We’ve heard it before, in essays that go viral, in late-night YouTube spirals, in Instagram quotes scrawled over stormy mountain vistas: “Comfort is the enemy.” The modern life, we’re told, is too padded, too sanitized, too safe. Our climate-controlled rooms, our same-day deliveries, our curated playlists — all lull us into spiritual numbness. A life too easy, they say, dulls the soul. They’re...
In the Chinese-speaking world, sentences often end before they are truly finished. And yet, listeners understand. That’s the efficiency of language—and the subtlety of power. “You shouldn’t do that.”“Be considerate of your parents.”No explanation needed, no room for reply. Beneath such phrases lies an entire apparatus of discipline: a structure that defines what is proper, normal...
Every now and then, the internet confuses itself with a court. Then a bonfire. Then a battlefield. This past week, a sordid affair involving a Chinese hospital doctor and a trainee lit up the nation’s social media. What should have been a localized scandal—a doctor cheating, allegedly abandoning a patient mid-anesthesia—swiftly metastasized into a nationwide referendum on medical training...
In its April 17 feature, Xinhua News Agency unveiled what it framed as a monumental stride: the solidification of “Cultural China”—a term now woven tightly into the fabric of contemporary Chinese statecraft. The article, brimming with celebratory metrics and proclamations of global recognition, extolled China’s cultural industries, public services, and international outreach. On...