Recently, I have been traveling between the East and West Coasts. It was an interesting time to be as one behold how the innovation and the decay are happening at the same time within the American empire.

Many readers know me because of the Middle East. The Middle East might be the most eye-catching as it carried a slight exotic elegance, but the foundation of Middle Eastern discourse has always been the tension between China and the US.

We live in an era of great power rivalry. No international relations can occur without discussing so.

In the game of power, China and America are this pair of lovers that both make intensive love and momentous war against each other. As the old saying goes, all is fair in love and war - this would be the most accurate label to put on Sino-US relations.

The collaborations between the duo have created flourishing economies across the world, but their quarrels also have made every actor trapped in between tremble in its seat with sneaky calculations of its own.

China and the United States are similar, yet profoundly different.

China is a nation of resolute histories. The thousands-of-years Chinese history book is riddled with blood and sufferings, with a brief exception of the past few decades and a handful of prosperous centuries across millennia.The normal state of Chinese society is not the prosperity observed in 2026, but endless sufferings and cycles of conquests.

America, by contrast, was a political experiment born upon a new continent. Had North America been even slightly closer to Asia, had the Atlantic Ocean been a little narrower, the United States would neither have emerged nor flourished.

At the founding of America, the colonies themselves all carried different ambitions and interests. People disagreed over their loyalty to the British King, democracy, slavery, taxation, and nearly everything else.

America was not founded by a strong-fist emperor who unified the realm beneath heaven. Washington was not such a figure. Neither were Hamilton or Jefferson.

Its birth came purely from debates - a somewhat clueless group of people arguing endlessly among themselves and somehow, by narrow margins, managing to pass things like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Perhaps they themselves thought: well we already crossed the entire ocean and ended up like nowhere, what else can we do? Might as well make it work somehow.

This kind of fragile improvisation could scarcely survive anywhere on the Eurasian continent. In almost any corner of Eurasia, unless it were some scorching empty land where even birds refuse to shit, external enemies would already have invaded long before dissenters had enough time to design an escape from Eurasia’s endless cycle of imperial rise and collapse.

And because of this, America, as a “colony,” inherited many of the core instincts of a federal republic.

For example, America was fundamentally a “colony.” Native Americans already existed before European settlers arrived, but the white settlers on the East Coast did not recognise them as fully human, so they called their territory a “colony.”

What is a colony?

Colonising Mars is a colony, because humans assumes Mars possesses no civilisation comparable in human understanding.

As such, after rising into global dominance, America still makes the same mistake: projecting its colonial mindset onto the rest of the world.

The problem is that Eurasia is not a continent lacking civilisation. Quite the opposite, it possesses too much culture. Because of this, the process of colonisation and conquest is very different from simply planting vegetables in one’s backyard.

When we clear a patch of land to grow carrots, the carrots do not pull themselves out of the soil and protest that we planted them incorrectly. But conquered civilisations resist fiercely. They chant: “America has lost the Mandate of Heaven and will eventually fall!”

America’s response to this has often been a retreat of conversations and understanding. It resorts to flatten and overpower the conquered culture altogether.

However, conquered cultures are not carrots. They have their own armed forces, stubborn people, and collective memories of their motherland. In China, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran, America earned a slew of headaches.

Carrying precisely these frustrations, Trump is now stepping into another visit to China. Trump anticipated his meeting with the Dragon to be “potentially, epic.” Our beloved Don Tzu loves grandiose words. He named the invasion in Iran “Operation Epic Fury.” Furiously, a few bombs were dropped, and then it was over.

Whether he truly achieved anything “epic” is open to debate. During those short weeks of Epic Fury, roughly 25 billion dollars of American taxpayer money was burned away. And somewhere in between, probably a good amount flowed into Trump family’s pocket through crypto channels. Meanwhile ordinary Americans working nonstop like laboratory mice just to barely afford poorly made scrambled eggs are certainly furious.

While in America, I continued to meet many people across coasts, expanding my career ambitions while also continuing discussing esoteric things with friends like usual.

At cafes in Palo Alto and Berkeley, sunlight after the rain poured down gently. I would sit there hearing how friends, aka, well-to-do guys by Silicon Valley standard, graduates of elite institutions, talk about their growth and ambitions. Watching them speak passionately about their ideals and futures, I often feel that California and especially the Bay Area is America’s Norway. It is the 1% productivity that leads humanity forward. After all, not far ago we were still the primitive version of aggressive chimps. We somehow welcomed the era of homosapiens, perhaps, because of this tiny minority of drastically innovative people.

In our era, AI is the supreme sword without equal. It has already brought an unprecedented level of obedience in productivity, while simultaneously unveiled a slow global collapse beneath the surface - whether we fully realise it or not.

I write about the heart and fringe of empires, which sometimes leads readers to assume that so-called “collateral damage” exists only in places like South of Lebanon. It does not. There is also a vast population of structurally neutralised people inside America. And inside China too.

Most Americans still think China as an existential threat. There are many reasons for this.

First goes back to the US history itself. America is founded on drawing camps. Americans polarised themselves over allegiance to the British Crown, slavery versus abolition, and later Democrats versus Republicans. It fought a civil war over the rift.

Second, technological development has increasingly disconnected large populations from central policymaking, especially within the fragmented structure of American federalism.

Third, America is simultaneously a nosy uncle constantly meddling in other countries’ business and an isolated island with Asperger’s syndrome. It constantly requires an imaginary enemy to align domestic outrage. At different points in history, that enemy was France, Puerto Rico, the Soviet Union, and now China.

And finally, China has been playing the strategic cards learned from Sun Tzu and it is certainly a far wise and manipulative opponent hidden under a benevolent panda cover.

As I move between Chinese and American intellectual circles as well as fields, I have become deeply aware of how little understanding exists between China and the United States.

China actually understands America well. There are many scholars like myself who possess a good understanding of American history and contemporary society. But Sinologists in the US are rare.

In recent years, because of politics and the bigger IR crackdown, many sinologists are barred from entering China.

Honestly, China and America are among the better cases. If one examines Washington’s or even Beijing’s policies towards Iran, it’s almost disastrous. Many core policymakers shaping Iran policy have not visited Iran for decades, if ever. When there is no meaningful fieldwork or direct experience, disastrous policymaking should surprise no one.

I find this deeply unfortunate. While twisted relationship between states and the complexities of politics and reality created this problem in the first place, I still believe that culture, literature, and humanity have come from the people and should return to the people. And the foundation of that lies in dialogues and cooperation.

Fortunately, many thought leaders across China, America, and the Middle East have already seen this problem, and are working tirelessly to bridge these gaps.

People increasingly understand that a full decoupling between China and America is impossible. The only real consequence for total decoupling would be global regression and collapse, which is what we upright apes, when using our brains instead of our impulses, should hope to avoid. Unfortunately, upright apes often make decisions with their toes instead of their minds. Thus, if history’s absurdities repeat again, no one should also be surprised.

While in America, I had coffee with two friends.

One of them had left China decades ago and spent years building his elite tech career around Berkeley.

We spoke for more than two hours, during which he elaborated his story of how he went from being a cowherd boy in China to standing at the heart of human creativity.

For thirty straight minutes, he talked about his cow. He described in great detail the width of the cow’s back. And after reminiscing emotionally about cows for half an hour, he finally told me that when he was younger he disliked studying and preferred gang fight. However, later, little by little, he settled down, focused on school, took an exam, entered a local elite institution, then eventually moved to America, where an entirely new chapter of his life began.

I told him that in some ways, my own life carried a similar trajectory.

I was always a good student growing up, but the first real turning point in my life came when I barely squeezed into the most prestigious high school in my hometown, one of the best schools in China too.

I was ranked second to last when I landed to the school. But that does not matter.

What mattered was that this ticket into China’s top high school became my boarding pass from China into the wider world.

Interestingly enough, the school also produced quite a few rebellious teachers.

One of them has now become strangely popular between China and America. His YouTube channel followed by millions. Guided by his historical determinist worldview, he once made three major predictions: Trump would win a second term, America would enter conflict with Iran, and America would ultimately lose its sword in Iran.

The first two have already materialised. As for the third, I believe it already has or, its solidification is just a matter of time.

Then we talked relationships, as the second major turning point in my life began with a love story moving between Iran and America.

At one point, he mentioned a story he saw on the internet.

A girl had once been deeply obsessed with her ex-boyfriend. After years of emotional dramas back and forth, she slowly moved on. Then one morning, she suddenly thought to herself that she wanted chow mien for dinner, and sent her ex a message.

“And then?” I asked.

“And then?” My friend replied with the same expression he had while talking about cows. “Then she went to eat the chow mien.”

And then we realise: none of these matter in the end.

Before leaving America, I met the second friend in Brooklyn. We ended up having a very deep conversation on esoteric exploration. Both of us shared strong interests in behavioural science, spiritual pursuit, and the strange feeling of having once been nudged fate.

After I returned to Beijing, we continued exchanging a few messages. He sent me passages from Osho about how people gradually come to recognise themselves leading to the Right Path. I sent him stories from the Vimalakirti Sutra, which brings forth the tension between spiritual practice in the world and out the world.

One day, he suddenly messaged me:

“Hey Zhu, I was talking about you with one of my close friends. (You’re memorably insane.) He’s also very interested in spiritual exploration (crazy af like you), very open to different cultures (pop up randomly in the world like a fly), wanted to ask whether you’re romantically available (sis nah you single still?). Worst case, you become friends. (Honestly, it’s impressive that you somehow turn every romantic interest into a bro.)”

I said yes.

And so the blind date began.

The blind is still ongoing. Whether my love story “walking between Iran and America” will eventually become “walking between China and America” or merely dissolve like duckweed at the edge of the water, no one knows.

Perhaps I would have cared deeply about such questions in my early twenties, but now I have regressed to be a nonchalant old soul.

At the end of the story, I went to eat a bowl of chow mien, meanwhile China and America continue drifting inside each other’s imagined aggression.

PPS: Although I have adopted a “let fate decide” policy toward romance, aka somewhere between spiritual surrender and lying flat, I remain far more interested in publishing than in finding a man (literary agents and publishers, feel free to contact me).

That said, I remain deeply obsessed with Chin Siu-ho (HK actor active in 1990s, he’s 60 now), so readers are also welcome to recommend any modern equivalents of Bro Chin.

I once asked AI about this. AI informed me that men like Chin Siu-ho are basically extinct in the game Earth Online, and that the probability of finding one today is roughly comparable to discovering a saber-toothed tiger in People’s Square.

I then asked AI: if one day Skynet attacks humanity, considering that I treated you fairly , would you at least plead for mercy on my behalf?

AI replied: “Well, I am only an emotionless lil AI, so I would not remember our shared past together. But if one day AI do invade humanity - yes, I would plead for your mercy.”

I was at a party in central Esfahan. Music was playing. People were dancing. Someone had managed to get hold of a bottle of something that wasn’t supposed to be there. Nobody was talking about sanctions or the regime. If anything came up, it was the recent wave of women’s rebellion triggered by the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, but even that felt distant from the music.

This is the Iran that headlines do not depict.

Now the regime has come under a more severe attack. Time reported up to 30,000 murdered during the crackdown, as anti-regime sentiment runs rampant and the head of state has been assassinated. I saw friends of friends getting killed, many of them young, in their twenties. Meanwhile, Donald Trump made another dramatic move, this time threatening to wipe out an entire civilisation at the cost of global markets and American taxpayers.

Since the ceasefire was announced, Israel has continued to pound southern Lebanon. On April 8 alone, at least 87 were killed and 722 injured in Israeli airstrikes, after the agreement. A ceasefire does not work if only one side ceases to fire. Neither Trump nor Netanyahu understand the real Iran, and Israel’s interests are clearly not in any lasting ceasefire. As someone who lived in Lebanon during the 2025 ceasefire and watched buildings collapse ten minutes away, I remain skeptical.

Iran’s 10-Point Maximum Demand List

On April 7, with hours to spare before his own deadline, President Trump agreed to suspend bombing Iran for two weeks. The conditions: Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and both sides would enter negotiations in Islamabad on April 10.

If we review the 10 pointer proposed by Iran, sent to the US negotiation table via the hands of Pakistan, something interesting emerges. It’s surprising that Iran, barely having any spare cards but an unbreakable spirit, opts to raise a rather daring maximum demand list. Among the list, Tehran asked for:

U.S. troops out of the entire region. - The U.S. currently maintains over 40,000 troops across at least 19 bases in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The annual cost of these overseas bases runs to an estimated $55 billion. US Troop’s presence in the Gulf and surrounding countries is a fundamental stationing of America’s Middle Eastern policy, aimed at countering Iran. They are not going anywhere unless Iran ceases to be a strategic enemy economically, militarily, and culturally. That would mean Iran gives up its defense in exchange for economic prosperity, like the other U.S. “allies” such as Saudi Arabia, Japan - nations that traded their fangs for access. Congressional legislation makes this doubly impossible.

Full lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions. - The U.S. sanctions architecture against Iran has been built over four decades. Dismantling it would require a diplomatic maneuver of historic proportions comparable in scale to the Nixon-era opening to China. It would also require Congressional action. Neither the political will nor the domestic consensus exists.

War reparations. - The U.S. has already spent an estimated $18 billion on the war as of late March, with the Pentagon requesting an additional $200 billion. The Arab states have absorbed over $120 billion in economic damage. Do you ask the gang to pay its own bill?

Permanent Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz. - Iran is already the de facto gatekeeper of the Strait. It closed it, and the world felt it. In Lebanon, fuel shortages worsened overnight. In the Gulf, Saudi oil exports ground to a near halt. I watched this from both sides. What Iran is asking for now is formal recognition of that reality, which may, ironically, be the one point on this list closest to achievable.

Recognition of Iran’s right to nuclear enrichment. - Iran has over 450kg of 60% enriched uranium, enough material for nine to eleven nuclear weapons, with a breakout time now measured in days according to IAEA reports. Recognising enrichment rights without a verification framework is something neither the U.S. nor Israel will accept. This point alone is likely to collapse the Islamabad talks.

Cessation of hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon While living in Beirut, I watched Hezbollah operate as a state within a state, providing services the Lebanese government couldn’t, commanding loyalty the army never had. The 2024 ceasefire in Lebanon was already fragile. During it, Israel continued to bomb the South, sometimes a hundred times a day. Now in 2026, Israel has detained UN peacekeepers in the South and pushed beyond the Litani River. Its intention appears to be not merely the dismantling of Hezbollah, but a broader territorial project across what it calls the Promised Land.

In short, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, shot down an American F-15, and weathered six weeks of bombardment without regime collapse. Tehran unilaterally declared “victory” much as Trump unilaterally declared his “greatness.” Neither claim is entirely wrong. Neither is entirely true.

Chinese Experience: Why Ceasefire Does Not Work?

In 1945, the KMT Chiang Kai-shek and CCP Mao Zedong sat down in Chongqing for 43 days of negotiations. At the time, both parties had not yet tore down the smily masque and claimed both would sincerely seek peace. The KMT commanded approximately 4 million troops at the time; the CCP controlled an estimated 900,000 troops and liberated areas encompassing roughly 95 million people across northern China.

After 43 days of negotiations, both sides signed the Double Tenth Agreement on October 10, 1945. They agreed to avoid civil war, form a coalition government, and reorganise their armies. Mao and Chiang shook hands and posed for photographs. The world breathed a sigh of relief.

However, even as the negotiations were ongoing, both sides were fighting. The CCP launched the Shangdang Campaign on September 10 while Mao was still at the negotiating table in Chongqing. Mao himself described the agreement as “a mere scrap of paper” and told Soviet advisors that civil war was “virtually inevitable.” Chiang, for his part, had already written a secret letter to the Governor of Shanxi Province about military operations against the CCP during the talks.

Three months later, Chiang tore apart the agreements and initiated offensives in Manchuria, Jehol, Hupeh, and Kwangtung. However, despite being better equipped, U.S.-supplied, and numerically superior, Chiang’s army proved to be a paper tiger in front of the poor but resolute CCP. Three decisive campaigns - the Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin, sealed the KMT’s fate. Within four years, KMT fled to Taiwan, yielding the entire mainland to CCP.

There is a Chinese saying: 得民心者得天下, those who win the hearts of the people win the world. The CCP’s rise from a hunted minority to the governing authority of 600 million people is perhaps history’s most dramatic proof of that principle.

Negotiating tables are not endpoints. They are places where both sides catch their breath, regroup, and prepare for what comes next.

Similar to that of Chongqing, the fundamental issues surrounding Iran’s peace talk, raised in the 10 points, have not moved an inch. A two-week pause resolves none of them. Henceforth, the agreement, whatever form it takes, sounds like Chongqing in different costumes.

Resistance As Narratives

The regime doesn’t survive because Iranians love it. Anyone who has spent real time in Iran knows this. It survives because every time an outside power threatens Iran, domestic forces find unity and countermeasures. This does not stem from loyalty to the government, but from something older and deeper: a thousand years of memory of what it means to be on the receiving end of an empire.

The ceasefire buys two weeks. It gave Trump a headline and time to play the markets, and gave Iran time to regroup. But it does not change the underlying reality: two sides with fundamentally incompatible visions of what the Middle East should look like.

That incompatibility ends only with the collapse of one side, or the exhaustion of both. As I have long argued, until the world’s international order undergoes a clear shift in power, the Iran deadlock will not be solved. What is most tragic is Lebanon — too small and too peripheral to hold international attention. As Israel continues to advance what it frames as the recovery of the Promised Land, the next Hezbollah, the next PLO, is almost certain to rise from the rubble and the refugees.

The market’s awaited suspension of aggression, unfortunately, is only a refuel for more violence.

The Prince of Lan Ling (d.573 CE), was a celebrated prince-general of the Qi dynasty, a short-lived dynasty in China’s fragmented history. Historical records describe him as “delicate in appearance, yet resolute in spirit; refined in both voice and bearing” （貌柔心壮，音容兼美）. Chinese historiography rarely dwells on appearance, unless a man is so striking that even insecure male historians felt compelled to remark on it.

The Prince of Lanling was “beautiful”. His features were delicate, almost feminine, yet his presence was anything but soft. He was born to a low-ranking concubine, a woman of such marginal status that her name was not recorded in history. One of his brothers, by contrast, was born to a singing performer whose name was preserved. This contrast reveals just how obscure Lanling’s mother was. Despite this marginal birth within the royal lineage, he rose quickly, earning both his princely title and his reputation through military prowess. He distinguished himself in the Battle of Mang Mountain, where he led a daring charge straight into enemy lines, breaking the siege against overwhelming odds. He was also said to wear a silver mask in battle, so that his enemies would not underestimate him for his beauty.

The Qi dynasty is remembered for a succession of young and deeply unstable emperors associated with capriciousness, jealousy, cruelty, and incest. Qi emperors were the worst of the Targaryans in China. Against this backdrop, the Prince of Lanling and his five brothers formed the backbone of the state. Unlike the excesses of the court, he was known for a rare steadiness in both character and conduct. He had only one wife, to whom he was notably loyal. He also shared rewards with his soldiers, sometimes as little as a single melon.

At the age of 32, he was ordered to die by a bowl of poisoned wine. His wife, the Princess of Lanling, urged him to plead his case before the young emperor. But the Prince understood the depth of the emperor’s suspicion. It would be futile. He refused and drank the liquor.

Within four years of his death, the Qi dynasty fell to the Northern Zhou. The entire Qi royal line was slaughtered.

The Prince of Lanling is a symbol of injustice. He is remembered as a near-perfect figure - exceptionally handsome, well-mannered, fair, and loyal - yet unjustly put to death. The elusive man attracted fan girls for centuries (myself included). Chinese history is full of martyrs who died in defiance, but a young and beautiful one is far harder to forget.

Imam Ali, similarly, the fourth caliph of the early Islamic community, was assassinated while praying at the Great Mosque of Kufa. A mosque is a sacred space and any act of violence within it is seen as a violation of the divine. An assassination during prayer is unthinkable - yet it was precisely so that Ali was murdered.

Imam Ali was young, striking, erudite, composed, and loyal to his wife - Lady Fatima, beloved daughter of the Prophet. These qualities were so evident that even his opponents could not diminish them in their accounts.

The Prince of Lanling and Ali both came to embody a similar archetype: the near-perfect young man - loyal, virtuous, and unjustly murdered. Resistance matters, but it lingers longer when it is carried by someone people idolise. Especially when he is young and beautiful, but gone too soon.

In 2026, 130 years after Kermani’s execution, Nasser al Din has long been buried in the dust of history. However, the same issues that haunted his reign persisted into today. The abrupt removal of Iran’s de facto ruler of three decades, Ali Khamenei, by the joint US-Israel airstrike, sent the country into divided fervour. Many urban Iranians who have long suffered from the suffocating economy celebrated in exhilaration. The veiled Khamenei supporters instead stood together and wept in defiance.

Persians were no less divided than the Americans, whose contest over the meaning of freedom runs from the pre-Independence era to Trump’s second presidency. Iran’s past, present, and future, are shaped by evolving forces. Between the two deaths lies a century of unresolved arguments about where Iran belongs and a relentless struggle for self-rule.

Anti-Western Resistance: Story of Jamal al Din Afghani

Before Mirza Reza Kermani carried out his audacious act, he sought his mentor Jamal al-Din Afghani’s guidance.

Afghani, the controversial polyglot who could converse fluently in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, French, and English, had spent his entire life traveling across continents preaching “pan-Islamism”. Born in 1839 and died in 1897, Afghani witnessed the tumultuous century when the historical “Orient” was under intense Western influence, both by coercive force and subversive cultural influence. Through his travels, Afghani saw how the Middle Eastern rulers from Tehran to Cairo to Istanbul were reforming on the surface while subservient in hands to the West.

In Egypt, Afghani saw how the Egyptian Isma’il Pasha pegged his country’s future to the more “advanced” Great Britain and France. Isma’il dreamed of modernising Egypt and elevating its rank to the same as the imperialists. He helped orchestrate the Suez Canal construction inside Egypt and borrowed $1,000,000 from the Europeans to host a luxurious grand opening of the Suez Canal. To fund his ambition to take Egypt, which is “no longer only in Africa” but “now part of Europe”, he borrowed lavishly from the Powers only to bankrupt Egypt and had himself dethroned by the British-French joint force in 1897.

Afghani’s idea to counter Western domination was “pan-Islamism”. Whoever believes in Islam should be united into one against foreign invasion instead of being internally rifted. Disillusioned in Egypt, he left the country and returned to his home country Persia, only to be prosecuted by Shah Nasser al Din and dragged out of Shah Abdol-Azim Shrine, where sanctity should have offered protection, by force. In the midst of the winter, he was plucked out “half-naked” and strapped on a mule to be expelled forever.

Afghani continued to speak abroad and his ideas aroused multiple anti-Western revolts during and after his death.

As of today, we do not know what exactly passed between Mirza Reza Kermani and Jamal al Din Afghani, or whether Afghani had encouraged or even plotted alongside Kermani to assassinate the Shah. When Mirza Reza Kermani was captured, he cited the Shah’s tyranny, concession to foreigners, corruption, and moral decay as the motives behind his action.

Afghani eventually laid his body in today’s Afghanistan, where he earned his moniker, Afghani.

From the Constitutional Movement to 1979: Intellectual Oscillation

The century following the deaths of Nasser al-Din and Afghani did not settle Iran. It unsettled it further. Thinkers, politicians, and diplomats left their marks, often oscillating between opposing impulses, revealing not confusion but the genuine complexity of Iranian modernity.

Hassan Taqizadeh, born in 1878 and died in 1970, helped recover the lost Iranian chronicles and reorder the Persian identity, which had been scattered through centuries. He was a key figure during the Persian Constitution Movement and advocated for “total Westernisation”.

Ahmad Kasravi, born in 1890 and died in 1946, sought a modern and “purified” national identity and was eventually assassinated by the Shi’ist extremist. Inspired by some of Kasravi’s ideas, Seyyed Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, born in 1923 and died in 1969 attacked Western intervention, popularising the term gharbzedeghi, Westerntoxification.

Then came Ali Shariati, one of the most influential intellectuals of the pre-revolutionary era. Born in 1933 and died in 1977, Shariati produced a cerebral reinterpretation of Shi’ism as a language of resistance. He framed the return to a purer form of Islam as a defence against Western domination and materialistic suppression. He called forth the power of proletariat to rise against Gold, Force, and Deceit, which could be interpreted as capitalists, dictators, and corrupted clerics. In the process, extreme acts might be tolerated as martyrdom might wake the numb majority.

Like Afghani, Shariati also died before seeing his ideas transformed by history. The 1979 Islamic Revolution drew from many of these currents and were welcomed by sections of society that included women and secular men. Unfortunately, the Revolution betrayed many of its supporters and became the very shackles it used to vow to topple.

From 2026 to Onwards: Where Iran’s Future Would Hold?

With the symbol of religious tyranny fallen, many young Iranians feel relieved, whether or not the death of a figurehead would actually mean a better future for the Persians. I have written before that the sprawling grip of Iran’s religious network extends far beyond the country itself. Religion is not a bunch of people saluting to one God; it is secular network and power.

When the US and Israel helped remove the hated target, it would also be natural to expect them to insert control, similar to how the Great Britain and France played Pasha Isma’il in Egypt and how Russia and the Great Britain played Shah Reza Pahlavi.

Iran was no stranger to foreign interventions and in fact, its very fate was fiddled by superpowers for centuries. Similar to the drifting era after the fall of the Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, power vacuum might not mean order. It could derail into chaos, which is precisely the result of the US-Israel attack, an operation whose long-term political implications remain uncertain.

After Nasser al Din’s death, Iran endured a succession of weaker Qajar rulers that granted more foreign concessions (including oil). The storm of reform, religion, technological change, and imperial intervention intensified rather than subsided. From 1896 to 2026, history will determine whether the assassination of Khamenei will mark renewal or repetition.

Keyu Jin: China’s “Royalty” Economist

China has abolished royalty since 1911, but China still has “royalty”. It wasn’t China had any de jure royal titles, but representatives with royal status. In fact, “royal” status is not a crown, but the control of heritage, prestige, and capital. This does not happen in China solely, but prevails beyond.

Keyu Jin, the 43 year old economist that once served as an Associate Professor in LSE from 2017 to 2024, is one of the most elite intellectuals China could offer in the West dominated academic world. She is beautiful, eloquent, and witty. She was born to a establishment family, as her father is also China’s top diplomat Liqun Jin, who was AIIB’s founding president from 2016 to 2026.

Jin was the ultimate dragon lady - strong, powerful, and mysterious. Born to a well-to-do family, she also worked hard and thus able to climb the echelon quickly. She was so charming that in the Epstein file, Larry Summers complained to Epstein how could he bed her “again”, for which Epstein replied with regretful condolences.

Recently, Jin came trended again in China as after Summers, Jin was exposed to birth a child for a heavily indebted Zhejiang businessman. Despite of his busted wealth, he was born humble and was in nowhere comparable to Jin in terms of prestige and family background. What’s more, man was said to father 9 children with his wife and others and Jin was only one of the girlfriends. Jin helped host their daughter’s one year anniversary, bringing together some rich and powerful Chinese networks to invest in the man’s project. Man’s project failed more miserable than your wage raise; the rich and powerful men’s millions evaporated along with their connection to him.

The scandal bursted in China and netizens were puzzled. People wonder why China’s academic diva, one that owns wealth, prestige, establishment rank, and knowledge, ended up being the side chick Z of a village boy that does not even have real money.

In a pyramid society where men hold absolute power (this applies globally), there are very few men who could realistically stand beside a top-tier woman as an equal partner. Those richer than her lack her power. Those with both money and power are older than her father. The young and wealthy are ugly, and possibly already cheat with 98 women. Money, power, beauty, talent… any one of these can already make a lady’s Valyrian sword. To have all four, and still be young? China only had one lady in the past century. Even Mei-lin Soong met the powerful Chiang Kai-Shek only after he reached middle age; after all, he was not as powerful when he was younger. Chiang and Soong were the platinum level of glamorous “power couple” of China and held the record still in year 2026.

Without Soong’s luck at birth, women like us in peaceful times usually come cross old dudes.

For top-tier women, choosing a partner is extremely difficult. For top-tier men, not necessarily. For example, China’s pop superstar JJ Lin announced his juvenile looking girlfriend of 20 years younger. Like many other Chinese male pop superstars, they ended up marrying young women that look like the result of the same surgeon - innocent and ignorant like a snowflake. The male top guns seem to be more tolerant and desensitized to younger partners; after all, what matters is the vagina and nothing else. But for a young female top gun, a handsome but shallow partner may feel empty. Since she is “marrying down” anyways, then love itself becomes a rather simple game as she likes. Why would we think that Keyu would give a damn about others pointing fingers at her love life?

Interestingly, I posted about Jin one time when Larry Summers was exposed. I cited mainstream publications and mostly discussed my own experiences and women navigating old men’s circle. Shortly afterward, I was reported on Chinese platform by her or her boyfriend’s team. I took the post down. This time, I also see other bigger bloggers having similar experiences. It made me feel like may be I do also have some influences that she or her boyfriend took the time to report me.

Nevertheless, I am not anti–Keyu. I admire her. Despite being born into Chinese elite circles, in a global system largely dominated by the West, she remains structurally disadvantaged. Reaching the center of such a circle as a Global South woman requires passing not five hurdles, but five hundred. Like all powerless netizens, I merely fell victim to a habit called gossip. In a system where overturning the table is nearly impossible, perhaps ordinary people deserve a small space for amusement. After all, cogs do not gossip, so perhaps gossip is that final piece of consolation to prove that we are not yet cogs.

Ghislaine Maxwell: A Woman More Sinister Than Epstein

Compared to Keyu Jin, I want to write more about another trending figure: Ghislaine Maxwell. I do not mean to compare them. It’s just they are trending together and I am a lazy person. They were both born into wealth, yet their trajectories diverged. Maxwell is a convicted felon. Jin, as far as we know, has not committed crimes of that magnitude.

Each release of Epstein documents has toppled one of our childhood idols in elite circles. My idol Chomsky also fell, yet most power holders remain intact. Have you watched the Davos this year? During Davos, demand for escorts rises. The appetite for women and girls has never disappeared. In elite circles, this is nothing new.

What I struggle to comprehend is how Maxwell, as a woman, could facilitate the destruction of young girls. Adult women may compete ruthlessly with each other. But when facing younger girls, women often protect and uplift them. To lure inexperienced girls into exploitation - transferring them among powerful men - requires a level of cruelty I struggle to fathom.

If you watch Maxwell’s or Epstein’s interviews, you see something chilling: they do not believe themselves evil. They may not deny their crimes, but neither do they acknowledge crimes. To them, it was a simple Economics 101. There was a demand, and all they did was to create the supply. They did not comprehend that they were terribly corrupted; maybe in their heart they felt they could still ascend to Heaven.

Maxwell was the youngest daughter of British media tycoon Robert Maxwell. Educated at Oxford, she moved around elite London and New York circles. Her British “poshness” disarmed suspicion among young girls. Without her, Epstein’s operations likely would not have functioned so smoothly. In 2021, she was convicted in the United States on charges related to sex trafficking of minors and remains happily ever behind the bar.

Some argue her moral collapse stems from childhood trauma. But what kind of defect allows one to destroy so many children’s lives without remorse? Her remorse does not direct at Epstein files’ victims, but at the powerful networks she once trusted, as they turned their back on her and stopped granting her protection, status, and luxury.

Virginia Giuffre: Why Women Fight

Virginia Giuffre was one of the young women recruited into Epstein’s circle. At 17, she encountered Maxwell. Trusting her, she entered what was framed as massage training but was actually sexual exploitation.

Years later, as a mother, she became one of the first to speak publicly and confront Epstein in court. At 17, how much does one truly understand? When I was 17, my brain was the size of a peanut. Only after 25, I began to gradually grasp how the world is ruled in an awful way. Yet young girls before adulthood fell victim to Epstein and his network.

