or not; it's that there is no large-scale economic feasibility. You can go back, yes, but can the income from that piece of land support you to live even a minimally modern life? This is a basic calculation anyone can do.

Actually, when you think about it, today’s post-90s and post-00s generations have very little connection to the countryside, especially the post-00s. From the time they became aware, they have basically been living in the largest industrial nation in the world, and there are now roughly 300 million post-00s. Regardless of whether their household registration says "rural" or "urban," their actual growth path is essentially no different from that of city kids. From school to future work, their entire life framework is urbanized. The vast majority have never even held a hoe. For them, "going back to farm" is not a fallback option — it's a fairy tale, a completely nonexistent choice, or even a push into a dead end.

But speaking of hoes, I’m reminded of my own family’s few mu of land.

It was called farmland, but really it was a few terraced fields in a mountain hollow. You had to cross two hilltops to get there, and the entire valley was just a tiny patch of cleared flat land. In 2009, when I was still in college, the village mentioned that there was a policy for returning farmland to forest we could apply for. My grandfather flatly refused. He said, if we give up the fields, what will we eat when there's no food?

He had feared famine his entire life; in his bones, he only trusted the land.

In the end, no earth-shattering event occurred. It was just that after I graduated, I never went back to help with farm work, and the family had no surplus labor. Those few mu of land just lay fallow. For over fifteen years.

Once, out of curiosity, I opened a satellite map and tried to locate that spot. I zoomed in, further and further — I couldn't tell at all that it was once farmland. It had merged with the surrounding shrubs and trees, the outline no longer distinct. Let alone a path — no one had walked there for over a decade, so how could there still be a road?

My grandfather probably never dreamed that the field he stubbornly guarded would end up being taken not by some policy, but silently swallowed by time. Along with the fear of "no food," vanished without a trace.

So whom is this "fallback" really for?

The answer might be: it’s for the data to see, for the reports to see. Just like those over 100,000 mu of rice in Jianghua — they grow on paper, not in the soil.

Some Theories About Agriculture and Rural Areas Don’t Hold Up to Scrutiny

Over the years, I have read a fair number of articles discussing agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. A certain academic refrain appears repeatedly: the countryside is China's "ballast stone," its "reservoir" for coping with crises.

When I used to read this, I thought it made a lot of sense. But later, I slowly discovered a problem: the people saying these things seem to be no longer rural residents themselves, and they never ask whether "the water in that reservoir is willing."

They tell you that the countryside can absorb the unemployed, but they don't tell you how those people would live after being absorbed. They tell you that the land is the ultimate guarantee, but they don't tell you that a massive number of young people have no connection to the land anymore.

They employ an extravagantly romantic grand narrative, depicting the countryside as a base that can always support everything. Yet, to sustain this illusory base, the price paid by ordinary people is quietly omitted.

What saddens me the most is how this fallback fantasy forces many ordinary families — including myself — into a brutal "double drain."

In order to survive in the city, we take on decades of loans at a young age, emptying our savings to buy a foothold in the city; meanwhile, to preserve that illusory "fallback" back in the old village, we have no choice but to grit our teeth and spend a fortune building a house that we can't even stay in for a single day all year. "One home in the city, one home in the countryside" — burning money on both ends, suffering on both ends.

Those beautiful words never became a real fallback for anyone; they just completed a bout of self-gratifying emotion in the arena of public opinion, ultimately turning into a heavy double burden squarely on our shoulders.

The Rural Account Isn't That Simple to Calculate

I'm not saying that the countryside has no value. In fact, every time I go back to my hometown, I can see changes. The roads are better, there are more new houses, milk tea shops, parcel pickup stations, food delivery, and even those who used to run motorbike taxis have switched to ride-hailing cars.

But these changes precisely illustrate a counter-intuitive fact: the vitality of the countryside comes not from the setting of being a "fallback," but from the radiation of the urban economy.

The money for those new houses was earned working outside. The business for those milk tea shops is supported by young people coming home for the holidays. The parcels in those town parcel stations contain things bought from e-commerce platforms. Even the seeds, fertilizer, and machinery of modern agriculture are all dependent on cities.

The countryside is no longer an isolated arcadia. It and the city are two ends of the same line. When the city sneezes, the countryside catches a cold.

If the urban economy truly faces a major problem, expecting the countryside to remain unscathed, or even to backstop the situation, completely reverses cause and effect. The premise for a fallback to work is that the path itself is passable. And every brick on this modern rural path was laid by the city.

What I’m Really Worried About

At this point, I want to make clear what exactly is making me uneasy.

I'm not saying the countryside is unimportant, nor am I saying we shouldn't build up the countryside. On the contrary, I think what the countryside really needs is down-to-earth attention, not romanticized imagination.

What worries me is that the continued popularity of the "countryside is a fallback" narrative will turn into a kind of spiritual anesthetic. It makes decision-making less urgent, and provides a justification for delaying resource allocation — after all, there's still a fallback, so what's the rush?

But the fact is, several hundred million people have already left. They are renting, working, raising children, and paying social security in cities. Their fallback is not in the village; it's in their city apartment, in their social security account, in the interview notice for the next job. For them, true security is not a distant paddy field, but whether this city in front of them is willing to accept them.

Rural land is, at best, a temporary patch applied to the older generation of agricultural population during a transitional period. It has fulfilled its phased mission, and is by no means a blueprint drawn for the new generation.

The Real Fallback Is to Press On Relentlessly

After writing all this, I’m not actually trying to negate the concept of "bottom-line thinking."

People always need some bedrock of reassurance, and so does a country. But in recent years, especially since the trade war in 2018, I’ve increasingly felt a heavy knot in my chest. It seems every time external pressure mounts, someone pops up and says, "It's fine, at worst we can fall back to a small-scale peasant economy; we can survive by being self-sufficient."

Bottom-line thinking is a bedrock, not a shield. A bedrock allows you to dare to charge forward; a shield lets you feel justified in not charging at all. You can set your bottom line on food security, on energy independence, on industrial chain backups, but you cannot set your bottom line as "at worst, let's all go back to an agrarian society." That's no longer a bottom line; that's surrender.

Speaking bluntly, if there ever comes a day when we need to "retreat to the countryside" on a massive scale, it would not be our own choice — it would be forced upon us. It would be because our industrial upgrade was strangled, because external suppression reached a life-or-death intensity, because of a complete decoupling, all-round sanctions, being torn violently from the global system.

On that day, the question wouldn't be "should we go back to farming?"

Farming can't solve trade sanctions. Farming can't block an aircraft carrier fleet on the other side of the ocean.

That would be a problem of 1.4 billion people being pushed down by the head on this earth, a problem of the right to development, a problem of whether we can survive standing up.

So, viewed on this scale, the phrase "the countryside is a fallback" is no longer a question of right or wrong — it’s a question of a vision that is far too narrow. It reduces a hard battle about the fate of a nation to a petty calculation of daily life.

The more you think there’s a fallback behind you, the less you dare to press the accelerator all the way down. A fallback, sometimes, is not protection, but a drag. It makes you hesitate, makes you leave room for yourself, makes you, at the very moment you should be pressing relentlessly forward, can’t help but look back and take a few steps in that direction.

And that single glance back could mean a gap of an entire generation. A gap that a generation cannot close.

Sometimes I think, a country that can build aircraft carriers, large passenger jets, and lithography machines should see a completely different world from a country still calculating whether a few mu of thin land can feed its people.

This is not looking down on agriculture, nor is it looking down on farmers. It is to say that the cards in our generation's hand are not those few mu of land on the hill; they are the drones in the factory, the new energy vehicles on the production line, and the 112 VLS cells of the Type 055 destroyer. If we play these cards well, agriculture will naturally find a better way to thrive. If we don't, no one will have it good.

Rather than spending effort maintaining an illusory fallback, it's better to bet everything on moving forward. Blaze a trail for industrial upgrading, crack the hard nuts of core technology, and weave a tight net of urban acceptance capacity and social safety. Let the countryside no longer be treated as a container for holding the bottom, but as a piece of land that is seen for what it is.

This is the only path that our generation should take.

The first-half GDP data was released, and Hunan was overtaken by Anhui by a slim margin of 30 billion yuan.

30 billion yuan, set against the economic scale of two provinces, is almost negligible. But what truly stings is the trend. Five years ago, Hunan still led Anhui by more than 250 billion yuan. In just a few years, Anhui has risen rapidly on the back of new energy vehicles, new displays, and integrated circuits — its "core, screen, auto, and chip" cluster has become a nationally renowned industrial calling card. On Hunan's side, construction machinery and rail transit remain competitive, but its presence in the new tracks has indeed become somewhat dimmer.

After the news came out, the reaction among Hunanese was quite complicated. Some were anxious, some unconvinced, and some began to seriously dissect the problems.

To be honest, this widely discussed anxiety is itself a good thing.

I am a Hunanese working in Foshan, Guangdong. This year, Foshan's GDP was overtaken by Dongguan within the province, but honestly, this topic has barely generated any buzz. The limited discussions mostly try to make excuses for Foshan, emphasizing that its economy is tied to real estate and that the broader environment is to blame. Compared with Foshan's somewhat "resigned" state, at least Hunanese are still worried, still looking for solutions, and still refusing to give in.

But after reading many articles that prescribe remedies for Hunan, I have increasingly leaned toward one judgment.

The ailment of Hunan's economy is not that no one has written a prescription. On the contrary, the prescription has long been written, and written very accurately. The real problem is that the medicine hasn't been taken.

It is like a chronic patient: the treatment plan is already there, the doctor has repeated the instructions countless times, but the patient just cannot stick to the medication over the long term. Missing a dose today, forgetting one tomorrow, and slipping back into old habits as soon as there is a slight improvement — over time, even the best prescription becomes useless.

Hunan's current predicament is not about how to draw the next "development blueprint," but how to move that blueprint from paper to the ground.

The "prescription" was actually written very early, even earlier than the rest of the country

If we look back over Hunan's journey in the past two decades or so, we find a surprising fact: Hunan has actually been farsighted in many matters, and its actions even preceded those of the rest of the country.

Let's start with transportation.

Many people do not know that Hunan was once a pacesetter in national expressway construction. In the years after 2005, Hunan launched a massive transportation construction campaign, ranking among the top in the country for new expressway mileage for several consecutive years, fundamentally transforming Hunan's old transportation pattern of "south by boat, north by horse." This included the later-opened Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway, the country's first high-speed rail line, half of which runs through Hunan. By the end of 2025, Hunan's expressway mileage had exceeded 8,000 kilometers — a foundation that is by no means thin by national standards.

The roads were built well, but the reputation gradually began to falter.

In recent years, a rather painful saying has circulated online: "go around Hunan." Some long-haul drivers complain about sudden speed-limit changes on certain Hunan expressways, dense electronic surveillance, and poor truck-driving experiences. You could certainly say this is an amplification of online sentiment and not to be taken too seriously. But when "detour if you can" becomes a recurring collective experience, it indicates that something has indeed gone wrong in some places.

No matter how well the roads are built, if those traveling on them feel uneasy and face higher costs, the value of those roads is diminished. The essence of a transportation hub is service capability; hardware is just the skeleton, while the soft environment is the flesh and blood. "Going around Hunan" precisely exposes a deeper problem: we are good at building "visible" things, but not so good at maintaining "invisible" ones.

The same applies to roads as to institutions.

In 2011, Hunan proposed building a "Rule-of-Law Hunan" and issued the "Hunan Provincial Administrative Procedure Regulations." How forward-looking was this move? At that time, the concept of "Rule-of-Law China" had not even been formally proposed. Hunan had already identified the crux of the matter: whether a place can truly attract businesses and retain capital ultimately depends on the stability of its rules and the standardization of government behavior, not on how much land subsidies it offers.

This "prescription" could hardly be more precise. At that time, Hunan already realized that future economic competition is essentially a competition of governance capacity.

But what happened afterward? The idea of "Rule-of-Law Hunan" did not disappear, yet reality kept slapping it in the face, at one point ranking Hunan near the bottom in judicial civilization appraisals. Many real-world operations have shown a widening gap with this ideal. Examples like the chaotic investment promotion at the children's bike industrial park in Leiyang, Hengyang, exposed by CCTV's "Focus Report"; the repeatedly criticized "entrap-and-exploit" style of investment promotion; and the inertia in some places of "first attract investment, and deal with the rest later" — these incidents repeatedly remind us that the rules written in documents and the rules operating in reality are two different things.

The prescription was well written, but the efficacy has been continuously diluted through layers of transmission.

The lesion is not in the mind, but in the habits

Why is the medicine always not taken properly? Because for a place, the hardest thing to change is not strategy, or even institutions, but habits.

Bureaucracy and the "official-standard" mindset are exactly the most stubborn habits on Hunan's body. They are not some great evil, but an inertia that permeates daily operations.

