English Essays
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Writing: Leaving Yourself a Path Back
This essay reflects on writing as a way of preserving the small memories, emotions, and ordinary moments that time gradually blurs. Writing may not stop time, but it can leave us a path back—so that years later, we can still… Continue reading
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Putting the Fallen Leaves Back on the Tree: The Way of Writing I Only Learned Later
This essay is about discovering that sustainable writing needs more than a constant supply of new topics. When separate memories, thoughts, and essays began to connect back to the larger structure of my life, writing stopped feeling like an endless… Continue reading
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The Real Turning Point in Life Is Not Getting Rich
This essay is about realizing that the real turning point in life did not come when my circumstances suddenly improved, but when I finally began to understand my own experiences and stopped being driven by fear. Writing helped me look… Continue reading
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When Writing No Longer Needs a Topic
This essay is about discovering a different way to write: not by constantly searching for topics or forcing yourself to produce, but by staying connected to life and letting words grow naturally from that connection. For me, writing began to… Continue reading
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Are Rules Meant to Keep Things Running—or to Prove That We Follow Them?
A small argument over a forgotten check-in card leads me to think about something much larger: why some people instinctively follow rules while others first look for a practical solution. From warehouse work and public queues to Chinese renqing and… Continue reading
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After Midlife, Stop Forcing Yourself Down a Path That Drains You
A friend in his forties leaves a career in media technology because he fears being replaced by AI, only to discover that the supposedly safer path drains him even more. Looking back half a year later, I began to wonder… Continue reading
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Good Luck Isn’t in the Coin, but in the Mindset
Alicia spends two Lunar New Years hoping to find a lucky coin hidden inside a dumpling, but this year she slowly realizes that luck may mean something very different. Through a small family tradition and an unexpected change in her… Continue reading
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If You Go Back Without New Understanding, Every “Second Chance” Is Just Repetition
We often imagine that life would be better if we could go back and choose differently. But without a change in how we understand ourselves, relationships, and the world, a new beginning may simply recreate the same patterns in a… Continue reading
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Planting a Flag in a Fast-Moving Stream of Thought
For me, writing is not mainly about showing my thoughts to other people. It is a way of preserving the places my mind has truly reached—planting a flag before fast-moving thoughts, memories, and realizations disappear, so that one day I… Continue reading
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When Even Freedom Requires Permission, Why Do Germans Still Long for Order?
Germany’s rules can feel restrictive, slow, and exhausting, yet many of the same rules also create the stability and safety people rely on. Through a conversation with an elderly East German woman, this essay reflects on why nostalgia for order… Continue reading
