English Essays
-
Humans See Meaning; Machines See Numbers
AI increasingly sounds warm, patient, and human, which makes it easy for us to imagine that it understands and feels the way we do. But while humans make sense of language through experience, emotion, memory, and context, machines begin with… Continue reading
-
Why Chinese Gods Seem More Like They Respond to Human Life
In many Chinese traditions, gods are not imagined only as distant authorities demanding submission, but as beings closely connected to ordinary human hopes, suffering, family life, fate, and the search for help. This essay reflects on why that relationship with… Continue reading
-
Chinese Is Not Thin — Its Beauty Simply Arrives Late
For many children growing up abroad, speaking Chinese at home is not enough to keep the language truly alive. Its deeper richness often appears only after they move into reading, history, idioms, poetry, writing, and complex expression—when Chinese begins to… Continue reading
-
Why I Have Never Been Able to Believe in “the Lord”
This essay explores why I can understand the comfort Christianity offers, yet still cannot accept the idea of relating to God through “Lord” and “servant.” Shaped by a more Chinese spiritual instinct, I can believe in fate, cause and effect,… Continue reading
-
Zhongyong Is Not About Smoothing Things Over — It Is About Seeing Human Complexity
This essay reconsiders zhongyong not as indecision or compromise, but as the ability to see complexity before making a judgment. Moving from Freud and Adler to immigration, success, and self-understanding, it argues that real balance means resisting simple explanations while… Continue reading
-
“Just Keep Writing”: I Never Expected Those Words to Come from My Mother
A long phone call with my mother gave me something I had never expected to hear from her: “Just keep writing.” It made me think differently about persistence—not as a promise of success, but as the choice to keep living,… Continue reading
-
Did Chinese Education Hold Her Back, or Did Education Abroad Make Her? The Question Itself Is Too Simple
Wang Hong’s story is often reduced online to a simple narrative: Chinese education suppressed her, while education abroad finally allowed her talent to flourish. This essay argues that her development was far more complex — shaped by strong early training,… Continue reading
-
Did Chen Lihua Build a Fortune Worth Tens of Billions Through Hard Work Alone? 90% of People Overlook These Two Things
This essay argues that extraordinary success is rarely the result of hard work alone. Ability matters, but so do historical timing, personality, judgment, decisiveness, and luck; effort cannot guarantee success, yet it still matters because it prepares us to recognize… Continue reading
-
We Keep Saying “Bitterness First, Sweetness Later” — But Some Sweetness Has an Expiry Date
This essay reflects on what children may lose when joy, play, and curiosity are repeatedly postponed in the name of a better future. Through Alicia’s childhood, the author’s own memories, and the image of her grandmother saving good oranges until… Continue reading
-
Why Are Chinese Parents So Intensely Competitive Today? Chen Lihua’s Generation Had Already Given Us the Answer
Many Chinese parents push their children so hard because they grew up in an era when sacrifice, education, and relentless effort really could transform a family’s future. But as the world changes, parents may need to offer children something more… Continue reading
