Ever met someone who loses a fight but still walks away feeling like the winner? Meet Ah Q, Lu Xun’s unforgettable everyman who turns every humiliation into a personal victory through sheer mental gymnastics. In these opening chapters, we watch a narrator struggle just to name his subject—and then witness Ah Q’s legendary ‘spiritual victory method’ in glorious action.
Category: Advanced (50)
Ever complained about a gloomy, sunless week? Try a whole year of it. Back in 536 AD, the sun dimmed to a mere ghostly glow, and no one alive had any idea why.
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Famous story: 《故乡》- Hometown by Lu Xun
If you’ve ever returned home after many years of absence to find that you had changed and grown, while everyone else had stagnated, this famous short story by Lu Xun, one of China’s greatest all-time writers, is for you.
Today’s reading, Autumn Remembrance, was written by Shi Tiesheng in 1981 and describes a paralyzed young man’s slow, painful realization, only after her death, that his mother had been quietly dying of cancer while absorbing his rage and dedicating her final years entirely to keeping him alive.
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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.
An article about diet and nutrition from Xinhua News, with a side of sneaky kiwi advertising.
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.
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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.
Ever wondered how birds manage to fly thousands of kilometers without ever stopping to ask for directions? No Google Maps, no compass, no ‘turn left at the next cloud’ – and yet they never get lost. Let’s explore the mind-blowing ways these feathered travelers find their way across the planet.
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Geography: 霍尔木兹海峡 – The Strait of Hormuz
In today’s reading, we’ll tackle an encyclopedia-style passage about the geography and history of the Strait of Hormuz.
In this advanced read for sports lovers, we learn that Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup yet again.
Today, we’re reading the first chapter of a beloved 1958 children’s novel by 张天翼 (Zhāng Tiānyì), “The Secret of the Magic Gourd”.
This is the first part of the first chapter of the modern literary sensation, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan, an autobiographical book about life as a gig worker in China’s platform economy.
This idiom, “破釜沉舟”, literally translates to “smashing the pots and sinking the boats.” It’s used to describe going all-in on a goal with your whole heart and mind, leaving yourself no path for retreat.
At the 2026 Two Sessions, China’s largest annual legislative meeting, pharma exec Wu Xiangjun makes policy suggestions on how to keep China’s overall consumption numbers up, even as the population ages.
This tragic story identifies the victims of the Lake Tahoe avalanche, which claimed the lives of eight people (with one still missing at time of writing), including six mothers from the San Francisco Bay Area who were out on a ski trip.
Read the renowned Xu Zhimo’s famous poem about his time studying at King’s College, Cambridge in the 1920s.
NASA is dusting off the lunar playbook and getting ready to send humans back to the moon for the first time in over 50 years! This article covers the nail-biting preparations for a historic rocket launch.
Think Earth’s resources will last forever? Think again! China just announced a major initiative to mine the moon and asteroids for rare metals and helium-3. This article explores how space mining might become humanity’s next frontier – and why it could be easier than digging really, really deep into our own planet.
Written by Zhang Muye, this ultra-famous fantasy series is about a team of cursed tomb raiders. The novel reads like a mix between Indiana Jones and ancient Chinese ghost stories.