English Essays
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My Daughter Is Like a Little Heroine, but I Need to Teach Her When to Sheathe Her Sword
Alicia saw her friend crying and did what came naturally to her: she comforted her, protected her from embarrassment—and then went to confront the boy who had upset her. I was proud of the instinct behind it, but it also… Continue reading
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Scolding a Child Ten Times for Being “Careless” Is Less Useful Than Teaching Them What Being Careful Actually Looks Like
Alicia kept making mistakes in math problems she actually knew how to solve—misreading signs, skipping steps, and failing to catch errors even when she checked her work. It made me wonder whether telling a child to “be more careful” means… Continue reading
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For Ordinary Parents, Real Foresight Means Seeing Early What Suits Their Child
Real parental foresight is not only about money, education, or access to resources. Sometimes it means seeing a child clearly enough to recognize both her limitations and her possibilities, and helping her find a path that suits her before she… Continue reading
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What a Country Built on Rules Fears Most Is the Slow Erosion of Shared Rules
A quiet afternoon at a German campsite began with coffee, sunshine, and a board game played almost meticulously by the rules. But the longer I watched, the more I began to wonder what happens when the habits that quietly hold… Continue reading
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Many Years Later, I Finally Learned How to Talk to My Mother
For years, I knew exactly what I could say to make my mother feel better, yet I could never quite bring myself to say it. It took one long video call—and years of distance, guilt, and reflection—for me to understand… Continue reading
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Five Years Later, a Bag of Rice from Africa Answered Yuan Longping on Behalf of the World
Five years after Yuan Longping’s death, a bag of hybrid rice grown in Guinea and delivered to his wife becomes a quiet symbol of a dream that continued beyond his lifetime. Through memories of hunger, family frugality, scientific work and… Continue reading
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On the Day of the Gaokao, I Suddenly Understood: A Parent’s Perspective Becomes the Road Beneath a Child’s Feet
Starting from the first day of the Gaokao, this essay reflects on how a parent’s perspective, judgment, and emotional support can quietly shape the roads a child is able to see. Parents cannot decide a child’s fate, but the worlds… Continue reading
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Reading Isn’t About Collecting Quotes. It’s About Transformation.
This essay reflects on why reading matters less as an exercise in collecting quotes or summarizing books, and more as a process of digestion and transformation. A book becomes meaningful when something in it connects with our own experiences, changes… Continue reading
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What Does the Platform Really Reward: Reading, or the Persona of “Someone Who Reads”?
This essay looks at the difference between reading itself and the highly visible persona of “being someone who reads” online. It asks whether platforms truly reward slow, honest engagement with books—or the more attractive illusion of growth, discipline and intellectual… Continue reading
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When a Former Weishang Power Player Contacted Me Again, I Finally Saw the Narrative Clearly
When a former weishang leader who had once built a team of ten thousand contacted me years later with yet another “new opportunity,” I began to rethink what her success—and my own failure—had really been made of. Looking back, I… Continue reading