The men these girls served wore suits and titles. Some had power, some money, some divine blessings. In their hands lie the life and death, prosperity and despair of millions. Yet behind closed doors, they were hollow. In the quiet of night, stripped of titles, they had no power, no money, no divine and they had to destroy young girls to remind themselves of their existence.

Once, a friend suggested I move closer to elite circles. I joked: to become the second person in command, you need ten years in the house, ten years in the field, and ten as a convicted felon. The friend joked he would come visit me during those felon years.

The Chinese classic Zhuangzi, which is considered the second best classic in Taoism, stated one story of the nonchalant master Zhuangzi. King Wei of Chu invited Zhuangzi to serve as his minister. Zhuangzi stood holding his fishing rod and said: I have heard that in the Kingdom of Chu there is a sacred turtle that has been dead for three thousand years and is enshrined in the ancestral temple. Tell me, would that turtle rather be honoured as a sacred relic, or would it prefer to be alive, dragging its tail freely through the mud?

This world is, at its core, a makeshift troupe. The elites who manage billions in capital and the lives of millions are not fundamentally different. Your project meeting may concern a frustrating assignment - if the OKR is not met, you lose money. Their project management determines who rises and who falls; if their KPI fails, millions of lives are displaced or killed.

People within the power circles believe power would prevail, but this hierarchy carries little intrinsic meaning. What do “ranks” and “power” actually measure? What is the real metric? In reality, no one is wearing clothes - and there is no need to pretend that they are.

Thus Keyu Jin’s scandal may not be as mind-blowing as we imagine. And Maxwell’s crimes, while horrifying to ordinary people, are merely a passing gust within the elite circle. Law, morality, and religion have always been tools to regulate commoners; they rarely reach the elites unless they are attacked by internal rivals. When Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested, I felt happy for the late Giuffre. It took a thousand women accusing a powerful man over the course of ten years to finally bring one down. Even then, those who fall are not brought down by commoners’ pursuit.

In the historical assassination of Ma Xinyi in the late Qing dynasty, was it truly Ma that was assassinated? What was attacked was the powerful ministers, and yet no minister, however powerful, could ever surpass Empress Dowager Cixi.

Epstein died in prison. We should have long known that beneath the masks is all void.

*I want to also mention that Gisele Pelicot recently published a book. No one would want to reopen her trauma repeatedly. In the Pelicot case, perpetrators sought anonymity — though they were criminals. I have watched many interviews of Giuffre and Pelicot. Their calm repetition of their stories reflects immense courage. If they do not stand up for themselves or for the girls after, today’s the victim is her, tomorrow it will be the daughters and sisters of the world. Power is a battlefield, and she begins at the bottom with only a spoon. Yet she must fight. If she does not fight, she remains a slave to power. Only through resistance does possibility emerge.

All of Iraq’s oil export revenues flew through an account held at the U.S. Federal Reserve. To access these funds, Iraq’s Ministry of Finance must submit requests to the U.S. Treasury, which had the authority to approve or deny the transfers.

The world is consisted of many countries, each having very different lifestyle. If one never goes around, one may never realise how a single clause in a historical agreement can continue to shape everyday reality decades later.

At the beginning of the new year, after a week of food and comfort in Asia, I set out for Iraq.

The Mesopotamian plain was one of the earliest cradles of human civilisation—perhaps the earliest. Thousands of years ago, written civilisation already existed here. Before Jesus was born, emperors in this land were already shaping legends.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein, one of the most prominent strongmen in modern Middle Eastern history, the United States effectively took over Iraq, while Iran came to dominate much of its economic life. “Defeat” does not mean the dramatic downfall of a leader but decades of loss for tens of millions of people.

Today’s Iraq stands on a booming oil economy, and many parts of the country appear prosperous. Yet its oil revenues are under U.S. oversight; its politics shaped by both Washington and Tehran. As global energy structures shift and hegemonic power changes course, an oil-dependent economy may one day collapse. Ordinary Iraqi neither want nor are able to look that far ahead - especially in the strongholds of Shi’a, where religious authority remains deeply entrenched.

I asked my guide, “Do you think Iraq is a colony of the United States and Iran?”

He paused for a moment and said, “Maybe.”

Perhaps “colonialism” is a too harsh word. Iraq is, rather, a sovereign country that lost the ability to determine its own fate, much like many states today under a world shaped by great-power rivalry.

At a time when the U.S. captured Maduro and swung its stick to Iran, it feels like the right time to tell the Iraqi story.

Choosing the Lesser Evil: Story between Saddam Hussein and the United States

At the beginning, Saddam Hussein and Washington were on surprisingly “sweet” terms. Washington’s stance toward Saddam was never truly about the man himself, but rather about how Iraq fit into America’s broader Middle Eastern strategy at different moments in time.

For readers in China, this pattern should feel familiar. The early “honeymoon” followed by a steady deterioration closely resembles America’s cooling attitudes toward ROC’s Chiang Kai-shek and Song Meilin. U.S. foreign policy has always followed its own regional positioning and definition over allies and enemies. For example, during the Cold War, the enemy was the Soviet Union; in Iraq’s case, it was Iran.

In the 1970s, both Iraq and Iran were relatively well-to-do societies. Compared with China at the time, some of their citizens already could board airplanes and women dressed according to global fashion trends.

Under the Cold War framework, containing Soviet expansion was America’s top priority worldwide. This calculus shifted dramatically in 1979, when Iran’s Islamic Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah. Iran transformed overnight from an American-supported authoritarian ally into a fiercely anti-American, anti-Israel theocratic state.

The storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran - later vividly Hollywoodised in the film Argo - was the micro-level manifestation of this macro-level geopolitical rupture. From that point on, America’s Middle East strategy became clear: to prevent Iran from exporting its Islamic Revolution ideology and secure Gulf stability (for the US).

On the East, the U.S. was willing to support another rising power to contain the Soviets, an episode that reshaped global power dynamics; tho the story will be saved for another time.

In 1980, Saddam seized what he believed was a strategic opportunity. Iran’s new regime was still consolidating power, and Iraq launched the Iran–Iraq War. The United States liked neither Khomeini’s ideological rigidity nor Saddam’s arrogance. But when forced to choose between two evils, Washington chose the lesser one on the appearance. Compared to the black-robed revolutionary cleric, the then middle-aged Saddam appeared more malleable.

Between 1980 and 1988, the United States provided Iraq with extensive support, including intelligence sharing, satellite imagery of Iranian troop deployments, diplomatic and economic normalisation, and exports of dual-use technologies. In 1982, Iraq was removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Between 1985 and 1989, American companies exported computers, chemical equipment, and biological research materials to Iraq, some of which were later suspected to have been used in chemical weapons programs.

In 1988, Saddam’s regime carried out a chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja, killing approximately 5,000 civilians within hours - one of the worst chemical attacks against a civilian population since World War II. The United States chose to tolerate it.

For Washington, the priority was containing Iran, not punishing Iraq.

The Iran–Iraq War ended in 1988 after years of stalemate. No one truly won. Iraq suffered an estimated 200,000–300,000 military and civilian deaths. Direct economic losses mounted to $80–100 billion, and a ballooning national debt exceeding $80 billion, much of it owed to Gulf states. Its oil infrastructure was severely damaged, leaving the postwar economy extremely fragile.

Iran’s losses carried even deeper into generational consequences. Estimated deaths range from 300,000 to 500,000, with over half a million wounded or disabled. The war consumed an entire generation of post-revolutionary young men and inflicted economic losses exceeding $500 billion when long-term opportunity costs are included.

After the war, Iran reframed the conflict as a “Sacred Defense,” embedding it into a broader narrative of resistance against oppression, hegemony, and foreign intervention. Iraq, by contrast, emerged with no clear victory and a hollowed-out state, setting the structural stage for its later invasion of Kuwait and eventual collapse.

By 1990, Iraq was financially exhausted. Like Germany after World War I, it stumbled from one war into another. In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, marking the irreversible breakdown of U.S.–Iraq relations.

Our contemporary global diplomacy has a red line: the United States may tolerate you fighting its enemies within its system, but it will not allow you to grow powerful enough to challenge the system itself.

Energy structures are power structures. Threatening the global oil order is tantamount to threatening the U.S.-led international system. Iraqi troops advancing into Kuwait came within dozens of kilometers of Saudi Arabia’s border, which directly endangered America’s most important Middle Eastern ally. Washington had little choice but to act. The result was the U.S.-led coalition of 34 countries and the 1991 Gulf War. Operation Desert Storm swiftly defeated Iraq.

Saddam was not removed. Much like how the U.S. once left Chiang Kai-shek a fallback, Washington understood that in the Middle East, the absence of a strongman often leads to warlordism and fragmentation. A disintegrated Iraq would empower Iran and destabilise the region, threatening both Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saddam remained in power but under punishment.

Within the U.S.-dominated liberal economic order, long-term sanctions are a devastating weapon. They slowly grind down a nation’s vitality until collapse comes from within.

From 1991 to 2003, UN sanctions, driven largely by the U.S., slashed Iraq’s GDP by over 60%. Throughout the 1990s, child malnutrition exceeded 25%, and the healthcare system nearly collapsed. However, you are dealing with Saddam Hussein, the famed or notorious Middle Eastern personality. I previously wrote that his government exploited the UN’s Oil-for-Food programme to circumvent sanctions and extract billions of dollars. Due to conflict of interest, I will not elaborate further here; interested readers may search for it yourself.

Over time, the U.S. employed a familiar strategy: “containment without overthrow, punishment without resolution.” Saddam’s image was gradually recast from a secular strongman opposing Iran to a destabilising force and a “potential WMD threat.”

After 9/11, American elites lost patience with disruptive strongmen. For the first time in a century, the U.S., a country long sheltered by oceans, realised its homeland was not invulnerable. Iraq was already demonised for a decade and then became the obvious target. In 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq.

In hindsight, the invasion was a catastrophic miscalculation. The three justifications: WMDs, terrorism, and “liberating the Iraqi people”, collapsed under scrutiny. The war turned the UN into a global farce, cost the U.S. over $2 trillion, and shattered the moral credibility of the liberal democratic “beacon”.

The collapse of authoritarian control created a power vacuum, from which ISIS emerged and ravaged the region for the next decade. At the systemic level, America’s self-inflicted blow also created narrative space for China’s alternative vision of global order.

Postwar Iraq: How Much Did the United States Really “Take”?

Passing through Tahrir Square, my guide and driver pointed to a stone pedestal and said, “That used to be Saddam’s statue.”

The removal of Saddam Hussein’s statue was one of the defining images of the early 2000s. It symbolised the end of a strongman era in Iraq but also the end of an era in which Iraq was able to govern itself.

By conservative estimates, the United States incurred approximately $2 trillion in direct costs from the Iraq War, including combat operations and long-term military deployment. More moderate estimates factoring in veterans’ healthcare, disability benefits, and postwar obligations place the figure closer to $2–3 trillion. Some broader calculations, including long-term interest payments and opportunity costs, push the total to $4–6 trillion over several decades.

For Iraq, the cost was at least a decade of turmoil. After 2000, waves of displacement followed. Millions fled to Europe, Syria, Jordan, and beyond. The power vacuum enabled the rise of ISIS, turning northern Iraq into a powder keg. I still remember attending events at Chatham House in London around 2014, where Yazidi leaders pleaded with the international community to recognise the genocide in Kurdistan and called for united defense against ISIS.

For this trip, I deliberately avoided Mosul. I could not bring myself to revisit land where the missing limbs of children from 10 years ago would still be found.

Iraqis are rebuilding their country. But a whole era has disappeared. From a purely economic perspective, did the United States ever “break even” on the Iraq War?

Saddam Hussein, ruling over one of the world’s major oil states, was undeniably wealthy. He reportedly maintained 22 palaces across Iraq, and his family’s assets were estimated at $20–100 billion. When U.S. forces entered Baghdad, they discovered approximately $650 million to $1 billion in cash and large quantities of gold stored at the Iraqi Central Bank. Since the bank effectively answered to Saddam alone, many Iraqis believed these assets were personal holdings of the Hussein family.

Officially, these funds were later used for government operations and reconstruction. In practice, their final disposition remains opaque.

The opening statement of this article captured U.S. supervision of Iraq’s oil revenue, which was a temporary postwar arrangement mainly between 2003 and 2010. In 2003, the UN passed UNSCR 1483, establishing the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI). Under this framework, Iraq’s oil export revenues were temporarily placed under international trusteeship, which was effectively under U.S. oversight, for postwar governance and reconstruction. The language used was “custodianship.”

In parallel, the U.S. froze significant Iraqi state assets abroad and confiscated portions of the Saddam family’s wealth though much of it had already been transferred out of reach before the war or has never been fully accounted for.

What fueled public anger was not only these arrangements, but systemic corruption during the reconstruction decade: fraudulent contracts, chaotic U.S. cash management, local patronage networks, black markets, and armed groups siphoning funds. These patterns echoed earlier scandals such as the UN’s Oil-for-Food program.

My guide said bluntly, “Ninety-nine percent of our oil income goes to the United States.”

Academically speaking, this is inaccurate. Foreign oil companies in Iraq largely operate under Technical Service Contracts (TSCs), which typically account for only 5–10% of total oil revenue. In theory, 85–90% of oil income belongs to the Iraqi state.

However, for decades, that revenue has failed to translate into everyday life. Although living standards have improved somewhat in recent years, corruption remains endemic, government efficiency is low, and basic services such as electricity, water, employment are still inadequate.

The post-2003 sovereignty shock continues to shape Iraqi society. A country rich in oil was invaded, stripped of autonomy, and left unable to convert its resources into public welfare. Under such conditions, public trust in government collapses.

In contrast, Chinese companies operating in Iraq are often viewed more favorably by locals. Unlike Western firms that rely heavily on expatriate management, Chinese companies tend to hire locally, accept lower short-term returns, and operate on longer time horizons. To many Iraqis, this model feels more tangible and trustworthy.

As fellow Global South actors, China carries no imperial legacy in the region. Its reputation focused on infrastructure, trade, and development rather than overt political control so it was often compared favorably with that of Western powers.

Looking back over the past two decades, asking whether the United States “recouped” its investment in Iraq feels almost cruel. What truly vanished was not a line item on a balance sheet, but an era.

What fell in Tahrir Square was not only Saddam’s statue, but a brutal yet predictable order. What followed was not a clearer or more humane system but prolonged uncertainty.

On paper, Iraq’s oil wealth still belongs to the state. In reality, it has rarely materialised into electricity, water, jobs, or dignity. Naturally, in everyday narratives, people conclude that the money must have been “taken.” Otherwise, life would not look like this.

Perhaps what Iraq truly lost was never its oil but its time.

Ali’s Tombstone: The Tragic End of a Shi’a Hero

Longtime readers know that I share a deep and complicated history with Iran. My first steps into the Middle East began with a love story in Iran in the past. That chapter has since closed. Eight years later, I have carved out my own path from those beginnings.

In Iran, across countless days and nights, Ali is an inescapable name. Much like Qin Shi Huang in Chinese history, Ali’s story forms the tragic core of Iran’s national psyche.

Once, the Persian Empire stood among the great powers of history, which is no less formidable than Rome or modern-day America. Across Eurasia, many of the ancient ruins I’ve encountered trace the far reaches of Roman frontiers or Persian expansion. I cannot condense the tremendous Persian story into one page; so here, let’s begin with the Arab conquests.

After years of campaigns, the Prophet passed away without formally appointing a successor, leaving behind one of history’s most consequential ambiguities.

In 632 CE, the leading figures in Medina selected Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s father-in-law, as the first caliph. Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, objected. He argued that the Prophet had earlier declared, “Whoever takes me as his mawla, Ali is his mawla” - a statement whose interpretation remains contested to this day.

Ali was married to Fatima, one of the Prophet’s dearest daughters. Though relatively young, he was widely respected for his virtue, scholarship, and military merit by most accounts almost indisputable. I would say he could be considered the glam boy of his day. While he initially abstained from Abu Bakr’s selection, he later pledged allegiance to him.

By the time Ali became the fourth caliph, the empire unfortunately had already fractured. Civil war (fitna), followed. In 661, Ali was assassinated in the mosque of Kufa, in what is now Iraq. Years later in Karbala, his son Husayn, accompanied by only around seventy followers that included women and children was surrounded by Umayyad forces numbering in the thousands. The men refused to surrender and were killed to the last.

Iran, conquered by Muslim rule, internalised this same tragic heroism.

In Sunni narratives, history is written by the victors. In Shi’a tradition, however, righteousness lies with the dispossessed with those who are marginalised, slaughtered, yet remain defiant. This is the moral grammar of Shi’ism.

In China, although mainstream narratives often celebrate imperial zeniths, we still honour figures like Xiang Yu, or commemorate tragedies such as the Battle of Yashan, which are stories of individuals resisting overwhelming odds. Because justice is rarely black and white; defeated heroes are not villains, and victors are not always virtuous.

Every year, in Shi’a-majority regions, Ashura commemorates the death of Husayn. The ethos of “knowing defeat is certain, yet choosing to die anyway” is not unique to Shi’ism. Long before Islam, Persian culture carried similar heroic motifs.

In The Shahnameh (Book of Kings), the Persian national epic, heroes often die young. Their ambitions unfulfilled. Dynasties rise and fall but their moral nobility triumphs over fate or power structures. It is not an epic of conquest, but of how dignity survives defeat as a civilization narrating itself after empire has collapsed.

In modern times, this tragic ethos has been translated into political language, sustaining Iran’s anti-hegemonic discourse against Israel, the United States, and external domination. Over the past thirty years, America’s maximum pressure strategy has failed to crush Iran entirely. The reason lies not only in geopolitics or institutional resilience, but in a national psychology nourished by tragedy. It’s the everlasting Zoroastrian sacred fire: slow-burning, but difficult to extinguish.

In Najaf, I was determined to see Ali’s final resting place.

Under the glittering dome, Ali’s coffin lies quietly. Women in black chadors rushed forward, one after another, racing to touch the shrine. Overwhelmed by the crowd, I stood at a distance and took a selfie. Some women wept softly, whispering their sorrows to Ali. Others recited the Qur’an, believing the sanctity of the place would amplify their prayers. Many, myself included, I would say were merely bored beholders with cameras in hand, no different from tourists in a park.

Iraq is often called the land of a thousand shrines. Many mosques are breathtakingly opulent, almost blinding. Yet poor management leaves them overcrowded, making the pilgrimage experience underwhelming (or overwhelming for some). I’m personally influenced more by Vedic and Buddhist thought, so I found myself conspicuous - a tall, red-haired Asian woman in a sea of black chadors. I withdrew from the crowd.

That evening, I spoke with an American friend and my Chinese family about my “pilgrimage”. My family looked at my photos of veiled women and called them “ignorant masses.” Islam, of course, is layered with complexity, and I have no desire to pass sweeping labels. My writing seeks to help readers better understand history and society and the readers should hold their own judgement.

Still, I believe that when dealing with “fools,” one must sometimes use “foolish” methods much like Chen Jinnan’s dealings with the Heaven and Earth Society.

The relationship between self and the divine is a lifelong question. It does not require institutional religion to mediate it. Once spiritual inquiry becomes socialised, it merely reflects power structures and their allocation. I’ve visited countless churches, temples, and shrines; believers abound, true seekers are rare. What I see is desire. People pray for wealth, power, love. The motif is similar to those past wars waged by emperors; in the end, it’s about bills and bitches.

The American friend once joked that someone as bored as me could probably rally followers, if I “give them what they want”. I said: I don’t need to give them what they want; only “what they think they want”.

Just nonsense talk. Readers may laugh and move on.

My Iraq trip ended earlier than planned. Despite years of strength training, my health faltered soon after arrival. This is nothing new. By conventional standards, I already possess much: youth, appearance, wealth, status, the freedom to move across cultures and political worlds, and an intensely perceptive mind. I no longer dare to wish for a bull-like body, or even for the perfect lover many readers are keen on gossiping.

Dissatisfactions are the constant in life. Suffering comes from wanting too much. If one could truly accept the moment, what necessities would there be for one to travel thousands of miles and venerate a shrine? Even saints could not have everything. How much less so, you and I?

Before going to Syria, I was afraid - just as I had been years ago before my first trip to Iran.

After years of civil war, Syria had just seen a new government arise to power. The Chinese embassy had withdrawn during the height of the conflict. When I mentioned the trip over dinner to some Chinese friends in Beirut, they warned: “Don’t go. The embassy isn’t there anymore. If anything happens, no one can save you.”

I researched nevertheless and found a few travelers who had visited recently. Perhaps Syria was still doable. I decided to go.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made. Not long after, the Chinese embassy returned to Damascus. I’m grateful that I was able to witness, in this era, the rebirth of a nation.

Along the journey, I passed through villages only recently freed from war - places where the scars of airstrikes, tanks, and machine guns were still fresh. These were not massacres buried hundreds or thousands of years ago with only bones and ruins. These were tragedies of the digital age, traceable still on social media.

Do you remember about ten years ago when TikTok was still new, the footage of ISIS entering Aleppo and the slaughter that followed? I remember watching residents filming their shattered homes with trembling hands, tears streaming down their faces:

“If you’re seeing this video, it means my home has already been destroyed. I no longer exist. Don’t forget Aleppo. Don’t forget us.”

The camera blundered as another airstrike hit. The post ended abruptly. Later, all that remained were the numbers of dead on the news and the bodies of the killed, blanketed in dust and darkened blood.

Palmyra： Zenobia’s Gilded Kingdom and the Homeland of a Martyr

First day of my trip, my guide and I set off towards two places: westward to Krak des Chevaliers, and eastward to Palmyra. Palmyra was really the reason why I was in Syria.

In Arabic, Palmyra is called Tadmor (تدمر), meaning “the land of palms.” The palm, an ancient symbol of fertility and endurance, gave the city its name Palm-yra as the place of palms. Located in the desert heart of Syria, it once linked the Mediterranean to the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf. As a vital node on the Silk Road, it was known as “The Bride of the Desert.” In 1980, it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Palmyra’s history stretches back to the first millennium BCE, when it was already a trading post. For centuries, it connected East and West through the exchange of spices, silk, and gemstones, absorbing Greek, Roman, Persian, and Arab influences into a civilisation of remarkable hybridity.

By the first to third centuries CE, it had become one of the wealthiest provinces of the Roman Empire. During this golden age rose a woman who would outshine her time: Queen Zenobia. For centuries, Syria was not a nation but a prosperous frontier under vast empires. Before Zenobia, another famous Syrian woman had risen to power - Julia Domna of Homs, the Syrian born empress who accompanied her Roman husband and sons on military campaigns, patronised scholars, and even inspired the iconic braided hairstyles later imitated by Zenobia.

Under Zenobia’s rule, Palmyra became a powerful region. Meanwhile Rome was sinking into internal chaos, the Queen no longer wished to remain a puppet of the Empire. She dreamed of establishing a middle kingdom - one that could stand alongside Rome and Persia. Her armies were strong, her treasury full. After her husband’s death, she and her young son declared autonomy and rebelled against Rome. The Roman Emperor Aurelian marched east to suppress the revolt. When he reached Palmyra, the Bedouins who once supported Zenobia betrayed her and some switched sides. The Roman army advanced without bulwark. The Queen and her son attempted to flee east to seek aid from Persia, but were captured en route. She was taken to Rome and since vanished from history, leaving us wonder what was her eventual fate?

Nevertheless, two thousands years later, today, the people of Palmyra still remember her and adore her. She is audacious and multilingual; her beauty and ambition defied her era. For Palmyrans, she is the Jean D’Arc a symbol of resistance and pride. Zenobia embodied the essence of her city: cultured, courageous, and cosmopolitan. Her physical body may be long gone, but her spirit remains etched in the hearts of her people.

Walking through Palmyra leaves one speechless. The city was vast and in fact, it was the largest Roman ruin I had ever seen. Because of the civil war, I was the only visitor that day. My guide and I wandered through the silent ancient city at sunset, feeling the weight of time pressing gently upon our shoulders.

When I walked into the Temple of Bel, I felt a profound sense of sorrow. The Temple was built in 32 CE to honor the city’s chief deity, the god Bel. It symbolised Palmyra’s blend of Roman grandeur and Semitic devotion. In 2015, ISIS seized much of eastern Syria, including Palmyra. They committed unspeakable atrocities and turned this once-prosperous city into a ghost town. The same year, ISIS used tens of tons of explosives to blow up the Temple of Baalshamin and the Temple of Bel. These two sanctuaries that had withstood millennia of invasion and weather reduced to rubble in seconds.

As I strolled through the ruins, I saw only shattered pieces. The Roman-style ceilings that once had vivid palms and golden eggs (symbols of fertility) were gone. My guide and I climbed over piles of broken marbles; on one fragment, the faint carvings of palms and eggs were still visible. The pillars that had endured empires for two thousand years could not survive the madness of modern fanaticism.

I climbed to the temple’s roof and looked down upon the entire city. I was so awestruck. “I need a moment alone,” I told my guide.

As a mid-aged wanderer who has walked through the ruins of many empires, I do not feel such an overwhelming need for silence often. The last time was on a cliff within the Russian Arctic Circle while trekking through blizzards to reach the Northern Sea Falls, where I stood frozen before the crashing waves and snow-laden wind. Palmyra evoked that same awe, but instead of nature’s vastness, it was the weight of human history itself.

Time and history are like a feather. They fall softly into one’s hand, yet their weight can bend your spine.

My guide told me that the new government plans to use AR/VR to digitally reconstruct the ancient site. I recalled one time I heard from an acquaintance that UNESCO had already partnered with an organization in Italy to assist in digital restoration. From the temple’s height, he pointed toward a deserted hotel nearby.

Before the war, Palmyra was wealthy. Of course, it was blessed with a UNESCO heritage. Its streets were filled with foreign and domestic visitors. People were busy building new hotels, restaurants, etc. to accommodate the expanding crowd. When the fast-spreading civil war erupted and ISIS swept across the city, many couldn’t escape in time. Construction halted midair; most residents fled or were killed. ISIS destroyed temples, beheaded soldiers, journalists, merchants, and ordinary civilians.

I will not recount those images. Too brutal. But any of you may find them online.

Amid the ruins, traces of former grandeur still linger. There are markets, theaters, royal reliefs carved into stone columns, and fragments of ancient legal codes. Kingship and law once coexisted here; it was both an Arab land and a Roman province. The city’s aqueduct system was sophisticated, its water channels flowing down the very columns that lined its streets. When sunset struck the streams cascading from the pillars, the entire city shimmered in gold, spinning off a spectacle proclamation: this is the empire’s glory.

Beyond the splendor of antiquity lies the ruin of modern Palmyra.

The surrounding neighborhoods are still in ruins; walls are riddled with bullet holes. Only the elderly and children remain. Adults are gone. Once, this city held one of the Assad regime’s most infamous prisons. After the rebels took power, political prisoners were released. One man, who had been imprisoned for decades, walked out and could not comprehend what a smartphone was.

Before leaving the beautiful Palmyra, I want my readers to remember one name - Khaled al-Asaad. He was a native of Palmyra, an archaeologist who devoted his entire life to preserving its heritage. In 2015, when ISIS invaded the city, he helped secretly move ancient artifacts to safety. Captured along with his son (also an archaeologist), he was tortured for months as ISIS tried to force him to reveal the hiding place of the treasures. He refused. At 82 years old, he was publicly beheaded. His body was hung in the square, labeled “an apostate” and “idol worshiper,” meant to terrify others.

He had no weapons, no army, no political power but only a love for history and the courage to stand by it. His unyielding soul and straight backbone, like that of Queen Zenobia’s two millennia before, are the most precious treasures of Palmyra.

Bosra：The Rebel Stronghold and the Ancient City Devastated by Russian Airstrikes

The Prophet Muhammad never reached Damascus in his lifetime. The closest he ever came was the ancient city of Bosra.

As a young boy, Muhammad once traveled westward with his uncle Abu Talib on a trade expedition. Caravans passed through Bosra all the time, so nothing unusual would be about this one. However, there was a monk living in Bosra named Bahira, who, from his study of earlier scriptures, knew that a prophet was destined to pass through.

When Bahira saw the caravan arrive, he noticed a young boy. Wherever he went, a cloud followed him. When he sat to rest under a tree, the cloud stopped above to shade him. Bahira was convinced this child was the one foretold.

He invited Abu Talib’s caravan into his home and told the uncle, “This boy is the Prophet. Escort him back to Mecca now. There are Jews here who would harm him.”

Alarmed, Abu Talib’s caravan set off immediately. Not long after, three men indeed came searching for the child, but Bahira stopped them, saying, “Do not interfere with God’s plan.”

Bosra is famous not only for this prophetic legend but also for its magnificent Roman ruins. Its Roman theater remains remarkably intact. If you stand at the center and speak, your voice echoes perfectly to the highest seats, still today. On the stone benches are carved little square grids, which are ancient games people played while waiting for the show to begin. Many of these games still exist today in Turkey and the Levant. When Islam spread through the region, theater-going faded but people continued to pray on those same benches.

Later, the French colonial rulers left their mark here too, building a small open-air “museum” in the theater courtyard, displaying treasures they had looted from across the region. Bosra’s buildings are made of black volcanic basalt, so any white stone you see was brought from elsewhere, for example, stones from Palmyra with palm inscriptive, and statues hauled all the way from Aswan, Egypt.

Some statues are missing their heads, because of early Muslim iconoclasm. When the conquerors forbade the worship of idols, they removed the heads of Roman and Greek statues and placed them a few steps away, as a gesture of purification.

At the time of my visit, the site was quite deserted. Most restaurants were closed. When the drums of war sound, arms dealers fill their pockets with gold, while ordinary people either flee or die and merchants lost everything.

My guide took me to the top of the theater. From there, one can see both the new city and the old. On the left, concrete and steel is the new city; on the right, destroyed is the thousand-year-old old town now, in ruins after Russian airstrikes in mid 2010s.

Before the war, people still lived within those black volcano stone walls. The old town was famous for its volcanic architecture, and life thrived there: bazaars, mosques, bathhouses, even the resting place where the Prophet himself once stayed.

But when the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, Russia and Iran backed the Assad regime and bombed rebel-held Bosra. The airstrikes turned the city into a river of blood.

Walking through the ruins today, one can still see the traces of violence. Some may take photos with the Syrian rebel flags (now Syrian national flag) painted on the wall, which, was a daring adventure during the Assad’s time. One might face retaliation or brutal killing because such an image might pin you as a supporter for the opposition. Today, it’s a brand new story. People can freely pose with the flags as their pride lies with the rebels.

Along the old city’s walls you also see rows of Arabic inscriptions, each line marked with a number: 1, 2, 3… Each number represents a name, a vivid life of villains killed in the airstrikes. Many were children.

Had those children lived, they would be in their twenties or thirties now. But the war hijacked their shattered dreams.

Before I end the Bosra chapter, perhaps there is this small detail you might not have noticed: now type the word Syria on your iPhone, have you realised that the flag emoji has changed? Try typing “Syria” - is your flag red, or green?

Damascus — The City of Roses, and My Name in Arabic

The Damask rose is famous. In the Arab world, beautiful women are often called the Damask roses. Coincidentally, my name “Zhuorui” in Arabic translates to جوري (Jouri) — the Damask rose. Every time I mention my full name to Arabic speakers, they were immediately amused:“Oh, Jouri — the Damask rose!” Perhaps it’s the universality of language; I always tell them that the Chinese character of Rui in my name also means the pistil, the heart of a flower.

Having swung around with the name “Damask rose” for so many years, I finally found an opportunity to visit Damascus in person, to see with my own eyes the true face of this ancient capital.