Some time ago, a video surfaced online of a state-owned enterprise chairman in Changde accepting gifts in his office. In the footage, he had a "Heshitain" cigarette dangling from his mouth, red banknotes on the table, and what gave people the biggest jolt was the statuette of Chairman Mao sitting upright on the desk.

Every element was so real, yet so absurd.

Especially that cigarette. To be honest, those of us working outside the province rarely see such a deep obsession with a particular cigarette brand elsewhere. But in certain circles in Hunan, if the cigarette you hand out is not that brand, you lose face. This is no longer about the cigarette itself; it is an expression of identity, an invisible business card for entry into a certain circle. And many people simply cannot afford this level of consumption on their salaries.

When a business card matters more than a written rule, the underlying logic of economic operation changes. What entrepreneurs fear most is not high costs, but uncertainty. They do not know whether to follow the document or the "business card" today.

Another more painful example is the "township civil servant" fishing drowning incident that occurred in Yongzhou earlier this year. The loss of a young life tore open a gray corner of that township's daily operations. At the time, the media conducted in-depth reports on the incident, and the local unspoken rules and grassroots operational logic behind it were shocking.

What does all this have to do with the economic deceleration we are talking about? A great deal.

Behind those broken promises in investment promotion, those hidden costs that make businesses suffer in silence, and those daily encounters that ultimately push young talents to buy a southbound high-speed rail ticket — all of these are underpinned by this inertia. An administrative system that is accustomed to treating businesses as objects of management, to subordinating rules to personal connections, and to coping with top-level design through formalism cannot possibly support a grand strategy like the "Three Highlands and Four New Missions."

Fiscal pressure further exacerbates this inertial distortion. When revenues decline and debt mounts, some grassroots behaviors go awry — excessive enforcement, frequent inspections, delayed payments to businesses, and difficulties in fulfilling promises. These short-term actions are cashing out a locality's most precious long-term asset: confidence.

Changsha's "bureau-level" conundrum and the "two skins" of Chang-Zhu-Tan

Bureaucracy is not only reflected in work styles; sometimes it also appears in the awkwardness of institutional design.

Take the merger of Xiangjiang New Area and Yuelu District. Originally, Xiangjiang New Area was a functional zone carrying major strategies, covering parts of Yuelu District, Wangcheng, and Ningxiang — it should have been a broad chessboard breaking through administrative boundaries. But in the end, it became a "district-government integration" with Yuelu District, taking the shell of a county-level administrative district and fitting it with a main-department-level (zhengtin‑ji) structure.

Changsha itself is only a main-department-level city, and now one of its districts has become a department-level unit. As a result, Changsha has become one of the rare prefecture-level cities in the country where all internal organs of government departments are called "divisions" (chu), with directors and deputy directors everywhere. And the bureaus under Yuelu District are now also full of directors and deputy directors. This inflation of titles may seem trivial, but it actually pushes vertical administrative coordination costs to an abnormally high level. This is itself a path dependency that substitutes formal "upgrading" for substantive reform.

In fact, when the issue of a female cadre from the Changsha Sports Bureau occupying a parking space came up some time ago, many netizens were immediately drawn to the word "director" (chuzhang). Had she been honestly called a "deputy section chief," it might not have sparked such a public outcry.

Another perennial topic is the integration of Changsha, Zhuzhou, and Xiangtan (Chang-Zhu-Tan).

This concept was proposed earlier than most metropolitan circles in the country. The geographical distance among the three cities — Changsha, Zhuzhou, and Xiangtan — is even closer than many already integrated metropolitan areas. But after so many years of advocacy, the local gripe is: it feels more like Xiangtan is the only one eager, while Changsha's development direction has shifted now westward, now northward, now eastward — the force truly oriented southward has never fully demonstrated the full capability that a provincial capital should have.

The result is that Changsha grows stronger, but its strength resembles a giant pump, continuously absorbing talent and resources from its surroundings. Yet the actions of industrial spillover, functional dispersion, and truly turning Zhuzhou and Xiangtan into its industrial cooperation zones have been far too slow. If a province has only one super engine while the other wheels do not turn, the vehicle cannot run fast.

"Emancipating the mind" — the hardest to emancipate is oneself

Intriguingly, at the start of spring in 2024, the first major thing Hunan did was to deploy a province-wide "emancipate the mind" discussion.

This precisely shows that the administrators already know where the root cause lies.

For a place to talk about "emancipating the mind" at such a high profile at the beginning of the year is in itself a highly symbolic self-diagnosis. It is equivalent to publicly admitting that our current development is constrained by certain ideological shackles. And what Hunan most needs to emancipate is precisely that deeply entrenched "official-standard" mindset.

But the mind is much harder to change than institutions. Institutions can be changed by issuing documents, but habits are embedded in the bone.

Take the matter of economic cooperation with Africa. The state has placed the pilot zone for in-depth China-Africa economic and trade cooperation in Hunan — this is actually a very precise and good card. Hunan's construction machinery and agricultural machinery, for example, the farm equipment from my hometown Shuangfeng — sturdy, durable, and low-cost — are naturally suited for African markets still in the early stages of infrastructure development.

But what about reality? On the civilian side, due to stereotypical impressions of Africa, there is generally a lot of resistance, and people fail to see the vast opportunities. On the official side, more energy is spent on hosting large forums, expos, and signing ceremonies, staying at the level of events and formalism. What is truly lacking is the kind of technocratic bureaucracy and service system that understands local laws, can smooth out customs and logistics, and helps businesses turn goods into profits. A large number of enterprises end up detouring through the coast, relying on outside traders, and doing resale business that "makes a wedding dress for others."

Even when a ready-made national strategy that fits the province's own industrial characteristics is not fully grasped or implemented solidly, this is not merely a capacity issue, but also one of willingness and inertia.

Hunanese have never lacked drive; what they lack is a reason to bring that drive home

If you only look at the performance of Hunanese, you would never think this land lacks vitality.

The Shao merchants, who emerged from the Baoqing Prefecture area once considered the "most difficult to govern" in Hunan, now lead globally in small-commodity businesses like lighters, luggage, and wigs. The Hunan business networks spread across the country and overseas have never lacked market acumen and survival resilience. In scientific research, the number of Hunan-born academicians and young scholars in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering consistently ranks among the top in the nation.

Sometimes when I attend fellow-townsman gatherings in Guangdong, the one thing we keep coming back to with the most emotion is: why do Hunanese thrive everywhere else, yet our hometown always falls short?

The answer everyone gives is strikingly consistent: bureaucracy.

The outflow of talent and capital, in the final analysis, is because the local environment has not yet formed one where rules prevail over personal connections, service replaces management, and long-term expectations outweigh short-term uncertainties.

Those successful entrepreneurs outside are not unwilling to return. They are waiting for a signal — a signal that makes them believe that "once back home, they can get things done without having to hand out cigarettes."

Hunan's GDP being overtaken by Anhui by 30 billion yuan is not frightening at all. Given Hunan's size, if it really wants to catch up, a slight rebound in industry could bring it back.

What is truly frightening are those daily moments that make young people silently book southbound high-speed rail tickets, and those moments when entrepreneurs decide late at night to build their next factory in another province.

What Hunan needs to recover is never that 30 billion yuan, but an entire generation's confidence in this land.

The prescription has indeed been written. The direction of the "Three Highlands and Four New Missions" is clear, the policies from the central government are ample, and the vitality of the people has never died out. The only thing left to do now is to take the medicines that have been prescribed for twenty years — even earlier than the rest of the country — seriously, one dose after another. Do not coat them with a sugar shell of formalism, and do not secretly spit them out because they taste bitter.

This requires a true self-revolution that reaches deep into habits.

And this revolution, no one can accomplish on behalf of the Hunanese.

However, I didn't follow up on that issue after that period and assumed it remained unresolved. It wasn't until I searched online that I discovered that in June 2022, Shenzhen and Hong Kong had reached an agreement to mutually recognize each other's pilot qualifications. This allowed a single qualified pilot from either Shenzhen or Hong Kong to provide pilotage services for the entire route, with only a single charge levied on the piloted vessel.

This three-year agreement has now been renewed until 2028. During its first three years of implementation, pilots from both sides cooperated to pilot over 21,000 vessel movements, reducing costs by an average of about 30,000 yuan per operation and saving nearly one hour for each port entry and exit. Operational efficiency and safety have both significantly improved.

By normal logic, this issue should be considered satisfactorily resolved. However, while looking into this, I incidentally discovered that the "secondary pilotage" issue between Shenzhen and Hong Kong is not limited to the eastern waters; it also exists in the western waters. The most typical example is the terminals near the Shenzhen Bay side of Shekou Port, where vessels almost invariably pass through Hong Kong waters when entering or leaving the port.

However, upon closer examination of this western sea area, I found the situation to be far more complex than anticipated. The same problem presents entirely different dynamics on the eastern and western sides.

Further investigation revealed that the "secondary pilotage" issue in the western waters is not a simple matter that can be resolved through management coordination alone. It is the result of historically formed waterway relationships, legal systems, port competition, and patterns of interests working in concert.

The Eastern Waters: Focus on Restoring the Status Quo

The reason the "secondary pilotage" issue could be resolved in Shenzhen's eastern Dapeng Bay is largely because Dapeng Bay itself is a special case.

The development of Yantian Port has been intertwined with the unique geographical conditions of Dapeng Bay from the very beginning. Large international vessels entering Yantian Port need to navigate the Dapeng Bay waterway, a stretch of water where the management systems of Hong Kong and Shenzhen have long intersected. After Hong Kong's return in 1997, and with the continuous growth of Yantian Port, the two sides effectively developed a long-standing tacit understanding.

For an extended period, although vessels entering and exiting Yantian Port passed through waters managed by Hong Kong, the two sets of pilotage procedures were not strictly enforced. Instead, pilotage was completed once according to the actual operational needs of the port. In other words, for over two decades, it wasn't that there were no rules, but rather that a set of practices more aligned with actual needs had developed outside the formal rules.

The real change occurred around 2020. Hong Kong authorities re-enforced their pilotage management requirements, mandating that vessels entering Hong Kong's compulsory pilotage areas must accept Hong Kong pilotage services. The previously long-established "single pilotage" model was thus disrupted, leading to the problem where vessels needed to undergo both Hong Kong and Shenzhen pilotage services before entering Yantian Port.

The 2022 Shenzhen-Hong Kong agreement did not design a new system from scratch but rather reaffirmed the long-existing cooperative model under the new legal requirements.

This is also why the eastern issue could be resolved relatively smoothly. The two sides were not facing an unfamiliar problem but rather an operational model that had previously existed and been mutually recognized.

For Yantian Port, Hong Kong waters function more like a shared passageway leading to the Shenzhen port. The goal was to restore efficiency, not to redistribute a mature set of vested interests.

The Predicament in the Western Waters: A Different Problem

If the issue in eastern Dapeng Bay was about restoring old practices, then what Shenzhen faces in the west is a completely different scenario.

The areas around Shekou, Chiwan, and Mawan primarily involve the western waterway system of the Pearl River Estuary. The most critical among these is the Urmston Road, which falls under the jurisdiction of Hong Kong's Tuen Mun district and is an integral part of Hong Kong's own port system. It is not a waterway existing solely for the convenience of Shenzhen's ports. Hong Kong's own port areas, including Tuen Mun and Tsing Yi, also rely on this waterway for access.

This highlights a fundamental difference.

The Yantian direction is closer to "Hong Kong waters serving Shenzhen Port." In contrast, the western direction involves "a complex waterway system shared by Hong Kong's ports, Shenzhen's ports, and multiple other ports in the Pearl River Estuary."

If Dapeng Bay is like a road leading to a single destination, the Pearl River Estuary is more like a large urban transportation network. It simultaneously connects Hong Kong Port, Shenzhen's western port areas, Guangzhou's Nansha Port, Zhongshan Port, Zhuhai Port, and the Macau direction.

Therefore, the western issue is not simply about replicating the Yantian model by merging one Hong Kong pilot with one Shenzhen pilot. It concerns the coordination of the entire Pearl River Estuary port cluster.

More importantly, the Urmston Road has long been part of the operational framework of Hong Kong Port. The pilotage systems, regulatory procedures, and industry interests formed over the past decades are all built upon this foundation. Changing the rules here would not just affect one Shenzhen shipping route but could potentially impact Hong Kong's entire port service system.

This is also why, even though the annual costs involved are in the hundreds of millions for both areas, the implications are entirely different for each. In the east, it's more about removing an additional cost. In the west, it could mean altering an industry system that has been in place for over a century.

One is about reducing burdens, the other about redistributing interests.

The Real Difficulty: Who Bears the Cost of Change?

Many people, upon seeing this type of issue, instinctively think: since both Hong Kong and Shenzhen are part of China, why can't it be resolved through coordination at a higher level?

From a legal perspective, there is indeed room for manoeuvre. The Dapeng Bay agreement proves that it isn't strictly necessary to completely overhaul the legal systems of both sides; mutual recognition of pilotage can be achieved through cooperative agreements. So, the law itself is not the primary obstacle.

