Meet Cao Cao, Chinese history’s ultimate bad guy – but was he really as bad as his reputation makes him out to be?
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There’s nothing worse than technology failing you right before a deadline.
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Famous essay: 《背影》by Zhu Ziqing
Of all the essays Chinese students read in school, this might be the one they remember longest. 《背影》, or My Father’s Back, is barely 1,500 characters, and almost nothing happens in it. A young man is leaving his hometown after his grandmother’s funeral. His father insists on seeing him off at the train station. That’s the essay. But the author describes the scene in a simple, beautiful way that encapsulates a father’s love for his son.
Today’s post is a very short Tang Dynasty poem written by Wang Wei (王维, c. 701–761), also known as Mojie. During his lifetime, Wang was a prolific poet, and also traveled widely as a civil servant / official, working for the emperor. I picked up this poem from Phil H.’s Tang Poetry Substack, which you should absolutely subscribe to if you want to practice reading the classical poets, but I made a different translation of the text.
Ever had your brain convince you that you’re definitely about to be mugged? We’ve all been there – heart pounding, palms sweating, ready to fight or flight. But sometimes, the ‘villain’ chasing you has a very different agenda than you imagined.
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Short story: 最后一个苹果 – The Last Apple
This little story shows what happens when a family of three each decides to save the last treat for someone else.
What can a barber learn from fifty years of cutting hair? Turns out, quite a lot about human nature.
An article about diet and nutrition from Xinhua News, with a side of sneaky kiwi advertising.
What would you do if everything you drew came to life? Meet Ma Liang, a poor orphan boy with big dreams and zero art supplies, who discovers that sometimes the universe rewards those who refuse to give up. This classic Chinese folk tale has it all: a magical gift, greedy villains, and one very satisfying ending for a corrupt emperor.
In this short story, a melancholy robot stays awake all night, considering how strange it is that humans sleep.
In this relatable dialogue, a convenience store clerk chats a bit with his customer, since both of them are awake in the middle of the night.
Ever walked into someone’s house uninvited and helped yourself to their food? Yeah, probably not a great idea. Join Goldilocks as she learns this lesson the hard way.
Today’s post summarizes The Chicken Feather Letter, a classic Communist children’s novel written in July 1945, while he was working as a war correspondent for Xinhua News Agency embedded with anti-Japanese resistance forces in northern China.
One little pig learned the hard way that laziness doesn’t pay off when a hungry wolf comes knocking.
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Dialogue: 李红的新头发 – Li Hong’s New Haircut
Poor Wang Ming finds himself in a predicament when Li Hong shows off her fresh new hairstyle.
In today’s post, we’ll read the first chapter of Ba Jin’s famous novel The Family. Set in 1920s Chengdu, The Family follows three brothers in the wealthy, tradition-bound Guo household as they each respond differently to the crushing weight of the old patriarchal system — one submitting, one resisting quietly, and one breaking free.
If you want to read Chinese ghost stories and tomb raiding novels like Gui Chui Deng, you’ll have to learn the tomb-raiders vocabulary; and what better way to do that than by reading about the ancient pyramids?
Everyone knows the story of the poor little bird that didn’t quite fit in – now you can read the classic tale in Chinese.
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Essay: 在手机上买东西 – Shopping on My Phone
Why leave your couch when the entire mall can come to you? In this passage, we learn some easy vocabulary related to mobile shopping.
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History: 黑死病 – The Black Death
This non-fiction article dives into the terrifying story of the bubonic plague – how it wiped out up to half of Europe’s population and, surprisingly, ended up giving the survivors a better deal in life.