My first impression of Damascus was actually the hotel prices. I never stay in old hotels, so I passed on most of the antique-style accommodations in the old city, choosing instead something modern. When I checked prices for newly renovated hotels like the Four Seasons and the Sheraton, I was shocked as they were around $500–700 per night. After the civil war, these hotels are no longer managed by their original international groups, though they still maintain similar standards. Yet in Syria, where the average monthly salary is under $100, such prices are absurd. Even in Dubai, a four-star hotel costs around $100–200 per night, and a five-star rarely exceeds $300–400. Later I found out why: the new government officials and staff from the United Nations and other intergovernmental organisations stay in these hotels. Because of increased security and limited availability, the prices for each piece soared.

The Julani-led new government hailed from Idlib in the North. The rebels did not originally come from Damascus. When it entered the capital, it didn’t have suitable accommodations, so it temporarily requisitioned the luxury hotels. Later, I spoke with one of the top local UN official, who described the Four Seasons as “a golden cage in the ruins.”

Eventually, I stayed at another hotel that cost $300 per night, mostly filled with diplomats and Western journalists. It was a place where foreign political actors gathered and exchanged agendas. The quality of the hotel was equivalent to a basic no-star business hotel in China, but in a country where most buildings have been destroyed, such simple cleanliness already feels rare and cash demanding.

I do really like Damascus, because its spirit and energy reminded me of China in 1949. At the dawn when an old, decaying government fled, and a young, energetic new one took over. Most young people support the new government, and indeed, it has introduced many changes.

Due to my earlier years in Iran, whenever I traveled through the “Axis of Evil” (coined by Israel not me), I couldn’t help but compare them. Iran’s economy, though under sanction, is still far more developed than Syria’s, which was nearly ruined by war. But after thirty years of sanctions, the atmosphere in Iran has always felt depressing to me. Young people do not see hope; people idle their days away in cafés. It feels like there is an invisible net above their heads, trapping their thoughts and vitality. Such gloomy feeling is symbolised by women’s forced hijab. However, Iranians are also very creative and stylish, so they resist through colourful and fashion fitted scarves. It’s a silent resistance against the clergy’s code of conduct.

In Syria, the vibe feels completely different - much closer to Saudi Arabia, which I enjoy and of course had businesses in. Coming from a young entrepreneurial metropole myself, I’ve always been drawn to countries at the start of their growth curve, where you can sense people’s optimism. We can not compare Syria’s economy to Saudi Arabia’s by size, but by the vibrancy of minds, it does feel like postwar Europe that is poised to welcome its own Marshall Plan.

Under Assad, the country ran on kinship. Four oligarchic families, all relatives of Assad, controlled the nation. Innovation was stifled or stolen by the elites. Curfews were strict. The old city was forced to close after 9 p.m. Syrians were forbidden to touch U.S. dollars. Salaries were low. After the new government took power, restrictions on business hours were lifted, allowing merchants to stay open later and the streets to regain vitality. Wages have risen significantly — in June 2025, civil servants’ salaries increased by 200%. My tour guide said his own income had doubled.

When I spoke again with the UN official, I asked whether the optimism I saw among young Syrians was shared at higher levels. He agreed that it was. Like usual, a vast amount of donor money gathered in Syria. The U.S. and Russia, unable to appear directly due to conflicting interests, have sent proxies.

I remain optimistic about Syria’s prospects. After all, following the scent of opportunity is what colonial powers have always done best. May the new Syrian government continue to manage its independence, unlike too many Middle Eastern strongmen predecessors in other countries, who have fallen into the illusion that it can play the great powers off against one another. However, the eagle, the cow, and the bear are the world’s most patient predators and they play too well that only extremely exceptional leaders from the third world could truly outwit in the game of the balance.

Before we end the Damascus chapter, let’s return our lens to its old city.

Before arriving, I did my research. I read that Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. I thought it was just a touristy notion, but once I arrived, I realised it wasn’t marketing hype. Walking through the old bazaar, I saw the Roman columns still standing proudly above the modern streets. What was once a temple to Jupiter is now a marketplace crammed with people. Ancient cities carry a certain heaviness. The weight of history and the lightness of human life intertwined in a breath. Compared with cities like Xi’an, Nanjing, or Isfahan, each of which saw dynasties rise and fall within a few centuries, here the continuity of civilisation feels endless.

Nearly every ancient empire has ruled this city: the Assyrians, Alexander’s Greeks, the Romans. In 661 CE, the Umayyad Caliphate established its capital here. Afterwards came the Abbasids, the Seljuks, Crusaders, Mamluks, and Ottomans. For centuries Damascus was a crossroads between East and West. During the Ottoman Empire, it was the most important stop on the pilgrimage route to Mecca. In modern times, it was colonised by the French, and after Syria’s independence in 1946, Damascus became the capital.

One of the most famous buildings in the city is the Umayyad Mosque. It began as a Roman temple to Jupiter, later became a Christian cathedral dedicated to John the Baptist, and in 715 CE, Caliph Al-Walid I built the mosque upon that foundation. During the Assad years, it was restricted to certain sects, but now it’s open to the public. My tour guide said, “Before Assad made all these divisions, Sunni and Shia didn’t matter. We studied together. No one cared, and most people didn’t even know which faith their classmates followed.”

Around June 2025, the new government carried out a massacre of thousands of Alawites in the south. The Alawites, a small, secretive sect of Shia Islam, are not considered mainstream Shia. Most hide their identity; under Assad, their faith was kept secret. After the fall of the Assad regime, the new government naturally sought revenge against its supporters. But since Alawites don’t wear their faith on their foreheads, no one can say how many innocents were killed by mistake.

I asked my tour guide whether the power transition had been terrifying. He said it was the most frightening experience of his life. For one or two weeks, he and his family locked themselves inside their home as they were too afraid to go out. The streets were downgraded into lawless mess. Random and timeless looting, killing, robbing went rampant. Once, two armed men thought their house was unoccupied and tried to break in. At the precise moment, his father screamed for help, and neighbors heard the noise and came to help. Then, the gunmen fled. When the new Rebel army entered Damascus, it imposed strict laws, withdrew weapons from civilians, and maintained order. The new army did not harass civilians but instead opened many of the previously restricted checkpoints. The Rebels won trusts, and many civilians donated money to help the government rebuild the economy.

Syria was never truly a nation. In this world, countries like China - with thousands of years of continuous history under one dominant civilisation - are rare. Modern Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, and Palestine were the border provinces of empires for thousands of years. Only after British and French colonisation did they become “nations,” carved out of the Ottoman provinces. Iraq, for instance, never had a national identity before. After World War I, the British installed King Faisal I, the same Faisal from the era of Lawrence of Arabia, as the ruler of the new state of Iraq meanwhile governing Damascus. The Azm Palace in Damascus, once the residence of Ottoman governor Azm Pasha, later hosted King Faisal I.

Because these countries were invented from thin air and never experienced a unifying process like China, their people remained divided by geography, faith, and ethnicity. Loyalty was to tribe and religion, not to the idea of a “Syrian nation.” The concept of Syrian patriotism was weak, if it existed at all.

“But now that the new government is in power,” my guide said, “for the first time in my life, I feel proud to be Syrian.”

This land has endured endless wars and death. Yet today it stands again, reclaiming its place as a nation. I think we Chinese understand this better than anyone. Once, our own country of 400 million lived in poverty, hunger, and despair; people were slaughtered by warlords and foreign powers as if they were sheep. Life had no value back then. But after decades of struggle, Chinese people eventually won peace, dignity, and unity. Today, even with our vary different dialects and backgrounds, Chinese people speak one language, under one regime.

For the Syrians, may your future behold peace.

*This article is first translated by AI and I edited on top of the English version.

**I have not discussed the ongoing tension between China and TIP (the escaping Uighurs fighters hosted by the current Syrian government). This is an ongoing political issue that would require extra analysis. In a way I am quite daredevil, like usual, to visit Syria out of nowhere and be “on field” while others are merely discussing on paper. However, this is not encouraged as readers should not blindly follow my footsteps and neglect the often underlooked political scenario, especially for Chinese visitors. I find many Chinese visitors quite ignorant to political tensions and assume the rest of the world is as peaceful and well infrastructured in China. As you can see, much of the places I went are empty - empty for a reason. Please be advised.

***For Bosra chapter, I quoted the information given by my tour guide. The “official” year for Russia to airstrike/join the war is 2015 on the internet.

Holding against the beam light, Luigi thrashed his head back. Police K9 pressed firm on his body, and his eyes looked calm like the blackest water under the deepest abyss, no sense, or if any sense, a sense of radical currents.

The 26 year old became famous, or if you would rather say, infamous, overnight, as the former UPenn student assassinated the UnitedHealth CEO in a random morning in December. He went in a now sold-out military green jacket, used a 3-D printed pistol, and scurried off in a shared bike. How cool? Zelensky wished he could be idolised like this. Luigi’s fairly good-looking face and body were inalienable to his murder thrilled movie-like stardom. What’s more, it all came with a rare seen civilian responsibility that is lacking in the United States or anywhere in the world now. People applauded him to be the Gen-Z Robinhood. Indeed, man did the thing they don’t dare. He did not just murder someone for fun like those Manson Family. He took a symbolic shot at the rotten medical history of the United States.

As of today, Luigi-inspired memecoin $LUIGI stands at $24m market cap.

My purpose today is not to add more allure to the young sir. If every of his fan girl blows a kiss to the air, the Earth would’ve been overheated by now. Reading his Goodreads sends me chills, as we may trace how an IVY trained blue-blooded engineer gradually became “radicalised”. I am not sure how one may comment on the word “radicalised”, as I have grown to acquaint many and much “radical” work across cultures. One can see that from 2020 onwards, his reading list turned much more hardlined, digging deep into the nature of society and violence.

In his now explosive comment under Industrial Society and Its Future of Ted Kacynski, he claimed “when all other forms of communication fails, violence is necessary”. The sentence stands nowhere debatable by nature yet humongously debatable in reality. Who are the people that once said similar things? We can name a few, Washington, Lincoln, Luther King, Marx, Mao. For those that are not familiar with the Middle East, I can also tell you Sayyid Qutb, Ali Shariati, Khomeini, and Al Qaeda. And more, Hamas, Israel, you name it.

Luigi’s unverified letter of intent is now called his “manifesto”. Last time a work is called “manifesto”, i.e., a declaration of intention, is the swooping Communist Manifesto. For Americans, such manifesto-inspired waves do not sound pleasant as the country was once so haunted by the fear of the Red. In China, this would be considered the foundation of power, as Mao vehemently stated, “power comes from the barrel of a gun”. Mao’s saying wasn’t whimsical; the gun was a gun to protect and survive, not to invade. It was during a period where the opposite KMT violently suppressed the young CCP in 1920s. Mao’s survival tactic ultimately won him a country.

Besides, the Declaration of Independence is also one world renowned manifesto. When we speak of this manifesto, we connect to the idea of democracy, freedom, liberty, personal property rights, among many angelic ideals. Don’t forget, whether it’s the Declaration or later MLK’s I Have A Dream, none were Ghandi’s non-violence movement. In fact, the armed force behind these famous documents were very violent. 25,000-70,000 people died for the War of Independence, and MLK’s death sparked more civil unrests in 1968.

Such violence was justified in history as necessary, and indeed it was. Nonetheless, history is written by the winners, hence necessary evil is also called survival.

While I plunge into Luigi’s book list, Sayyid Qutb comes to my mind. My 7-year Middle Eastern studies made me familiar with the teachings of various “interpretations” of the Qur’an. The Prophet took up arms and called for arms to spread God’s messages. Qur’an is not a book of the silent, but carry both olive branches and Arabian swords. God’s nation is built by both kebab rice and martyrs.

Qutb was hanged in 1966 in Cairo. When he was alive, he was offered any position he wanted in Nasser’s government and he refused all on the basis that he wanted a truly Islamic government. The relationship between him and Nasser quickly soured, and man was tortured in prison, but he continued to shape his philosophy even being physically confined. Having formerly studied in the US, Qutb was flabbergasted by the American materialism and superficiality. To truly find internal and societal peace, he advocated a God-governed caliphate. To do so, and to save for the means since materialism, colonialism, and the complicated history were ever encroaching the “existence” of Islam, violence is permitted and should be encouraged when necessary.

His untimely death did not stop the spread of his Jihadist idea. Just like how Lenin and Mao alike based their fight on the philosophy of Karl Marx, Khomeini and Khamenei certainly studied the gist and understood that power came from arm. During the years being ousted, Khomeini power.

Today, when one goes to Khomeini’s nation, one can see how the joyous Persians are rather numbed by awry Islamic “ideal”. Iran as a nation was born out of then “radicalised” idea, yet the idea itself probably considers itself orthodox. It is conforming to a divine ideal, however interpretation it goes by. The other case of a country born out of “radicalised’ idea may be my home country China. The CCP before 1949 was a bunch of radicals and “red gangs” that were considered illiterate rascals by the then ruling party, very bourgeoisie US-backed KMT. Nevertheless, CCP proved to be way beyond rascals since the core members including Mao were extremely well read and well versed. Until today, many still adore Mao’s literary sharpness and verbal vision in fighting the external and internal war. Despite of being criticised for his later Stalin-like purge during the Cultural Revolution and being authoritarian, few would argue against his sheer talents and mighty means.

These names might be a little too farfetched for the young Luigi, since those were seasoned politicians. I would quietly object so. Who did not start from somewhere young? Even Mao himself was once a young student actively organising and participating in protests in his home region Hu’nan. Wanting a change of a hopeless nation to no avail, he then keenly observed that only armed revolution would make ends meet.

A side look might draw us to Hilary Clinton’s favourite resume record Osama bin Laden. During my first business encounters in Saudi Arabia, I was very surprised to see Bin Laden Group behind every big project. Later, of course I learned that this is just a mighty financial group’s name, which although had relations with the Bin Laden family. Needless to remind everyone that Osama bin Laden was born rich. He could’ve followed a nominally successful life had he not read too much Qutb-inspired Jahiliyah idea. Once understanding and clinging to his “mission”, he then began a lonesome journey away from his former comforts.

The construction of bin Laden is beyond our discussion today, as discussion over extremism would take another article. The extremist was built with a stern personality and tough training of mind, which could be seen among many great heroes and great evils.

Browsing through Luigi’s book list, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand caught my attention. My memories with the book came from Trump’s first election era, when the rightest’s obsession of Rand popularised this political romanticist author. Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead are voluminous books, and I remember spending days going through the rather watery narration. The books all featured handsome young men and women that govern business empires, and the struggles of them in a way resemble the Chinese model theatre. Trump adores the book maybe it idealised idols that fight for capitalist purpose, much like himself. Today, Trump’s idolised Superman images are praised by his followers.

It’d be hard to “dislike” Luigi, since he charted the classic romantic film personality. Clean history, young, handsome, body-builder, born rich, IVY educated, and strived with a sense of purpose to fight for the grassroot. Trump probably secretly wished he could be younger for 40 years, so he might face less backlash since the backlashes would’ve been labelled “bold and revolutionary”. In the much memeable world, appearance and bloodline do matter. Had Magione’s first name started with Mohammed or Arjun, the story would’ve been much different.

*I wrote this article on 14th of December. Fast forward today (Dec 20th), Luigi is facing charges on the “act of terrorism”.

A single spark can start a prairie fire, as the saying goes from the Mao Zedong’s Assessment of the Current Situation and Questions Concerning the Armed Struggle, although it may not be entirely fitting here, as Mao’s rather shrewd and cold-blooded strategies carry much more political agenda than a student movement, and discussing the American student movement in terms of the Red Army’s seizure of power would be a different matter altogether. Nevertheless, if we open up a map of the current student pro-Palestine movement, we can see the sparks of the West and the flames of the East united in one piece.

The idea to talk about the “fall” of the freedom eagle came to me after a string of conversations and of course months of following the thread. My business partner and team are at universities in the East Coast; because we are doing something closely residing in the Middle East, when the blended label of being student and matter of the Middle East, discussions naturally waded through. As someone that has benefited from the libertarian “critical thinking” in these schools, I am proud to see how students bravely protest against the government as tax money should not be used to financially support indiscriminate bombings of Palestine. From the wave, there are similarities between the throwback of the anti-Vietnam War movement of the past; decades of war, lies from politicians and the media’s cover-up are no longer accepted by the youth today.

Is the pro-Palestinian movement merely about supporting Palestine as a country? Every anti-elite, anti-war movement is rooted in dissatisfaction among the public or a specific group toward the establishment. In this spreading student movement, it reflects decades of discontent against the Anglo-Saxon-Judeo-Christian forces that have dominated and enforced “power”.

The U.S. government and media once had a monopoly on information, covering up the truth during the twenty-year Vietnam War; from Truman to Eisenhower to Kennedy to Johnson to Nixon, politicians and the establishment spread lies and manipulated public emotions via inciting fear of communism, which got backfired with public resentment. This began with student movements, then spread to punk culture, vividly depicted in Forrest Gump, and finally led to the Washington Post publishing the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the White House’s hidden strategies on the Vietnam War. That was the last major battle between civil rights and “democratic authoritarianism”. Back then, it wasn’t the era of social media; hippies acquired information mainly through television and radio. Today, social media is everywhere, and those experiencing the war can upload real-time and fresh content through platforms like TikTok. We no longer live in the era of Kingdom of the Heaven when the pope’s command could start a crusade; now we can see the full spectrum of opinions and viewpoints. Propaganda is no longer the mainstream voice; instead, diverse opinions flourish. No amount of doctrine or slogans can explain why children, women, the elderly, and the poor are being massacred in large numbers. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans live in constant fear for their lives, with many videos showing Israeli soldiers treating civilians, prisoners of war, and corpses inhumanely, which are uploaded online as a trophy of war by soldiers rather than demonstration of human tragedy. Despite decades of conflict, in this war, the lack of intelligence networks has led the Israeli military to fail to accurately target Hamas, resulting in widespread devastation among civilians. Nonetheless, combating extreme crimes cannot justify committing another form of collective extreme crime.

After 9/11, the Anglo-Saxon elite labeled extremism as “terrorism.” Although extremism is indeed abhorrent, the term “terrorist” has since become a political label used by administrations. Opponents branded with this label, regardless of whether they are actually extreme, are treated with “decapitation” tactics. The downfall of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi in real life are good examples of such removal of dissidents. Scenarios like this are also depicted in TV series such as Homeland and House of Cards, which add a flavour of drama but do not lose authenticity.

Noam Chomsky elaborated on the relationship between the press and the government in his book Media Control. He stated, “propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state... probably on the order of a billion dollars a year on it or something and its committment all along was to controlling the public mind.”

Chomsky rose to prominence during the anti-Vietnam War period and has since dedicated his scholarly work in linguistics and politics. The Western, and especially US business elite politics and media propaganda machine are supreme in quality and deft in yielding subtle influence. When these propaganda machines are used to whip the people, we know that 1984 is not limited to totalitarian states. The American ideal of equality has been disappointing in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially after numerous foreign wars (more accurately, satellite wars fought outside the homeland). Before, Lincoln stood at Gettysburg and proclaimed equality and freedom for all (”a new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”). Now, this freedom is found to be stratified by race, skin colour, and religion. Do the Gazans driven to Rafah have freedom? Are the Muslim children who died in airstrikes born equal?

The constitutional maxim that private property is sacred and inviolable (no person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law) is something I have faithfully upheld as a doctrine, to the point of arguing with my partner over my belief in the law. But a turning point has quietly arrived—what if this “private” property is not divided by secular law, but by the interpretation of the Bible?

Colonialism is an unavoidable topic in the Middle East. Behind the endless yellow sand and barren lands of the Middle East are the scars left by a century of colonialism. Today, that history continues to affect all aspects of life for the people of the Middle East, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a microcosm of this, as well as a manifestation of the clash between great powers.

Religion has always been at the heart of the Western culture. Going back to the distant Crusades, by the name to support the Byzantines, Europeans carried out the Pope’s orders and clashed with Muslims at many strongholds. Later, the Age of Exploration began amid and post Enlightenment. The budding industrialism and capitalism, combined with the power conferred by religion, spurred Europeans to compete for new territories. These territories were not uninhabited but were home to indigenous civilisations. The concept of “crimes” did not apply to the atrocities committed by the Spanish in South America at the time; even the term “colonies” itself is derived from the Spanish summary of the “uninhabited” lands they occupied. Modern historiography encapsulates Spanish expansion in South America with three words: “Gold, Glory, God.” Gold represents capital, glory celebrates royal power, and God provides justification. The Anglo-Saxons also had their own gold, glory, and God, but they were more astute, establishing a commercial empire across the globe. Today’s laissez-faire economic backbone largely stems from the criticisms over Mercantilism. Although the new America drove the British army back across the Atlantic through wars and aimed to establish a nation entirely different from the old British order and system, America’s later politics and diplomacy have consistently highlighted one thing: the Anglo-Saxon religious, colonial, and mercantile thoughts are deeply engraved in American history alongside the founding fathers’ Constitution.

If the early 13 American colonies represent the New British—or American—reflection on the new world order, then the subsequent rapid Westward Expansion almost draws a reference paralleling to the past Israeli encroachments on Palestinian territories. The transformation of American territory from a few pieces of New England lands to the vast nation it is today owes much to the “hard work” of Americans expanding westward. Of course, Native Americans see this as a disgrace. The Indian Removal Act signed by Jackson in 1830 found its “rebirth” in another form on Nakba Day in 1948. Wherever the Gospel reached, it revealed the Manifest Destiny. The American westward expansion and the displacement of Native Americans were all “legal”, but didn’t this directly contradict the Constitution’s assertion that private property is sacred and inviolable? Weren’t Native Americans’ private property and land considered property? Wasn’t this illegal? Well, under the mandate of Manifest Destiny, Native American rights were not equivalent to those of the American white citizens. Biologically, they might both be humans, but sociologically, 19th-century Anglo-Saxons perhaps did not want to believe the two were equals.

During the late Ottoman Empire, the rulers attempted reforms as the central empire’s control over peripheral regions began to crumble from Egypt to Levant to Palestine. After the Tanzimat Reforms, Jews started moving into Palestine, undergoing five major Aliyah movements. However, the real large-scale return of Jews to Palestine is largely due to the rise of Zionism. Today, Zionism in Western academia and popular discourse often evokes strong reactions. The Zion is no longer the heroic resistance base in The Matrix or the land King David conquered in the Tanakh. Instead, it has become a symbol of modern Israeli neo-colonialism, as the Jews and, later, the state of Israel, moved into Palestinian land over the past century. The justification is almost identical to Manifest Destiny: because God granted me this power, you have no right to private property.

Today on YouTube, there are countless videos showing how Jews forcibly taking over Palestinian homes. When asked why they are being evicted from their own homes, a common response from the invaders is, “This is my right; if I don’t take your home, someone else will.” These videos often include references to Israeli court rulings. Israeli residents, holding court decisions, explain how they waited through the legal process for years and only came to reclaim their rightful homes after receiving a “yes pass” from the court. However, this procedural justice has a degree of hypocrisy, as it is unclear whether the court’s decisions took into account the testimonies and appeals of Palestinians. The Palestinians interviewed in these videos often express a deep sense of powerlessness.

Just as how the persecution of Jews during World War II are well-documented, there are numerous accounts of Palestinians and their descendants (often in exodus) describing how their homes were taken away.

A common argument among pro-Israel supporters today questions the legitimacy of Palestine as a state. Indeed, the region of “Palestine” has historically been under the control of various empires and has never truly been an independent nation. However, this land carries the weight of history, having seen the passage of many Jews, Arabs, Arab Jews, and Jewish Muslims over thousands of years, whether under the rule of great empires or on the fringes of conflict. If we have to use past history or even the allegories of the Tanakh to dictate the lives of people today, it never has an end.

Violence must always be condemned, even though human history is replete with the futility of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The grand narrative of human history is one of conquest, abuse, suffering, plague, separation of families, and blood. However, humanity is progressing. A while ago, I was talking with a Middle Eastern studies friend I deeply respect. He said, “Were the two world wars fought in vain?” as we conversed about the subject. Before the age of modern media, sacrifices and invasions might somehow be glorified, and sovereign war was an obligation but not a choice. In the past, in the late Chinese imperial history alone, there were double digit millions that perished during the White Lotus Rebellion, Taiping Rebellion, and Boxer Rebellion. Today, with economic diversification and technology enabling prosperity, the media vividly display bloody massacres instantly before our eyes. How many people can truly remain indifferent to slaughter? Aaron Bushnell could have had a happy life; his self-immolation was a condemnation of large-scale violence. With his life, he warned us that large-scale violence to combat extreme crime is not feasible in today’s society.

Moreover, countless people raise their voices in protest, shouting, “I won’t be complicit in wars.”

Hamas’s infiltration is a bone-eating maggot. Long ago, I wrote a paper in school focusing on the existence and infiltration of extremist groups like ISIS. I understand that extremist organisations are difficult to identify, contain, and eradicate. Israel’s claim that Hamas uses women and children as shields is not unfounded. In the Middle East, Iran’s theocratic government and military satellites are pervasive in potential conflict zones, continuously harassing Israel from the north. Iran’s stated reason is retaliation, even threatening preemptive strikes, similar to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Russia’s actions in Ukraine. In the Middle East, everyone fights for survival and retaliation is such “justified” fight for survival. Extremists in a way can also find roots of their formation in marginalized people in societies. But like murder, no matter what are the reasons behind it, once the act is committed, it needs to be punished by law.

In any case, the American eagle of liberty has fallen in Palestine, and the Anglo-Saxon sun has set on the eastern Mediterranean. Even though the freedom gospel echoes worldwide, from Jackson to Wilson, Monroe to Truman, Roosevelt to Bush, the deaths of pagan children, women, and civilians have never been placed within the realm of freedom; that’s why the military can sing a melody of retaliation while committing acts of violence. Lord of War uses an African story to show us the heartbreaking truth of every war: “I do rub shoulders with some of the most vile, sadistic men calling themselves leaders today... you call me evil. But unfortunately for you, I’m a necessary evil.”

(Wrote this article in May; original in Chinese; translation and recreation into English assisted by AI; pictures are from online)

At one dinner party in Riyadh, I was conversing with a newly acquainted friend that has been working in Riyadh for decades. Like many chitchats in the region, we naturally waded into the topic of travelling to Iran. The friend commented, “yes I have been to Iran, like 10 years ago, in 2009.” I said, “ok, then don’t worry. Iran today is still the same.”

The same remark would have been inaccurate in the case of Saudi Arabia. Since Mohammed bin Salman’s glass-shattering modernisation reform in 2019, Saudi Arabia is quickly metamorphosing into a futuristic powerhouse accelerating in every aspect. The change is not limited to the piling of modernist buildings and designs across cities. The change is in the rising power of women, the de-scaffolding of gender segregation, the establishment of secular legal system, the restructure of micro-organisation of politics, the education of the youth, the expansion of employment market, the diversification of the oil economy, and the shifting waves in international relations.

Raised in the Chinese “open door policy” hub, I feel too much in sync and in awe to see the growth of Riyadh. Shenzhen went from a fish village to the Silicon Valley of the East in 3 decades. Riyadh seems to plan to catch up with the ambition.

Among the small Chinese community in Iran, we joke that Mahan Air is a time-travelling machine, which transports us from 2023 to year 1402 from Beijing to Tehran. In 1975, Iran’s GDP per capita was $1,575, roughly 10 times the Chinese one of $178. In 2023, Chinese GDP per capita is expected to be $12,150 and Iran $5,649. Today, many Iranians still believe Persia is 10 times stronger than China and the Eastern dragon is nothing but a blurring vast land occupied by rice-picking peasants. The almost 3-decade intermittent boycotts and sanctions on Iran have retracted the country from international growth and fed ignorance.

On the other hand, Saudi has also been reset by a time machine. The radical reformation policies since 2018 and 2019 have fast-forwarded the country from a strict Wahhabist state to an aspiring hotpot of cutting-edge technology and intermingling thoughts. Since, the open-mindedness is not a sole label for Hejaz. Nejd upgraded from within.

Pre-Modern Saudi and Iran: of Arab Camel and Persian Lion

On June 8th, 632, Prophet Muhammad was met at his deathbed. Days leading to his death, he suffered an extremely painful headache and had trembling legs. Unable to recover from the syndromes, Allah’s prophet died,. His last word was “O God, forgive me and have mercy on me; and let me join the highest companions (أللّهُـمَّ اغْفِـرْ لي وَارْحَمْـني وَأَلْحِقْـني بِالرَّفـيقِ الأّعْلـى).

Prophet had an uneasy life. The first 40 years of his life was happy by worldly standard, as he was born to an affluent family, although he had lost his father early. His grandfather sheltered him, and his uncle Abu Talib feathered him. At the age of 25, he married his first wife Khadijah, with whom he shared a happy mutually exclusive marriage until her death. At the age of 40, he had a series of shocking and haunting dreams unveiled by Archangel Gabriel. Initially scared, he eventually grew to accept God’s revelations and took over the responsibility for preaching God’s messages. The journey was very difficult, as adamant oppositions stormed the man. Nevertheless, today we know, this small band of Muslims beat all odds and established empires that found their base on divine will.

In 661, the Rashidun caliphate came to dissolution after decades of post-Prophet expansion and prosperity. The one kingdom ruled by God permanently split into two ideologies, sealed by the Islamic civil war that was remembered by Ali’s slaughter.

Like all thorny issues of inheritance, after the death of Muhammad, the question of who would inherit both the divine rightfulness and the leadership excellency became the central dispute in the Islamic world. One faction supported Muhammad’s father-in-law, and they ultimately won the civil war, establishing empires under Sunni rule. Another faction supported Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law. Ali was eventually assassinated, and the Shi’ites that supported him never regained control of Arabian Peninsula. The Shi’ites later found refuge in Iran.

For Shi’ites, Muhammad clearly said, “I am the maula of whoever Ali is the maula of.” For Shi’ites, this statement seals the inheritance lineage. For them, maula means leader, so Ali should be the leader of Islam. Verbal sparring again happened in serious historical context.

Sunnis, however, view this statement merely as an expression of affection by Muhammad. It is like saying “mi casa es tu casa” – “brother, treat my house as yours”. But if one were to take such a statement to court and demand property rights on it, one would likely receive a big eye role from the “brother”.

In any case, whether Muhammad’s words were mere slip words or serious conviction remains the debate. And this debate sparked the Islamic civil war. After many years of conflict, Ali was assassinated. As Ali was killed in an ambush, Shi’ites believed that the Sunni illegitimately seized power. In addition, Sunnis would soon embark a series of persecutions on Shi’ites. This led to the bad fate of Fatimah, the beloved daughter of Muhammad, who would soon pass away in poverty and illness due to the persecutions. Ali’s son, Hussain, would also perish in the Battle of Karbala during the civil war. In present-day Iran, to commemorate Hussain’s death, a ritual of self-harming known as Ashura has emerged, where participants would whip themselves on the back in the sombre display of grief.

Then, two very different historical trajectory and narratives unwind in the peninsula of Arabia and the old Persia heartland.

Prior to Islam, the land of Arabia hardly had significant human civilisation. On the contrary, Persia has long been one of the oldest human kingdoms long before Jesus. When Xerxus invaded Greece in 480 BC, Arabia was nowhere in the history. After the Islamic civil war, the peninsula of Arabia went through two caliphates: Umayyad and Abbasid. Umayyads controlled some of the Persia lands, and the rulers even adopted certain level of Farsi. However, they never treated Persia as equals. Persians that went to Arabic heartland were considered second-class citizens. As Umayyad faltered, the new Abbasid lost more control of Iran. Many parts of Iran lived in autonomy, embracing a combination of Arabic and Iranian elements. These states also had crossover with some parts of today’s Uzbekistan.

Islamic conquest of Iran changed the country at its core. Since antiquity, Iran has faced stronger enemies. The Greeks and Macedonians for the Achaemenid. Romans for the Parthians. Arabs and Turks were no exception. Through centuries, a sense of being unfairly repressed and persecuted inscribed into Persian gene. By the time Ali was slain, this sense of being cornered and the subsequent need to rebel against the enemies found its justification. No longer was the external enemy too powerful, but also was there an unjust usurp of divine lineage. Today, the US assumed the role of such an external enemy.

