Fresh explainers, culture news, practical guides, and evergreen stories for readers who want to understand China with context.
Walk into an elevator in Shanghai, Shenzhen, or Chengdu, and you will notice something missing. The button for the 4th floor is often not there. Press where 4 should be and the door may …
Walk into the British Museum’s Room 33 and you will see a vitrine of pale blue-and-white plates, all dated 1330 to 1350. The cobalt-blue floral …
You spot a yin-yang sticker on a laptop bag, or a tiny taijitu pendant in a souvenir shop, and the vendor tells you it means “good and evil in …
You walk into a coffee shop on Shanghai’s Anfu Road. On the menu, a flat white costs ¥38 and is named 醒狮 (lion dance, the wake-up lion). The cup …
If you picture a dragon as a fire-breathing, treasure-hoarding beast that knights must slay, you’re thinking of the wrong dragon. The Chinese …
Have you ever watched someone write Chinese calligraphy and thought, That looks impossibly hard? The brush glides, the ink flows, and somehow a few …
When you look at a bronze mirror from the Tang dynasty, you are not looking at a simple reflective surface. You are looking at a carefully crafted …
Long before Gutenberg assembled his press in Mainz, Chinese craftsmen were carving entire pages of text and illustration into single blocks of pear or …
Chinese Jade Culture: From Neolithic Talismans to Modern Luxury Long before porcelain, silk, or bronze captured the world’s imagination, there …
Horses have been woven into the fabric of Chinese civilization for over three thousand years. From the legendary “heavenly horses” of …
Chinese Bronze Vessels of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties: The Art That Shaped Chinese Ritual Life In the dim light of the Shanghai Museum’s bronze …