The real difficulty lies in who bears the cost once the rules change.

Pilotage is not an ordinary commercial service. It involves professional qualifications, liability determination, regulatory authority, and stable income streams. If a vessel that previously required one pilotage in Hong Kong and one in Shenzhen were to have it done in a single operation in the future, someone would inevitably lose business.

Simultaneously, new problems would emerge. If a pilot operates across different administrative areas and an accident occurs, who is responsible for the investigation? How is liability allocated? How are insurance claims calculated? How is regulatory authority exercised?

These questions may seem detail-oriented, but for maritime administration, they are precisely the core issues.

Furthermore, while both Hong Kong and mainland China use Chinese, the legal traditions and administrative practices developed over time are notably different. Mainland maritime management tends to rely more on administrative systems to resolve issues. Hong Kong, in contrast, depends more heavily on statutory procedures and judicial mechanisms.

For example, faced with a vessel's violation, the mainland authorities might directly impose an administrative penalty, whereas Hong Kong would more likely need to go through litigation.

This difference is not about which is superior, but rather reflects the distinct operational logic developed by the two systems over the long term. The real challenge in aligning rules within the Greater Bay Area is not finding identical legal provisions but getting people from different institutional backgrounds to accept a single mode of operation.

An Alternative When Rules Cannot Be Aligned

Shenzhen has not simply been waiting for rule coordination. In fact, the Shenzhen western port area has been actively enhancing its own waterway infrastructure, with the Tonggu Waterway being a very typical example.

In recent years, Shenzhen has continuously invested funds in the construction and maintenance of the Tonggu Waterway, with related project expenditures even exceeding the costs associated solely with pilotage fees.

If one only looks at the financial accounts, spending so much to maintain an alternative waterway might seem uneconomical.

However, port competition is never just about short-term costs. The value of waterway construction lies not in saving money today but in having more options for the future.

If a port is entirely dependent on another system's arrangements, it becomes vulnerable to changes in external rules. Having an alternative waterway at least gives Shenzhen a certain degree of initiative. This is a common logic in port competition.

When institutional coordination faces uncertainty, building physical infrastructure serves as a form of insurance.

Of course, relying on engineering alternatives does not mean institutional cooperation lacks value. On the contrary, the more mature the alternative solutions become, the greater the potential negotiating space in the future. After all, truly effective cooperation is never based solely on one side's compromise but on mutual recognition of shared benefits.

The Greater Bay Area Rule Challenge Behind a Single Waterway

Looking back at the "secondary pilotage" issue now, my initial thought was simply about the waste and inconvenience caused by a ship changing pilots unnecessarily. But upon deeper investigation, I realised it is not just a case study of rule alignment in the Greater Bay Area; it reflects a much broader proposition.

We are accustomed to viewing Hong Kong and Macau as provincial-level Special Administrative Regions, and that is certainly correct. However, if we only see that aspect, we overlook their other role. These two places are essentially platforms that bridge our mainland system, characterised by codified laws and administrative leadership (a continental-style system), with the modern Western system characterised by common law and international commercial practices (a maritime-oriented system).

Hong Kong's common law tradition, commercial rules, and judicial system, as well as Macau's legal connections with Portuguese-speaking countries, are institutional assets accumulated over centuries. These systems did not come into existence only after 1997 or 1999; they have been functioning for a long time.

When we speak of "Greater Bay Area rule alignment," what we are actually attempting is far more complex than simply "signing a cooperation agreement between Shenzhen and Hong Kong." We are trying to make two fundamentally different institutional systems function together within the same geographical space.

The seemingly minor issue of "secondary pilotage" touches precisely on this deep-seated structure. Pilotage is not just a technical operation; behind it lies a comprehensive institutional framework concerning navigation safety, liability determination, insurance claims, and industry management.

The eastern part of Shenzhen-Hong Kong could find a solution because both sides found the greatest common denominator of shared interests on this specific issue. The western part remains stuck precisely because it touches upon the core interests of Hong Kong's port system and a set of industry rules that have operated for over a century.

If we cannot even harmonise the rules across a narrow stretch of water within our own territory, then when we face the alignment and competition of completely different rule systems on the international stage, the difficulty will only be greater.

This, in fact, is the most underestimated value of the Greater Bay Area initiative. It is not just about building bridges and roads or improving physical connectivity; it is a testing ground—a long-term experiment under the "One Country, Two Systems" framework to explore how different institutional systems can coexist, interconnect, and integrate.

The Dapeng Bay agreement in the east demonstrates that rule differences can be resolved technically as long as there is sufficient common interest and room for compromise. The predicament of the Urmston Road in the west reminds us that when the issue touches upon entrenched interests and core institutions, the cost of resolution rises sharply, and the timeline extends considerably.

Nevertheless, these issues must be navigated within the Greater Bay Area. This is also a necessary institutional exercise for China as it pursues national rejuvenation and transitions from a purely "continental power" mindset towards a more integrated "land-sea coordination" approach.

The complexity of this process may far exceed our initial imagination. But equally, its value will far surpass our initial estimates.

Choosing the Data Visualization

Recently, while discussing this topic in a WeChat group, I was suddenly reminded of that chart. However, after a thorough search, I couldn't find the original one. I only came across a similar image from the World Bank dated 2011, but it was vastly different from what I remembered. That chart simply arranged countries horizontally by their GDP per capita and lacked the striking visual impact.

Currently, mainstream visualizations for this type of data often use Sankey diagrams or Marimekko charts. I also tried using online tools like Datawrapper and Flourish, but the results were less than satisfactory.

The reason pyramid-style charts are more intuitive and striking is that they tap into humanity's millennia-old cultural perception of hierarchical order. At the base of the pyramid lies the vast population of developing countries, yet they typically account for only a small share of the world's economic output. Meanwhile, developed nations, with fewer people, reap the majority of economic benefits.

Eventually, I gave up searching for an off-the-shelf solution and decided to create the chart myself.

The Chart Creation Process

The process of creating the chart proved to be more troublesome than I had anticipated. Initially, I thought about using Excel and WPS, especially since WPS members have access to a vast library of templates. However, after some experimentation, I encountered a significant issue: it was difficult to properly map the data to the charts.

I used the latest population and GDP per capita data from the World Bank, which includes 217 countries and economic entities, as well as 47 regions or economic organizations. Among these, large countries like China and India have populations of 1.4 billion, while many smaller countries or regions have only a few hundred thousand or even tens of thousands of people. The difference between the maximum and minimum values is tens of thousands of times. This posed a nightmare scenario for creating charts in Excel.

In the end, I turned to Python for plotting, as it allowed me to fine-tune the many parameters required.

For instance, in a standard-sized chart, it is impossible to display the names of every country and region. Deciding which country names to show is a question worth exploring. Considering the vast differences in the final displayed area for each country's population, the best approach was clearly to set the display based on the final area proportion. If the area was too small, the name couldn't be shown.

For example, when mapping the global population onto the pyramid, I had to meticulously calculate the proportion of the image occupied by each country or region's population data. This proportion actually corresponds to the area of the trapezoid for each level in the pyramid (except for the very top, which is a triangle).

After dozens of adjustments and iterations, I eventually produced three versions of the chart.

Population Pyramid Sorted by GDP per Capita

This first version is the closest to what I remember seeing. When I fed the latest data into this dynamically generated pyramid model, the visual impact was immediate. In this chart, the global population is rearranged and stacked from bottom to top according to per capita wealth.

On this pyramid, I drew two lines. One is the global average GDP per capita line (blue dashed line: $14,327), and the other is the global 50% population line (red dashed line). Once these two lines were added, the "soul" of the chart emerged, starkly revealing three sobering realities:

First, China stands at the "tipping point" of the global average per capita income. The chart clearly shows China as a massive, thick wall firmly planted in the middle of the pyramid. We are just one step away from the global average. Above us lies the world that has crossed the average line; below us is an even larger low-income group.

Second, there is a stark mismatch between wealth and population. Look at the red 50% population dividing line. If the world were equitable, once half the population was reached, the wealth they command should also be half. However, the reality is that the red line (global 50% population) is pressed extremely low, even far below the blue GDP per capita line. This means that over 50% of the world's population has a per capita GDP of less than $5,059. The wealthiest half of the global population takes the lion's share of the economic pie, far exceeding their population proportion. At the very top of the pyramid, countries like Luxembourg, Switzerland, Norway, and the United States—which occupies a significant thick block of color—have relatively small population areas but command unimaginable wealth.

Third, the real world is masked by "averages." According to the latest World Bank data, the global GDP per capita in 2025 is approximately $14,327 (calculated from data for all countries and regions in the database, slightly differing from news figures). However, if you look closely at the chart, you'll notice that very few countries actually live above this blue average line. Apart from a handful of nations like those in Europe, the US, Japan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia, most of the pyramid's substantial bulk lies below this line. In other words, the vast majority of the world's population is "forced above average" by the tiny minority of "super-rich" countries at the pyramid's apex.

Population Bar Chart Sorted by GDP per Capita

This is the second chart I created. While the pyramid chart is visually striking, it has an unavoidable physical flaw in its mathematical representation: to maintain "area conservation" within its tapering top, countries with high GDP per capita (like the US and European nations) have their vertical heights artificially stretched. This can create the illusion that these countries also have a large population share.

On this chart, I kept the same two lines. However, a notable difference is that these lines are now positioned at about the top 1/5 and 1/2 of the overall image height. This is a significant shift from the pyramid chart, where they roughly divided the image height into thirds.

This drastic vertical shift squeezes out the visual distortion caused by the pyramid's shape, revealing the truest physical proportions directly.

The true 50% population mark (red line) returns to the physical midpoint (1/2). Without the broadening base of the pyramid to mask it, the red line sits squarely in the middle. This allows us to see more intuitively that the 1.4 billion Chinese people are situated in the global range of roughly 24% to 40%. The population we need to catch up to ahead of us is now less than a quarter of the world's total.

Compared to the pyramid, the bar chart makes the "80/20 rule" much more concrete visually. The global average GDP per capita line is pushed up to about the top 20% height. This uses the most honest geometric language to show that truly only about 20% of the global population crosses this average line, leaving the remaining 80% below it. Apart from the US, other developed countries appear as mere thin slivers at the very top of the human column.

However, while the bar chart achieves "absolute truth" in terms of population proportions, it has its limitations. Because each layer has the same width, it completely obscures the absolute total wealth. This led me to create a third chart.

Combined Population Pyramid and GDP Comparison Chart

Since a single-dimensional graphic always involves compromises, I decided to combine them. I made a bolder attempt, keeping the population pyramid on the left and displaying total GDP on the right.

This is the chart I find most logically robust.

To make this chart mathematically and visually coherent, I re-derived the geometric algorithms for both sides. Since both sides share the same Y-axis height, which is determined by population proportions, the width of the blocks on the right—if their area is to strictly represent the country's total GDP—cannot be mapped linearly using simple numerical values. Instead, the width must be recalculated using a formula: Width = (Country's GDP Global Share ÷ Country's Vertical Height in the Chart) × Scaling Factor.

Through this physical constraint of "area conservation," the area of each rectangle on the right genuinely corresponds to its true share of the global GDP total.

When the final chart appeared on the screen, the stark contrast between the two sides instantly stretched the entire graphic into a shape resembling a parallelogram.

First, the "imbalance" between the top and bottom. At the very top of the image, the developed countries with extremely high GDP per capita occupy a pitifully small population share on the left. However, to accommodate their immense total wealth within such a narrow vertical thickness, the width on the right is stretched dramatically. Visually, this manifests as the right side jutting outwards forcefully, creating a vast canopy of wealth. Conversely, at the bottom of the image, the developing countries with large populations command a very prominent visual space on the left. Yet, on the right, their economic contribution is compressed into thin, narrow slivers, almost hugging the central black axis, barely visible as faint lines.

Second, China stands as a balancing giant on both sides of the central axis. In this dramatically shifting "parallelogram"-like spectrum, China displays a tremendously powerful presence. We are no longer the extremely narrow appendage leaning to one side at the top, nor the nearly invisible thin line at the bottom. China possesses a thick wall of population on the left and simultaneously commands a vast, solid red economic block on the right. In this unequal world landscape, China props up a very considerable area on both sides, truly acting as the "ballast stone" maintaining the balance of the global population and economic gravitational field.

Third, the silent world below the "black chasm." If we follow the black dashed line representing the global average GDP per capita downwards, we see that, except for the massive exception of China, almost all developing countries and regions below this line experience a significant shrinkage in their right-side blocks. This line acts like an invisible chasm, dividing the world into two parts: above it lies a world of few people but immense, bloated wealth; below it lies a world of billions but near-silent in the grand map of economic output.

Guangdong Romance Show

2026-06-24 20:44

I participated in a "recuperation" activity organized by the local trade union, a two-day event. We went to the foot of Xiqiao Mountain and watched a performance called Guangdong Romance Show. I had never heard of such a show before. Seeing that the ticket price was 200 yuan, I thought it would be a "tax on stupidity," but the actual experience exceeded my expectations. Besides the performance, there were plenty of "check-in" spots nearby.