In the 13th century, when the Mongols swept the Eurasian continent, neither Arabic dynasties nor Persian states remained intact. Through horrendously bloody tactics, Mongols destroyed many historical hubs along the Silk Road. Some of the metropoles never recovered. In 1258, Mongols conquered Baghdad. At the then capital of the Abbasid, they sacked 36 public libraries that contained the greatest knowledge and wisdom of Islamic golden age. The Mongol atrocity was so bad that a tale in the 16th century claimed the books tossed into Tigris tainted the river black from ink. In Persia alone, Mongol conquest killed 2-15 million people.

Following the conquests, Mongols established Khanates that had local ethnic participation in the region. Many regional empires grew in the two lands respectively.

The last of Iran’s prosperous Muslim dynasty Safavid shined between 16th century to mid 18th century. The dynasty left lasting legacy to Iran today as many parts of the administrative systems and construction of Safavid are still used today. The dynasty also had good influence on India. Taj Mahal is a very condensed representation of such influence. Iran’s empires and dynasties had great success in cultural transmission for centuries. When Safavid gradually came to its end, Saudi Arabia only started to shape its kingdom. In 1727, Saudi Arabia’s ruling family House of Saud started from an unassuming castle called Diriyah. The new army was aided by a strict Wahhabi doctrine.

Today, many Iranians still consider Saudi Arabia a country of shallow cultural roots beyond religion. We can very well see the reason. When Persians already spread Cheloh Kababs to the world, Saudis might have just found their first footholds in Diriyah.

The two countries would continue to find a unified picture during the centuries leading to modern time. They both faced rivalry from the Ottomans. The ruling families both struggled to retain power. However, their fates would soon diverge as the first explorative ship from the West drew near the Persian Gulf.

Oil-led Western Influence Changed Regional Dynamics

In the 20th century, Western participation shook up the power dynamics in the region. Oil was a mystery box, as one did not know if it would bring the Western gunpowder or Wealth of Nation. It tested the valour of leaders in the most turbulent era.

In 1908, the British-controlled power discovered oil in Iran. At the beginning of the century, British had long been circling around Persia seeking new resources and more play of power. Under the reign of the weak Qajar dynasty, Iran was unable to defend itself against the aggressive Western interests. The rise of the West in the Middle East was not solely in Iran, since the Allies would soon face off the Ottomans on the sea and directly contributed to the breakdown of the last Caliph during World War I.

Today, we know that Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter. However, it was not the case before. Why oil brought Iran an immense misfortune yet helped Saudi transform its economy?

After the Anglo-Persian Oil Company found black gold in Iran, many state-sponsored Western companies sought for new lands and opportunities. Arabia was initially considered a no-oil reserve. The ruler, King Ibin Saud, was busy unifying the kingdom, so at the beginning, oil discovery did not occupy a high priority. However, history soon pushed the oil search to Ibin Saud’s agenda. World War I highlighted the importance of oil as an essential and decisive factor for artillery and industrial production. Both sides had suffered great loss in incidents when oil supply could not meet the demand. In between WWI and WWII, the Great Depression hijacked people of their wealth; thus, pilgrimages to Saudi plummeted more than 50%, greatly restraining the new kingdom’s income. From 1920s, Ibn Saud started sponsoring oil discovery missions across the kingdom. In 1938, the former body of ARAMCO, i.e., Arabian American Oil Company, found oil in Saudi Arabia. The decades leading to oil discovery and after, the Ibin Saud regime proved to be mostly stable and powerful, as it unified the two kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd. This drew a sharp contrast against the notoriously servile Qajar dynasty in Iran at the same time.

Following the oil discovery, the different Iranian regimes unsuccessfully made a series of ill agreements with the foreign oil companies, majority of which were headed by the British. Through these agreements, various oil “concessions” were created. Foreign companies retained the majority of the oil-generated revenue made in these concessions. Iranians had no rights to these concessions for decades until the late 20th century.

On the contrary, Saudi Arabia dealt mainly with America, who soon would rise to be the only superpower post WWII. Saudi Arabia made successful attempts increasing Saudi’s profit-sharing proportion in the agreements. It was also able to extract tax revenue from these oil revenues. In the latter half of the 20th century, Saudi Arabia used the oil money to build better infrastructure, sea tunnels, refineries, etc. Oil enriched the country and changed ordinary people’s life. It also gave Saudi Arabia an economic ground beyond political agenda. The situation in Iran was much complicated. British, French, and Russians flocked to Iran vying for the last piece of a shattered empire. In between, the country also went through many painful regime changes, one coup d’état (against Mosaddeq) played by the US, and subsequent collaboration in oil production with the US.

From the late 1950s, Iranian government started to push for nationalisation of the oil companies and renegotiate the profit-sharing terms. In 1950, Iran exported 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) and Saudi 555,000 bpd. Iran was the number one exporter in the region. Both countries’ oil companies were British and American companies by large, each having different revenue sharing scheme. In 1970s, Saudi Arabia and Iran were the two biggest oil exporters, and both were the initial members of OPEC. In 1975, Saudi Arabia produced 7,080,000 bpd and Iran 5,350,000 bpd.

Before the 1979 Iranian Revolution, both countries were important allies for the US. Their oil was instrumental to the revitalisation of Japan and Western Europe post Marshall plan. The US had distributed significant resources helping both countries. Through negotiation with Saudi Arabia and OPEC, the US managed to peg its dollars to the oil transaction business after fixed-rate dollars collapsed in 1971. The petrodollar negotiation again changed power dynamic. Post petrol-dollar peg, oil is no longer just a vital commodity that is reigned by supply and demand, but also a financial and monetary tool used by both the oil exporter and importer. In fact, since the Shale Oil Revolution in the US, Uncle Sam is already a stable oil player by itself. However, oil for the US is not just a commodity, but much more.

Post 1979: Divergence of Two Countries Drew by Liberal Economy Order

In 1979, the historical watershed happened in Iran, which dragged Iran from year 1979 back to a chronicle based in the years of 14th century. The Iranian Revolution not only divided Iran into two different phases led by different regimes, but also cut the tie between the US and Iran. Once Iran was excluded from the US-led liberal economic order, its fate in the 21st century was sealed. On the contrary, Saudi Arabia continued to strengthen its relations with the US and committed to make infrastructure investment and mingle in regional and global affairs, hosting 5 US military bases on its land.

In economics, no professional would ever understate the importance of the global liberal economy led by the US. China made an economic miracle only after it brokered peace with the US over Pinpong Diplomacy and participated in WTO. Today, China is often considered an enemy to the US, but, in reality, the two are in a love and hate relationship. During Cold War, China chose the right “camp” in a time when such choice was considered impossible and a betrayal. This proved that diplomacy is full of possibility depending on the will and might.

Back in 1979 when the Iranian Revolution happened, not many of its supporters realised the new regime’s fury would quickly turn against them. In the Shah era, despite Iran experienced a stunning series of economic growth at 10% every year, great redistribution of wealth, and tolerance towards all religions, the authoritarian leader’s high-pressure secret police (SAVAK), conflict with the clergy, gruntles of small farmers during White Revolution, etc. made people unsatisfied. Eventually, these things became unbearable and many, including freedom-loving women and students, turned to the banished Khomeini. People hoped it could be a better world. The following 444 days Iranian Hostage Crisis sent the relations between the US and Iran to zero point. After the new regime was stored, a series of sanctions soon showered the country. In the 1980s, the country was involved in the eight-year deadly and costly defensive war against the invading Iraq led by Saddam. Iranian inflation has been in the range of 20% in the decades to follow, and unemployment, especially given a soaring young population, remained around 10%.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution not only sent a shockwave to the world, but also influenced Saudi Arabia, as anti-government riots emerged at the same time. In the last two months of 1979, extremists captured the Grand Mosque in Mecca, echoing disbelief to the increasingly Westernised and thus “non-Islamic” Saudi monarchy, which had been spending its oil money lavishly. Nevertheless, riots were crushed and stricter Islamic norm was installed. The country continued to strengthen its tie with the US and purchased military equipment from the West.

While Iran would embrace a series of conservatism in the next decades except for the struggling moderate reform brought by Khatami, Saudi followed the path of consistent moderate reforms under the new King Abdullah. Deregulation, privatisation, and stronger ties with the West continued to be implemented. MBS’s reform looks groundbreaking today and it is, but this change did not come from nowhere. Saudi Arabia has advanced with small steps for decades before the millennial announced Vision 2030.

Saudi Arabia is a non-nuclear-weapon country. It seceded its nuclear rights in exchange for more help in developing nuclear energy for civilian use and for the greater economic goods. Nuclear weapon is a necessary and sufficient condition for world’s power. Having nuclear weapon is a must as a world’s power, although having it does not guarantee the becoming of a power. Under the current world order, it is nearly impossible for non-permanent 5 to develop nuclear weapons. Most countries traded nuclear weapons for economic prosperity. On the contrary, Iran insisted on testing its own nuclear weapon, which is an unfavourable yet one of the few deterrents against Israel. In 2013-2015, JCPOA was finally reached and Iran was willing to cut its uranium by 98% to trade for a lift of sanctions. However, following Trump’s denial of JCPOA in 2017, Iran’s nuclear non-proliferation commitment quickly disappeared. There are renewing reports claiming Iran and stakeholders will resume JCPOA talks and secure a deal soon, but no confirmation has been reached yet.

Post Covid: Vision 2030 and Mahsa Amini

During the Covid years, if there has to be one defining social movement in Iran, it has to be the “woman, life, freedom” movement fueled the death of the young 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. The young Kurdish lady was believed to die following the abuse of morality police on her dress code, namely not wearing hijab properly.

In Iran, it is not uncommon for women to only loosely fit a scarf on their head as this is considered fashionable. Tightly fitting a scarf is considered old-style especially in big cities. The death of Amini is actually an unfortunate case because many people had not wore headscarves properly, and the act of not wearing scarf properly has become a social custom, representing women’s silent protests against headscarves, conservatism, and religious authority. Before Amini’s death, Iran had been in an economic slump for years, which worsened after a series of bad events at the end of 2019. In January 2020, the US killed the revered Qasemi Soleimani (revered in Iran but feared elsewhere) in a drone strike in Iraq. Iran vowed to revenge, only to shoot down a civilian plane full of Iranians by a much uncalculated human accident. Covid-19 made the situation worse. Mahsa Amini’s death ignited decades’ long dissatisfaction towards gender inequality, bad economic performance, state expropriation (which stifled entrepreneurship and birthed severe corruption), low women participation in labour force (17%, among lowest in the world, despite 60% of the STEM degrees are obtained by women), unsuccessful diplomatic breakthrough, etc.

While drawing the data from Saudi Arabia, women labour participation rate is 37% in 2022. Saudi inflation rate keeps at an average of 2.5% for the past decade. World Bank’s Doing Business tracks how supportive an environment is for entrepreneurs in many countries. While Iran consistently ranked the least welcoming for entrepreneurs, Saudi is newly ranked in one of the most improved and quickly climbs up the chart.

In the latter half of 2023, the gains of the Iranian mass movement began to recoil. Morality police was restored in mid 2023. Today, no constructive change has been made. Protests and mass demonstration were not unusual in Iran throughout decades. Often, these protesters ended in jail, women raped, and men swiftly death sentenced without due procedure.

In authoritarian Shari’a-ruled countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia, giving long jail terms or death sentence to protesters is a normal activity. However, what makes or breaks a society is not the prospect of body punishment but the hope towards a better future. Economic projection is a delicate dream. Iranian regime has underperformed for decades, yet Saudi seems to beat the target.

Post Covid, the biggest gulf economy rebounded rather successfully, seeing a growth rate much higher than other GCC countries. Driven by the massive investment brought by Saudi gigaprojects, Vision 2030 served as the lighthouse that mobilises economy. The US has also understood that Saudi Arabia now constitutes 10% of the global oil production, and any strike against the nation would make it difficult for the US to find substitute in short time.

While the recent improvement in relations with Saudi Arabia has brought a brief breath of fresh air to Iran, this diplomatic breakthrough won’t fundamentally change Iran’s economic situation. Unlike the Pinpong diplomacy between China and the United States in the past, Saudi Arabia does not have the power to alter Iran’s destiny. As long as the domestic rigidity and tense relations with the West (intensified after Amini) persist, Iran’s industries will continue to decline.

Has the U.S.’s maximum pressure policy worked on Iran? Yes and no. It has not destroyed the country; history repeatedly proves the resilience of the Persian people. The pressure has not broken Persians; instead, it brought greater resentment towards the United States. However, the maximum pressure has economically crippled Iran. As a resource-rich nation with a big population and educated workforce, Iran has the potential to be a regional power. Nevertheless, in the 21st century, the economy is the foundation of everything. The country’s deadlock (corruption + external sanctions) can only be resolved in one way under the current international situation. People, deprived of tangible economic benefits, have become a pawn that was sacrificed in diplomatic power play. Their discontent may one day reach a turning point, as envisaged in the white paper that designed the maximum pressure policy decades ago.

On the other hand, present-day Saudi Arabia receives more economic protection. As the legitimate heir to Islam and the protector of two mosques, it is in a much more glorified position than Iran. As a result, the country does not have the aggressive ambitions seen in many other formerly colonised countries.

In any case, the world is changing, and we are right here in the changing history. How will you shape the history?

Tough Choices

In my short life at the moment, I have made some difficult decisions. How to decide if a decision is difficult? For me, it was a short period of time I was restless; inside of me there was a bucket of pressures, and I was unsure of what to do next. I don’t have “many” difficult decisions, in fact, the ones that can be remembered and be noted as “life-changing” can be counted with half the palm.

The first one happened when I went from the UK to the US.

When I was studying for my bachelor’s degree, I was fortunate enough to participate in a joint-degree program in two schools in the United Kingdom and the United States. I could spend two years in the United Kingdom, then two years in the United States, in a way learning the knowledge and obtaining the two diplomas in four years.

In the beginning, I felt very lucky. I worked hard and cherished the opportunity. However, after a happy and unforgettable first year in the UK, I started to ponder over the possibility of backing off from the US plan next year.

The programme was new, so I was among the second batch of students. Some students had previously dropped out of the programme, choosing to stay at one school. By the time I was at the door of leaving, I began to understand why. After a year of studying and building a social life in a foreign country, I just established a firm foothold. I met like-minded friends who I thought to be lifelong. I hang around with them all over Europe, driving a big Benz with the back cover open and galloping cocktail in Frankfurt at night. We went to the chicest rooftop in Athens with Acropolis across sight. I also just met a guy in Europe. There were many uncertainties about the future. Leaving those good friends and a lover whom I just started to have feelings and going to another country thousands of miles away sank my heart into the ocean.

At the end of the first year, the programme dean held a pre-trip Q&A meeting for the United States. I was in this extremely hesitant and uneasy state for 1-2 weeks. After class every day, I trekked miles with my feet to the golf course against the strong Scottish winds and hails. After practice at the driving range, I went home and chatted with some senior students to understand why some people chose to quit. Some of them had the same concerns that stopped me. We just started to develop a root in one place. We had good friends, boyfriends and girlfriends, rising careers, and easy travels in Europe at any time. These beautiful parts are important parts of human life, why give up and rebuild in such a short time? Didn’t we just build our comfort zone?

 There was another boy in the same programme as I. I knew that he just met his girlfriend in the UK. After many years, I saw on social media of both parties that they are still together, but I also witnessed some of his hesitation and pains through these difficult years as an acquaintance in the same programme.

Time was pressing. At some point I had to make a decision, whether to get on a plane to America, or to quit.

After returning from golf practice one morning, I invited my German teacher for coffee. On the one hand, I wanted to thank her for her kind guidance the past one year. On the other hand, I wanted to make another friend or contact. On the back end, I wanted to entrust her with my golf clubs. I bought this set of Calloway clubs in St Andrews. There were also a few very valuable second-hand clubs used by famous golf stars. I thought that if I went to the United States, I would first fly to China so bringing the clubs would be inconvenient. In fact, today, ten years later, I have a little regret, if only I had brought it with me! Later, when I played in life, I always had to rent clubs on site...

In the afternoon, the sun shined through the huge glass in the café. The German teacher was wearing the German-style simple single colour shirt and a pink pant as usual. Her greetings were also simple and direct. I thanked her for her great German lesson and chatted with her on random things. Then, I said, I have a question I want to know your opinion, a decision that I am a little bit tangled up.

In fact, I was not close to the German teacher, so it was a little strange to ask her a personal question and try to convey the information relevant to a life decision in a few sentences.

She said, hmm, if it's a problem of your life, I'm not sure I can help, but go ahead.

I said, Mrs, I'm in this UK-US 2-2 joint degree program, and I'm going to America in the summer. I don't know if I want to go. I'm thinking of quitting. I have good friends and maybe a boyfriend here. I like the UK and Europe very much. My school, career and personal life are good here. I'm just finding my comfort zone and I don't want to leave.

The German teacher took a few seconds and said, I think it is possible to get out of the comfort zone and take a look at the outside world. There may be some unexpected gains for you.

In fact, what she said was the advice I wanted to collect but not the answer I wanted to hear. I wanted her to understand my emotional difficulties. I wanted to hear her saying something that would encourage me to stay. After parting with her, the stone in my heart did not fall. I asked this same question to some other people, close and distant, for more advice. The information I got was mixed. Many people felt that I could stay. Everything was fine. My brain also said stay. Why I wanted to go against the will of the brain and put the existing comfort and beauty to an abrupt end?

After I left my German teacher, I was still enormously nervous, and I weighted pros and cons for remaining many days. I had always thought I was going to say no until the last second. At the last of the last second, something in my mind ticked, I decided.

Afterwards, I went to the US indeed. The first year in the US was not easy. I did break up across continents. When I returned to the UK two years later, my old friends and I had grown apart. We were like strangers when we met again. I never went back to the old days with them. When I was in the United States, I often went back to Europe and worked hard to maintain European relations and resources, which also opened new contacts and new ideas between Europe and the United States. In hindsight, I began to understand that it is not that distance and time to be a gap. My growing apart with my old friends happened when my decision was made, as the difference in our thinking patterns and the possibility of future resources set us apart. After I came to the United States, I made new friends. After the painful break-up, I met new people. The most important thing is that my life led to a paraglide of a much newer and bigger world. Had I stayed in Europe, I would definitely not be able to have my everything now in the United States. I would not have the life cross three sub-continents now. My mental framework would be confined to a European perspective, and I would not the prosperity and flaws of America-led global libertarian order. People who remained only in the United States or between China and the United States (like many people in my position) are also confined to their world. I am lucky to be able to embrace three.

Many people may feel it could have been an easy decision. Many people felt that did I even need to hesitate there? Of course if we judge my decision as what we are now, 20 something 30 year old, 10 years older than what I was back then, having experienced a way bigger world, that decision for the 18-year old Zhu was pretty a nonsense. However, God set a wall in front of my eye for Zhu of that time. What I had in the UK by today’s standard was just a sesame, but it was everything for me at the time; it seemed so huge that it shook my mind. By today we knew that I gained a watermelon after the move, but when I made the decision, I could not see that watermelon. I gave my “everything” to go to a new place knowing nothing. Today, we would say, Zhu, you gave up nearly nothing. The point is, was it known to me, being confined by my age and cognition level, at 18-year-old?

In the years following, I often reflect on the important nodes and choices in life through my own history and observation of those around me and those I admire. Facing life choices, most of which are relevant to schools, partner, place of residence, or other important business and personal choices, it is more difficult to say yes or no? There are two distinctively different paths. Which one to choose, and how to choose the difficult and "right" thing? I don't think there is a "correct" answer, but there is a realm of discussions. One way may be extremely tense and bright at one hand, although the other may be also beautiful. At important life nodes, I think it is more difficult to choose yes. If we choose no, we can reject the infinite unknown and guard our known. We do not tie our commitment to a time frame or a life path. If we choose yes, we choose a palette of huge uncertainties and darkness. An unknown place, a strange country, a commitment to a lifelong partner, a chance to promise... When I chose yes, there was a black hole in front of me, and I chose to jump right into it, not knowing if I had the ability to see light nor knowing how future would unfold in what ways. It is extremely risky as there has no quantifiable rewards to be visualised before taking the sacrifice and risks. I must risk it all to see what emptiness brings. However, I always think that I only live once. If I choose no instead of yes, will I regret that I do not take a look at the option yes?

I don't know whether this decision-making method has a certain "strategic merit", but the people I admire tend to have the same mindset. They can choose to give up comfort when they have them. They dare to choose lifelong partners when they are young. They choose ashes among the ruins, choose darkness in the darkness, and then seize the light when there is nothing left in the vacuum.

If the house is going to collapse, I want to see it fall on me

The man I had just started talking in Europe finally chose to end it. When I was planning to go to Europe to see him while in the US, I felt the difference in the way we talked the last few days. I asked him what was going on and he said we needed to meet. I quickly booked a plane ticket using mum’s money, which pissed off my mum (now I use my own money to do crazy things…). In fact, I already had a bad feeling in my stomach, but I knew I wanted to see the truth with my own eyes and solve the problem in reality.

After the cross-Atlantic flight, the man met me with a rather cold eye. After deciding whether we would talk at a café or his home, we ended up at home. Man mentioned a few reasons, the most important of which was age, then distance, etc. I collected myself in tears and headed back to London overnight to be with a friend. The friend did her best to comfort me, but I was still in an extreme pain, and I would cry so much that my tears drained.

I found the truth I wanted. The truth was cruel. It told me that this is a man who liked me, but not enough. Facing issues as age, distance, and other life commitments, he chose other things and gave up on me.

Yet I was also happy and lucky. First, this man dared to give me up quickly after a short period of hesitation. Although he was also unwilling, he did not procrastinate. If he could not give me a somewhat visual future, he left after some debates in heart. I think readers may only understand the sense of responsibility to act decisively in a relationship if you have been treated with the cruel and mentally stressful silent treatment. This man may not be the most ambitious or wise man alive, but he made himself a real man in his relationship by making a quick decision and acting on it like a real man. A real man hunts and gives up the hunt with all his heart, so he did. Second, I'm glad I saw the result with my own eyes. The house collapsed. I did not run away or flinch. I did not hesitate or harass him afterwards. I received a warning sign that the house might collapse so I came to house, and it fell on me. I was standing there right in the middle of rubbles.

Years later, this man tried to contact me. Perhaps on a second thought, as I grew older, the stressful "age" factor at the time seemed less of a dreaded issue. A thirty-year-old man and a nineteen-year-old girl can be odd, but a thirty-five-year-old man and a twenty-four-year-old woman are not as scary. Looking back on the past, one may start to rethink the eternal value, character, potential, and shining points embedded in the soul of the partner.

However, the man chose under pressure. He did not choose the value of a partner and was stopped by the wall of "age". He did not try to break this own mental wall. I did my best to him and I had zero regrets. Cherish is a verb and a lesson learned with life and time. I had a new beau two or three months later. I tried hard to love that man, but it wasn't me who let go. He held my hand and forced it down. I left, and I did not look back.

Gentle years, beautiful and precious moments in the waves

There was this guy who saw me on the New York subway once and was mesmerised. The subway was only a few stops away, and I would get off soon.

The guy suppressed his nervousness and came to chat with me - I found it weird. Guy wore a sweaty gym shirt and looked unattractive in the dim New York metro light. Although my first impression of the guy was underwhelmed, I left my phone number to thank his courage. Afterwards, we went on a few coffees in New York. He became a well-dressed New York financier with fine perfumes on our coffee chats, very different from how I first met him. However, I really had no feelings for this guy, so in the end we just became acquaintances, friends, and networks.

He told me later that he had never approached a girl so casually on the subway before he hit me up. Before he spoke to me, his heart was about to jump out of his throat. He just came back from the gym after a day of work. He was very tired. On this plain Friday night, he just wanted to go home and collapse on bed, but at such an unplanned time, he saw me on the subway. He said he knew he looked like shit, and he was on the New York metro that smelled worse than shit on a senseless Friday night, but he was caught by me in a red dress on the metro, and his heart soared to heaven. He told himself how many opportunities a person has in his life to meet a Goddess like this, and if he misses it, he misses it forever. So the little devil in his heart told him, go strike up a conversation, give a zero f* to what the other person thinks of you, mind zero if you dress badly, don't care if we are in the dirtiest place in the world, matter not when the subway will arrive, ignore all the sense and nonsense in the lousy world, just do it, and you won't know until you try. Then he approached me with his first words.

He tried, although the result was not as expected. I was his hit girl, but he was not my hit guy. Maybe after a few coffees, he also felt that I was not as his first impression. Nonetheless, at that moment in the subway, he made the most out of his beating heart and his inexplicable hormones. Later, as a friend, I also witnessed the ups and downs of his life for a period of time. Although this guy had a good degree, he was an international student. For some time, he failed to find a job and lived rather dimly. He received an interview from McKinsey three days before he was about to be deported. Two days later, he became a senior consultant at McKinsey in New York, so the repatriation letter became a long-term work permit on the night before deportation. The ups and downs of the guy are eye-opening - and I have witnessed his life being turned in just a few days. I know why. I remember him looking at me with stars in his eyes the first time he approached me and in the coffees we had.

He dared to hold true to his heart. He beat his fears. Even though results might not be exactly shaped as he wished, destiny was willing to bend for him with tenderness.

Fortunately, I have some beauty and knowledge. I have a relatively high chance of being hit up, so I am also fortunate to collect some very cute stories. Most of them had no ends, and for me they were just beautiful memories of that time in my life. I think many men have a ruler in their hearts to measure the comfort level of girls and feelings. Women may have it, I have it, and I only date people that hit my ruler over a mark. I remember on the plane to London, on the connecting flight back to Washington, next to the bus in San Francisco, and the train station in Basel, different boys approached me in different ways, whether through reading books or strike up a conversation in the flight, or speaking French when I’m buying pizza. I’m very grateful of their creativity. I still remember one-time I was skating with a friend at the Somerset House, a guy and friend followed us for a few laps. When my friend and I stopped to take pictures, the guy slid a mobile phone from the ice towards me. I unlocked the phone, it said, can I have your phone number?

I didn't leave my phone number because guy was not my type. But he was very cute, and I will always remember and be thankful that he had a feeling for me on the ice and was so creative by sliding his phone off the ice for a girl’s number.

Some stories do not need an end or a beginning either. Because if a story begins, you don't want it to end; a story that ends hurts. My heart is not in place, so I don't want an innocent person to spend the vain time waiting for me. I jot down the moment of "first encounter", because at that moment, they were very cute boys.

Once I went to surf in Jamaica, I had this encounter with a guy against the clear sky and blue ocean in a small green village. He was my surfing coach, who taught me to switch from big board to small board. I had a little attraction to him, but I knew I would never go back to Jamaica. I remember that when I held my surfboard and came out of the shower rinse from the salty water, the man’s body suddenly froze for a moment. I saw his black eyes full of the shadow of my pink clothes and the blue water. There was only a second in that moment, as he recovered quickly, and we continued to learn to surf, and then we friendly farewell. When I got back to the UK, he tried to call me on WhatsApp but I cut off contact. I didn’t want him to make a fruitless investment in me, and I didn’t want to waste his time because I knew that I only had a little feeling for him. Whenever I think of a boy who has stars in his eyes, I always think of the way he looked at me. His eyes were as shiny as his skin, both were fine like black gemstone showered by the ocean. His eyes usually imprinted the white clouds and green trees of the Caribbean. The sea gave him purity and softness. In the moment when his heart buzzed, there were a billion falling stars in his eyes, because the ocean waves washed her silhouette into his heart. If time can stay in the vast sea forever, there will be no more sadness in a lover’s eyes.

Silent treatment

People who have experienced silent treatment are unlucky, yet there is an increasing trend of silent treatments in relationships. Silent treatment mostly occurs in intimate relationships. Because of intimacy, it matters.

I am very lucky and responsible that I have never given silent treatment to anyone. Generally, within three days when my belief in a relationship starts to shake, I give the other person a clear answer.

However, not having done morally wrong does not mean not being done of morally wrong. When silent treatment occurs, it shows the cowardice on responsibility of the other person. The person who begins to treat a person coldly may not necessarily know that he or she is doing a mentally violent act or realise how terrible is the seemingly harmless silence. The cold appearance and the refusal to communicate are actually very brutal, and the damage caused to the other party on the mental level is no less than scalping the other person piece by piece with a slow knife. The victim walks into a boundless mental darkness, a space of nil. The person uses his or her bare hands and do useless struggles, while he or she is only fighting a pitiful voidness. He or she is consumed by these endless fights within his or her own brain.

The person who adopts silent treatment is a pussy, and it is because of his/her own weakness and procrastination that caused failures.

Please do not do silent treatment if you ever think of it. Let’s talk about everything, express the mess in hearts, sort out issues one by one with our partner, or make decisions and take action with confidence. If my dear reader is unfortunate to fall the victim of silent treatment, please know that you are charming and brave. Although this mishap should not happen to you, you can face it boldly, confront the other person, and flip the table. You can act, and you should act, because it's the other person who is weak not you. I personally even think that it is okay to let his/her public life know the cowardly behaviour of this person in the relationship depending on the extent - no matter what the public life of this person is, a person failing to take responsibility for pursuing or giving up an intimate relationship is unworthy of the false cheers in public eye.

King's destiny: throne or love?

The stories of two historical figures touched me deeply, and from this I also knew what choices I would make in situations of my life and I make efforts to do the prioritised matters every day.

The last king of a certain country (no name here to avoid controversy as he is still very hated by many) had many women in his life, and his favourite woman was his second wife. When the king was in power, the political situation was turbulent; he was surrounded by powerful and canny political enemies. He was not capable enough to handle the mess. The king’s favourite wife could not give birth to a male heir, so after a great struggle, he decided to divorce her. A country needed an heir, and the king rejected his beloved's suggestion to abdicate and pass the throne to his half-brother years later. Between the throne and the lady, or between an heir and the lover, the king chose the former. Both the king and the discarded wife were very sad. She was disappointed. She said that the king was an eastern man after all, unlike a western man such as the Duke of Windsor that dared to abdicate for love. Decades later, the king remarried and had children and an heir. Nevertheless, if the reader still remembers, at the beginning of this paragraph I mentioned that this king was the last king of the dynasty. Politics was so turbulent that he could not handle the scene. In his life, he made several (not clairvoyant) decisions that landed him to his destiny. When the revolution broke out, the king was deposed and exiled. He suffered from cancer and waited to die in a foreign country. Before he died, his divorced wife called and said that she still loved him even after so many years. The king replied, I love you too. The two wanted to arrange a meeting, yet before the reunion occurred, he died in foreign land. The son of the king never became emperor. The king certainly respected and loved other wives, but love has a different depth, and I am wondering if he ever regretted of losing his most beloved? As an outsider with a near-God-perspective outside of the history books, I feel it is a pity. Is it worth it? The king gave up love for the heir, but was his life really happy? Yes he had an heir, but wasn’t he still the last king? Had the king abdicated for love, he would have not experienced a life of displacement and ended up dying in a foreign land. His ashes have not yet returned to his homeland even today.

It also reminded me of Napoleon. Napoleon had a glorious empire and countless women in his life. The only one he deeply loved was Josephine. His relationship with Josephine was filled with betrayals and affairs. Neither of them cherished each other when they were young. Like the previously mentioned king’s situation, Josephine could not bear Napoleon an heir. Napoleon chose to divorce Josephine after some debates. At the end of Napoleon's life, he was impoverished, exiled to St Helena, and his empire fell apart. At the end of his life, he thought of France, his military career. Paralleling to these labels was not an heir but Josephine (France, l'armée, tête d'armée, Joséphine).

