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Rachelle
Dec 23, 20242 min read
Down duvets from the Tang dynasty
Little things that make life better...
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Rachelle
Sep 23, 20242 min read
The Moon on Demand
Some useful tricks for a moonless Mid-Autumn Festival.
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Rachelle
Jul 1, 20242 min read
A Quirky Indicator of Summer Solstice
A fifteenth-century account
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Rachelle
May 20, 20243 min read
A legendary louse
An anecdote about Wang Anshi from an eleventh-century biji collection.
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Rachelle
May 13, 20242 min read
Xie Lingyun 謝靈運 (385-433) and his hiking clogs
An ancient Chinese hiker and his gear.
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Rachelle
Apr 29, 20242 min read
How to get your cat pregnant... without a male cat
An excerpt from the Bencao gangmu 本草綱目.
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Rachelle
Apr 22, 20243 min read
A Joke About Speaking Mandarin
From the 19th-century collection Xiaolin guangji 笑林廣記.
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Rachelle
Mar 18, 20242 min read
A joke for the planting season
A reminder for those who work with others in the field/garden.
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Rachelle
Feb 5, 20242 min read
An Anecdote about Zhu Yuanzhang's 朱元璋 (1328-1398) Magic Power
相傳高皇帝時初起太學，上臨視之，顧學制宏麗，聖情甚悅。行至廣業堂前，偶發一言云：“天下有福兒郎，應得居此。”迄今百四十年來，學生居此堂者，往往占魁選，躋位通貴，他所不及也。又諸堂中都無蜘蛛云。上來時，見蛛布網屋隅，曰：“我纔建屋，爾輒據之耶？”顧叱之出，語訖而蛛遯，從茲遂絕...
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Rachelle
Jan 15, 20242 min read
On the Importance of Good Handwriting
A joke from the Ming-dynasty collection Jieyun ji 解慍集.
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Rachelle
Jan 1, 20243 min read
On the Jiujiu xiaohan tu 九九消寒圖 (nine-by-nine winter-repelling design)
A little spring-summoning game.
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Rachelle
Dec 4, 20232 min read
樊增祥《爽翁惠咖啡余誤為鼻煙》“Old Shuang gave me some coffee as a gift; I mistook it for snuff”
An amusing incident about coffee in China.
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Rachelle
Nov 27, 20232 min read
An Omen on a Moonlit Night
An anecdote from an 11th-century history.
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