When a Calligrapher Recites "Invitation to Wine" Wrong, Can We Still Talk About Art?

2026-06-22 18:07

Today, in a WeChat group for fellow townsfolk, someone shared a video that made me quite emotional. A well-known calligrapher was creating a giant piece of wild cursive script, writing Li Bai's "Invitation to Wine." The video recorded the entire process of his brushwork, which was indeed imposing, and there were quite a few onlookers. But I noticed two details: first, when reciting the verses, he got several lines wrong in a row; second, during the writing, he clearly wrote the wrong line, and the whole composition fell into disarray.

Then, a few people in the group praised this mistake as an "advanced expression of art." They basically said that ordinary people like us couldn't understand it, that this was the essence of calligraphic art—a state of "selflessness" and a "stroke of genius."

I thought to myself: What does this have to do with art?

Some Things Are Just Wrong

I'm not trained in calligraphy, but I think some judgments don't require a professional background. Reciting a poem wrong is reciting a poem wrong; writing a line wrong is writing a line wrong. This has nothing to do with aesthetics, schools, or innovation—it's a matter of basic skills and attitude.

In artistic creation, there is indeed the saying "turn decay into magic." A painter's accidental drip of paint may form a wonderful texture, which can be considered a pleasant surprise. But the premise is that the creator has precise control skills, and the accident happens within their mastery.

What category does reciting "Invitation to Wine" wrong fall into? It falls into not even having a solid grasp of the text. What about writing the wrong line? It falls into starting to write without a clear layout. These are completely different from "conscious breakthroughs."

Some might say that wild cursive is inherently passionate creation, and occasional mistakes are unavoidable. I don't deny that creation has fluctuations, and even masters have mediocre works. Li Bai's more than 900 poems are not all classics. But the difference is that when Li Bai wrote something mediocre, it was because his emotions weren't quite there, not because of basic word errors. Li Bai's "floor" was still supported by solid basic skills.

But here, the "floor" has fallen below common sense.

Why Do People Always Spin Mistakes as Innovation?

I've noticed an interesting phenomenon: every time such an obviously flawed work is questioned, a group of "guardians" always jumps out, defending it with a set of jargon that's hard to understand. Common phrases include:

"You don't understand art."

"This is a higher level of expression."

"You can't judge innovation by traditional standards."

I used to think that maybe I really wasn't skilled enough to see the mystery. But later, I slowly understood one thing—if their theories are valid, why don't they dare to face the most basic questions?

Recited the poem wrong? Explain why. Wrote the wrong line? Explain why that layout was chosen. Faced with specific, verifiable mistakes, they avoid them and instead use "you don't understand" to shut people up. This isn't defending art; it's defending authority itself.

The reason is simple: if this work is deemed a "master's mistake," the academic evaluation and market value built around it would instantly shrink. So they must interpret the "mistake" as a "higher level of correctness" to preserve the amulet of "only I can understand it."

Sincerity Is Rarer Than Talent

I later looked up how true calligraphy masters deal with mistakes.

Mr. Qi Gong, in his later years, had poor eyesight and often made errors in writing. His practice was to frankly note at the signature: "Eyes dim, hands trembling, strokes distorted." Mr. Lin Sanzhi, revered as the "Contemporary Sage of Cursive," would directly blot out and rewrite wrong characters, telling his students: "Wrong is wrong, don't make excuses."

See, those with real confidence dare to admit mistakes. Because they know that one mistake doesn't damage their overall achievements. But those who desperately explain all mistakes as "artistic innovation" expose their inner weakness—they are afraid of being questioned, so afraid that they use lies to cover up a mistake that could have been easily let go.

This reminds me of a more common phenomenon: when "innovation" can be a shield for any mistake, art criticism falls into a state where it cannot be questioned. You say he wrote it wrong, he says it's a "conscious breakthrough"; you say the layout is messy, he says it's "deconstructing tradition"; you say his basic skills are lacking, he says it's "returning to simplicity."

This game essentially turns art into religion, artists into gurus, and the audience into believers. When believers question the guru, they naturally get only one answer: "Your level is not enough."

Back to Common Sense

Ultimately, art is not that mystical.

It is exploration built on basic skills. First, you must be able to write well, recite poems correctly, and think through the layout—only then can you talk about "breakthroughs" and "innovation." Just like Picasso, who could draw top-tier academic realistic sketches in his teens before exploring Cubism. This order cannot be reversed.

If a creator hasn't even passed the basic skills test and starts talking big about "concepts," "spirit," and "breakthroughs," they are not doing art—they are fooling people.

That video gave me a simple reminder: next time I see something I don't understand, I don't need to rush to doubt myself. First, ask myself the most basic questions—did he write it correctly? Did he think it through? Is he sincere?

If even these fundamentals don't hold, then I suggest directly interpreting the phrase "you don't understand" as "you've been fooled."

Why Was Hunan Obscure for Three Thousand Years, and What Made It Rise All of a Sudden?

2026-06-15 15:11

I briefly answered this question on Zhihu, writing whatever came to mind without much structure. But without a doubt, these are my immediate thoughts, and I felt it was worth reposting them.

The late Qing scholar from Hunan, Wang Kaiyun, once wrote: "Since Hunan was established as a commandery, it has never led the empire." His contemporary Pi Xirui put it more bluntly: "Hunanese figures are rarely seen in historical biographies. In the three hundred years of Tang imperial examinations, Liu Tui from Changsha was the first to pass the进士 exam, which was then called 'breaking the wilderness.'"

For three thousand years of recorded history, Hunan was on the periphery for 95% of the time. During the Three Kingdoms period, the talents from Hunan that could be named could be counted on one hand—just one or two like Jiang Wan. In the three hundred years of Tang examinations, Changsha produced only its first进士, and all of Hunan followed with the cry of "breaking the wilderness."

But it was this very land that "never led the empire" that, from the Taiping Rebellion to the founding of New China, in just over a hundred years, produced a galaxy of great figures and dominated the scene, even surpassing traditional talent centers like Beijing and Jiangsu-Zhejiang, becoming a key force shaping China's destiny.

What happened in between? Why Hunan, and not somewhere else?

I was born and grew up in a place called Shuangfeng in central Hunan. Until I first opened Google Earth in 2008, I never truly understood my hometown.

Our village group had about 20 households, around 70 people, with 8 surnames: Zeng, Peng, Qin, Zhou, He, Xie, Yu, Wang. The most common surname had only a few households. Zooming out to the whole village, with about 600 people, there were over 30 surnames.

When I was a child, I thought this was normal. Later, after watching more films and reading more articles, I found that most places in China are "one village, one surname"—hundreds of people in a village all share one surname, complete with ancestral halls, genealogies, and communal land. My hometown's pattern of "15 households, 9 surnames" was actually the exception.

Why was that? The answer only truly emerged when I opened Google Earth in 2008. At that moment, I looked down and saw my hometown—what I had always thought were "mountains" turned out to be just a bunch of undulating green little buns. In my own classification, my hometown belongs to "mature hills," with relative heights ranging from tens to hundreds of meters, and ravines cutting the surface into fragments.

What does this terrain mean? Every decent paddy field is tucked into the crevice between two ridges, locally called "chong" or "ao." To hold onto this small piece of land, farmers had to build their houses at the foot of the slope at the mouth of the gully. Households were scattered, making large-scale settlement impossible.

Without settlement, there were no large surname clans. Without large clans, there were no gentry families. Without gentry families, Hunanese could never rank high on the political track of traditional China. "Since Hunan was established as a commandery, it has never led the empire"—it wasn't that Hunanese were incapable, but that this terrain simply didn't give you room to form local power.

I previously wrote a blog post about "one village, one surname" and concluded that this patchwork of surnames was caused by the Xiang Army wars. But later, after reading through many genealogies of other Hunan surnames, I realized that judgment was too simplistic.

A particularly interesting phenomenon: the year "Tongguang Second Year" (AD 924) is repeatedly mentioned in many Hunan genealogies. I searched and found that the Fang family of Yueyang, the Yuan family of Xinhua, the He family of Xiangxiang, the Chen family of Xiangxiang, the Zou family of Xinhua, the Song family of Yiyang, the Peng family of Changsha—dozens of surname genealogies marked that year as the time when their founding ancestors moved from Jiangxi to Hunan.

Of course, this may not be the actual year, but it at least shows one thing: during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Hunan under the Ma Chu kingdom was seen as a "land of peace" worth fleeing to. And my hometown in central Hunan, since the Yuan and Ming dynasties, had been a major immigrant dispersal area for the "Jiangxi filling Huguang" migration. Immigrants didn't move in as whole clans, but scattered around to "stake claims." Each wave of immigration added a new color block to the existing surname patchwork.

By the time of the Taiping Rebellion, central Hunan looked like this: no large surname clans, no powerful gentry families, no one could dominate. The Zeng Guofan family itself was also immigrant—his great-grandfather moved from Hengyang to Xiangxiang and, after several generations of management in this mixed society, slowly took root.

The Taiping Rebellion changed everything in Hunan. When the Taiping army entered Hunan from Quanzhou, it had only 20,000 troops; by the time it left Hunan, it had swelled to 150,000, and Hunanese became one of the most important sources of Taiping soldiers. The miners from Chenzhou formed the "Earth Camp" that dug tunnels for the Taiping army, breaking through anything; Tang Zhengcai from Daozhou built a navy for the Taiping, building pontoon bridges to cross the Yangtze and helping capture Wuchang.

But what the Taiping did in Hunan also directly created its own gravediggers. From looting to indiscriminate massacres, the Taiping pushed Hunanese to the other side. It was against this backdrop that Zeng Guofan returned to Xiangxiang and formed the Xiang Army under the banner of "defending the hometown."

The Xiang Army and the Taiping had one thing in common: their main force was Hunanese. But one group was mobilized by Taiping ideology, the other by Zeng Guofan's organization. The human resources of the same province played decisive roles on both sides of the same war.

Why could the Xiang Army be raised in central Hunan? Precisely because central Hunan had no strong clans. In a clan society, mobilizing troops required the clan chief's approval; but in central Hunan's dispersed society, interpersonal relationships relied not on "clan law" but on "village ties"—people lived scattered but knew each other well. Zeng Guofan used the military structure of "camp → sentry → squad" to reorganize this loose sand, integrating peasants scattered in different gullies into a combat-ready army.

After the Xiang Army pacified the Taiping, Hunanese suddenly realized: what the court couldn't manage, we could; what the court couldn't pay, we could; what the court couldn't win, we could. Once this experience was established, "the sky is high and the emperor is far away" was no longer a geographical fate but a psychological confidence.

At this point, I must clarify a term that has been misunderstood by the media for twenty years: "baman" (stubbornly tough).

I checked the usage of the character "man" in Zeng Guofan's family letters. When criticizing his children's study methods, he said: "Man reading, man memorizing, man reviewing—surely cannot lead to lasting mastery, merely wasting days." It meant rote memorization without thinking, a waste of time. He also criticized his younger brother Zeng Guohua for "having a man-like expression on his face, most prone to bullying others"—that "man" was clearly negative.

When Cai Hesen first arrived in Paris to study, he knew no French. In his letters, he said he relied on a dictionary to "man-read" newspapers and magazines, and forcibly translated works like the Communist Manifesto. Here, "man-read" is just a hair's breadth away from Zeng's criticized "man-reading"—one scolds for not thinking, the other describes a personal struggle. The direction differs, but the core is the same: "no shortcuts, no detours, just hard grit."

The term we locals use is "ban man." Ban means being tripped up, stuck, blocked. Hunan—this place was tripped up by geography for three thousand years, by transportation, by being far from the center of power—holding its breath, unable to get out. It wasn't until the late Qing, when the country's doors were forced open and the old order collapsed, that Hunanese discovered that being tripped up for a lifetime had actually trained them in the tough spirit of "opening roads across mountains and building bridges over water."

If you replace "ban" with "ba" (overbearing), the meaning twists completely. Overbearing tyranny is outward; ban man is inward. This is Hunanese resilience, not Hunanese posture.

Back to the original question: Why was Hunan obscure for three thousand years, and what made it rise suddenly?

My answer is: Hunan's peculiarity lies not in that it changed, but that the era finally became suited to its original nature.

Traditional China was a clan society. Power structures extended downward through bloodlines. Whoever had a large ancestral hall, a long genealogy, and could monopolize local opinion and military sources could claim a place on the political map. Hunan had none of these—hills cut it up, rain washed it flat, immigrants stirred it up. It was naturally unsuited for competing on the traditional track.

But after the late Qing, the old system began to crumble. When clan ties were no longer the only effective form of organization, and when war and revolution demanded a more flexible capacity for social mobilization, Hunan's "dispersed society," marginalized for three thousand years, became the place with the fewest constraints. It had fewer vested interests to protect and fewer old rules to obey.