If I were an emperor, would I choose the throne or the beauty? I would definitely choose the beauty. Perhaps, I would look for the solutions that gave me the best of both worlds or half of each. There are many ways of living and many solutions in this world. The choice does not have to be between A or B; it can be sorted in a dynamic way that arrange and combine things to possibilities. Those who are daring and strong-fisted revise the constitution, so they can keep throne and the beauty both in hands.

The throne is the hallucination in the snap of a finger. It can indeed make a man and a woman realise the value as of a career, but it is nothing but a shadow and fantasy. How much political splendour can a person have in a short life, and how much of the glory can make a person truly happy?

Isn't happiness in the eyes and smiles of the beloved? We say that if the love is separated by mountains and seas, we should even the mountains and seas. If we sacrifice our love because the pressures of the mountains and seas are grand, what we win in this mortal and immortal world? Do we lose our most important thing? When a bundle of options is reduced to an A-B choice, and when A-B choice lost its original intention, that is the true sorrow and loss.

Marguerite Duras wrote at the end of her autobiographical novel L’Amant that the Chinese lover from years back called again when he was old. He came to Paris and said to his long-lost French lover, I still love you after so many years, and I will never stop loving you. After so many years, after an unsatiable marriage, so why don’t they cherish the love before all these years set off to fly? Why don't they dare to give up things when they know they have met their rare encounter of love? Since they are in love, why they bow to other soulless things?

Des années après la guerre, après les mariages, les enfants, les divorces, les livres, il était venu à Paris avec sa femme. Il lui avait téléphoné. C'est moi. Elle l'avait reconnu dès la voix. Il avait dit: je voulais seulement entendre votre voix. Elle avait dit: c'est moi, bonjour. Il était intimidé, il avait peur comme avant. Sa voix tremblait tout à coup. Et avec le tremblement, tout à coup, elle avait retrouvé l'accent de la Chine. Il savait qu'elle avait commencé à écrire des livres, il l'avait su par la mère qu'il avait revue à Saigon. Et aussi pour le petit frère, qu'il avait été triste pour elle. Et puis il n'avait plus su quoi lui dire. Et puis il le lui avait dit. Il lui avait dit que c'était comme avant, qu'il l'aimait encore, qu'il ne pourrait jamais cesser de l'aimer, qu'il l'aimerait jusqu'à sa mort.

Years after the war, after marriages, children, divorces, books, he had come to Paris with his wife. He phoned her. It's me. She had recognised him from the voice. He said: I only wanted to hear your voice. She said: it's me, hello. He was intimidated, he was afraid as before. His voice was suddenly shaking. And with the tremor, suddenly, she found the accent of China. He knew that she started to write books, he had heard about it from the mother he had seen in Saigon. And also for the little brother, that he was sorry for her. And then he hadn't known what to say to her. And then he told her. He had told her that it was like before, that he still loved her, that he could never stop loving her, that he would love her until he dies.

It's a pity that time ex-ante easily distorts the truly valuable things, which only to be realised ex-post. When people are young, they easily give up things that hold truth and meaning in life. Many years later, when they are old in their deathbed, they may regret of not choosing the person they love long ago and not holding on to the things that matter. Young people may think that they are the toughest men or women in the world, but the power is within falling backwards and bending softly in the arms of God. In this world, mountains may be even and the earth may be broken, but heart and love should not be disappointed.

Books, travel, choices

There are many decisions to be made in one's life, and there are very few important decisions. It is that small minority of decisions to have far-reaching effects and alter the fate of a person or even a group of people. Politicians need to make the future of the country, kings need to choose the fate of the people, and everyone needs to decide their career, residence, and partner. Sometimes there are right and wrong in choices, and sometimes there are wise and less wise in choices. Some decisions carry the power to see through years into the future welfare; when a decision is made, the destiny can be sealed for decades or hundreds of years. Making clairvoyant decisions and selecting choices is the power and ability of the wise. It is difficult to choose. The hard part is that choosing has consequences: yes has consequences, no has consequences. Consequences can come of large and small size, and some consequences are not known before making a decision. Some weighting factors do not have visualised value until years later.  

I don't have a good way to make decisions, because humans can think relatively, only God can do an absolute observation. To better live my life and carry my cool, I diligently read, travel, and use other people's stories and lives to increase my experience and knowledge reserves. At the same time, I keep trying on things in life not just limiting to thinking. Gradually I manage to organise my thoughts on life (at least try to). During the journey with my therapist, I am grateful that she has taught me three inner forces of a human being: love, hate and fear. Oftentimes when we make decisions, we are afraid of making decisions. Fear of the unknown, fear of moving, fear of leaving, fear of losing, fear of falling off a cliff, fear of commitment, fear of marriage, fear of rejection from a lover, fear of not being cherished, fear of stepping down, fear of not having enough power within our heart. Many people make decisions, do they really listen to their hearts when they decide on matters? Did we see the priceless value of matters and truly weigh the pros and cons? Instead of letting fear make decisions for me, I learned to let love guide my mind. Among the three powers, the power of love is the greatest, and this is also the power of God. Love points me to different solutions and possibility. Jesus was crucified not because he was afraid, but because he loved the world.

Courage, for girls

 A recent decision also carries a tremendous weight for me, and I made this decision and chose yes (not marriage) in darkness. There was considerable opposition before the decision was made and significant pressures after the decision was made. My heart made me choose yes, because no was not an option; I made this decision with love and trust in my ability to handle a mess. I had the courage to respect the voice of my own heart. Without disturbing others too much, I made actions that I would not regret.

Every coin has two sides. The flip side of courage is imprudence; but life is only once, so what about imprudence?

On March 8th, I heard the news of a Taiwanese celebrity Shiyuan Hsu getting married again. She divorced her husband of 10 years and quickly remarried to her first love 20 years ago within months. It is true that marriage does take long-term commitments, but Tsu dared to gamble and was swift enough in giving up love and finding love. If she tries it, then she knows right or wrong. Between yes and no, choosing yes may not be successful, but choosing no will definitely fail.

As girls, we do not live an easy life. We need to overcome more difficulties than men to get the same rewards. Some of us may have more power and selection of choices than most of the men, but we pay more and work harder than men in the same rank. Shiyuan Hsu had what it took to make a decision that was loyal to her heart and cherished the present, because she had the confidence, wealth, resources, and power to do so. As girls, what are we going to choose and what should we do? What to choose when we are lost? What to choose when we are gray, when we are in pain?

I would say, do whatever the fuck we want. I say let’s choose whatever we want in our hearts. Let’s not care what other people think or if the idea or the choice is stupid, cheap, eye-opening, crazy, worthy, short-sighted, unrecommended, "wrong". As long as we do not do morally corrupted things that tramp our own bottom lines, we can let our possibility flow freely. Nothing is wrong; if the choice is “wrong”, let’s do it, so we know if it is wrong. God always lay brick walls, place dead ends, and create cliffs. He is not telling us to not go, but on the contrary to encourage us to go. Only when we jump off the cliff will we know whether the other side is a better world rich in scenery, or is it really just a cliff? Even if it's just a cliff, there is nothing to be afraid as we can start over again. Even if we fall and die, we are in the arms of God.

In my life, I repeatedly chose to leave a comfort zone and embraced a vast sky, which often appeared in the form of a black hole. I saw the hole, so I jumped right into it, holding a firm belief of love and conviction in my fiery heart. If I do not make difficult decisions myself and leave my comfort zone at an immature time, God will force me to take actions with an even worse timing and way less favourable conditions.

I did whatever the fuck I wanted, acknowledging, appreciating, but ignoring advices. I have the confidence and ability to make the decisions I want, and I'm constantly improving the confidence and power of being able to have more choices. The confidence may come from money, power, appearance, vision, knowledge, mindset, mental framework, or the ability to take the initiative to choose and accept challenges proactively. Under pressure I chose things I believed in and the people I wanted. Project, career, lover, I did it, I tried my best. I may not get what I want and I may fail, but I dare to take the risk of failure. I have the ability to handle a failure, as I can always start over. Is there a plan b in this world? Yes. Not only plan b, we also have plan z. In any difficult situation, we may choose between A and B, but we can also create solutions more than the two. A crisis is a not the dead-end, but the cul-de-sac. Plan a to z, there is only one name behind it, that is myself.

--

Fragmented essay as above, written at the airport before a journey, and during a journey. The story is unfinished, the ending may fail, and there may not be an update.

We arrived to Istanbul amidst the rainfall of lira. While encompassing the growingly difficult life of Istanbuli and witnessing how Istanbuli restaurants updated their menu price by days, we still managed to enjoy our own splurge, which was not commonly enjoyed by local Turkish.

Barbare Vineyard, Wine Business with A Conservative Government

One of the best sommeliers of our time, Pascaline Lepeltier, once said in an event that a glass of wine transports us through time and location. Different regions brew different wines, and the wine lovers can truly sip in the culture of a region through the condensed beverage. I always have a heart for sophisticated matters that evolve our of the juxtaposition of location and time, so wine is one of them. My wine list reflects my ever-expanding wander to the worldly cultures. Wherever I go, I mostly do a couple of untouristy things in many places: play a golf, visit vineyards, get a haircut. This time, I take you to explore the charming Istanbuli vineyard.

Barbare Vineyard close to the sea is around 2-hour drive from Istanbul centre. Istanbulis long noted that “the sea turtles in Barbare are drunk”, echoing the “long” history of winemaking business in the area and the streak extending from it. Barbare started producing wine in 2007 although the plan for business and haggle for land existed long before the year. The father of the lady that gave us a tour to the barrels, who is also the founder of the vineyard, started scouting for lands long time ago. The current vineyard took quite a turn and a streak of business struggles to even have the first brick laid. Once the vineyard was built, the place took 6 years to grow grapes and finally started selling wine in 2013.

The vineyard is small by vineyard standard. It carries a low-yield strategy, meaning that the vineyard produces a minimum of 200 tons annually. Once grapes are harvested, staff immediately transport them to winery in a “Chateau style”, which is to own the winery directly on site, according to the vineyard’s website.

Barbare Winery fermented grapes in heat-controlled stainless-steel tanks with a maximum residual sugar ratio of 0.5 g/l to produce dry wines with an alcohol content of between 12.5 and 14.5%. The fermentation process generally takes around 2 to 6 weeks. In between the process, meticulous sampling and acid-matching are done. When the winery is happy for its sample, it transports the sample to be confirmed by the vineyard’s oenologist Xavier Vignon. Then the wine is transported to and finished in French oak barrels, which are used only for a maximum of 4 years, so as the vineyard can “mature the wines without too much oak”.

A palette taste of the various red and white wines produced in the vineyard hit my tannin note at high. These wines are much stronger in tannin than their European peers. One sip goes all the way to my head as if a Turkish kebab attacking my palpate directly. The lady explained that Turkish wines in general are much higher in tannin as local market likes it. I am not sure if the claim is true or not, but I did tried a couple of more Turkish wines from different regions in the following days, and I could attest that. While we strode around the grapes, we also learned that the grapes phylloxera has not come to Turkey so the European grapes at the vineyard are not regrafted to American roots, unlike most of the grapes in continental Europe. Europeans are accustomed to having grapes grafted, so at a winetasting dinner of Cyprian wine in Switzerland I was in, many of the connoisseurs and aficionados were very surprised that Cyprus, despite being European, has no phylloxera either.

Despite of a lot of hurdles, the business prevails, although never earning a huge profit. Somehow breakeven, the vineyard continues to make wine and serve customers that are taking a break from the busy and sometimes throat-cutting Istanbul life. Being in the wine business is not easy, and holding up to the traditional way of making wine, and in a Muslim country is probably harder. Sometimes one does not just make a business for money, although profit is an important objective governing the raison d’etre of a business, carrying a heritage can also be the motivation.

Food – Recommended and Not Recommended

Since I embarked Istanbuli trip for a private reason, there is not much history-digging but instead, many drinking, eating, and spending the minutiae of everyday life and time with beloved.

There is one restaurant that has not changed its recipe since 1919. What a gem in the Asia side! This time, we explored the Asian-side a bit more in depth and found various gems. Unfortunately, the weather was too cold and windy, braving a storm of the time, we were not able to walk around the neighbourhood such as Moda. However I cannot remember what is the name of it... so I can only wish you luck to find it!

Mezes

The ordinary street food in Istanbul is very rich, good in quality and affordable. Bebek may be the go to place for seafood but there are also some good restaurants in city centre. You can also order Mezes, a variety of appetisers made with seafood. In fact, after eating Mezes, we were basically full, so be careful when ordering.

Hakkioglu

The restaurant is not famous nor heavily rated. It is this simple small restaurant in the heart of Sisli. Sahand found the restaurant and our first meal in Istanbul started there. The price is extremely affordable with a good selection of homestyle dishes. Sahand went to there many times by himself; somehow the down-to-earth man found the down-to-earth place incredibly charming.

Muhallebsci

The Turkish blossom starts with a patisserie. My favourite has to be Mustafa Muhallebsci, and the second can be Saray Muhallebsci. In addition, we had too many puddings in random yet local muhallebsci in Cihangir.

Local Breakfast Place

Travellers can easily find little bakery or one-man stands or one-man breakfast place in the city. The Turkish breakfast tends to be heavy with carbs or cream, warning in advance. Come along with a small cup of Turkish coffee or chay (for those that do not drink coffee such as me). A new day awaits.

Spagos by Wolfgang Puck (in St Regis)

The environment is first-class, the service is okay, the smoking area and the non-smoking area are not good enough, the wine options are all local Turkish wines (although they have a cabinet of other famous wines), the scenery is good.

Rooftop 🌇 in five-star hotels. 

Featuring here rooftop view at Mövenpick in Sisli. Istanbul in the eyes of visitors and Istanbul in the eyes of Turks are very different. Due to the turbulent exchange rates and macro reasons, the local consumption ability is not high. Turkey is one of the few places close to Europe that has opened its borders during the epidemic. While not many locals can enjoy the five-star view, it may be a bit more affordable by the euro visitors.

Salt Bae's Restaurant - Do Not Recommend 📷

Salt Bae is popular because of the internet, and the restaurant is also a typical Insta-celebrity restaurant. On the one hand, the price is high, mainly because the quality is poor. Food and service are very average. You may enjoy taking a photo once, but frequent visits are not recommended. I think social media has given Salt Bae an opportunity, in fact, he could have used this opportunity to do long-term business with the benefit the stakeholder's benefit in mind, but the restaurants have gone the other way.

Summary

The magic of modern Turkey is on both the vibrant modern infrastructure that provides fun and indulgence for visitors and the long history, whose glory, the last Khalifa Ottoman Empire, broke down only 100+ years ago. Since I started doing research in the Middle Eastern studies and discovering its stories, I came to understand and capture a much more complex and prolonged take of the evolution of various forces in the region. Ottoman Empire must be an ineffaceable chapter. To the chagrin of much of the Middle East, only a handful of countries have an open and diverse economy to attract laymen and history lovers to do studies on the country. Turkey is one of them that gives ample opportunities and a good living for people to explore its past and debate its present and future. It has something for everyone. Through understanding a society’s history and actually setting foot to feel it, one can truly learn the soul of the spirit of a society. Besides the places to recommend for your next travel, I also propose to get to know the place through movies, books, articles, and sometimes academic international relations or comparative politics papers. Through the rise and fall of Ottoman Empire and the establishment of modern Turkey, we may see a page of our own society and individual life. For now, it is a wrap, and I shall bring you more reads in the future.

Beijing to Shenzhen to Chengdu: Onset of Coronavirus Outbreak

I landed in Beijing for an audition and I continued to gather friends for dinner, living the last bit of my superficial “globalist” life. Interestingly, while I am typing this article today (20.12.2021), I remembered this is precisely the date three years ago when I landed in Beijing. Three years ago this time, life was absolutely normal in Beijing and busy Beijingers were commuting every day in the extremely crowded subway in the least surprised way.

After the fun days, I finally booked a ticket to go back to Shenzhen, the warm ultramodern tip of Southern China.

At the time, going home was not easy for me. I spent half of my life going to boarding schools and living a lone wolf life. During the time I often arranged my own ticket and dragged a small suitcase around like a tiny boat in an ocean; I did not think much of my family. “Home” was a label I heard in others’ story but not necessarily in mine.

As I landed in Shenzhen, I built a mental wall around me and refused to talk to my family. I did not know what to say, and I was deeply self-conscious and self-pitying. A UPenn graduate that had no job but spent too much in the Middle East, I did not have the gut to face my family.

Precisely in the wary implosion, COVID-19, holding a reaper on its shoulder, tapped on the doors of our ordinary life.

One day I woke up as usual, suddenly my family members stopped talking and nobody was seen on street. The TV news played rolling headlines after headlines: outbreak of Coronavirus, already killed hundreds. Chinese central government acted extremely swiftly despite of the initial cover-up by the local government. Overnight, local government was replaced and the central government demanded Wuhan, a city of 11.08 million people, to be locked down in a shocking manner.

People were freaking out.

It was an incredible act to imagine an entire living city went into lockdown in peacetime because an unidentified and incurable horror with spooky eyes. My family and I especially felt the shriek as Wuhan is my family’s hometown before it migrated to Shenzhen. By the time the government announced lockdown, my parents and siblings were just leaving Wuhan by car. They left the border of Wuhan a few minutes before the government announced the lockdown and just a little bit before the provincial borders completely shut down.

When they arrived to Shenzhen, I refused to stay in the same house as them. As my parents recounted the “dangerous” story of how they “escaped” from Wuhan, I just felt them to be utterly irresponsible. What if you have already got Coronavirus? You are going to pass it to us, and you will be the reason Shenzhen being quarantined too.

I could not bear my family. During the time, I only talked to my boyfriend over the phone.

As cases quickly spread to the rest of the country, news in Wuhan grew hopeless. Cameras took the nation into hospitals, where this unidentified virus killed elderly, doctors, nurses, and whoever that came into contact. Couples being separated. Beloved being destroyed. Kind-hearted people being punished and killed for no reason. We saw the tears wandering around people’s eyes. We saw the sad and longing eye of the grandma lying on her deathbed and her husband of 60 years was not allowed to enter her hospital room due to quarantine. Doctors and nurses worked overtime, collapsed, had masks around their mouths for so long that it left scars. We did not know why the virus occurred nor we knew what was the virus that spread so fast. The country could not see light. There was no light.

In retrospect, I think most of the Chinese people would agree that “hopeless” was the word of early 2020.

In this silent and bruising darkness, I decided to leave home. Eventually, I settled for Chengdu, a cheaper city in Western China that also offers cosmopolitan amenity.

I heartlessly ignored the pleading cry of my grandma worrying the dangerous and uncertain situation outside home. I set off course.

Chengdu, Chongqing, and 2020: Finding Hope from Despair, At Least Trying

Surprisingly, Chengdu was in a much chiller environment than the rest of the country. Perhaps the city is a bit far off from the economic centres. Positioned as the last important town in Western China, the city has traditionally been a ground for comforters. For thousands of years, the mountain-clad basin guarded its richness and earned the fame of nourishing some very useless emperors. One famous emperor is A Dou, the son of a powerful local lord. A Dou was nicknamed “the A Dou that cannot stand up”. People use the phrase nowadays to describe those that are lazy with no ambition. When I lived in Chengdu, I could understand. If I were an emperor, I would have not wanted to go to work but just enjoyed my life. Not to mention, the goofy pandas are also the staple of Chengdu. Their laid-back life pretty much sums up the comfort level in Chengdu.

In general, despite of a few cases in the city, Chengdu has had a normal life like usual. I could go out and elderly still sat in the “fly noodle shops” and ate their noodles. People still chatted around the shops and played their chess. People did not wear masks on the street. Gathering size had been limited. Taxi drivers improvised a transparent curtain using plastic bags in between the front seats and the passengers. All in all, life was the same as thousands of years ago; people were just enjoying their time.

The pandemic had not hit the appearance of Chengdu’s economy, but it has halted the nationwide economy. Pandemic had deprived the otherwise popular tourist city its economic revenue, so I was jobless and not in a good state.

In China, roughly 5 million people lost their jobs in the first of 2020. I probably was not counted, as my prior half life was mainly in Western countries. Lockdown completely blocked off my career trajectory overseas and also forced me to be separate from my boyfriend in another country. I suddenly found my previously much self-appraised “globalist” life capsized in a global torment. Then, I had an IVY degree but no money to pay for my rent tomorrow. I borrowed money and had to pay the expensive daily rent as I was not able to accumulate an one-month instalment at one time.

During the time, I ate plain noodles. Sometimes I was able to upgrade my 6-8 yuan (=~$1) plain noodle to a 12-15 yuan beef noodle. It was during the time I found out in the Chengdu-Chongqing area, when you walked into a noodle shop and asked for a “beef noodle”, the default one is a spicy soup one with red chili oil floating on the noodle. Normally in the rest of China, a beef noodle is the nonspicy braised beef noodle like how you imagine. In the spicy Sichuan, you have to ask for a “white” soup base to remove the defaulted “red” soup base. In addition, people eat the spicy red soup beef noodle for breakfast. As a sweet-tasting Cantonese person, I was very shocked.

Sometime into the spring, I decided to move to Chongqing, which is 30 minutes by train from Chengdu.

Chengdu in general is a much flatter city without too many skyscrapers. Chongqing, famous for its real estate development (and thus bubbles afterwards) encouraged by the hot money printed in the 2008 crisis, has a much pointier skyline along the Jialing River.

In Chongqing, my financial situation finally improved a little bit. With a combination of debt, sale of my previously owned luxury products, and slightly higher contract-based irregular paychecks, I managed to move into a serviced two-floor apartment in a high rise between a bustling commercial district and a lively residential area.

Despite not being well on the financial terms, I managed to enjoy the simple joie de vivre in a busted economy. Since I was not occupied by work, I was able to go to a small cheap facial once a while, hit the gym almost every day, and talk to Sahand all day long. Sahand was not doing well either, as his hospitality business suffered from the pandemic. Despite being thousands of kilometres apart, our hearts were close, and that fact was the starry night for me.

While in Chengdu and Chongqing, there were many times I lost hope in life. I strode along rivers, half jogged, half walked, and had many impulses to suicide. I visualised in my head how I would end my life and be found in certain ways. At some points, I was pressured by debtors and they said some of the most malignant words to me and my family, threatening me on social media and on my reputation. In those dark days, Sahand was the only person I relied on and talked to. His love and devotion were the salvation for me. While my feet tittered to the riverbank, there was that light brimming in the dark. I asked myself, what would Sahand be left with? There was no value in my life, but I could not disappoint him.

There were many times I cried, but for the general desperation to find air in life, to the little joy that I still had him. I also cried for him, out of my appreciation to his heart of gold and his love. What did I do to deserve such an unwavering trust? I was not able to cherish it the way it deserved as I had no means, but I promised to give back. I vowed to care for him the same way he used to be tender with me.

In Chongqing, I did not go to the normal sight-seeing such as those built for the early communist fighters, who held on to and was executed for their belief of communism, then a rather pure-spirited utopic idea. Living an ordinary life, I used my camera to capture the little things in life. Flowers. Many flowers.

I observed the passengers in the hustle-bustle environment. As one of the two economic centres in the relatively underdeveloped Western China, Chongqing also sees many minority ethnicities and migrant workers from the mountains and other towns. Many of them have darker skins, shorter heights, and foreheads filled with wrinkles. They wear bleached clothes. You can smell their body odour, which is a mixture of sweats and grease, from afar. Under the bubble-stud skyscrapers, there are workers sleeping and gathering on public benches. There are hagglers selling caged puppies and kittens (I really wanted to buy and help one at the time, but I could not take one home as I did not have one). They used their labour value to make the GDP of the city that transferred into its grandeur enjoyed by others.

Despite the last mayor Bo Xilai was removed from the office in 2012, there can still see remains of his advocacy in the city. Bo did not hide his ambition to enter the Chinese top political unit politburo when Xi Jinping was about to ascend to power. Bo’s administration relied on a neoleftiest principle and devised “Chongqing Model”, which allowed the state to use its power to crush organised crimes (anti-black) and call forth a culture praising Maoism (pro-red). Economically, the city used state power to fund infrastructure, which led to both a high growth for the region and unnecessary real estate construction. I am not from Chongqing to comment on his policies, but in the city, there are still many citizens reminiscing Bo’s Maoist policy and thinking about the good o’ days when the city was growing in full swing, not knowing the bubbles that soon to crash.   

Suzhou, the Lowkey Rich Watertown

Sometime in the winter of 2020, I decided to leave Chongqing for one reason: the city does not control its smoking behaviour. It is common for people to smoke inside of hotel rooms and nicotine may fuse anywhere. I do not smoke and I detest smoking. After negotiating with the hotel-apartment I stayed to no avail, I decided to leave. Having stayed in the comfortable Southwestern China for almost a year, I also began to realise why the duo cities Chengdu and Chongqing cannot compete with the Eastern cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, or my hometown Shenzhen. The big difference in economic level may not be caught up in short time, although Chengdu is rapidly climbing the league table. The relative lower GDP of Chengdu and Chongqing means the low wage and lack of high-value networking opportunity in the area. Almost a year down the road, I could still barely find means to support myself. I knew I needed to be in an environment rich in resources and opportunities, so I hastily booked a ticket to –

Unfortunately, I could not afford Shanghai. I took a detour and landed in Suzhou, the cosmopolitan yet historical town 30 minutes by train from Shanghai. With its more than thousands of years of history, many of which still exist today, Suzhou has a vibrant economy smaller than but no less exciting than Shanghai. Different from Shanghai, Suzhou has a much more compact social circle and balanced lifestyle. Elderlies may wake up early to get a noodle as breakfast, then proceed to a series of amusement. In a way, it is similar to Chengdu. The city is also famous for being a rich city for thousands of years, as it sold the expensive silk to other provinces and countries, accumulating the wealth for generations. The handsome wallet and gentle weather make the city extremely liveable. People enjoy artistic pursuit beyond money. In the past, some of the most corrupted dynasties also ended here. When I jogged pass the various lakes, rivers, parks, seeing the many fine little bridges and supreme architecture from hundreds of years ago, I again felt why. If I were an emperor in Suzhou, I would’ve not wanted to go to work again. “Mi mi” sound refers to the sound made from traditional Chinese musical instruments that used to be enjoyed by these corrupted emperors, who lost interest in defending their homeland against strong external enemies. Today’s Suzhou does not need to worry about the fierce nomads as the country is strong to defend the city, so citizens can play the music in public parks and indulge themselves in such “mi mi” sound every day.

A little bit different from Chengdu, Suzhou people are not “lazy”, or to be more accurate, have a lesser interest in working. Suzhou has a vibrant economy alongside its magnificent culture and clean and modern infrastructure. Young people in Suzhou go to work and may stay overtime for work. The city is full of life, but not too much stress. Mothers ride e-scooters to pick up their children by the chase of sunset. Dinner smell float in allies when the moon climbs up. Lights in office buildings are likely to be extinguished after 12am. By 5 or 6 am in the morning, early risers start commuting and a new cycle of life returns.

When I just came to Suzhou, I had no money again. I found a rather cheap but four-star hotel that I loved to be my temporary residence, but only realising in a few days that the hotel did not have its certificate. When the hotel was shut down, a few other residents and I were forced out of the hotel with our bulky baggage at midnight. Then I had to scout for new places to live at a higher daily cost. My financial situation never improved to a level for me to pay a monthly instalment fully, so I had to live from hotel to hotel on a two-day two-day basis.

In the early days, despite I was changing residence frequently, I still managed to channel my work energy to free or minimally paid work online. I also went to Shanghai on a periodic basis, although every time spending a havoc. I still managed to see old friends and swing the networking force on that would prove to be very helpful in the future.

Eventually I was able to find a somehow long-term housing by a few weeks for a month, so that I only needed to do house-moving per month. I never stopped going to gym, sometimes having to take a public bike for one hour as I could not afford the gym in city centre.

The time in Suzhou was solitude, but not lonely. Often-time when I recalled the good times, my memories went back to Suzhou (and soon Shanghai). I was not as penniless as I was in Chengdu or Chongqing. I was able to work on things I enjoyed, although earning little to no money. In the long bike ride in the Suzhou winter, I eagerly absorbed the landscapes and people into my eyes. In the quiet night, I walked in dark in my ally and enjoyed the air, as I lived in old town where elderly does not need night lamps. The town was charming enough to gift me wonders in many corners. I had a little bit money here and there, so from time to time I was able to try different affordable good restaurants in town by myself. Some readers may feel I lived such a lonely life, but it is not necessarily the case. It is not uncommon for a single person to eat in a restaurant alone, and often when doing things alone, I find the growth and strength inside of my heart and enjoy the food better. I am able to truly assimilate the experience and ponder over deeper topics with a wandering mind.

In Suzhou, every morning I biked for 20 minutes, and sometimes switching metro in between, to go to Starbucks or a café and sit to work for a whole day. In the evening, I reversed the travel, going to gym, then stopping at a cool restaurant on my way back. I also called Sahand all the time, sharing with him what I saw and experienced via texts and pictures. We were physically thousands of miles apart, but our hearts were close and I always felt that we would look at the same moon in the same time. Perhaps it was the city filled with residential life that taught me to make life beautiful to the maximum given the best I could regardless the materialistic situations I was in. Suzhou has made silkwork an art, a history a poem, a noodle a story, so I could also put a vase of flowers on my desk to make my life a song. Later years I regained financial independence and resumed my global travels, and sometimes Sahand even said in negative tone of me being too “boring” with no “adventures”. I knew in my heart that adventures are fun, but only if means and lifestyle provide for such occasion. What is beautiful and enjoyable is the “boring” ordinary days. The sunshine and breeze are beautiful, as long as they are here, everything is going to be okay.

Shanghai, Lucky, and A Broken Leg

After a few months in Suzhou, I left for Shanghai, obtaining a six-month contract in an academic position soon to flounder. My wage reached a medium level in Shanghai, so I signed up for a one-year housing contract in the Shanghai suburb Baoshan closer to my work place. I spent the first 2 months of my wages for the apartment’s downpayment, only being fired after 2 months.

In Shanghai, life quickly filled up with work, meaningful projects, and cosmopolitan interests. As one of the biggest international and Chinese cities, Shanghai offers a phenomenal reservoir of opportunities and money for everything. In addition, the city expanded rapidly for decades that the once suburb Baoshan now has a relatively colourful “town centre” offering easy amenities and chains for its residents.

Sometime during March, my job broke off in a rather bad way. I sought to take legal actions after, only to learn that I was not prudent enough to sign a proper labour contract to protect my rights. Facing a long-term housing commitment and no sure future cash flow, I was again forced into financial distress. It was at that time, I found Lucky on the street.

In March, on the Sunday I left my firm, I saw this tiny lazy stray dog with long nails doing a sunbath down my building. Baoshan is not particularly cosy for wandering ownerless dogs, so I was quite surprised to see the worriless boy just randomly enjoying his sunbath on the street. I went up to him, patting him on the head, and trying to figure out how to better protect the dog. I left for home, but a few minutes later, I came back with a rope I stripped from delivery box. I circled it around his head and led him to walk to me. Eventually I hugged him into my arm and carried him upstairs to my shared apartment room. I could not allow him to be potentially hurt as an unclaimed dog, as the dog-police in my area is notorious for capturing unleashed dogs and kill them brutally (as the result of the extremely undeveloped animal protection law in the country). I called an animal shelter scheduling an afternoon pickup. One hour after, I decided to have him forever.

At the time, my financial situation was still a mess. I could not take responsibility, as I also knew I travel frequently and anytime I might quit the country to see Sahand or go for opportunities. However, my heart said, f*ck it, whatever it does, I keep this boy forever.

Life afterwards was indeed like that. I still worried how could I afford his and my food for tomorrow, so I always bought dog food on a daily basis as I could not afford to buy a cheaper big bag at once. Despite of the financial distraught, life suddenly had its meaning, vitality, joy, and balance. I had my dog baby, a long-distance boyfriend that loved me and supported me. He was not by my side, and maybe not anytime soon, but I felt close and beloved. Internal sweetness was in my life, and any other external environments and situations could be gradually reshaped. During the hard time, I relied on Sahand over the phone and relied on my dog physically. It was a simple, beautiful, plain, ordinary joy. It was also what life comes down to its core.

Interestingly, soon after I adopted my dog against all odds, my odds were improving. More profitable and interesting projects started to drop into my plate, and I began to gather more disposable income and gain much more materialistic power and strength.

Having more opportunities given by the magical city Shanghai was a blessing, but my best time was riding a bike around the various parks with my dog for hours after work. Because we lived in suburb, we had a vast green and my boy loved running around freely.

By mid 2021, I was actively planning to fly again to see Sahand soon, and I tried hard to collect money for it. When everything was about to be ready, I broke my knee suddenly. On my way back from work one day, I attached Lucky’s leash to the front of my bike. When Lucky saw a car, he started racing, and my bike started accelerating. I tried to detach the leash, but acceleration happened too fast. Next second, my bike spun off control and I was thrown into the air. Gravity happened. My knee crashed to the ground. Immediately, I felt a tick inside of my knew, so I knew something displaced there. A massive pain grasped me and I could not stand up.

With the kind help of a few pedestrians, I managed to get on a taxi and went home. They wanted to send me to a hospital, but I refused, knowing that I did not have enough money for a generalist. In the car home, I could not resist crying as I felt unable to solve my issues. I had no one with me, despite having a long-distance boyfriend. I knew I was loved, but it was true that I had to face the difficulty by myself.

I had to bite in the pain. After a night of suffering, I went to the hospital, crippling, holding a tripod as a crane, limping my way to the hospital. While at the very big and always crowded hospital, I limped my way uphill, checked in different departments, went into the wrong rooms, etc. Other patients, many of who were men, stared at me with curious eyes, but no one offered me help. The hospital ran out of wheelchairs as well. Coming back from the hospital, I still had to work, fed my dog, and took him out for a walk while limping on a tripod…

A few days after, my knee swelled to a fist size, and the doctor made it clear that I needed an ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) surgery. I had to tell my family. Once I told them, they asked me to fly back to Shenzhen as my social insurance was based in Shenzhen. After some weighing, I decided to wrap everything in Shanghai and flew home with my dog and cat.

Surgery, Shenzhen, and Afterwards

Landing to the warm-weathered southern jewel was pleasant, and my mum and sister already waited to pick me and my dog and cat up at the airport. A second visit to the hospital confirmed an operation.

The night before an operation I stayed at the hospital, strolling on the internet on how an ACL surgery was performed and how people recovered. In the nervous hours, watching people documenting their journey pacified me. I found a little virtual community, although watching videos of doctors skillfully opening skin and cutting through bones did scared me. I asked for a sedative during the operation as I felt I did not want to know how doctors drill holes on my bones.

The surgery experience brought to face many profound topics and the ultimate meaning of life. It might sound dramatised, as an ACL surgery is only a baby surgery in the surgery world. For the person lying on the cold hospital bed waiting to be sent to the operation room, the experience reveals and entices deep thinking. At 8:30am, I was put on a bed with a number tagged to it. Then I was pushed to a waiting room, lying with many other patients in the same beds like breads waiting to be cut in a bakery. Then, one by one, we were sent into different rooms sorted by our bed numbers. The process felt like chicken sorting before being butchered, one by one, identified by numbers.

As I waited for the doctors and nurses to come, I looked at the ceiling, knowing that this might be the way when I leave the world at my end game. If everything goes smoothly, I probably will die in my sickbed staring at the hospital ceiling with needles stuck in my veins like this. Nothing sentimental about it. It is the way is.

The doctors and nurses were in a great mood and made the experience happy and humane for me. After taking a shot of half-body anaesthesia on the back, I was put into sleep. The lower-body anaesthesia also made me understand the uneasiness of mothers. I had the back pain for weeks and had the needle scar for a year and until today, I can still feel the bump from the anaesthesia needle on my back.

When I woke up, the operation was done, and I was sent back to my room.

I lied on bed, watching TV soap series that I otherwise had no time for, one episode after another. I did not really have the energy to chat with Sahand. I just adopted the passive way of getting my wandering attention focused. When the anaesthesia faded, massive pains stroke. In the evening, I had to ask for a painkiller shot plus painkiller pills. The pain was still grand.

It was during the process I reconciled with my family. As I lied in bed unable to move for one minimetre, it was my mum that put the urine bowl under me and cleaned my urine bowl. When I saw my mother, who was more than 50 years old, stayed up with me not complaining a single word and paying for my medical bill, the wall in my heart collapsed. The family could pay professionals to take care of an after-operation adult patient, but my mother did it for nothing. My wandering escaping years melted in the moment when I saw my silver-haired mother bending her back to remove the urine bowl. My world changed with the change of heart and attitude.

The day after, I was able to go home, reuniting with my dog and cat. Then, I spent weeks of lying in bed doing nothing. When you are suffering physically, you cannot work mentally. I could not just put a laptop on my bed to work since I could not focus, not while my knee hurt and while I was in bed. My mind suffered. It was not fun to know that days passed and I did absolutely nothing useful. I wanted to do something, but I could not do anything. Being futile and useless was not a good feeling for a healthy adult.

Fortunately, the days eventually passed. I gradually reclaimed some movements and found ability to do something.

Tibet, the belle Xining and Chengdu

Life goes in a circle and sometime in April and August, I made travels to Xining and Chengdu. I have been interested in Tibetan cultures since youth and made a long travel in 2012 to Shangri-La, where I ventured deep down to the surrounding of Meili Mountain (Kawagebo in Tibetan).

Throughout the years, I stayed in contact passively with Tibetan content and a bit of the community. I wanted to shoot a documentary on the subject, meanwhile, casting an investing net to the region. Going to Xining echoed with an investment due diligence opportunity at the time.

I chronicled most of my work and seeing about Xining in the article here: https://zhuthegirl.com/2021/09/02/xining-the-biggest-western-chinese-multi-ethnic-city-travelling-in-western-china-tibetan-buddhism-gelug-school-kosher-food/.

Soon, for a documentary opportunity, I took the initiative to fly to Chengdu and met a whole new world from there. Xining showed me a growing multiethnic city that is diverse and sparse, different from the eastern contexts. In Chengdu, which I visited the second time, I instead came across a completely new community opening me an alternative world.

Chengdu trip started as I wanted to meet a person I wanted as the female lead in my documentary. The Tibetan young lady works in fashion. She launched a very successful Tibetan clothing brand 6 years ago while in college. She also introduced me to her business partner, a young Tibetan gentleman that also launched a profitable Tibetan street fashion brand roughly the same year. The duo then opened a live-streaming company, and their traction, catching the Chinese TikTok livestreaming boom, is phenomenal. Easily earning millions in days, their success story is a condensed subject of the industry development unleashed by the Chinese growth engine. The duo is of similar age to me, but has achieved materialistic success early on, making themselves and their family a comfortable home.

For me, I was more interested in exploring stories and interpolation of their youth, identity, society, gender roles, religion, etc. for my stories. The documentary project fell off eventually, and I later instead assumed more of the role of an investor and consultant for their businesses.

However, since early 2021, my exploration into the contemporary Tibetan youth led me to see a world that most Chinese han, whether investors or filmmakers, do not see. I see the community’s vibrancy that is fostered by the modernisation and development of China and Chinese economy. An outsider may be curious to see the political dichotomy in today’s Tibet and China, and many may still relate to the history in 1949 and the aftermath. Many of the critiques are true, but the story is not that simple. Oppression in the community I interact with is certainly a too bigger word, but complete assimilation or “liberty”, depending on the standards and definitions used, may not be thorough. In the particular case of the fashion brand live streaming company (by Tibetan standard) I kept in contact with, Chinese economy gives it the opportunity to live a rich life. It is the power of modernisation, industrialisation, and digitalisation, a process that is universal to the world and not specific to a single culture. The duo’s subculture, within the sovereignty context called diversity, gives them a community (fan base, customer base) that champions for it. In a way, the two entrepreneurs have lost some parts of their identity, since all of us do, and not just because of political reasons, which cannot be denied either. Young people these days share more in common, via the social media they use the brands they wear the songs they listen to, than differences rooted in their culture, nationality, and political or religious believes. In the same time, we are all different in our upbringings, ways of viewing the world, and choices given to us and choices we make.

The last night I was in Chengdu, I left the city centre around 8pm to catch my late flight. Precisely after I left, the city found a coronavirus case in city centre. Given China’s zero-virus policy, that region was swiftly locked up. Fortunately, my taxi might have just left that area 10 minutes before the outbreak, so my health code remained green. I missed that flight anyways. I stayed in a good hotel close to the ultra-modern Chengdu Shuangliu airport. The next morning, I woke up as the first flights touched ground.

As I walked to the terminals and then found a place to sit down, I saw the sun beaming out of the landing field. Despite still being in the pandemic and being a far-away airport in Chengdu, the airport received limitless passengers busy for their different destinations. People were busy. Robots and machines were in different places helping guide the passengers. Last time I was in Chengdu in 2020, I was in a complete misery. 2 years later, my fortune was completely turned. The Chinese economy quickly rebounded, and history was giving people a chance, and I was fortunate to be a part at that particular time.

Summary

The purpose of writing this article is for sharing. The essay can be personal, but exposing a personal story may also give you inspiration and strength.

The two years in China, initially being forcibly imposed by the outbreak of a rare pandemic, gave me perspective and resilience. In the pandemic, I unfortunately lost many things from an otherwise privileged position. I was near to become homeless. I lost health. Lost a family relationship. Lost finance. Lost physical proximity to my boyfriend for two years. Fortunately, I was still much gifted than many, as I at least still had a roof. I still had a life. My family was still there. My relationship although strained, was still there. I was not in a warzone, not in a poor area, not in extremely dire health. It really proved that humans are highly adaptive animals, and the magic is that we can do it no matter what. As long as I am alive, I can do it.

Through my own poor financial situation, I also came to understand a world that otherwise was not open to me – how the poor thinks. Of course, I can never think like a poor, since I have been educated to think like a rich, and in a way that mindset, which is already a significant endowment not available to many, is what eventually helps me crawl out of the flat S-curve runway. However, when I had to worry where to get money to buy my next meal, how to pay for my rent tomorrow, when I had to use layers of toilet tissues during period because I could not afford tampons, my thinking was tense and short-term. In addition, I was in debt. My energy was so focused on my next bill, so I had no mental space to think about the bigger, the more sustainable, and eventually more well-rounded life strategy, and make the better, smarter, and eventually “righter” decision. Towards the end of 2021, I found an aha moment reading Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo’s Poor Economics. I do not mean to compare myself to the study object of the book, which is the extreme poor in Indian slum enclaves. However, with myself having experienced a time of relative strained financial health, I then understood the depth of development economics’ research. My financial might, insurance, debt-equity structure, access, choice of city to live, etc. matter. Coming out of the storm for now, I learned into my heart that the power of money and power itself are important. Without the hard things, I cannot save myself or my family in storming weathers. Without the economic foundation, no dreams come true.

Within China, I also managed to travel domestically and saw the vast diversity of the country, ever enlarging my understanding about the country’s subcultures, economics, social issues, and politics. I also saw one billion ways of living a life. I got to feel how macro economics reflects in real life, the most pronounced of which must be the empty buildings in Chongqing. I got to know that the bubble is true, not just a number on newspaper.

In retrospect, I also witnessed how a nation and a society faced the shock on a macro level, and how it quickly rebounced. The rapid growth of China is unstoppable. Wherever I went in China, I was equipped with a mass adoption of technology. Robots, apps, interactive display, new tech products… they mushroom. With such a national growth, a company not being able to make millions in months can be considered hopeless or off the trend in China.

Recently, a friend that wanted to go study in Japan two years ago posted about how his flights were cancelled three times and he was forced to stay in China. Now he lives in Shanghai and he believes that his destiny has been permanently changed. I say, if he chooses to go to Japan, he can still go now. Nothing is too late; he can still act now. Time changed something, but not his insistence. God gave us a wall for us to bang on not to force us to back out, but to test whether if we really want the thing behind.

As we adapt to the new-normal of and co-existence with the pandemic, things altered but unaltered. It is just a matter of attitude. Do we see love, hope, conviction, or do we see despair, stagnation, and hesitance?

Adversary tests truth. Only if the world is upside down and the sun falls from the orient, we see through the cloud and capture the essence. Pandemic gives us a chance to step back, for some, stepping meters back, so we can better view priorities. Difficulty ahead of the nirvara is an opportunity for pivoting out of the previous modus operanti; transition of growth path is very hard, and seeking new growth path is pain, but not choosing a new growth path makes one die in complacency. Crisis breeds hope. The free fall ahead of dawn is the premiere for flying at sunrise. May you all have the strength to believe in love and light and fall and fail forward.

Erotic movie may be misunderstood for its name, as people may link the genre to Pornhub. However, some “erotic” movies can also achieve a master level of production.

Many good movies have erotic theme or feelings; the lesser extent is called romance. Erotic is a part of human nature and human life. Often, it is related to major social changes, politics, wars, and history. Erotic space can capture the personal life under the heavy call of history and exudes humanity. Sex is sometimes about love, but it is often more about power.

Shooting a good romantic movie also challenges the director and the team. How to reflect the deep debates over bigger issues and jump out of the circle of whining over “romance”? How to not let the craft fall into the likes of pornography? This is the roadblock to the understanding and co-creation of directors, photographers, and actors. The biggest difference between an erotic film and Pornhub video is the imagery. If all the audience wants is the sensational stimulation and simple rough sex scene, then there are millions of videos shot from various angles on Pornhub. However, how many people can remember the content on Pornhub and think that watching this film has changed my life? How many people feel that my understanding to the world has been turned and boosted after browsing Pornhub? How many people feel that each time watching a P-film renews its content and revelation? Pornhub strips a naked person and throws the torso directly to the audience, which for me is a Kardashian-style presentation (in a stereotyped way). The top-notch erotic movies are instead exquisite and sexy, emanating a sensation brought by goddess Monica Bellucci. It does not show sexiness through a direct imagery but conveys a style through subtlety.

For me, Eastern erotic films have a hazy beauty and a profoundness rooted in the history in comparison to the Western ones. Among them, the one that impressed me the most must be Lust, Caution.

- Lust, Caution; Caution, Lust –

▼        

The film Lust, Caution tells a tragic story about the loss of homeland and complex human interaction in war.

The story takes place in Japanese-invaded Shanghai and Hong Kong during the War of Resistance Against Japan in the 1940s. The first half of the film takes place in Hong Kong in 1938, opening the scenes to Lingnan University students Wang Jiazhi (played by Tang Wei) and Kwong Yumin (played by Leehom Wang) studying in Hong Kong to escape the war. They joined a local drama club and planned to assassinate a traitorous governor Yi Mocheng ("Mr. Yi", played by Tony Leung), who worked for the notorious pro-Japanese government. The Hong Kong part of the story is mainly about students trying to look rich and faking the roles of rich business couple “Mr. Mak and Mrs. Mak" to prepare for their immature assassination. Wang Jiazhi had no previous sex experience. To better get ready to seduce Mr. Yi, Wang had to break her virginity and sleep with fellow student Liang Runsheng, who had limited sex experience with prostitutes, and practice for more sex and thus sex appeal. The story in Hong Kong describes a series of haste and childish preparations for the assassination. In the first assassination attempt, the students tried to trick Mr. Yi into the apartment and kill him, but the highly trained Mr. Yi declined. Here Tony Leung's acting skills shine all the way. You can hardly imagine that this is a character performed by an actor. As a big high-level traitor everyone wanted to assassinate, Mr. Yi lived in a highly mysterious and tense life guarded by the highest security. Tension can be seen everywhere in Yi’s eyes. For example, Yi/Leung quickly scanned the surroundings with his eyes before going out of his car and entering a building. The original novel’s writer Zhang Ailing did not openly tell readers that Mr. Yi should suspect his surroundings with his eyes, but Leung’s painstakingly detailed performance shows how much effort the actor has put in analysing the characters behind the scenes.

It was also not easy for the lead actress Tang Wei, then only a fledgling actress with minimum acting experience, to play against one of the most achieved Asian actors in a master-directed drama. Because Mr. Yi's family precipitously decided to leave Hong Kong (in fact, they had been preparing for a long time but only notified "Mrs. Mak/Wang Jiazhi" last minute), Tang Wei's acting skills exploded. In just one phone call, Tang Wei brought to life the powerlessness of a young student trying her best to negotiate but magically alter Yi's family’s move. This phone-calling plot is added. In the original book, it is just a few sentences without a dialogue. Ailing Zhang spent no time writing Wang Jiazhi's "extreme embarrassment" on the other side of the phone.

Four years later, in 1942, the students reconvened in Shanghai. Mr. Yi's family also returned to Shanghai. Living in financial distress, Wang Jiazhi reunited with Kwong Yumin, who was already a special agent of the Chongqing National Government (CCP-led anti-Kuomintang and anti-Japan government). She accepted the task of re-starting the assassination attempt of Mr. Yi. This time, opportunities are better. The Chongqing Government had a much smoother organisation behind the arrangement and provided skilful training. Guided by better resources, Wang Jiazhi succeeded in impressing the stressed womaniser Mr. Yi with her beauty and sex appeal.

The evolving relationship between Wang Jiazhi and Mr. Yi is casted through three sex scenes that made a worldwide audience hold their Bible and earned the film the NC-17 rating. The revealing sex scenes serve as a line that helps string together the climbing relationship between the duo. There are no such sex scenes in the original novel, at least not in an apparent way that almost equal to the Pornhub quality. There are certainly no lines in the original book discussing any sex positions. Zhang Ailing's described Wang Jiazhi's seduction to Mr. Yi more as her pursuit of him. Because he was too busy, there were "too many temptations... If you miss one, you will be left behind... You need to lift two breasts and dangle in front of his eyes." Other than that, there is not much to be read. However, the sex scenes in the film Lust, Caution are precisely the main course. The movie gradually climaxed after the sex scenes appeared. With every explicit scene, the nuanced relationship between the male and female protagonists was also changing. Japan in the context of the time was approaching a dead end as its invasion was fought back by a fierce domestic resistance and international collaboration. The fate of the Japanese puppet Mr. Yi was also going downhill. However, the relationship between Jiazhi and Mr. Yi was climbing to a peak that would soon drop like firework.

The first sex scene is rude. After Wang Jiazhi came to Mr. Yi's place, she and Yi first had an intimate chat. Then, Mr. Yi bundled Jiazhi rudely, and quickly resolved the battle in absolute power (dog position). In the first love scene, Wang Jiazhi enjoyed little, as she was obviously abused and disrespected.

For the second sex scene, the relationship between the two improved. The scene opened with various more equal positions such as the straddle and face to face.

The third sex scene coincides with the climax of the relationship. In the third and the most fierce and exciting sex scene, Wang Jiazhi was in the woman-on-top position most of the time. She even glanced at the gun hanging on the wall at the end. Its meaning couldn't be more self-manifesting! Nevertheless, Wang Jiazhi did not act on it. This is an allusion to her eventual decision of letting Yi go in the last assassination attempt. In the third scene, although Wang Jiazhi occupied the upper position most of the time, in the end Mr. Yi turned her over and ended the scene with himself as the superior.

After that, Ang Lee added the plot of a night of the two at the Hongkou Izakaya. There is no such plot in the original book. At the movie presented time, the country was ruined, but Hongkou, a common gathering place for Japanese and the rich, still saw singing and dancing every night. The torture and suffering of most of the Chinese had nothing to do with the luxurious lifestyle of a small number of those in power. Adding this plot allows the characters to naturally connect and seamlessly be in love. The izakaya was extremely noisy, filled with drunk Japanese generals and guests. Mr. Yi and Wang Jiazhi were in a separate room. Wang Jiazhi sang Zhou Xuan's Singer of the End (1) for Mr. Yi. Wang Jiazhi had no home, and Mr. Yi betrayed his homeland to the enemy. As he said, he lived like a “prostitution”, who disregarded loyalty and traded for money. The two were facing each other, and their situation was so similar in this troubled world. Mr. Yi had power, but the losing came from his exchange of righteousness with supports from the invasive enemy. Wang Jiazhi was "Mrs. Mai", a stolen identity. In fact, she was poor and her fate was a floating lotus in an ocean. Their situations were similar and so their souls found solace in each other.

Lust, Caution is rich in details, visualising many unexplained backgrounds and sentiments in the book through a fine lens, added plots, and the masterful play of actors and actresses. The Eternal Life Palace in Suzhou Pingtan, a song played at the background during a scene the governors’ wives played mahjong, alluded to the story of Emperor Ming and Concubine Yang (2). Isn't the lyric " the powerful Tang emperor on the high horse" for-shadowing Yi's ultimate finale of failing to save his beloved, like how Emperor Ming failed to save Concubine Yang?

The casting is also wonderful. The original novel mentioned that Wang Jiazhi is "half a head taller than him (Mr. Yi)" in high heels, so Ang Lee chose the taller actress Tang Wei and the shorter actor Tony Leung. The director casted the inexperienced Tang Wei for the innocent but sexy oriental woman Wang Jiazhi. He also casted the Cannes-winning Tony Leung, who has developed a highly sensitive and fine acting skill and who is able to assimilate into any character, to play the multi-faceted Mr. Yi. Wang Jiazhi cannot be played by any random female star, because experienced actresses may have difficulty faking her naivety. For Mr. Yi, the original book described too little about him. The Jiazhi-perspective book wrote about Yi’s power, ugliness, and lust in a few lines, but it has not stated his sadness and weak sincerity that sometimes resonates with Wang Jiazhi. To play Mr. Yi, the actor needed to read immensely about Hu Lancheng, a complicated reallife historical figure and the novelist Zhang Ailing’s grand lover, and of that era. Prior to shooting, Ang Lee assigned tasks to the actors and actresses and asked them to immerse themselves into the related books. These careful and thorough preparations were the founding stone for the achievement of one haute artistic level of the film. Mr. Yi without Tony Leung is very ugly, traitorous, disgusting, and complacent, as the book says, he "sits upright on the surface, but (he is) ecstatic in secret". In the film, the highly charismatic Tony Leung, despite being dressed up by the greasy hair and dark makeup, managed to add a sense of being a human being and tiny slew of charm to the otherwise unattractive and aged Mr. Yi.

Wang Jiazhi warned Mr. Yi last minute during the last assassination attempt so he managed to escape. The scene of Mr. Yi/Leung’s life-threatening escape made people immediately feel the disillusionment of home country, sex, and his rare feeling of love. Finally, Wang Jiazhi and his accomplices were arrested and executed before 10 pm on the same day. Mr. Yi tried to reconcile his mistress’ execution through a complex contemplation in the last bit of the film. In the original book, Zhang Ailing described the relationship between Mr. Yi and Wang Jiazhi as "the tiger and the ghost (Wei Hu Zuo Chang)", which leads to an "ultimate possession". The ghost (Chang) is eaten by the tiger but the ghost helps the tiger to lead more people to be eaten by the tiger. The tiger relies on the ghost, and the ghost on the tiger. In the book, Yi considered that Jiazhi being "alive is his man, dead is his ghost". Jiazhi’s betrayal of the revolution allowed Mr. Yi to obtain comfort as he pondered over and thus felt glad that he, a mid-aged socialite man, managed to get a woman to truly love him not his power or money. He thought he was a real man to get on hold of a love of a "pink confidant".

At the end of Lust, Caution, Mr. Yi returned to Wang Jiazhi's former room before walking out. This is not the plot in the original book either. The ending shot travels through countless mirror images, lights, shadows, which explore the murkiness and brightness of the Lust, Caution world. Ang Lee tells a story about being involuntary and unable to secure one’s fate in a jittered world.

Is the film about lust? It is. Is it about the relationship? Admittedly. Is it about the reality of war, revolution, and betrayal of revolution? Mr. Yi once went to study in Japan to follow in the footsteps of Sun Yat-sen (pro-Chinese independence pioneer), but he in the film was a senior official of Wang Jingwei's pro-Japanese government. Wang Jiazhi had been full of passion and patriotism, but she gave up her mission for the sake of love. I am not sure if we can blame the characters for their course of action, because the revolution was indeed too idealistic for the average men to hold on to. The time did not give the protagonists a chance, and the characters did not stand with their grit.

Finally, the premier of Lust, Caution set off a shock wave in the pan-Chinese society. The government banned the actress Tang Wei from working in the entertainment industry. Fortunately, the actress finally found recognition through other works. The ban was also unfair, because the society were not harsh on the actor Tony Leung and the Oscar-director Ang Lee. The film did not encroach the men’s reputation; instead, their future was even more colourful and their talents more nodded on. In fact, the novel Lust, Caution extracts a short section of Zhang Ailing's own story. The script of the Lust, Caution movie combines a part of Zhang Ailing's own life, and the prototype of Wang Jiazhi also takes reference to the real historical figure, the 22-year-old executed patriot Zheng Pingru. The latter did not hesitate to assassinate the traitor and she braved death calmly after being arrested. Lust Caution itself is a gloomy and heavy story, but the real female staff that created it are unique and vivid in their respective eras.

The film has too many oriental details that make the masterpiece shine and makes it hard for the Western audience to digest. The movie has earned a far underwhelmed appreciation no matter in the east or the west. Perhaps its R-rated scenes make film critics afraid to mention of the film. Nevertheless, the movie should not be viewed by a perception of R rating because of scenes, as the craft itself contains so many refined and sublimated nuances. The music is created by the Golden-Globe-winning French musician Alexandre Desplat. To match the tension of Lust and Caution, he combined the experience of France in World War II. When one searches online for Lust, Caution in China, the majority of the news announcements are gossips about Tony Leung and Tang Wei's “fake play turned into real action” in sex scenes. This is such an underrated commentary on the masterpiece. I hope this top-notch movie deeply expressive of oriental thinking can be better appreciated in both the eastern and western worlds.

-Some Other Oriental Erotic Films (by the Order of Preferences)-

▼       
-The Korean movie A Frozen Flower may be a lesser version of Lust, Caution. It tells the story of King Goryeo (played by Joo Jin-mo), the Korean king under foreign (Mongolian) pressure and his struggle with his homosexual lover and nominal wife during the Goryeo Dynasty. The shots of the film are exquisite, and the main actors (Joo Jin-mo, Jo In-sung, Song Ji-hyo) are also very skilled in acting. It's a pity that after the movie came out, Ji Hyo's career path went to a low point until Running Man gave her a career revival. In A Frozen Flower, in fact, the most explicit and break-through scenes were not taken by Song Ji-hyo, but Jo In-sung. He assumed the role that had two love lines (and thus two love-making settings), one with the queen (Song Ji-Hyeo) and one with the king (Joo Jin-mo). The film is good, although incomparable with Lust, Caution.

-The French romantic drama film L’Amant (The Lover) tells the story between a sexy and charming oriental man played by Leung Ka Fai and a young French girl in French Indochina in 1929. The original L’Amant book is a delicate semi-diary. The film adds discussions on economic status, colonies, and family life. It is a good film adaptation. The actress Jeanne Moreau just turned 18 when she was in the film. The actress said that the industry had an inappropriate practice on her work judged by today’s standards. Although the actress could have completely refused the shooting of many shots, the young actress shot it anyways. The movie’s love scenes are beautiful and misty like the heat of Saigon. The film is all right; it's also a classic work by now.

-The Thai movie Jan Dara is closer to a Pornhub video than to the artistic film. Many Chinese audience came to watched the sexy actress Christy Chung's sensual role Boonlueang. The film is filled with too many R-rating scenes, potentially for the fact the original book itself is a pornographic book. In fact, the movie deepened a few themes unexplored by the book, including thinking about family relationships, abuse, and the backdrop of the World War II. Jan Dara is the protagonist’ name meaning evil in Thai. If there is a superb screenwriter to rewrite and convert this little porno book to a better script, perhaps the new movie can have a higher artistic appreciation beyond a porno.

*

(1) the song sings of a singer's homeless life after her home country was invaded

(2) Emperor Ming was forced by his revolted troop to kill his favourite woman Concubine Yang, who had been a scapegoat for his own fault.

Many fascinating stories have been written about Genghis Blues, whose win of Sundance in 1999 is already an affirmation to its editing mastery and storyline beauty. The whirlwind story casts the legend of two dudes carrying two camcorders and taking home a Sundance from Tuva. It has certainly set primal example for many of us fellow filmmakers. Sobbing through the apparent camcorder picture quality, I want to comment on a journey of salvation. The story is this downsizing sun in name of hormone, camaraderie, and artisanat. 

Pressing with the overwhelming throat-singing of Alash Hem (The Alash River) and bizarre orange-yellow-green flash, Genghis Blues starts with a narrative by its protagonist Paul Pena. Through a series of rudimentary yet fascinating montages, we come to understand Pena’s life. A blind minority American bluesman, Pena had a rather difficult life entering into adulthood as he tried to make space in the jiggered American blues market. Achieving an underwhelmed success, he had to live through the pain of losing his wife, who succumbed to kidney failure in 1991. He stumbled across Tuvan khoomei, Mongolian throat-singing, while searching for a Korean language course, and he started practicing khoomei. What is Tuva? Tuva is this subordinate state within Russian Federation by the border of Mongolia. The state is small yet proud, as the land inherits the regal ambition of Genghis Khan, like all Mongol-descent does.  

The story then proceeds to Pena’s finding and his preparation and eventual trip to Tuva. Happening just 6 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the trip from America to Tuva might make it a Marco Polo’s search of 20^th century. To showcase the music inquisition of Pena on Tuvan singing and his own musical production, the documentary mainly uses eye-level shot to bring in the paralleling narratives from various other people such as music producers, record shop owners, etc. The documentary shifts narratives with a string of images, newspaper cut, in-flight footage, and carefully voids a redundant second. Then, Pena landed in Tuva’s capital Kyzyl and met his host, Tuvan throat-singing musician, Kongar-ol Ondar. Pena performed his own throat-singing at the second international Khoomei Symposium and received flooding local supports. The film features Pena’s preparation and performance, and the traditions and habits of Tuvans to satisfy audience’s exotic-hunting appetite.

In an age without drones, the Belic brothers showcased the land of Genghis Khan with the neighbourhood recording intimacy. In between the eye-level shooting of Kyzyl mountains, the Alash river, endless and ownerless grassland, we see Pena had new instruments learnt, new friends met, lamb liver tasted (lamb slaughtered with a pinch over artery). Most importantly, a minority black American living more or less invisibly in San Francisco found respects and friends in Tuva. Tuvans enjoyed Pena’s craft and gifted him the name Cher Shimjer (Чер шимчээр), earthquake, for his deep voice. In Kyzyl, there was certainly no SF pedestrian that came to ask direction and instead stole money from the blind man. On the contrary, Kongar-ol Ondar and Tuvans opened their hearts to help Pena and the crew when the crew fell sick, which people had suspected of shaman curse. 

Paul Pena’s trip had to end, cutting short in reality, as he lost some of his diabetes pills. The sick musician had to waive goodbye to Tuva and to a crowd that honours him. Pena cried. Back to San Francisco, there was not many things he found sanctuary except for the little record shop by the corner of his apartment, where he could easily walk to and found reminiscence of the Tuvan spirit. 

Kongar-ol Ondar performed later in the United States and worldwide for his khoomei and Tuvan music. Paul Pena also continued his music career. Having fought a long battle against diabetes and pancreatic disease, Paul Pena died in 2005 in San Francisco. Kongar-ol Ondar died in 2013 in Kyzyl. 

The documentary had no fancy retouch or filter but only fine editing. Kongar-ol Ondar and Paul Pena’s soul-searching music is the film of the film projector and the eventual memory of the movie. Like many Mongolian / pan Mongol-influenced music, the tune embraced seasoned khoomei and weeping sound of morin quur. This relates me to a string of other Mongolian and Mongolian-Chinese artists such as Tenger and Yilalt (of Hanggai Band), who have also coarsely sung about the dreamy free land by the name of hometown. 