The Xiang Army was not the starting point of Hunan's rise; it was merely the moment when Hunanese first realized, "we can organize ourselves." From then on, from the Self-Strengthening Movement to the Xinhai Revolution, from the New Democratic Revolution to the founding of New China, Hunanese have been repeating the same thing: where there is no ready-made organization, build a new framework yourself.

Hunan is a place that was marginalized for three thousand years and finally waited for an era when even the marginalized could stand at the center of the stage.

That's my understanding of Hunan. It is not some "overbearing province"; it is just a place that was tripped up by geography and history for too long, and thus developed a knack for stubborn perseverance.

Legal Affairs Training

2026-05-28 18:05

A few days ago, I attended a legal affairs training session, mainly watching videos for several consecutive days. I really gained a lot—almost everyone in the venue stayed focused throughout. On one hand, the topic is indeed very important with almost no margin for error; on the other hand, these policy backgrounds, if not studied well during the training, could lead to serious deviations if such cases arise later. During the session, I saw some notifications from relevant ministries, which felt vastly different from everyday perceptions. The country is so large, and there are indeed many problems inside and out—many things are hard to handle and not convenient to discuss publicly. What can be seen in public is only the tip of the iceberg.

What Really Supports a Consumer Power?

2026-05-13 15:14

Today, in a group chat, I argued with someone about whether China can transform into a consumer country. Looking at the news, it's always about promoting consumption—"encourage people to spend more," distributing coupons, subsidies, stimulating night-time economy—as if consumption is just a matter of promotion.

I went through a full round of reasoning and found that we might have the direction backwards.

First, I confirmed a judgment: everything that can be mass-produced will inevitably see prices fall. Cars, home appliances, pre-made dishes, houses—none escape this rule. Relying on selling goods to support consumption is unsustainable in the long run. What truly supports developed consumer countries are six basic needs: education, healthcare, elderly care, housing, transportation, and food. More than half of these are "selling services" rather than "selling goods."

China's problem is that the prices of education, healthcare, elderly care, transportation, etc., are locked down by public services—private prices can't rise, and the reputation and price ceilings of private hospitals and private universities are very low. On the surface, this seems like a deadlock: if basic needs prices can't go up, how can high consumption form?

But think from another angle: the path has just been swapped, not blocked.

Instead of relying on people to pay more out of pocket for medical treatment and schooling, we can raise the baseline of public services overall. I made a rough estimate: if we bring all primary schools nationwide to the level of top Beijing public schools, and all county hospitals to the level of top-tier hospitals in Beijing and Shanghai, the additional annual government consumption would be on the order of 2 trillion US dollars. This itself is consumption—real, measurable, and sustainable. At the same time, the wages of millions of teachers and doctors would rise, boosting their personal consumption as well.

This path is different from the US model of "household debt-driven consumption." It's closer to "public welfare-driven consumption"—raising the baseline through government spending, rather than making individuals pay for it themselves.

Of course, there is an unavoidable question: who ultimately pays for this? If property taxes and consumption taxes are passed on to residents, it's just another way of making people pay. The real test is whether the tax system reform can keep up. Whether this path ends up as a "sense of gain" or a "sense of pain" is the difference.

In the end, a consumer power is not built by "stimulus"; it's built by "raising the baseline." This baseline is not about making everyone afford the latest phone, but about ensuring everyone can access education and healthcare of a very high standard. It sounds idealistic, but upon reflection, this may be the only viable path for China to become a consumer country.

What I Realized After Reading about the Southern Ming

2026-05-10 15:50

Recently, while browsing Zhihu, I got caught up by a question: since the Qing had already entered the pass, why were the bigwigs of the Southern Ming still fighting among themselves?

The answers varied widely. Some said it was because Zhu Yuanzhang killed too many meritorious officials, and everyone was afraid of becoming another Lan Yu. Others said it was because losing an internal struggle still left the option to surrender to the Qing and keep wealth, whereas successfully resisting the Qing might lead to a purge later. Others analyzed technically, saying the Southern Ming's problem wasn't infighting, but that it failed to produce a strong leader at the critical moment.

These answers were sharp and gave a feeling of sudden enlightenment. I read dozens of them, from Southern Ming to the late Yuan, from late Yuan to early Ming, and then to the Southern Song and the War of Resistance. But the more I read, the stronger my sense of unease became.

Why can the same history be told as completely different stories, each sounding so reasonable?

Later, I saw a discussion about the Nurgan Regional Military Commission, and the comment section was in uproar. Some said it represented the Ming's actual control over the Northeast, while others said the Ming never really governed there. Then someone asked: if you admit the Ming controlled the Northeast, then Nurhaci was a Ming border general rebelling, and the Qing entry was a civil war; if not, then the Qing was a foreign invader. Choose one.

At that moment, I suddenly understood.

Historical facts themselves are certain, but how you interpret them depends on your position and concerns. Those discussions about the Southern Ming, on the surface, argued why the Ming fell, but underneath, they were responding to some anxiety of today. Collapse of trust, prisoner's dilemma, failure of collective action—these terms are too familiar; they're not just about things three hundred years ago.

What truly made me realize this was a joking comment in the replies: "Descendants of Jews also have Han ethnicity on their Chinese ID cards." That sentence was light, but the question behind it was heavy. Identity, ethnicity, nation—these concepts can be told as completely different stories on different timescales. No version is naturally correct; the key is how you choose the starting point and define who belongs.

After all this fuss, my final takeaway was not whether the Southern Ming should bear the blame. Instead, I've developed a habit: whenever I see a particularly self-consistent, sharp historical interpretation, I stop and think—what framework is this person using to tell the story? What are they omitting? Why did they choose this angle?

This shift in perspective might be more useful than remembering any historical conclusion.

It's Hard to See Pine Trees in My Hometown Anymore

2026-05-04 17:30

A few years ago, a pine wilt disease epidemic swept through my hometown, killing almost all the Masson pines, leaving the hills a vast gray for years. Now, several years later, the color of the hills has completely changed—from the brownish-green of the pines to large patches of light green and yellow, transforming from "coniferous forest" to broadleaf forest. It's hard to say if that's good or bad.

Stories of Jiaozhou

2026-05-02 15:59

I've long known that Lingnan was sinicized earlier than Hunan and entered the power center earlier, but I had no concrete idea. Today, while answering a question from a Vietnamese person, I looked into this a bit deeper.

First, over nearly three hundred years of the Tang dynasty, Hunan produced about 25进士, Guangxi about 10, and Guizhou was almost negligible in the Tang. But Jiaozhou, within the scope of a single protectorate, had nearly ten historically verifiable进士. Considering its much smaller population base than Hunan and Guangdong, this density is already quite high. More importantly, among these less than ten people, there was a chancellor like Jiang Gongfu.

Then, I looked up who was the first universally recognized chancellor from Hunan. The answer is quite late: Liu Quanzhi from Changsha in the Qing Jiaqing period, who became a Grand Secretary of the Tirenge. Before that, all claims about Hunanese chancellors were controversial—either their ancestry was unclear, or they were registered elsewhere, or their official position was just a minister rather than chancellor. In other words, after Jiang Wan of the Three Kingdoms, Hunan had a gap of fifteen hundred years at the chancellor level.

This comparison made me rethink Jiaozhou's status. The Tang set up the Annan Protectorate there, one of the six great protectorates of the empire, with its seat in today's Hanoi. The Red River Delta had early agricultural development, not only self-sufficient in grain but also able to transship via sea routes. More importantly, the gentry class there deeply participated in Tang political operations through the examination system, completely different from my imagined "remote wilderness."

I also noticed Vietnam's surnames today. The Nguyen surname accounts for nearly 40% of the population; the Tran, Le, Pham, Hoang—these major surnames are all medieval Chinese surnames. Nguyen became so large due to the Tran dynasty forcing the Li to change their surname and the Nguyen dynasty's long rule. This is not just cultural influence, but the continued operation of political institutions in Vietnam itself.

After crunching these numbers, my biggest takeaway is that we easily use later impressions to retroject history. Today, Hunan is a province of talent, but in the Tang it was still culturally developing. Today, Vietnam is an independent country, but in the Tang it was a core administrative region of the empire's southern frontier. Their political and cultural status at the time was completely different from today's map impressions.

Sometimes it's not that history has changed; it's that the map we use to view history was drawn too late.

Why Was Ancient Land Surveying So Difficult?

2026-04-24 11:16

Today I read an old story that said ancient local officials feared two things most: war and fire. In war, they could flee; but if a fire burned the archives, there was nowhere to run. Especially the household and land registers—if burned, tax collection would be in complete chaos. At first, I didn't understand: just make a new copy of the registers, why make it sound like the end of the dynasty?

After some research, I found it was far more complicated than I thought.

First, look at manpower. In the Song dynasty, a county with ten thousand households had only about twenty or so clerks and record keepers handling accounts. In my modern way of thinking, one person checking five hundred households, visiting a few per day, could finish in a few months. But in reality, whenever a locality underwent a major household and land survey, it took at least two years, sometimes ten or eight, and dragging on indefinitely was not uncommon.

Where did the problem lie? I later realized it wasn't in the "checking" step, but in the huge pile of work before that.

First step: measuring land. In ancient times, there were no satellites, no GPS. Measuring tools were the measuring bow and rope. Plains were okay, but in hilly areas, a small terraced field of irregular shape had to be measured inch by inch with a rope. Encountering oddly shaped plots, calculating area could drive people crazy.

Second step: finding people. A household lived remotely; the clerk had to cross a mountain to verify, a round trip taking a whole day. If the head of household was away working, they had to make a second or third trip. With nearly ten thousand households scattered across the county, the time spent just on travel was astronomical.

Third step: cross-examination. You think measuring and recording is enough? No. Data had to be reported level by level—village to township, township to county—with verification at each level. If discrepancies were found with old records, someone had to be sent back to re-measure. More troublesome: the powerful and wealthy wouldn't cooperate—they either concealed land or bribed clerks to "fly" their taxes onto poor peasants. The survey essentially took money out of their pockets, so resistance was fierce.

So a county survey dragging on for years, in my view, is already quick. The real cost was never in the paperwork, but in the human wrangling and technical limitations in the fields.

After all this, my biggest feeling is that we're too used to measuring ancient efficiency by today's standards. We think they were slow, clumsy, rigid—but we ignore those invisible costs. The ancients faced a world of highly asymmetric information; every step was groping in the dark. Building such a tax system was already remarkable.

As the saying goes: don't mock the clumsy methods of predecessors—they learned to climb without a ladder.

What Script Was Qu Yuan's "Li Sao" Written In?

2026-04-22 15:56

Today, while watching a video of a Taiwanese person visiting the Three Gorges Dam and then going to Zigui to talk with an old man who has long played the role of Qu Yuan, a specific question suddenly popped into my head. What script did Qu Yuan use to write Li Sao? Was it the Qin script or the Chu script? And is the version we read today a transliteration?

I checked and confirmed: Qu Yuan naturally used Chu script. During the Warring States period, each state's script originated from Shang-Zhou oracle bones and bronze inscriptions, but later developed differently. Qin in the west kept the Zhou homeland script, relatively regular. Chu in the east had elongated, elegant forms with a romantic flair. After Qin unification, the six states' scripts were abolished; the Chu Ci we read today is a version transcribed in Han dynasty clerical script.

This discovery interested me: the same origin diverged, then was pulled back onto the same track by unifying forces.

But the question I really wanted to ask had already changed. I wanted to understand what the ancient Chinese state was really like.

Textbooks always talk about the Seven Warring States, giving the impression that only these seven states were active. But in the early Spring and Autumn period, there were over a hundred vassal states; by the early Warring States, there were still more than twenty. The Seven were just the ones that survived. The states of Song, Lu, Zhongshan, Yue—all existed at some point, and all were eventually swallowed.

But one detail I hadn't paid attention to before: regardless of the Seven or smaller states, they all had a common Zhou king above them. Although the Zhou king had no real authority by the Warring States period, the concept of "All under Zhou" persisted. This is completely different from our modern understanding of a state.

Modern people think of states as sovereign territories with borders and equal diplomacy. Ancient Chinese states were a concentric differential pattern. Areas near the core were directly ruled; distant areas were allowed autonomy, as long as they acknowledged the overlord and paid tribute on time.

After Qin unification, vassal states were replaced by commanderies and counties, with directly appointed officials. But interestingly, for thousands of years afterward, the commandery-county system and the tributary system ran in parallel. The emperor directly ruled near the capital, while in frontier regions, local leaders were enfeoffed to maintain autonomy and tribute.

Vietnam is the classic example. From Qin to early Song, northern and central Vietnam were directly ruled commanderies and counties. After the Song, Vietnam established its own state but long remained a tributary. It wasn't until the 1885 Sino-French Treaty that it left this system.

I used to have a vague impression of this history, only remembering that it was once part of China, without realizing the complex transitions in between.