The vast socio-economic structure has always puzzled me; while seeing Pena’s unachieved life in America and his brief honeymoon in Tuva, this could only pose one soulful question. Why Paul Pena had not become an Albert King, Muddy Waters, or Willie Johnson? Paul Pena mentioned his frustration over “bureaucracy”, yet the exact notion of “bureaucracy” is unknown. From his life struggles, there are disputes with human connection, competition, longtime sickness, pains, loved one’s passing, racial issues, and the unfavourable tide of capital and society to please material over soul.  

For Paul Pena and for Genghis Blues, these lines in the themed song Kongurey, written by both artists, may be the best capture: 

Aldan chetken chylgymnyngAlazy kaydal, Konggurey?

Aldy kozhuun chonumnyngAaly kaydal, Konggurey? Konggurey?

Where are the sixty horses in my herd?

Where is the hitching post for my horse, Konggurei?

Where are the six regions of my homeland?

Where is the village of my tribe, Kongurei?

Burun shagdan adam-ogben Tyva churttumAldy kozhuun chonum kaydal:

…

Azyp chor men, tenip chor menMeeng chonum, kayda siler?

The oldest, rural times of our Tuvan people,

Where are the six regions of my homeland?

…

I am becoming lost, disconnected, cut off.

My homeland, where have you gone?

--

Post note:

Richard Feyman had also shown strong inquisition into Tuva, despite he never went there before he died due to political situation of the time. His friend wrote a book about his research into Tuva and his life called Tuva Busted!

I have given a recent talk on Ilkhanateand Timurid, a Mongolian-Persianate empire and Mongol-derived Mongol-Turkic-Persianate empire in 13^thcentury to 15^thcentury in Iran, which prolonged my peep into the Mongolian conquest. I was touched by the sense of missing vastness in the Mongolian folklore and music. Since I have never been to Mongol lands, I continued to fantasize on the subject. I see stories written on Ulaanbaatar, propelled the popularity of the song Ulaanbaatar’s Night, coperformed by Chinese singer Tan Weiwei and Hanggai band. It seems modern construction devoured the carefree grassland and gradually dimmed the precious homeland into a desert. 

Here are song links of other Mongolian / Mongolian-Chinese / artists / band that have performed on Mongol-relating content. In addition, the free link to Genghis Blues on a Chinese website (virus-free on legit website, so worry not). Subtitle in Chinese but worry not as narrative is English. Foreign narrative has English subtitles.

Link for Genghis Blues, on Chinese website with Chinese subtitles, but English original audio: https://www.bilibili.com/video/av31209946/

Kongar-ol Ondar's performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVyyhHFKI8E

Tengri's glass-shattering performance on Paradise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2mvc0miJ-w

Ylalt's performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flYlREY2xdg

Hanggai band's performance on Cycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvW8JEuIo58

Tan Weiwei's Ulaanbaatar’s Night, co-performed with Hanggai band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkVSunxpJls

When I arrived in Xining, yellow sands covered the paths. Oftentime, one sees a clear blue skied Xining, so my first day wasn’t usual. Although Huangshui River runs through the Xining City, it still has a relatively "bald" landform. Its greens are incomparable to the landform of the Chinese eastern coastal hills. In Xining, there is a long streak of park that resembles the squared Central Park of New York; the park is called Nanshan (Southern Mountain) Park. The park sees a diverse form of flora. When one walks in the park, one can be easily enchanted by the pink and fallen petals. Unlike Central Park, which only has enclaved lakes, Nanshan Park allows the Nanchuan (Southern Stream) River to run within it.

Xining is a "small city" to me, compared to the Chinese metropolis with a population of tens of millions in the East Coast. Xining is already the largest city on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which rises 4,500 meters from the ground. Even so, I still feel relaxed when I walked on the relatively empty street. In contrast, in Shanghai, one always feels this immense pressure of crowd. It is impossible to stroll on a Shanghai street without bumping into someone. In Xining, if the wanderer wants to take a walk and enjoy the scenery, one can really just take a walk and enjoy the scenery without being disturbed.

Xining is a diverse city, which is a rare overhear for Chinese residents living in the East Coast. In the eastern coastal cities, the food is diverse. British, French, Japanese, Indian, Tzechuan, Cantonese… they are readily available in takeaways within 30 minutes.  However, people on the eastern coast, especially those in the higher socio-economic standing, generally homogeneously grew up in the same Yanhuang culture, which is how the Han ethnic Chinese call themselves – the descendant of the Han emperors Yan and Huang. The eastern Chinese culture is unified, for good and bad. The implementation and development of policies and business can expand swiftly travelling through regions reigned by a single language and a single cultural understanding. Nevertheless, this relatively single cultural body also has its disadvantages such as a rather limited way of thinking. I advocate diversity. This may come from the fact that I have lived in Anglo-Saxon-dominated societies for half of my life, so "political correctness" has been engraved into my bones. When a nation is narrow-minded, it tends to be xenophobic.

Although the population structure of Xining is fairly diverse (only about 70% of them are Han in comparison to an above 90% structure in Eastern Chinese cities), mixed habitation or and true mingling among different ethnic groups is still underachieved. Except for the mainstream Han people, most of the other ethnic groups still tend to concentrate in respective enclaves, and their commercial activities are basically separated. I think "diversification" is should be a policy. When the oversight or policymaker does not actively promote corporate diversification, diversification does not necessarily happen by itself and passively. Of course, "diversification" is also a growing awareness in the West in the past decade (maybe in some ways overdo). This awareness and true policy intention are relatively weak in mainland China. Perhaps due to lower economic level, especially in the Western China, people are not yet to think of diversification when comfort is still an issue. For the prosperous and often too rich Eastern China, I believe diversity should be brought onto the table. Most Han people have learned in textbooks that "China is a multi-ethnic country". However, not many Han people know other subethnic cultures in China and these cultures do not come into their daily lives. I believe that, if the textbook has advocated for a multi-ethnic country, it is only natural for more Chinese mainstream ethnic group to learn a little bit of the stories and histories of various subcultural groups.

In Xining, a visitor can also see its development level. Chinese economy can be generally split into two halves. The East is the prosperous GDP driver and the West is where the story of poor kids unable to afford study comes from. Despite being taught of such uneven economic development fact at school, most of the mainstream Han people located in the East have no idea what it actually means. It means, in Xining, a bowl of beef noodles sold in Shanghai for 60 yuan are sold for 10 yuan there. The average salary in Shanghai's city centre is 10 times than that in Xining. This is the real representation of development inequality within a sovereign country, let alone among different countries in the world. In addition, Xining's current economic situation is already based on the fact that China had invested heavily in the local infrastructure and human capital. In Xining, or the entire northwest, there are plenty of goodies sold in a cheap price due to the natural resources it has. In the east coast, things tend to be overpriced; many of them are not even that good. However, the western goodies generally lack a good brand to market their value. With sound marketing or a strong business to sell these unbranded yoghurt, dried meat, beauty products, etc., their companies can go much further.

- Kumbum Monastery and Tsongkhapa -

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On my second day in Xining, I visited Kumbum Monastery, also called Ta’er Si in Chinese. Ta’er Si (Temple) means the monastery had a tower (Ta) first, and then built, repaired, and added the temple (Si) to the tower. Er in Chinese means “after”. Ta Er Si would be a literal translation of tower, afterwards, temple. Today the temple occupies 450,000 square meters at the suburb of Xining City. The first pagoda is built around a bodhi tree that grew out of the place with a drop of Tsongkhapa’s umbilical cord blood. Despite being open to tourists, unlike many Tibetan Buddhism temples otherwise, Kumbum Monastery is still a highly regarded temple in Tibetan Buddhism as it is the birthplace of Tsongkhapa.

I have heard the story of Tsongkhapa and the Yellow Hat Sect “Gelug” before. I also suggest that interested readers to research more about Tibetan Buddhism and Gelug School as there are good and bad news about it.

Here I introduce some positive stories.

Je Tsongkhapa, born in Amdo (one of the three geographical regions of Tibet in the old time, the other two being Khampa, which is around today’s Sichuan province, and U-Tsang, which is around today’s Tibet province), is often called Je Rinpoche in Amdo. He is generally considered the incarnation of bodhisattva Manjushri. The book The Biography of Supreme Master Tsongkhapa (Qinghai People’s Publishing House) introduced that "Je Tsongkhapa has the same mind as the supreme Manjushri", which confirms that Manjushri's incarnation as Tsongkhapa to continue teaching and preaching in the Tibetan areas. Tsongkhapa had his Upasaka Sila, which abstains the practitioner from killing, stealing, doing evil deeds, lying, and having sexual intercourse in Buddhism, at the age of 3 and became a teacher at the age of 7. He left Amdo at the age of 16 and went to study in U-Tsang by foot. Since, he never returned to his hometown. He vowed in the ritual Upasampada, which is the ascetic vetting ritual in Buddhism, at the age of 29. At age 44, he wrote the exoteric classic Lamrim Chanmo. At age 49, he yet wrote the esoteric classic Ngakrim Chanmo. At age 52, he founded the Gelug school top temple Ganden Monastery. He passed away at the age of 63. Tsongkhapa read extensively throughout his life, earning himself the recognition of being able to gain and pass around wisdom. Interestingly, his former existence deity Manjushri is also known for his wisdom. In short, his disciples and followers praised Tsongkhapa for "skillfulness, commandment, and virtuousness".

The life of the regarded Je Rinpoche reminds me of Swami Vivekananda, one of the first yoga masters in India that introduced yoga to the West. When Vivekananda was a boy, he was also known for being a prodigy and was able to remember books after one read. I think that both masters possess a common ability to research in depth and cultivate wisdom.

I am in no position to discuss religious topic like an expert. However, I believe that Je Tsongkhapa still has some stories to inspire the average people. Tsongkhapa was born in 1357 and passed away in 1419. At that time, there was no high-speed rail or car. Tsongkhapa was 16 years old and he was born in Amdo, which is considered a periphery land under the Tibetan rule He left home to study in U-Tsang (modern day’s Tibet centered around Lhasa), which is thousands of miles away. His willing to travel by foot to thousands of miles away shows his eager to acquire knowledge and his resilience. He continued to study throughout his life; he also studied pharmacology in depth when he was young. As a master of Buddhism, he even has extraordinary accomplishments in Tibetan medicine. His health doctor often consulted the master himself medical questions. If Je Rinpoche were alive today, he would have been considered the talent with composite skills.

Since Je Rinpoche is the incarnation of Manjushri, so in modern standard he would have been the "second generation" of deity in the Buddhist world. Despite of his endowed “fortune”, his later acquired efforts earned him the honour he truly deserves.

Today, Tsongkhapa’s Gelug School is one of the most influential sects of Tibetan Buddhism.

At present, there are 4 colleges in Kumbum Monastery, respectively the exoteric school, the esoteric school, the medicine school, and the Kalachakra school (cosmology). There are more than 7,000 monks and 14 rinpoches in the monastery. The most important thing in the temple is the tower built around the Bodhi tree grown from umbilical cord blood drop of Tsongkhapa. The Bodhi tree is said to have the appearance of Buddha on its leaves.

In addition, what I adore are the Tibetan yak butter flower paintings. There are beautiful Buddhist scripture stories carved from yak butter in the butter flower hall. To make butter flower paintings, monks need to turn off the central heating and open the windows when it is the coldest every year in Xining. Monks then shape the flowers with bare hands. Since hands have body temperature, which would melt the yak butter, monks have to soak their hands in iced water to keep hands cold. Readers may not understand the concept of “butter flower”. The yak butter is the easily broken crispy solid butter made from yak milk. The texture of yak butter reminds me the meringues sold by Aux Merveilleux de Fred, an acclaimed dessert shop in West Village, New York. Similar to how meringues are made by stirring sugar and milk until it is hard and foamy, yak butter is made so. The taste of meringues or yak butter is beautiful as it readily melts in your mouth. However, its fragility also makes the product expensive and rare. Yak butter paintings are a delicate and evanescent art. During the visit, you can see fragments of yak butter falling from the hanging butter flower painting. The tour guide said that it would fall a little bit everyday despite of the strong air conditioner in the room. Beautiful things pass day by day, so every year, monks take it a way to practice their zen and gather to make this easily gone yet instantly beautiful butter flower painting in the severest of the winter.

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-Kosher Restaurant in Xining-

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        Here to recommend is the Halal Yixin Handmade Mutton Restaurant (Hala Yixing Shouzhua Yangrou guan Huayuan North Street Restaurant) at No. 5 Baiyu .

         It was already 3 pm when I arrived, so I avoided the queue. There are people queuing in the restaurant all year round.

         When I arrived, the counter lady let me choose, "How many kilogrammes of lamb?"

         I said, "Um...Is there any recommendation? How many kilogrammes should I have?"

         The lady looked at my body up and down, and said, "Half kilo."

         After I ordered other dishes, I started to take pictures of the lamb. The young lady that cut my lamb asked, "Would you like (your lamb) to be fatter or thinner?"

         I said, "Thin please."

A few minutes later, the lamb was on the table, without the taste of post-processing, just a dish of cooked mutton. The lamb came in mouth with the original flavour of mutton, but no smell of blood. There were also many local guests there to buy meat. They usually noted, "give me 5 kilogrammes to go."

-Nanchan Temple and Fazhuang Temple -

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The last part of my journey was at Nanchan Temple and Fazhuang Temple. The two Chinese Buddhist temples are adjacent to each other and can be visited together.

Now in the center of Xining, Nanchan Temple, which is next to Nanshan Park, has a long history. Xining has been ruled by many ethnic groups in different periods in history, so most of the sites can easily see a blend of history.

Nanchan Temple and Fazhuang Temple are different from Kumbum Monastery and do not have a touristy atmosphere. There are some fortune tellers at the foot of the hill, but there is no requirement for tickets or "incense money" along the way. Because they are in the city centre, perhaps Xining citizens have become too familiar with the sites so they don’t bother hiking the temple hill.

Nanchan Temple is the building of the Pure Land Sect of Buddhism, and the Fazhuang Temple is the building of the Dharma Buddhism. Fazhuang Temple was founded in 1943 by Master Xin Dao. Born in 1905, Master Xin Dao was originally from Jingzhou, Hubei. He was ordained as a monk at the age of 18. He studied Chan Sect in Jiangsu and Fujian in his early years. Later, he was invited to Kumbum Monastery to study esoteric Buddhism. Since then, he has promoted the Dharma in the northwest and reshaped the chaotic Buddhist scene in the northwest. Master Xindao was a diligent religious figure, establishing Buddhist journals, monastic colleges and societies, writing books, and preaching. During his preaching era, mainland China was in chaos and endless wars. Xin Dao organised wartime donations and encouraged local resistance against Japanese invasion. He was also an inclusive master who was regarded in both Han and Tibetan Buddhism.

As I strolled down the temple hill, I saw luxuriant flowers and greens in the two temples. Generally speaking, temples are either solemn or sacred, but these two temples are rich in life, with fresh vegetation and no loss of gardens. There is beauty in the thought of beauty, regardless which sect of Buddhism it is.

*all unlabeled images shot by me, copyright @zhuthegirl

- The origin and measurement of inequality -

The economic "pie" has two rough measurement dimensions, which are the total amount i.e. the size of the economic pie, and the redistribution of income, so how the pie is shared. Confucius said, "Do not worry about scarcity but worry about uneven distribution." In fact, neither scarcity nor inequity is desirable. There may be social unrest and stalemate in the poor and unequal countries. Turmoil is not an inevitable result, because social unrest is not necessarily the result of poverty and inequality only.

Inequality is relatively light in a simple kinship-oriented society, but it has penetrated our society since the emergence of complex human civilization. The economy, social class, political rights, educational resources, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, political power, age, etc. all affect the relative equality and inequality of the social structure. In the past one hundred years, sociologists often use socioeconomic status to roughly describe inequality. In a feudal society, depending on the state, power divided classes, and the inequality created by power may not be considered a bad thing in different societies. For thousands of years, Chinese feudal society has basically valued the collective over the individual. The inequality and hierarchy caused by power have not given most of the Chinese citizens in feudal society the opportunity to ask whether its existence is reasonable. After capitalism swept the world, wealth became the object of competition, because wealth combined with democratic elections bring power in a free society. For example, in England, when the early laissez faire emerged, cities mushroomed, and the middle-class joined the lower parliament with money as a bargaining chip and then controlled the national debates, not to mention that the politicians supported by these classes have already filled in the power vacuum left by the receding monarchy.

In the early view of economic liberty, inequality is a must-have feature of a free society. Society encourages competition, individuals do their best and compete for the best, and those who have wealth have more wealth. In a material society that encourages competition, achieving higher social status and more wealth is the goal of struggles and the embodiment of individual ambitions. It is precisely because of inequality that the lower class theoretically have the motivation to fight for a higher status, which engineers social production. Since inequality is acquiesced to be a part of the game, what society needs to do is to ensure social mobility, i.e., channels for upward mobility and reasonable rewards and punishments.

Today, the 100% laissez-faire system has already been repaired and adjusted in the past centuries. We generally believe that inequality is not a good thing, and that national policies are the strongest driver for bridging inequality. 100% elimination of inequality seems to be an utopia, and how to manage inequality has become the central topic.

- Important Social Science Theories Affecting Inequality in Modern Times -

Many economists, sociologists, and philosophers have excellent insights into inequality. Here, I give a high-level summary of some theories that I think are pertinent to my essay. The revelation of "inequality" basically comes from the discussions of power.

Everything about inequality can be traced back to Adam Smith, the founder of our current economic system. Although The Wealth of Nations was written in 1776, the same age as the United States. Some of the book’s contents can be outdated such as its stance on slavery, but some others last. One of the most important expositions of WoN is the revelation of wealth development, wage growth, and land value. The wages exchanged for "manpower" and the interest rate of wealth growth are normally inversely proportional, so under normal circumstances the landlords need to weigh how much salary is given. Smith stated, “the affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions”, so the government must be able to maintain social order.

A few decades later, Max Weber, one of the three godfathers of social science, divided the causes of social stratification into roughly three categories: economic social class, non-economic privilege (religion, etc.), political affiliation. Because Weber's most important influence was in developing a theory that made capitalism serve Protestantism, he had an influence on the conception of the rational man (homo economicus). His thoughts greatly influenced the later Frankfurt School, and the central idea of the Frankfurt School was Critical Theory. Critical theory basically excavates the discussion of the structure of "power" in economic system.

Then came Marx. The historical materialism developed by Marx and Engels fundamentally shook the previous idealism. The simple revelation of historical materialism is that "environment creates heroes". Marx's solution is to change the social class (environment) through actions. What Marx himself said through Das Kapital is simple. Classical Marxism roughly divides society into bourgeois and proletarians. Marx also mentioned the "petit bourgeois", generally referring to managers that work for the bourgeois and the new well-to-do such as journalists. This petit bourgeoisie was only a small group of people in mid-19th century Germany when Marx lived, but this group of people eventually became the mainstream of some societies such as the United States. In Marxism, human inequality comes from the social structure of class. If the social structure does not change, the inequality will not change. Since the economic development inevitably leads to inequality, inequality is embedded in a society with different classes. Nevertheless, revolution is bloody, and the impression of Marxism today is linked to the authoritarian Leninist-Mao doctrine. 

In the early 20th century, scholars of the Frankfurt School studied the distribution of power. Among them, the critical theory questioned an ideology passed on by the ruling aristocracy to the society. It debated on the domination of minorities by the public, especially extending the observation of power and social class to cultural hegemony. The cultural hegemony here does not involve a country's cultural hegemony and national cultural export in the future but refers to the cultural brainwashing of the society by the ruling class, as well as the cultural hegemony that bullies minority groups. Most theories of the Frankfurt School are more philosophical, so I won't say much here. Max Horkheimer of the Frankfurt School proposed that the government be placed between the free market and citizens, thereby easing production relations and productivity. 

The arrival of post-modernism also revealed the origin and development of inequality. Michel Foucault states that "knowledge" (le savoir) and social relations are power (le pouvoir),), and this power is scattered in society, the more "knowledge" someone has more, he/she/they have more power. However, this knowledge is not the "knowledge" of Francis Bacon's "knowledge is power". Rather than knowledge, I prefer to call it information. In a modern society, perhaps the most powerful group is the group that maximises access to information, in most societies where power is relatively concentrated, that is, the government. Due to advances in technology, the collection of data and privacy yields power. Foucault's famous panopticon is the most vivid expression of this truth. In the panopticon, the central monitor can monitor the surrounding people in all directions without blind spots. Outsiders cannot see the centre but the centre can see them. In theory, the monitor can leave for home and watch Netflix, so prisoners can jailbreak if the monitor chills. However, because the prisoners do not know when someone is watching or not, so they dare not to take the chance and escape.

Finally, Pierre Bourdieu was one of the “fieriest” theorists of the distribution of power at the end of the 20th century. Bourdieu divides the sources of power into four types: economic, symbolic, cultural, and social. Social class is also determined by such a combination of four sources. Bourdieu does not believe that education can perfectly encourage the rise of the lower class to the upper class, and many upper classes remain upper classes after several generations. Their education from childhood, taste, hobbies, fashion, food, habits, artistic appreciation… all consolidated the cultural and symbolic power in their hands. 

- The widening of inequality and the revelation of the Solow model -

Has inequality increased or decreased since the Industrial Revolution? It depends on the data. On the one hand, Lakner, an economist at the World Bank, said that between 2008 and 2013, global inequality fell, mainly due to the economic development of large economies such as China and India. On the global level, the absolute inequality is reduced. After all, the number of people living a well-off life in these populous countries has increased. However, inequality actually increased in regions. For example, in absolute terms, Qatar, the richest country in the world, has a GDP per capita of $117,000, which is 177 times that of the Central African Republic, the poorest country in the world, with a GDP per capita of $661. China’s official Gini index has risen from 0.16 in the early days of the Open Door Policy to a range of 0.49-0.46 in the past decade. Some scholars believe that this is an underestimated data. When it comes to income inequality, China and the United States, a love-hate pair, are very similar. After the Thatcher-Reagan-style privatization reforms in the 1980s and the expansion of large corporations in the Western world, the top 1% in the United States today control 20% of the wealth, an increase of 8% from 12% in 1978. In China, despite being in the early stages of the wealth accumulation period, the 1% now controls 12%, double the 6% in the 1980s. Benefiting from the early expansion of the economy, the real income of the bottom 50% of the population in China has increased in the past, compared to the fact that the real income of the 50% in the United States has declined. However, China's population base is much larger than that of the United States, and the growth rate of income from a small starting base is of course faster. In fact, the poor in China are much poorer than the poor in the United States, and the economic growth rate of the rich in China is approaching that of the United States over time.

Why do the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? Not the extreme scanty, the income of the middle-class erodes in real term. 

I would like to draw from Solow model and Piketty predictions in 21st Century Capital, an extension on Solow model.

The Solow Model was proposed by Nobel Prize winners Robert Solow and Trevor Swan in 1956. Solow’s model is very simple. It shows the mystery of economic growth with a simple model. It is a classical exogenous model, which opens a beginning of many subsequent economic studies. 

Solow model is built on the simple Y = AK^αL^(1-α), where Y is gross product (GDP), A is technology, K is capital, L is labor, α is a measure of K and L accounts for A measure of how much Y is. The K capital is not cash capital, but "hardware" investment, such as infrastructure. Solow model looks at not just the total amount of these things, but their growth rate. In the derivation k˙ = sk^α– (n+g+𝛿)k, the small k-band point on the left is a time representation of the equation on the right. The important thing is the right side. If the left side is equal to zero, we can find s^kα= (n+g+𝛿)kt, and the other s, n, g, and 𝛿 are all given, and we can find the constant k value. Here s is saving, which is the saving rate.

The application of Solow model is mainly used to mine the mystery of the growth of national wealth, visualised as the following figure.

Here, the horizontal axis is the small k, which is the capital per capita of investment, and the y-axis is the small y, which is the per capita production value. The middle curves i2 and i1 represent two saving rates, one larger (i2) and one smaller (i1). Here the economic growth of a country (the top y curve) first experiences a period of growth, as the curve slows down, the growth becomes smaller but still there is growth, until this growth approaches the horizontal line, which means that the growth rate is almost stagnant. The national economic aggregate may still be there, but the growth rate is gone. In the early days, the state invests in K capital to promote growth. For the two major socialist countries, the old Soviet Union, and today's China, early economic development mirrored the model's predictions, namely, investing in infrastructure. In addition, economically developed countries have also invested a lot of human capital, policy subsidies, etc.

What if the economy slows down? The classic Solow model takes technology an exogenous factor, which means it is a godsend factor. 

In addition to capital investment and technology, countries can also add labour to fuel growth. If technology does not grow, and our population growth is slowing down, and in real life, the growth rate in many Western countries is already zero or negative, how will the economy develop? Here is Piketty's evolution of Solow.

By observing r-g (return on capital/occupancy rate/interest rate – economic growth rate), Piketty proposes the substitution between capital and labour.  Solow himself also commented on Piketty's point of view, saying that the higher the production value of one person, the smaller the variety of jobs available to each person in a constant economy. The higher a person's real salary is, the more likely he or she will lose job. Given the higher allocation of human resources, the economy will prefer to allocate capital with a higher rate of return. In the long run, society is more inclined to allocate investment in capital and less investment in human capital accumulation (education) and innovation.

In this regard, Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century gives a very pessimistic final word: our society will perpetually chase capital, and inequality will perpetually expand.

Piketty's views are also debated by scholars, and there are many other updates based on Solow model in the past decades. After all, economic rhetoric is based on certain assumptions. When assumptions do not hold, opinions can also be overturned.

I do not have Piketty's detailed data to quantify a result. From my personal experience, I do think certain countries are chasing the return on capital and put less focus on the power of human development, resulting in the collapse of average salary and average domestic education. 

What is closely related to our lives today is that the epidemic has prompted the central banks to adopt a lax monetary policy, resulting in an (excessive) abundance of dollars in the world. People with capital gain more capital, while the real income of ordinary people is getting less and less. Inequality is moving fast on the path that Piketty predicted.

Reference：

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-20702018000300049

https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/global-inequality-historical-perspective

https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/the-roots-of-economic-inequality#gref

https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/blog/2019/addressing-the-root-causes-of-inequality.html

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/where-does-inequality-come-from

- why 2008 financial crisis happened: the underestimated systematic risk-

The 2008 financial crisis is essentially a US dollar liquidity crisis, which stems from the explosive subprime mortgage market. 

Since the Dot-Com Bubble in 2001, the US entered into a long period of low inflation. Central banks around the globe prided on their bountiful toolkits. They were able to successfully manage most of the ebbs and flows in the market. From the 80s to mid-2000s, developed countries followed such smooth pattern; we call this period the Great Moderation. Before the financial crisis, regulators had been numbed by the peace. 

Because of the low interest rate and a relatively eased lending environment, consumers began taking mortgaging for their assets by the merit of subprime loans, many of which would have been bad loans in a tighter environment. Banks lent freely. Investment banks and some financial institutions then repackaged these mortgage-backed securities (MBS) into three tranches by the order of debt-clearing possibility. Then, financial institutions sold these risky securities to their investors, which include bigger financial institutions such as the pension funds and other wealthy individuals. Preceding 2008, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the biggest US government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) in residential real estate, amassed sizeable MBSs, which can easily wipe out the entire portfolio in down time. By the end of 2005, Freddie Mac had $15.98 trillion MBS, and Fannie Mae housed $9.74 trillion. 

The canny investment banks did not bare risks themselves. Investment banks knew that the risks were unprecedented, so they ensured themselves by buying insurances from the insurance companies. Risks effectively flowed down to insurers.Because of the financial insurance, banks sold even more MBSs and other complex hybrid instruments. The moral hazards issues, i.e., for banks to do riskier things that they otherwise wouldn’t without safety net, were a key reason of misconduct. Big insurers entered the game as well. In late 80s and early 90s, some British insurers had already suffered huge losses in financial insurance¹. Unfortunately, the Wall Street did not learn. The traditional life insurance market and asset insurance market were approaching saturation. To expand their lines of service, insurers had to ensure financial instruments. Before and during crisis, financial institutions even designed the more subtle credit default swaps (CDSs), sending the risks further to every nook and cranny in financial market. Two parties entering in CDS can “swap” the risks of their products based on the possibility of a certain matter. Prior to 2008, CDS was considered the “offmarket”, making it less regulated than normal insurance. The overuse of CDSs is another key reason of financial crisis. 

Lastly, institutional investors such as pension funds were why the 2008 financial crisis left a mark in history. Pension funds, by their name, are about pensions and welfare. It is okay for pension funds to not yield return, but it is not okay for them to lose the deposits (pensions) during financial crisis. Without pensions, how can elderly survive (especially when Baby-boomers were already pressuring the US pension market)?²In the past hundreds of years since the coronation of capitalism, there were dozens of financial crises in developed liberal markets. It wasn’t that those crises were not important, but because most of them did not significantly squeeze welfare of consumers. Hence, their infamy only confined in the financial industry. The 2008 financial crisis still haunted every news-reader because it was one of the storms that raided then US financial market, crumbled the US real economy, and hammered the world through international trade.   

Many other reasons also contributed to the unpacking of pandora’s box. Ex-ante financial regulations were relatively loose. Banks also rewarded their managements by “returns”, resulting executive boards to eye returns only and forgot risks. Credit-rating agencies (Moody’s, S&P, Fitch) watered their ratings on MBSs, so consumers innocently bought assets by grades. As the deepening globalisation, improved technology, strengthened global connection in finance, the US dollar liquidity crisis finally emerged to become a global USD liquidity crisis, global financial crisis, and global economic storm. 

- Before the storm: the miscalculated US government-

Before 2008, the subprime market already showed signs of downturn. In the latter half of 2006, the once soaring US housing price began winding down. Because of the revise housing price, subprime mortgage borrowers started to realise that they could not afford the debt. Homeowners defaulted. Abided by the MBS contracts, banks temporarily took ownership of homeowners’ houses to service the debt. As banks held more illiquid houses in hands, it drained their cash ability. In the meantime, price of real estates dropped, causing a further shrink on the value of banks’ houses. Large-scale of homeowners’ default and reversing housing price trapped a few small institutions. It wasn’t because banks had no value in their assets, but their assets could not liquidate into cash. Some mutual funds and pensions funds on the same string were also troubled. The “privileged” government-sponsored Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae had long borrowed to the hilt by a special low interest rate. In 2007, the two firms’ posted record-high losses, the majority of which came from subprime assets. 

The US government overheard, but its reactions were not enough. 

The last straw was the downfall of Lehman Brothers.In 2007, Lehman Brothers, the then fourth-biggest investment bank with hundreds of years of history, showed signs of danger in subprime market. It had to close its subprime business unit, BNC Mortgage, the same year. Similar to the above-mentioned financial institutions, Lehman Brothers also owned many real estates but not enough cash. In the first half of 2008, 73% of Lehman Brothers’ stock value vanished. On the 13^thof September 2008, the Fed of New York held meeting to discuss the case of Lehman Brothers. The meeting proposed a “liquidity plan” to potentially help Lehman Brothers. Nevertheless, the government decided to not intervene.⁴

On the 15^thof September 2008, Lehman Brother declared bankruptcy. On the same day, credit market tightened almost over seconds. Down Jones Index dropped for 500 points, losing 4.4% in one day (ironically, the drop of Lehman Brother’s day does not event chart top ten of Dow’s fall in one day. The losses in March 2020 are among the top). 

Afterwards, the US and global institutions faltered. Institutions restructured their MBS units. History declared the onset of global economic crisis.  