Looking back now, I realize several of my previous understandings were off. Unification did not mean eliminating all differences, but establishing a flexible order. Enfeoffment and tributary systems are not the same thing—the former is internal, the latter external.

Starting from Qu Yuan's Chu poetry, I ended up on a bigger question: how are civilizations constructed, maintained, and evolved? The path goes far, but every step is worthwhile.

Old Historical Scores Can't Be Settled Because No One Is Clean

2026-04-17 09:04

Today, I saw a lot of discussions about the Battle of Penghu, and the comment sections were all arguing about "Ming-Qing distinction." Some used it to bring up old scores about the Xiang Army massacres, speaking with indignation as if Hunanese have always been a bunch of butchers. Looking at these comments, I felt something was off.

To be fair, the Xiang Army did kill brutally when they captured Tianjing—I don't deny that. But those cursing the Xiang Army, have they thought about how the Taiping army fought its way from Guangxi to Hunan? Have they thought about who left records like "villages reduced to ashes, nine of ten homes empty"? You dig up old accounts of the Xiang Army? Fine, then I'll dig too.

Does Sun Quan's attack upriver from Nanjing to slaughter Huang Zu at Jiangxia count? Hou Jing's capture of Jiankang, where people ate people—count? The Southern Tang destroying Chu, where Bian Hao stripped Changsha of its gold, silk, grain, pavilions, and flowers—even leaving no nice plants for Hunanese—count? Zhu Yuanzhang and Chen Youliang's bloody battle under Nanjing, and the fire on Poyang Lake that killed hundreds of thousands—count? Then later, the Taiping devastated southern Hunan, and the Xiang Army counter-killed at Tianjing—count? And what about Emperor Yuan of Liang, Xiao Yi—this great figure watched his father and brothers trapped during Hou Jing's rebellion, sent troops to recover Jiankang, then went to Jiangling to become emperor, but when the city fell, he burned 140,000 volumes of ancient books, and the entire population, old and young, was taken to Guanzhong, while he himself was suffocated with a bag of earth by his nephew.

See, dig and dig—where can you stop?

What I truly realized is: under fragmentation, such things have no end. You slaughter me once, I slaughter you once—generation after generation, it cycles. No one is an angel, no one is the sole devil. The real turning point is not which side wins, but the establishment of a unified order. After Qin Shi Huang, unity became the highest value of this land—not because unity is perfect, but because fragmentation is simply terrible.

1840 is a subtle turning point. The Westerners arrived; the entire nation faced a survival crisis, and internal old scores were forcibly shelved. Although this stitching was rough—the later Taiping, Xiang Army, Muslim revolts, and Hakka-Punti clashes still proved how strong the old order's inertia was—the direction changed. By around 1919, national awakening and class narratives provided a completely new framework, and those blood debts divided by province were redefined as a historical burden "we" share together.

I'm not saying old scores shouldn't be studied. Academically, they can and should be. But using one page of history to attack a certain group of people today is not about justice—it's using the dead as a club. The Yangtze has flowed with too much blood for thousands of years; there's no need to argue over which stretch is the reddest.

Visiting the Shenzhen Toy Fair

2026-04-12 14:58

Yesterday, I took my child to the Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center to visit a toy fair. This was my first time at this center. Before going, I asked Doubao about parking—it said parking was convenient with 13,000 spaces at 18 yuan per hour. But unexpectedly, after several hours, the total parking fee was only 12 yuan. The toy fair was relatively small, with about five or six halls. We walked through four halls and were exhausted. The main thing was shopping while browsing; I carried dozens of toys of various sizes in both hands—quite a ordeal. But kids can't resist toys, especially considering that most toys at the fair were much cheaper than in regular stores or online. For example, a boxed building block toy that sells for 18 yuan in a physical store and 12 yuan on Pinduoduo was only 2 yuan at the fair. The child was thrilled and just wanted to "buy, buy, buy." Some manufacturers from other places, because they had to pack up by 4 PM that day, even gave away toys for free. In the end, the four of us bought eight large bags of toys, spending less than 300 yuan total—enough to keep the child entertained for a long time.

Hosting a Junior High School Classmate

2026-04-10 22:36

This week, a junior high school classmate I hadn't seen for years suddenly contacted me on WeChat, saying he was in our area for training. Seeing the address was only about 20 kilometers away, I went to have dinner with him after work. During the meal, we talked about our class of about 50 people back then, now scattered far and wide. Among those who did well academically: some are general managers of third-tier subsidiaries of state-owned enterprises, heads of overseas offices of such subsidiaries, deputy division chiefs in provincial party organization departments, and discipline inspection group leaders in municipal commissions. Those with above-average grades mostly work in party and government organs and public institutions at municipal and county levels—for example, this classmate is in charge of law enforcement at a county ecological environment bureau. Those who earned master's degrees: some do historical document research in libraries, some teach in colleges, and some are engineers in leading IT companies. Those with relatively average grades: many chose entrepreneurship—some do entrepot trade in Southeast Asia, some export IT products in Guangdong, some run driving schools in Tibet, and some run supermarkets, restaurants, or shops back home. Others are in auxiliary roles within the system, like auxiliary police, government employees, or village cadres. Since our class was designated as a "key class" among the six classes in our grade, most went on to high school and university, so relatively few directly engaged in manual or agricultural labor—almost all work in the tertiary sector. From a general social evaluation, this almost perfectly confirms the judgment that "better academic performance leads to better career prospects." But regardless, coming from a poor rural middle school, finding good development opportunities is generally very difficult. We are also fortunate to have encountered a period of stable peaceful development; otherwise, everyone's life could have been quite different.

Endless Doubao

2026-04-05 11:25

Doubao just announced that its average daily API Token calls have exceeded 120 trillion. As of July last year, the total global daily inference Token consumption for large language models (LLMs) was only 8 trillion. Doubao has long become a national-level AI application. My daughter now uses my phone every day to generate hundreds of conversations. A typical example: Doubao may have been trained on all primary and secondary school textbooks in China, so when my daughter does "dictation" homework, she can directly ask Doubao to dictate the content of a certain lesson, just like a teacher, with almost no difference.

The most crucial point is that while using other AI services, we often face usage caps and conversation limits—for instance, my ChatGPT Plus subscription easily hits the 5-hour limit when using Codex. But Doubao is completely different. My daughter can send it a large number of photos and videos continuously for an entire evening. Once, she took dozens of photos of a homework notebook and asked Doubao to check her work—there was no usage limit at all, and Doubao is still completely free.

Ecological Environment Code

2026-04-03 18:32

This afternoon, I attended a training event organized by the Lawyers Association. The main speaker was a division chief from the Legal Affairs Commission of the National People's Congress, who had participated in the entire legislative process of the world's first Ecological Environment Code. During the talk, she mentioned that she herself was puzzled by the term "ecological environment" during the legislative work. Traditionally, ecological environment was considered just one type of environment, alongside living environment, production environment, natural environment, human environment, etc. The Constitution also lists living environment and ecological environment in parallel. But in recent years, "ecological environment" has gained prominence and now essentially means ecology + environment. Previously, the English name of the Ministry of Ecological Environment was translated as "Ministry of Ecological Environment," but it was later changed to "Ministry of Ecology and Environment." The earlier translation meant "ecological environment" (as an adjective), while the latter became "ecology and environment" (as two concepts).

Accident Insurance

2026-04-02 23:20

Last month, my child was bitten by a stray cat outside and was taken to the hospital immediately. Over the following weeks, we had four shots of rabies vaccine (2-1-1 schedule) and immunoglobulin, totaling 1,094 yuan. Yesterday, a friend told me this is also covered by accident insurance. I found the family group accident insurance I bought on Alipay for 20 yuan per month, submitted the medical information as required, and received the payment tonight. The reimbursement rate was about 77%.

Openlist

2026-03-24 07:42

I've rarely used Alist in the past year or two, mainly because the open-source project turned private, raising concerns about data security—for example, when adding cloud drives, tokens were obtained in plaintext on their servers. Yesterday, I tried OpenList on 1Panel and found it quite good—it only requires logging in and authorizing your cloud drive account, much more reassuring. But oddly, it kept showing "installing" even though it actually finished in a few dozen seconds.

Ad Blocking on iPhone Is a Pain

2026-03-22 22:57

Browsers on iPhone are restricted to WebKit, preventing various browser extensions from reaching their full potential. For example, I like using Edge, but several ad-blocking plugins are helpless against a certain ad network—not even preventing page redirects. Also, uBlock's element picker is useless, and Stay's ad selection mode can't select those full-screen ads; it can only select a small 10px box in a flashing ad, which becomes invalid after a few seconds when the ad switches automatically.

Claude's Weird Moves

2026-03-19 10:50

My Claude account was banned for some unknown reason, but it still sends me ads. Shameless.

Pocket Hugo Theme Ready for Launch

2026-03-17 12:49

Recently, while developing the Pocket Hugo project, I've also been simultaneously developing a Hugo theme suitable for Pocket Hugo—the one this site is currently using. Since it's my first time developing a theme, I've been looking for cases to study and imitate, and I've basically built it according to my own ideas. But there are bound to be omissions. I kept remembering to handle the RSS template, but I forgot it in the Hugo.toml settings, which led to all 400+ articles' RSS feeds being output last night. Apologies to those who subscribe to this site. The theme is currently in its final polishing phase and is expected to go live in a couple of days.

Pocket Hugo Officially Released

2026-03-16 11:56

After some time of preparation, the main features and key details of Pocket Hugo have been addressed, and it is now officially released on Github. I encountered many issues along the way and racked my brain for solutions. Actually, two days ago, I had already released version 1.0.0, which worked very well on desktop browsers and showed no major problems on Vivo phones. But when I switched to iPhone, I discovered a host of issues, including iPhone's default LocalStorage being too small—uploading a few images crashed the entire page—plus the iPhone's built-in input method being problematic, Canvas being inefficient, and default font settings affecting UI display. After two more days of polishing, version 1.0.3 is now finally settled.

My original intention in building this project was purely for personal use. If you have similar needs, feel free to give it a try.

Liu Zongyuan's "On Feudalism"

2026-02-26 13:40

Today, I read Liu Zongyuan's "On Feudalism." He said that the era of Yao, Shun, and Yu was already feudal. According to the historical periodization I learned before, this claim is absurd—weren't Yao, Shun, and Yu in primitive society? How could they be feudal?

On second thought, Liu Zongyuan wrote, "Feudalism was not the will of the sages, but the result of circumstances." He wasn't discussing institutional details; his "feudalism" was more like a trend: power moving from decentralization to centralization, and society moving from equality to stratification. If viewed this way, the Yao-Shun-Yu period did already have the rudiments of a "core controlling the periphery."

Archaeology at the Taosi site confirms this. The ancient city, large tombs, and ritual objects from over 4,000 years ago show that social stratification was already clear. A capital ruling over surrounding small settlements—this pattern of "large states encircling small states" does resemble later feudalism. But it's not the same thing. Western Zhou feudalism had lineage laws, ritual music, and clear investiture ceremonies—a complete institutional design. The Xia and Shang were more of a "regional lords" or "co-chiefs" model, where the strongest became the leader, while subordinate states had their own armies, territories, and governance systems, and the central authority couldn't control much.

What I found truly interesting was not the answer to "whether Yao, Shun, and Yu were feudal," but how the question itself should be asked.

I recalled materials from Feng Shi's On Civilization that I had read earlier: artifacts from the Kuahuqiao site over 8,000 years ago have characters identical to oracle bone script, and burial patterns from the Hongshan culture are exactly the same as those on the lacquerware of the Zeng Hou Yi tomb from over 2,000 years later. These examples show that before the Shang and Zhou, this cultural symbol system had already been stably transmitted for thousands of years. Writing, trigrams, ritual concepts were not suddenly invented by the Shang and Zhou—they took shape slowly over a long accumulation.

So now I think Chinese history should be seen in two layers.

The upper layer is institutions: tribes, co-chiefs, feudalism, commandery-county—forms change, governance techniques upgrade. The lower layer is civilizational concepts: the understanding of cosmic order, the legitimacy of power, the use of symbols and writing—these things have continued from 8,000 years ago to the present without a break.

Feudalism could succeed not just because the Duke of Zhou designed it well, but because the "cultural sphere" beneath it had existed for a long time. The vassal lords were willing to recognize a common Son of Heaven and a common set of rituals because they already shared the same conceptual system. Qin could implement the commandery-county system because this underlying identity was strong enough that it didn't need feudalism to maintain it.

Looking back at Liu Zongyuan's "circumstances," I think he was right, but didn't go far enough. "Circumstances" is not just the trend toward centralization of power, but the power accumulated bit by bit by civilizational concepts over a long time. Institutions are just the temporary outlets this power finds.

The Character "Beng" Kept Me Busy for Half a Month

2026-02-15 21:34

Recently, a character has been echoing in my mind. In Shuangfeng dialect, "hide" is "do beng," and "hide away" is "beng zhe." This "beng" is pronounced like the Mandarin "ben" (stupid), but the meaning is completely unrelated. As a child, I didn't think anything of it—I just said what the adults said. Later, when I occasionally wondered how to write this character, I found I couldn't.

At first, I suspected it wasn't "hide." Although Shuangfeng pronunciation is quite different from Mandarin, there are traceable conversion patterns—"cang" can't become "beng." So I thought, maybe it's another character.

I guessed a few. The character "屏" (screen) has a meaning of concealment, and its pronunciation is somewhat related, but it felt forced. The character "弆" has the right meaning but the wrong pronunciation. I looked through a Loudi dialect dictionary and found a character whose definition was "place, arrange"—I thought that might be it, but on closer inspection it was "摆" (bǎi), whose pronunciation is completely different.

Later, I saw an entry in the dictionary with the definition "hide (something)" and the pronunciation marked as "pɔ," but the entry was preceded by a square box. This is common in dialect dictionaries, indicating that the original character hasn't been verified. That is, the dictionary compilers themselves didn't know how to write it.

What truly made me let go of this obsession was a screenshot from another page. In that page, all entries with the pronunciation "p'ǎi" were marked with square boxes. "Hide" was p'ǎi, "drive" was p'ǎi, "bump" was p'ǎi, "close the door" was p'ǎi, and "pig eating" and "dog biting" were also p'ǎi. The same pronunciation corresponded to seven or eight different meanings, each without a corresponding Chinese character.

Then I understood: from the start, I was looking in the wrong direction. This isn't about a rare character being forgotten; rather, there exist in spoken dialects a batch of "sound-only" words—sounds without characters. The Chinese character system was designed for Mandarin and written language; many everyday local expressions never entered the writing system—they were only passed from mouth to mouth for centuries.

My hometown's "beng" is probably the same. It might come from a long-dead ancient character, or it might never have had a character at all—just that the people of this region are used to saying it. Either way, I can't write it down.

After half a month, I finally decided to accept it. Some things simply have no corresponding Chinese characters; language is much larger than writing.

Some Archaeology Looks Like a Mystical Art Too

2026-02-10 16:02

Today, I came across an archaeological video claiming that the "Taosi South Gnomon" was discovered on the coast of Shapa, Yangjiang, Guangdong—a marker for the southernmost point of "All under Heaven" measured in the era of Yao and Shun. At first glance, it's quite striking: over 4,000 years ago, Chinese ancestors could measure from Shanxi all the way to the South China Sea—what wisdom and organizational power that would require.

But on closer reflection, doubts arise. How could people of that era cross the Qinling and Nanling mountains to accurately measure such a distance? If such a large-scale surveying project truly existed, wouldn't there be some remains at the site?

I began to look up the original sources of this claim. It turns out that the proponent was He Nu, the archaeological team leader at Taosi. In 2006, with a GPS device and based on the "26,000 li from north to south" recorded in the Book of Documents·Canon of Yao, he used the gnomon ruler unearthed at Taosi to back-calculate a conversion of "250 meters per li," then drew a straight line south along Taosi's longitude on an electronic map, eventually locking onto a point in Shapa Town, Yangxi County.

The whole process surprised me. It felt more like a "digital survey" than traditional archaeological excavation. No Taosi-period artifacts were found at the site; the only thing that could be linked to the "South Gnomon" was a mountain ridge extending from north to south into the sea.

A more critical issue came later. I measured the straight-line distance from Taosi to Yangjiang at about 1,580 kilometers. But according to the "26,000 li" conversion, it should be 6,500 kilometers—a discrepancy of over four times. This contradiction is so obvious that I began to suspect that the so-called "26,000 li from north to south" might refer to the total length from the North Gnomon to the South Gnomon, not from the Central Gnomon to the South Gnomon. But even then, no one knows where the North Gnomon is, so the entire system is still built on sand.

After all this, I finally understood one thing: the "Taosi South Gnomon" is not an excavated artifact, but a hypothesis drawn on a map. It's interesting and imaginative, but far from "historical fact." Media reports placing it alongside the "Nanhai I" shipwreck is a real overstatement.

Looking back, I almost believed it at first. Not because I wasn't alert, but because this kind of narrative is too appealing—it pushes the boundaries of Chinese civilization to the South China Sea early on, satisfying a certain emotional need. But precisely this "just right" feeling is why we most need to ask: is it true?

Chatting with Auntie

2026-01-07 15:22

These past two days, while visiting relatives back home, I chatted with many of them, mostly about everyday matters. But when talking with my aunt (my mother's elder sister), she mentioned some things that were new to me.

Grandfather's Grandfather

My aunt said she was puzzled why my grandfather's parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all buried in a place called "Datangchong," which is not near the traditional residential areas of my grandfather's family and is even several villages away. I briefly recalled some passages from Zeng Guofan's Family Letters mentioning that after Zeng Guofan's mother, Lady Jiang, died, she was originally buried in Qidou Chong but later moved to Liangping Mountain, mainly because of the good feng shui there. Then my aunt recalled that my grandfather's grandfather had been a steward in Zeng Guofan's household, named "Zeng Jihong." I immediately looked it up on my phone and found that Zeng Jihong was Zeng Guofan's second son—so the names couldn't be the same, right? My aunt said it wasn't "Ji" but "Zhi," because in our local dialect, "Ji" and "Zhi" sound the same. After some verification, we found that my grandfather's grandfather was actually named "Zeng Zhihong," and his generational name was "Zeng Jikun," born in the second year of Tongzhi (1863). He was indeed a clan brother of the same generation as Zeng Guofan's sons Zeng Jihong and Zeng Jize, and during the Guangxu period, he helped manage the Zeng family's old estate.

Village Committee Elections

My aunt mentioned that her granddaughter wanted to go back to her hometown to run for a village cadre position. Since my aunt is nearly 20 years older than my mother, her granddaughter is actually my classmate from childhood—the eldest daughter of my second cousin (my aunt's daughter). She was indignant about it, saying that the township government's election process isn't "democratic" enough. She listed four or five neighboring villages where the newly appointed village party secretaries were all daughters of so-and-so, all in their early 30s. This indeed felt novel to me, because our village also had a "female village party secretary" before, and my cousin had recently considered running for it. But the final outcome was that the daughter of the previous female party secretary was elected as the new secretary. The main reason is that village party secretaries now receive decent pay—over 4,000 yuan per month in rural areas, much better than working outside, and more than double the wages of those working in local supermarkets or gas stations.

Traffic Accident Settlement

My aunt recalled the compensation after my uncle (her husband) died in a traffic accident. After the at-fault party paid compensation, the village party secretary at the time asked her to give 3,000 yuan to the police station as a "thank you fee." But my aunt consulted a relative who works in the procuratorate, and that relative advised that there was no need to pay a "thank you" fee—these compensations were due, and the police station was just doing its job without "exceeding authority." She said she thought about it for a long time before realizing that the village party secretary might have come up with this idea to curry favor with the police station. She sighed repeatedly, saying, "It's good to have connections"—if she hadn't had a relative in the procuratorate who understood these things, she might have been taken advantage of.

Grandson Doesn't Want to Marry

The biggest headache for my aunt's family now is her only grandson, now over 30, who has no interest in getting married. This nephew of mine I've watched grow up; he was quite sensible as a child, unlike some other kids in the neighborhood who went astray. But he wasn't good at studying—after junior high, he soon went to Yunnan alone to make a living, and later opened an auto repair shop there by himself. He doesn't like his mother (my cousin) to come over, always feeling that having his mother around would limit his freedom. For the past ten years or so, he's been living and working on his own. Every year when he comes back for the New Year, the family arranges many blind dates for him, but he still seems "childish" and simply has no interest in marriage. Since my aunt only had three daughters, this grandson was born through "matrilocal marriage" (inviting a son-in-law to live with the wife's family). But after my uncle passed away a few years ago, the "son" who was invited in also died of illness the year before last. Now the whole family has only this one male heir. My aunt is nearly 80 and doesn't know how many more years she can wait for her grandson. Whenever she talks about it, she tears up, and I don't know how to comfort her.

Strange Dreams

2026-01-03 06:12

Last night, I slept with my two children. Perhaps we played too wildly on the bed before sleeping, and the blanket ended up heavy on one side and light on the other, almost giving me a cold. During that time, I seemed to have continuous dreams—at least four different ones, as far as I can remember. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I recalled most of them, but after breakfast, only two outlines remained.

Dreaming of Lei Jun

I'm not a Mi fan, but I do admire Lei Jun. Somehow, I dreamed of him. The dream went like this: I was walking with a friend (I can't remember who) and we met Lei Jun. After a few kind words, he gave us two phones. Upon checking, they turned out to be the yet-to-be-released Xiaomi 80. Then, somehow, the scene shifted to a Xiaomi phone launch event. We were sitting in the backstage lounge playing with phones, watching Lei Jun speak through the glass. On a long table, each seat had a new phone, supposedly rewards for grassroots employees of Xiaomi, and Lei Jun was going to have dinner with them. I opened the phone and saw that the UI design was Samsung-style, not MIUI at all—but I figured it was a prototype before the launch, so I didn't find it unusual. That phone had several features that impressed me:

1. The screen could light up locally—when the feature was on, only the area your eyes were looking at would light up. If reading an ebook, only the lines you were focusing on would be illuminated.
2. There were gamepad buttons on the back.
3. The screen brightness could go infinitely low—so low that in a dark environment you could barely see the text, a blessing for night owls.
4. The phone was slightly thicker, said to be indestructible no matter how you dropped it.

Dreaming of Tang Monk

After meeting Lei Jun, we left the launch venue, walking across rooftops from one to another. Somehow, we ended up in a desert. Suddenly, we saw an underground palace ahead, like a nine-story pagoda inverted on the ground.

Then, a Tang Monk appeared beside me, saying there was a demon in the pagoda and he needed to go in to subdue it. On the right, a strongman appeared, saying there were people singing underneath, maybe a KTV. After watching them jump down one after another, I thought it didn't seem too hard. So I jumped too, but halfway down, I was bounced back by the pagoda and landed in a tea garden. In the tea garden, Tang Monk was picking tea leaves, and the strongman was digging soil. I took out my phone to livestream them, but as I broadcasted, the scene shifted to me playing games in an internet cafe.

Then, my son kicked me in the stomach, and I woke up.

The Loss of a Nameplate

In the winter of 1994, the heads of Foshan University and Foshan Agricultural and Animal Husbandry College sat down together to discuss merging the two schools and upgrading to an undergraduate institution.

This was supposed to be good news. Foshan University had been officially established since 1986 and had nearly ten years of history as a junior college; Foshan Agricultural and Animal Husbandry College had over forty years of heritage. Merging the two and upgrading to an undergraduate level was of self-evident significance to Foshan, a city then at the starting point of economic takeoff.

On November 28, 1994, the Guangdong Provincial Government formally submitted to the State Education Commission the "Request for Instructions on the Upgrade of Foshan University" (Yue Fu Han [1994] No. 297), requesting that Foshan University be upgraded from a junior college to an undergraduate institution, and suggested retaining the name 'Foshan University'.

On December 31, one month later, the National Higher Education Institution Setup Evaluation Committee reviewed Foshan City's demonstration report and approved the merger and upgrade. However, the State Education Commission simultaneously made a decision that surprised everyone: the name 'Foshan University' could no longer be used; only the name 'Foshan ×× College' could be used.

The reason was not complicated. According to the new requirements for university establishment at the time, a junior college upgraded to an undergraduate institution could not directly retain the "University" title used during its junior college period. The gap between "College" and "University" would later take Foshan people a full thirty years to cross.

The name had to be changed. After soliciting opinions from all parties, the school initially proposed three alternative names to the municipal government: Foshan Science and Technology College; Foshan United College; Foshan International College.

The Foshan municipal government and the school preferred to retain "Foshan University", as the nameplate had already gained a good reputation in society. But in the face of policy, wishes had to yield. On January 19, 1995, the Provincial Higher Education Bureau convened a merger meeting and finally determined the new name as Foshan Science and Technology College.

In March 1995, the State Education Commission officially issued the document: "Foshan University and Foshan Agricultural and Animal Husbandry College shall be merged to establish Foshan Science and Technology College. This institution shall be at the undergraduate level, and the establishments of Foshan University and Foshan Agricultural and Animal Husbandry College shall be revoked."

The nameplate "Foshan University" was thus taken down. The only two remnants left were: the "Foshan University" sign at the school gate was never removed; and the English name Foshan University continued to be used for international exchanges. These two details were later regarded by countless "Foda" people as a kind of "spark".

From then on, "Foda" became a folk nickname, while the awkward name "Foshan Science and Technology College" became a lingering "heartache" over Foshan.

A Mismatched Alliance

Fast forward to 2005. Foshan Science and Technology College launched its first renaming effort, and everyone thought, how hard could it be to get back what was lost?

In 2006, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology grandly announced an even more ambitious plan: to integrate Foshan Science and Technology College, Guangdong Vocational College of Science and Technology, and the Guangzhou base of the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to form "Guangdong University of Science and Technology". This was listed as one of the province's "Top Ten Scientific and Technological Innovation Plans" for that year.

If this plan had materialized, Foshan would have had a top-tier science and engineering university with a "national" background as early as 2006.

But this "marriage of the rich and powerful" ultimately died in the womb. The reason was not complicated: who would take the lead?

Foshan Science and Technology College was a municipal university under the Foshan municipal government; the Guangdong branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was a national research institution under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with completely different administrative affiliations. Who would control the personnel, finances, and assets after the merger? How would staffing be calculated? Who would be the president? No one wanted to play second fiddle, so they eventually went their separate ways.

This failure cost Foshan Science and Technology College a shortcut to rapid upgrading and destined it to move forward step by step on its own.

Strict Entry Barriers

At almost the same time, the Ministry of Education issued a document that later gave countless "Colleges" a headache: "Provisional Regulations on the Establishment of Regular Higher Education Institutions" (Jiao Fa [2006] No. 18). This document set the bar for upgrading from "College" to "University" to a visibly high level:

• Full-time enrolled students no less than 8,000, with master's degree students accounting for no less than 5%;
• At least 3 major disciplinary categories, at least 10 master's degree programs, and having produced more than 5 cohorts of master's graduates;
• Proportion of full-time teachers with doctoral degrees no less than 20%;
• Average annual research funding over the past 5 years no less than 30 million RMB;
• No less than 20 provincial or ministerial-level research awards, including at least 2 national-level awards.

This set of standards effectively drew a tall and rigid scoring line for all "Colleges" aspiring to rename. In 2006, Foshan Science and Technology College lagged in every aspect. Especially the requirement of "10 master's programs + 5 cohorts of graduates" was a total time trap.

Even if master's programs were approved immediately, it would take at least until after 2015 to accumulate 5 cohorts. Time was the biggest enemy.

The Long Accumulation of Degree Programs

Among the hard indicators for renaming, master's programs were an unavoidable hurdle.

Foshan Science and Technology College made relatively smooth progress on this path. In 2010, the college obtained the qualification of "New Master's Degree Authorization Project Construction Unit", equivalent to getting a "birth permit"; on July 19, 2013, the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council officially approved the college as a Master's Degree Authorizing Institution.

Before that, the school had jointly trained master's students with Sun Yat-sen University, South China University of Technology, and other universities for many years, but that was "borrowing a hen to lay eggs", not its own achievement. Counting from the official approval in 2013, the timeline to accumulate 5 cohorts of master's graduates was pushed to around 2021. This also explains why the renaming took so long.

Shift to Science and Engineering

2015 was another watershed. That year, Foshan Science and Technology College was selected as one of the first batch of Guangdong Province's high-level science and engineering universities. This was a provincial strategic arrangement: Foshan is a major manufacturing city and needed a science and engineering university that deeply served local industries.

Thus, the school launched a dramatic discipline restructuring that could be called "a warrior's amputation": science and engineering schools expanded from 5 to 12, humanities and social sciences schools shrank from 6 to 3, 15 majors with weak industry connections were suspended, and the proportion of science and engineering majors jumped from 29.8% to over 62.5%.

The school's 2018 yearbook clearly recorded: "Achieved the transformation from a comprehensive university to a science and engineering university."

This step was thorough and painful. A large number of humanities teachers faced job transfers, and many traditional majors were directly cut. But the effects were immediate: science and engineering ratios, research funding, university-industry cooperation, and other renaming hard indicators rose rapidly, and the school finally had the confidence to aim for the "University" title.

Two Blocked Paths to Renaming

With the boost from the science and engineering transformation, the school began to charge toward "provincial-level naming".

First attempt: Guangdong University of Science and Technology (2019)

In September 2019, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Education publicly announced its approval for Foshan Science and Technology College to be renamed "Guangdong University of Science and Technology". The provincial level had passed; only the Ministry of Education's approval was pending. The expert panel originally planned to visit the school for inspection in early 2020, but then the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, and the inspection was suspended. Subsequently, the Ministry of Education suspended all renaming approvals nationwide and prioritized the conversion of independent colleges.

Then came an even bigger blow—

In August 2020, the Ministry of Education issued the "Interim Measures for the Naming of Higher Education Institutions", which explicitly stipulated that institutions should not, in principle, be named after geographical names outside their host city. Foshan Science and Technology College was a Foshan municipal university, so applying for the "Guangdong" prefix was a cross-regional naming violation.

This meant the "Guangdong University of Science and Technology" plan was dead.

Second attempt: Guangdong University of Technology (2020-2021)

After "Guangdong University of Science and Technology" was blocked, the school once amended its charter to change its sponsor from the Foshan municipal government to the Guangdong provincial government, and re-submitted a proposal for "Guangdong University of Technology". At that time, some postgraduate admission adjustment information even directly stated "Foshan Science and Technology College (soon to be renamed Guangdong University of Technology)".

But the new Ministry of Education regulation still blocked this path: even for provincial universities, if they are not in the provincial capital, they still need to include their location in the name, such as "Guangdong University of Technology (Foshan)" or "Guangdong Foshan University of Technology", but such lengthy names with parentheses were ultimately unsatisfactory.

In the end, the school abandoned the "provincial name" route.

The Final Push for Renaming

After giving up the "Guangdong" prefix, the options before them became "Foshan University of Technology", "Foshan University of Science and Technology", or "Foshan University".

The school ultimately chose the latter. The reasoning was clear: "Foshan University" was the school's historical name, with extremely high local recognition and historical heritage, and it avoided labels like "Technology" or "Science" that could restrict the school's future direction. Moreover, the Foshan University English name that had been consistently used for international exchanges was like a seed buried for nearly thirty years, finally waiting for the day to sprout.

But choosing "Foshan University" raised a problem: "University" demands higher disciplinary comprehensiveness. After all, calling it "University" rather than "University of Technology" means it must support the word "comprehensive" in terms of disciplinary breadth.

So, after the major "amputation" of humanities in 2015, the school began a new round of "replenishing" humanities—

Thus, before applying for "Foshan University", the school had rebuilt several humanities and social sciences colleges, restoring the schools that had been cut in previous years. In the end, it pieced together a comprehensive university framework covering science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, economics, management, humanities, law, education, arts, and interdisciplinary studies, totaling 11 disciplinary categories.

In those years, when we returned to school for activities, we were often confused: one moment it was called "School of Political Science and Law", then "School of Economics, Management and Law", then "School of Law and Intellectual Property", and later separately established as "School of Law". Some majors within the college were suspended midway and then reopened, while others disappeared entirely. Some alumni, upon returning, had no idea which school they should look for.

The Dust Settles

In August 2023, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Education again announced its intention to apply to the Ministry of Education for renaming to "Foshan University".

On May 29, 2024, the Ministry of Education officially issued the approval.

From the revocation of the name "Foshan University" in 1995 to its re-approval in 2024, a full thirty years had passed. If counting from the first renaming effort in 2005, it had also been twenty years.

Over these thirty years, the school followed a tortuous M-shaped or U-shaped path:

• First, losing the "University" name (1995, forced to become a "College");
• Then, seeking external help (2006, failed merger with the CAS branch);
• Next, internal reform (2015, shift to science and engineering for survival);
• Then, upward sprint (2019-2021, "provincial name" twice blocked by policy);
• Finally, returning to the original identity (2024, "Foshan University" restored). But before returning, it had to complete the disciplinary puzzle again.

Afterword

Some say, it's just a name change, why make a fuss over thirty years?

But looking back at this history, you will find that every shift in renaming goals was a repeated game between policy direction, local interests, disciplinary logic, and practical conditions. The school was like a "Transformer" pushed around by various forces—cutting humanities for "science and engineering" one moment, rebuilding them for "comprehensiveness" the next; wanting to squeeze into the "provincial" ranks, then having to accept its "municipal" identity.

Every turn meant that the internal disciplinary structure, faculty staffing, and college setups had to be torn down and rebuilt.

In 1995, "Foshan University" became "Foshan Science and Technology College"—a nameplate taken away by policy, gone for thirty years. In 2024, "Foshan Science and Technology College" became "Foshan University". But this time, it was no longer the junior-college-founded school of the past, but a high-level university with doctoral programs, 11 disciplinary categories, and 6 disciplines in the top 1% of ESI global rankings.

From loss to return, a full thirty years. The nickname "Foda" had been called by Foshan people for thirty years, and finally could be hung at the entrance with dignity.

Fortunately, the nameplate did return. But for a local university, hanging the "University" nameplate is never the end. The truly long road lies after hanging it.

The Age of AI

I started tinkering with websites in college. Back then I used WordPress, bought the cheapest shared hosting for a few bucks a month, and the domain was still a subdomain. I didn't know anything, but I just went for it. When PHP threw errors, I copied them into Baidu to search; when CSS didn't align, I used F12 to inspect each element one by one. Later I moved to VPS, from compiling environments to configuring Nginx, to MySQL charset encoding issues—I fell into every single pit more than once. To be honest, if you asked me to write a PHP function from scratch now, I probably couldn't—I've forgotten all the syntax.

But in the past few years since large language models came out, I've noticed a particularly interesting phenomenon: those who have never tinkered with servers or written a line of code can only use AI at the level of "help me write a Snake game." Meanwhile, although I no longer read code, I can get AI to build an entire suite of things for me. Last year I used AI to create a Hugo theme, a companion CMS, and an intelligent arbitration case management system. The whole workflow included local OCR for element extraction, conversion to SQLite vector storage, semantic desensitization with BERT, and only then handing the desensitized data to a remote large model for document generation. Almost all the code was written by AI, and I didn't read most of it.

But I could direct it to write it.

What's the difference? The difference is that I know what this thing should look like, I know what data each step requires, and I know where the data flow comes from and where it goes. I know what can be handed to AI and what absolutely cannot. I know how to draw boundaries for it.

Tools of the Old Era

So when I saw that paper, my first reaction was that the things it was measuring were fundamentally problematic.

It used middle school and high school exam scores to measure the impact of AI. But what do those exams test? Memory, repetitive training, and proficiency in specific question-type patterns. These are precisely the areas where AI excels. You take a ruler specifically designed to measure "who remembers the most," and use it to measure a tool that "helps you skip memorization"—how could the results not be bad?

It's like when I was in middle school in 2000, my math teacher handed out a booklet filled with square roots, cube roots, and specific values of trigonometric functions—1.414, 1.732, 2.71828, 3.14159... The teacher said at the time that just memorizing a few commonly used ones was enough, most were useless, and computers and calculators would handle the calculations later. Sure enough, manual square root extraction was no longer a required topic.

Back then, no one said "math education is doomed" because of the proliferation of calculators. Everyone knew that math is not about calculating—it's about thinking.

AI is the same.

AI as a Foundational Skill

I increasingly feel that AI is like paper and pencil. The power of paper and pencil isn't that they can write, but that you can write anything with them. You can write mathematical proofs, judgments, mechanical drawings, or love letters. It's a "meta-tool" with no fixed purpose—its use is determined by the user's imagination.

But most people nowadays use AI at what level? They take a photo to ask for answers, type "help me solve this problem," and copy the result. This is like a kindergarten kid scribbling 123 on a wall with a pen and thinking they've mastered math. Writing a "Hello" and thinking they've mastered composition. This isn't a problem with paper and pencil, nor is it a problem with AI—it's a misunderstanding of the tool itself.

Truly capable learners use AI in a completely different way. They break down problems, design workflows, draw boundaries for AI, and cross-validate results. They don't treat AI as an "answer machine," but as a "collaborator." The gap here isn't about "knowing how to use AI"—it's about "knowing how to think."

The paper mentioned that 20% of students who used AI didn't see their grades decline. I'm particularly curious about how that 20% used it. My guess is that they're most likely not the kind of people who take photos to search for answers.

So, what is the purpose of learning, really?

The Purpose of Learning

After the advent of AI, my thought is simple: learning is about understanding and mastering the application of tools. But tools aren't just apps on your phone or AI chat windows. Tools also include your way of thinking, your logical chains, and your understanding of how a domain operates. True learning is about transforming yourself from "the person pressing the shutter" into "the person composing the shot" in front of AI.

No matter how fast you press the shutter, you won't become a photographer. But if you know how to compose, how to light, how to express emotion, and AI just helps you clean up that photo a bit—that's using a tool.

I used to think those days of tinkering with code were a bit wasteful, since now AI can generate in ten seconds what used to take me a full day of熬夜 to write. But I don't think that way anymore. Those detours gave me an extra layer of something—I can't quite put it into words, maybe a sense of "systems," or an intuition for "boundaries." In any case, it kept me from panicking or worshipping in front of AI, and instead I naturally started directing it to work.

This is probably what learning truly leaves you with. It's not a simple memory, not a fixed answer, not even a skill.

It's that set of feelings—"where to go, when to stop, what not to touch"—that grows in your mind after countless failures.