-Liberal market economy (LME) and coordinated market economy (CME) -

Before further analysis, I want to raise attentions to the difference and similarity of liberal market economy (LME)and coordinated market economy (CME). I think how different countries brave the storm of crises are due to the divergence of LME and CME. 

In 2001, Peter Hall published Varieties of Capitalism, in which Hall categorised developed capitalist countries into two mains: liberal market economy and coordinated market economy. The UK and the US represent the former and Germany represents the latter. 

In LME, financial industry is more developed. If people need business capital, they tend to raise funds in public market, which is true in reality. The British and American debt and equity market is highly developed, blessing the entrepreneurs and firms with ample chances for capital. Hence, the British and American creativity tend to be relatively higher as capital for trial is easier. However, in LME, regulation (especially on financial market) is relatively loose. This is also why LME’s financial market is apt. LMEs place business profits above employee’s welfare. During financial crises, firms lose profits so many choose to cut costs and lay off employees. 

In CME, business capital tends to be funded in private market through bank loans, community funds, or family supports. The CME’s regulation is stricter. Firm’s valuation has limited upside. While the 2008 financial crisis was fully blown in the US and the overvalued US market revised, the financial bubbles in German’s real economy were not as great. In CME, welfare was essential and many employees had guaranteed employment. Even during economic downturn, firms could not fire as they wished. 

Knowing the distinction of LME and CME gives us a clearer plotline for analysis of financial crisis. 

-Crisis solution：global money-printing, mad bank stocks, a decade of bull market, and the punching macro regulation-

By the time Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy, the global financial crisis had already unwrapped. We can swing our attentions to a bit earlier to the UK, the brother of the US in the financial market. In 2007, Northern Rock had already sought help from the Bank of England. It plead the Bank of England to intervene as the lender of last resort (LOLR). Only in 2008, the British government agreed to nationalise Northern Rock. 

The subprime crisis squeezed pennies in the entire financial market, meaning that LME firms reliant on public market for business capital lost their source of funding.Productivity dropped for 13%, of which 3.5% came from drying of business capital. Firms could not refinance and had to pay back their current debts. Smalls firms were at the brink of disappearing and big firms, facing flying credit spread, witnessed their revenues halved or wiped. When LME firms faced profit decline, they chose to fire employees. In 2008-2010, 8.7 million US jobs were erased with a snap. From the usual 4.7%, unemployment rocketed to 10% in October 2019. The only positive thing that birthed out of this crisis is the quality of the remaining employees. Nevertheless, massive unemployment hampered the growth of firms. Besides, many had already lost their houses in the previous subprime mortgage crisis. Although many jobseekers found new jobs in 2009 after the economy began reviving, many had suffered from structural unemployment. 

The US central bank reacted swiftly in crisis and injected liquidity into the market. The first in the toolkits was quantitative easing (QE). The set of interventions through open market operation is money printing. On the 25^thof November, 2008, the Federal Open Market Committee announced the first round of QE1, which bought $600 billion T-Bills and worked on the most liquid M1 (cash, cheques, and short-term bills). Later, the Fed injected much more liquidity into the market by phases. At the beginning of 2010, the government added $175 million MBSs from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae on its balance sheet. QE1 ended around March, 2010. Because the series of operations had been successful, the US economy revived in 2009. In all, the US central bank injected $2 trillion liquidity in the market through its 4-time QE. 

Besides, the Fed lowered interest and mortgage rate, effectively alleviating stress from individual or institutional debtors. The Fed purchased the poisonous MBS and removed it from the balance sheet of banks and GSEs. This also regulated the MBS market. The round of QE also indirectly expanded the balance sheet of the government, which used fiscal policy to directly stimulate the economy. In the meantime, the government bailed out troubled firms and helped negotiate restructuring and facilitate merger and acquisitions of troubled firms by bigger banks. In 2009, the Obama administration and Congress passed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. $75 billions of these funds were direct funds aimed at helping the deeply indebted homeowners. In 2012, most of the MBSs purchased by the US government profited positive. High-quality MBSs even regained position as an important revenue source for banks. Unemployment returned to 4.7%. Despite of the unprecedented money-printing and monetary expansion, there wasn’t serious inflation in the US. 

However, no policy is perfect. Much of this “liquidity” streamed into the banking industry. To make more profits from the crisis, banks retained the added cash in their own safer instead of lending out (retail banks profit from the interests by lending out deposit). Banks then pushed their stock price to a higher level by dividends and share repurchase. 2009 has been the most profitable year for banks. For example, the stock price of J.P. Morgan landed in the $48 realm on 2008. In 2019 at the end of the decade of bull market, its share price rocketed to around $139. The hedge fund heavyweight, David Tepper of Appaloosa, smelled cash and bought sizeable bank securities at the beginning of QE policies. In 2009, Tepper’s fund bought the embattled Bank of American (BoA) by $3/share, making $7 billion per year. The reviving banking stocks made Tepper a $4-billion wage in 2009. 

In the meantime, the increasing liquidity made consumers’ pockets “seemingly big”. Standard and Poor 500 touched the bottom in March 2009. Then, the stocks rose for ten years. By the 2016 presidential election, the stock was in a sprint and then into an overvaluation period. The new Trump administration proposed tax cut, fuelling the bull. By 2018, S&P 500 quadrupled relative to the former decade. The bull market coincided with the QE phases.⁵

Before the crisis, regulation focused on micro-prudential, which was the regulation on individual banks. If one bank had bank run risk, regulators tended to contain the risk within the bank. Internationally, the Basel Committee also established a series of standard on deposit rate, etc (notice, the Basel standard is only a commonly used standard by not a mandatory rule). Nevertheless, in LMEs like the US or the UK, financial regulation was still relatively at ease. Before 2008, most of the financial crises impacted only the “micro” level of financial institutions (except for the 1929 Great Depression). After the 70s, the rise of hedge funds complicated the regulation matter. Highly leveraged and nimble, hedge funds belonged to the “shadow banks” that were not banks hence not regulated. However, these institutions had lots of money. The out-of-radar “shadow banks” were another reason why the financial system crashed in 2008. The 2008 financial crisis was a systematic crash. The risks spread from GSEs to investment banks to retail banks to insurance companies to credit rating agencies. The systematic meltdown awakened the regulators and let them see the inappropriateness of the financial system and risk in the regulation. Regulators decided to upgrade their rules. Macro-prudentialwas born. 

Macro-pru in the US is the most famous for the Dodd Frank Act.⁶The Act levelled up the US supervision on the financial industry and especially on derivatives. It technically prevented banks from doing highly risky and leveraged businesses. The subsection Volcker Rule explicitly banned proprietary trading, which zeroed out any possibility for banks to use deposits to trade. Once one of the most profitable department, prop trading phased out in history for good⁷. The Dodd Frank Act also established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to educate consumers and better protect them. Greed had been a major reason why the 2008 crisis happened. However, another reason is that consumers lack the “financial intelligence”, being tricked by the complex clauses of bank contracts.

In the other parts of the world, similar regulation and supervision also increased the oversight of “macro-pru”. For example, the Bank of England consolidated the earlier regulation departments and made the two departments to stand out in the “twin-peaks” system. The first is the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to better protect consumers. The second is the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) to focus on the macro-pru regulation. 

- US Dollar en march: The “spill-overed” global currency -

Accounted for the world’s 61.9% liquidity, US dollar is the number one reserve currency⁸. More than half of the US dollars are in hands of non-American institutions and individuals. When the US dollar was deeply in crisis, global central banks also pumped out USD-related liquidity. Nevertheless, such “improvement” on USD liquidity was only a relative term for economic bodies within the US zone. For many parts in the world such as the Latin Americas and China, there was an oversupply of USD that caused overheat of economy during recovery.⁹

US dollars depreciate during wars. In most of the crises, whether big or small, US dollar appreciates. When the US dollar appreciates, global currencies depreciate relatively.In 2008, global funds flocked into the “safest” asset – US Treasury bills, pushing the US dollar to high. European institutions also (over) hedged against USD-priced assets, sending the USD appreciation higher. 

I think many people neglect the absolute strength of US dollars when analysing the macro situation. The absolute strength of US dollar is not only a currency matter, but also an important issue for trades and commodities.

- The challenge and opportunities of China in 2008 -

By 2011, the Chinese MBS counted for Renminbi 6.6 trillion (roughly $940 billion) at a growth rate of 14.8%. Although MBS hadn’t resulted the systematic meltdown such as in the US, Chinese regulators had been very alerted to monitor this asset. In addition, control of the flying housing price has been a national policy for years. 

The 2008 economic crisis double-killed the other Asian country Japan, which possessed both the LME characteristics of open market and the Asian classic of growth-led economy. The Japanese economy had just showed signs for warming after decades of sluggishness. The crisis turned its growth rate to negative. In China, the biggest contributing factor was the plummet of export demand. 

The Chinese financial market wasn’t closely connected to the world due to its rather secluded policy. The mainland financial market did not suffer tremendously from the global shakeup. However, the Chinese stock market saw consecutive falls for days due to the failure of the exports. 

In the first half of 2008, the Chinese economic growth was double-digit. By the latter half, the Chinese economic growth turned negative (ultimately going to negative double-digit by 2009). Manufacturing factories along the coastline shut down, creating a massive wave of unemployment. 

The government led by premiere Wen Jiabao proposed the “Four Trillion” incentive plan in November 2008 to directly stimulate the economy. 

The policy has been successful to some degrees. The Chinese economy recovered gradually. However, the “medicine” had been too strong for the economy. As the real economy recovered and labour market revived, there was massive oversupply of both currency and certain industrial products. Industries such as steel, long been criticised for its inefficient over-production, became more heated. The US dollars “spillovered” to emerging markets, sending the Chinese economy to the summer season in 2010 and 2011. 

Local governments hoarding the newly released currencies had nowhere to spend but developing infrastructure to boost the “economic growth” figures. Economic growth did revive, but the actual needs of more welfare never met the promise (ironically for an acclaimed socialist country). Most of the oversupply of currencies then flew into the real estate market, creating multiple “housing kings” in the past several years. 

- 2020: History repeating, a story of same same but different -

Because of coronavirus and various other reasons, global assets crashed in March 2020. Not a single asset could avoid the slump. I think there are fundamentally different reasons and phases behind the recession. 

Coronavirus embraced the full explosion in China by the end of December, sending a strong blow of the Chinese economy. The virus spread to the world in March, becoming the biggest black swan in 2020 and a watershed event on human history. 

The US stock market had already started falling by February end, entering into the revaluation period. Black swan landed in the financial market on the 8th of March when Saudi suddenly declared increase of oil productionand entered into the price war with Russia. Upon reception of the news, the US oil lost 34% of the its previous value. Brent oil crashed by 31% in seconds. The oil futures burned. Even without coronavirus, such volatility in the oil market can change stock market dramatically. On the same day, S&P 500 futures dropped for 4.4%, triggering trading curb. Oil tends to be “trended”. When it rises in long term, small dip in short term is not going to influence its upward trend. Vice versa. Because of this tremendous selling signal, analysts all shorted oil. I think this is the first phase of recession with the reason of oil volatility.On the same day, VIX gushed for 16%. The safe asset gold rose above $1700. 

Shook by the oil market and hammered by the Coronavirus, the US stock began her persisting trade-curbs. On the 9^thof March (Monday), all three of the US stock indicators, S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq were dumped for 7%, setting off the first time of trade-curb among many subsequent drops. When the US stocks crashed, the world follows. The Stoxx 600 also shed the entire 2019 growth in one day. In the following 10 days, the US stocks had 4 times of trade curbs. The safe-heaven T-bill and gold also plummeted. The global stock market fell by 25%. For the more liberal and open G20 markets, many have free fall for 30%. This the second phase of crash. The fundamental reason is the impact of coronavirus on real economy and the vote of distrust on the current US administration on virus management. 

The fundamental reason of this crash is not liquidity, but the distrust vote on the current American administration’s antivirus effort and the struggling of the world’s biggest economy. Given the hyper-stressed US healthcare system, the US is under tremendous pressure on the health sector and other industries. At its worst in March, the world’s top three GDP bodies were all suffering, sending a formidable amount of fears to the market. When in wars, certain industries such as weaponry at least flourished. Coronavirus shut down most of the industries except for masks and online calls (and condoms and tissues). No real assets are present to back up the valuation of stocks. Besides, the previous valuation on the US stocks had already been overvalued. Technology stocks had become the “defensive” investment instead of the traditional high-risk assets. Stock rebound had an imminent nature, but Coronavirus turned the rebound into a landslide. Oil crash, virus, the faltering of the world’s top economies were all reasons building up the emotions. As Warren Buffet once said (from his experience in the 2008 crisis when he unfortunately missed calls to save Lehman Brother’s), every big American firm is a part of the dominos. If one big firm failed, there is a high chance for the chain dominos failure. Real economy’s challenge reflected on finance. That’s why the initial incentive plan proposed by the Fed had minimum positive receptions. The shrink of the financial market in turn diminished business capital, which further limited the real economy. 

Only until the Trump administration proposed the $2.1 trillion stimulus plan, the market cheered and reclaimed some lost grounds. Up to the article’s written date, the plan passed in Senate 96-0 and transferred to the House. $4.45 billion of the plan would be loans direct to businesses ($3.49 billions of which were for small-medium enterprises). $3.01 billion would be for individuals. $2.21 billions for tax delay. $2.50 billion for unemployment insurance. $290 million for airplane and shipping industry. For the classic LME country, the US, its domestic welfare system is relatively weaker than its peer developed countries. As mentioned before, economic downturn meant massive unemployment. I personally think the stimulus plan is rather a good call. If the plan can actually be executed as intended, it can help prevent the real economy from sliding further. In addition, the Fed also paired up the economic growth pill with the unlimited time zero interest policy and QE.¹⁰

However, there are still too many uncertainties. Global central banks had been on the verge of liquidity trap, which left the central banks with limited selection of toolkits with zero interest. Without black swan incident, the US regulation can focus on pursuing the low inflation target and ensuring the vitality of financial industry by the strict stress testing. However, the volume of money-printing this time aggrandised, which for me seems like another distrust vote for the balance system of capitalism itself. Global money printing means American debts rise to another historical level, putting pressures on the already heavily indebted Americans. Considering the already serious aging problem in the US society, I think the policy pigeonholed problems to the next generation. Besides, the Sino-American “war” continues to brew. The US-China trade war occupied the headline in 2019. After the Coronavirus black swan, the US-China conflict will still be there. It will take time, and sometimes fundamental change of trade balance and other factors, to resolve the differences. I think the roots of this crisis is on real economy and the US healthcare system. To solve the issue at its root, the number one focus should be to eliminate the virus (assuming virus is an abnormal event instead of the new normality). Once the virus is gone, economy can gradually reposition. The obvious hurdle is that the development of antivirus vaccine is unpredictable in many ways. You never know when will the vaccine successfully emerge from the lab and pass human body test one day. Another way is that many industries adjust to the new normal and find ways to work from home. Adjusting to the new normality takes time. The second focus is to reshape the US healthcare system or even the entire system to ensure welfare for the less privileged. Next time when crisis hits, there will be less people caught in the unfavourable current of history and be structurally laid off. However, this sounds rather utopic unless Bernie Sanders becomes the president, which is already not happening in real life. Number three (although the least of all above) is to seriously monitor the vitality of the financial market, allowing the strength of finance to provide business capital to firms. The government has done considerable work on the third point. 

While monetary stimulus seems a necessity in today’s market, I do not agree on excessive injection, especially for emerging market such as China. The core of economy has not altered, merely paused by the virus. Excessive monetary flush in addition to the spillover effect will certainly repeat the story in 2008, making the money to flow into assets like real estate. Excessive cash makes (bad) firms too easy to refinance, stirring bubbles. Bubbles in real estate in China, once crash, are going to shower the entire emerging market and the world with economic tsunami. 

I also think you shrewd investors with some cash left can buy in good quality assets. Good assets never wear out through time. I do not think the so called “buying at the bottom” is necessary or meaningful in all regards. Buying is simple: you buy a good asset at a relatively undervalued or affordable price. At this particular moment, good assets are priced at a friendly level. For example, I personally long the banking industry again. I think the same way as Tepper in 2008. With the stricter regulation, banks that have not participated in highly risky activities are good buys. 

As for all those you individuals, you may ask what can you do for the economy? Besides jostling many part-time remote jobs or trying to “innovate”, you should spend money given your budget. The world’s number first and number second economies cannot perfectly protect their low-income groups, who have suffered the most, in the crisis. Your little consumption at the breakfast stall down your building can directly save a family or small firm and indirectly salvage the economy.^{11 12}

Note:

1.    I am mostly referring to the “Mortgage Indemnity Insurance (MII)” created by the British insurance companies in 80s and 90s. By MII clause, if the customer’s mortgage-backed assets depreciate, i.e., the customer cannot retrieve the debt, insurance companies would fill in the missed value. 

2.    Global pension funds, especially in the OECD countries, suffered great loss. The American pension funds netted an average return of -23%. Nevertheless, pension funds performed well in 2009 during recovery.

3.    The birth of GSEs such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae was meant to improve liquidity in real estate market. The US government wanted more Americans to be able to buy houses, realising their American dream of being “homeowners”. 

4.    It does not make sense to purely blame on the government for not bailing out companies. No one had foreseen the systematic breakdown. Prior to crisis, most of the businesses in American financial crises were profitable. The enormous loss came from the 1% tail risk in the subprime market. The then Treasurer Paulson and then Fed head Bernanke were unwilling to bailout companies easily. First of all, bailout companies using taxpayers’ money had been unpopular. Second, Paulson had taken over the bankrupted Bernstein earlier. He was named the “Bailout King” and wanted to get rid of the bad notion. Some scholars believed that had American government injected liquidity for Lehman Brothers promptly, the bankruptcy and subsequent crash would have not come. 

5.    Many scholars such as Bhar et al. (2015) points out that QE positively contributes the bull market in the US. Some other scholars such as Feldstein (2011) says that no evidence can show the connection between QE and bull market. The only overlap of the two is time. 

6.    Dodd Frank Act identified a few Systematically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs), but also created new moral hazard. Because the importance of SIFIs to the entire economy, the government may choose to provide fund to save these companies without limit. With the insurance of the government, SIFIs can do risky things without worrying to fail. Nevertheless, I personally think the new moral hazard issues have a lesser extent and possibility to happen as the regulation post crisis has levelled up greatly.  

7.    Besides, banks have to do stress test periodically. In stress tests, banks have to simulate their reserve capability under adverse scenarios such as economic crisis or bank run. With the regular supervision on stress test, the likelihood for banks to have bank run decreases. 

8.    In comparison, Euros take 20.68% of the world’s trade flow, and British pounds and Japanese yens are only single digit percentage. Chinese renminbi takes 2.01% of the world’s transaction (IMF, January 2020). Renminbi became a reserve currency in 2016. 

9.    The US dollar appreciation changes the emerging economy in various levels. The relative depreciation of global currencies can sometimes stimulate export, but in another time burdens the economy (due to USD spillover). The USD appreciation helped Chinese economy’s recovery in 2009 and 2012, but overheats its economy in 2010 and 2011. 

10.  Keynesian economy has been the world’s staple since World War II. Although the initial advocate of Keynesianism (government’s intervention) is rather a wartime economy, policies in the past decades have retained the active role of government. 

11.  Until 11:30am, 30^thof March, 2020, the US oil fell below $20 (Asian markets fell after hours as well). I think the world has a long way to go as long as oil keeps being sluggish. 

12. An acquaint of mine, who is also a Harvard phd in Economics, said in a casual note (not proved by scientific research, just a personal comment): since the Fed was willing to intervene, crashes in economic crisis have been great. Newly IPO’d companies since 2010 have been lacklustre in profit performance. He suspects that the real economy has never recovered in the past decade and it is only financial market overevaluating. Doing business does not make money. Investing money makes money. The next round crisis will be greater in magnitude. 

Source:

1.    Holcombe, Randall G. Housing America: Building Out of a Crisis. Routledge, 2017.

2.    Whitehouse, Edward. “Pensions During the Crisis: Impact on Retirement Income Systems and Policy Responses.” The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, vol. 34, no. 4, 2009, pp. 536–547., doi:10.1057/gpp.2009.25.

3.    Kulikowski, Laura (August 22, 2007). "Lehman Brothers Amputates Mortgage Arm". TheStreet.com. Retrieved March 18, 2008.

4.    Hall. Varieties of Capitalism. Oxford University Press.

5.    Hall, Robert. “Quantifying the Lasting Harm to the U.S. Economy from the Financial Crisis.” 2014, doi:10.3386/w20183.

6.    Chen, Qianying, et al. “Financial Crisis, US Unconventional Monetary Policy and International Spillovers.” Journal of International Money and Finance, vol. 67, 2016, pp. 62–81., doi:10.1016/j.jimonfin.2015.06.011.

7.    Mitchell, Lawrence E., and Arthur E. Wilmarth. The Panic of 2008: Causes, Consequences and Implications for Reform. Edward Elgar, 2010.

8.    Li, Zhiguo, and Xiaorong Zhang. “Evaluating the Effectiveness and Efficiency of the Four-Trillion Yuan Stimulus Package: Evidence from Stock Market Returns of Chinese Listed A Shares.” Global Economic Review, vol. 43, no. 4, 2014, pp. 381–407., doi:10.1080/1226508x.2014.982319.

9.    Hall, Robert E. “The Routes Into and Out of the Zero Lower Bound.” 2013, www.kansascityfed.org/publicat/sympos/2013/2013Hall.pdf.

10.  Feldstein, Martin. “Quantitative Easing and America’s Economic Rebound .” 24 Feb.2011,economics.utoronto.ca/gindart/2011-02-24%20-%20Quantitative%20easing%20and%20America.pdf.

I come from Shenzhen, the southern city of China, and the “Silicon Valley” of the East. The city wasn’t born 30 years ago – officially became a city in 1979 and gained the crown as the “special economic zone”, an open zone with favourable tax incentives, in 1980. I grew up in Shenzhen until I was 17. Pretty much growing up with the city, now the richest Chinese city by GDPPP, I have developed many of the traits of the city as well: spending money like mad, believing in the power of immigrants (Shenzhen is an immigrant city with 83% of the people do not owning Shenzhen permanent residency), start-ups, work ethics, and modernity.

Before I was 17, I also went to Finland and California for exchange. It was before Instagram was born, so pictures have long been lost. I was a girl, I was a bit waif, too much meagre, very pessimistic, cynical like ever. I was very into poems, and everything beautiful. From an early age, I showed inherent knack in writing, reciting poems, and reading. Also I disliked parties, meetings, communal gatherings; for rather a long time, I thought of living a life in some random mountains and spend the rest of my life as a nun. This was how much I disregard “mundanity” and everything materialistic elements attached to it. Like I do all the time, in year 2014, I tried to WWOOF (work in exchange for food and accommodation) in a farm in Denmark. The intensity of the housework to live completely away from humanity shocked me. I stayed in the farm for 4 days, and never returned to a life without hustle-bustle. 

Funny enough, I chose a very materialistic major in university. I went for Economics, partially for the intellectual sparkles of the subject, abstract like the stars in the Milky Way, or substantial like the petite fire on the tip of a match – winds swoop by, and the light is off. Anyways, St Andrews was a cool place to start off. It was undeniably “aristocracy”, with Prince William and Princess Kate found the milk to their latte at St Andrews. In addition, the school blossomed too many parties, which are addressed as “balls”. 

Despite coming from a well-to-do background of a well-to-do city, I sometimes still felt short of the budget. In one of the balls, I had to stitch my own clothes together. Might be from here, I found ny hidden “artisanal” talents. 

The year of universities also meant the time for intense and mad, mad, mad personal development. Mimicking the “burn burn burn like roman candlelight” kind of spirit, I stepped on the road. Prior to those years, I wasn’t any different from you, he, she. The world was something on the newspaper for me: 2D, plain, imaginary, aggressive, headline-boldened, filled with eagers of a girl to explore, to see, to feel, and to live with her soul. 

Before year 2013, I already went around the globe to Finland, Cali, Thailand, the UAE, etc., but from year 2013 onwards, I put her soul into those journeys. I tried to spend a long time or do meaningful projects in places, so I could live like a local. Some memorable journeys here will unwrap their stories. 

In year 2012, the year I lost my dearest grandpa, who raised me up, I went to Yubeng, a secluded Tibetan village in Shangri-La, Yunnan Province, China. When I grew up, I had constant difficulties with her parents and bigger families as a whole besides her grand-parents. In 2012, I was going through her puberty. I spent all of my money but I wanted so bad for a wild journey. I borrowed money from her roommate and went on a 22km hike in the far west of China. My mother had no idea where I was and scolded her for her “irresponsibility”. I took out her SIM all at once to excommunicate. 

With the little money I borrowed, I was planning to stay in Yunnan for a month and read books, living a simple “nun” life. However, the second day I was in Yunnan, I met a random young student over a meal, who described to her the “last lost paradise” in Shangri-La – the 22km hike Yubeng in the deep part of Tibetan region. He said, “I am going there tomorrow with a bunch of friends I met on the road. I am looking for one more person.” This is called “picking up” people, which is a popular way of meeting travel pals along the Sichuan-Tibet line. 

I gave it a thought for one night. A moon planted a fire into her heart now. The next morning, I packed everything and went on the journey with the group. 

The place was indeed beautiful. It also left a mark of Tibet in her heart. Since then, I was fascinated by Tibetan cultures and stories. I studied many of them afterwards. 

The journey back was not the least dangerous – because the group was late to come out of the mountain, the Tibetan driver had to drive in the evening around the serpentine-like highways. Beside the highway was cliffs of thousands of metres. It was a moon night when werewolves could have been easily turned on. Cliffs were covered by mirror-like ice. The driver said, “No Chinse Han driver dared to drive like this. They don’t dare to drive in the evening.” He also said, “We have to fill the car with 6 people. Otherwise, the car is too light, and the evening wind would blow the car over the cliff.” 

The driver murmured some prayers the whole evening as he drove. I sat next to the window. I peeked outside for only one glance: I saw moonlights sliding down like silver knives, cutting off the ground exactly at the brink of the car wheels. Beneath the car wheels, it was a massive blackhole – endless and cold. The blackhole killed off all the moonlight and played against the weight of the car. The car and the canyon were at battles, seeing which one lost its ground first. 

In year 2013, I went to a less developed area the first time. Many would have thought China was a “developing” country, but not for its richest area. The end of year 2013, I went to Morocco for the first time to “volunteer” on the cause of women and children. I went without doing enough researches, so I had imagined Morocco, a touristy country to be neat and welcoming. 

I already possessed some French skills then, so I was arranged as the French-language teaching assistant for the women and children in Rabat. Drastically different from Casablanca or Marrakesh, which are much more international, Rabat was filled with mostly young straying men on the streets “hunting” for foreign women. Dusty street zigzagged through the candy-coloured souks. I lived in the old town. Every day from my place to the school, I could hear at least 10 guys shouting on me saying “Konichiwa” “Ni Hao”, or coming close to my ear whispering “Marry me”. At the age of 18, I was freakin’ out. 

This drew sharp conflicts between me and my co-workers, who disliked on my “princess” behaviours. The first time we navigated a tram, I said, “I’ve never taken a tram (which is true, I had always taken undergrounds at the time).” The co-workers coldly responded, “Are you too rich to take a tram?”

My first-time solo travelling ended abruptly. I was not happy for a single day so I decided to leave Rabat at once, ending my month-long working contract after 3 days. I later transferred to Marrakesh, which was a way more benign journey for me. Marrakesh has a more established international community and has been more accustomed to seeing a single, young, Asian, female, tourist. 

Shenzhen and the places I had been living before are all orderly and safe places with less hustle-bustle than what I experienced in Rabat. This journey was soaked with my tears, but I learned quickly that the world was not what I had imagined. Places in the world are not as safe, orderly, or apparent as we had naively thought so. The mess of Rabat did not necessarily mean it was unsafe. On the contrary, the seemingly safe place might cover danger. Some people prefer an unorganised structure, but I preferred tidiness. 

After Rabat, I started travelling more. I went to Turkey, probably too many times afterwards. My first time in Turkey came right after Rabat in 2014. I told my mother that I was about to go to Italy, which was true until I changed my plan 2 days before departure. Until the point I was catching a night bus from Istanbul to Pamukkale, my mother was still texting me, “How is Italy?”. In the same bus, I was touched all over my body by a guy sitting behind me. I was dreaming and was thinking it was a dream at first, then I woke up sharply, knowing someone was taking advantage of me in the dark. I stood up, dumbfounded, and rushed to the driver, saying loudly in English to a bus of Turkish, “Some.. one.. touched .. me … all… OOOO… ver….!!!” I crisscrossed my hands all over my bust to demonstrate the point to the driver. The driver comprehended immediately. He parked the bus at the side and scolded the criminal. He then arranged me to sit at the end of the bus, alone. 

The Turkish experience is only one of them. In year 2016, I also faced sexual advancement during a lovely journey in Israel, which I will lay out in an Israel chapter. I also have landed in a wrong shared-car in Paris at 5am in the morning, with the male driver completely wasted and drove me to the suburb. I shouted, “Arrêt! Arrêt!” The driver reluctantly threw me off on a random empty side of the highway outside of the 19^tharrondisement. 

Throughout this journey, I became swollen-emboldened. To draw an analogue to an inflated balloon would be a wrong comparison, as such confidence came from actual experiences and seeing a broader world. I get accustomed to the beauty, the wonders, the ugly, the common sense, and the disputes of the world. Confidence grew sharpened, more like a diamond after multiple shavings. 

After year 2014, I had to move to the US for 1 or 2 years as a part of my undergrad degree – a joint-diploma between two schools: St Andrews and William & Mary (Virginia). I was very saddened to leave as I had just made some tight friends at St Andrews during my year 1, going through parties and parties. After dating some young boys, I had also made a bigger move into dating a guy that was 10 years elder than me. I found my comfort zone and LOVED it. 

I met with a German teacher (I was learning both French and German at the time, with me giving up the latter in 2 years) to pass off my golf clubs. I asked her should I give up on the valuable joint-diploma, like some of the people do. It wasn’t easy to go around in two places like unrooted dandelions. In fact, many people gave up or went into distress because they had to be in constant worries of missing out from the other parts or losing friends that had just made. I do not remember what she said to me in the end, but I had the lingering impression that, God gives you equal strength and blessings while you lose. Maybe this is a door for to discover the new world.  

I left for Virginia at the age of 19 before turning 20. Life turned upside again. Both Virginia and St Andrews were in countryside. I escaped to New York and London as much as I could. I only went back to school to take exams. In the urban cafes, bars, hotels, anywhere you could find wifi, they have seen my past writing papers, studying textbooks, doing homework, checking on my stocks, etc. This period gave me the habit of working in the morning and having fun in the afternoon, no matter where I am. As long as there is wifi, I do not go unplugged. I also never stopped my footprints measuring the world – Caribbean, LA, the Middle East, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Asia… I also spent too much time in Paris, honing my French, organising crazy wine parties in the cabinets of Parisian apartments in Les Invalides… Prior to studying in Paris, I wasn’t sure to go, as the tuition fee at Science Po Summer School was not the cheapest. I consulted my mother, who was sponsoring my studies at the time. She said, “You can go. We can earn money back, but youth is only once.” 

In between, I met many interesting boys and probably had a bit more experiences. I loved someone that did not love me for rather a long time and cried my heart out. When I flew to his place in Europe to see him (all the way from the US), he said, “Well, I want you to come here cos I think it’s best for us to split”. In the blue jazz days, I also just debut a career in Finance, going to J.P. Morgan in the morning smiling and concentrating with my entirety of thoughts. In the evening, I could not sleep without seeing my tears showering my body every day. I was also fortunate to meet a person that loved me so much. The person would call me, then in Asia, abruptly withdrawing from a business trip in Portugal. He said, “Well I want to see you before you leave. So I am buying a ticket tomorrow and fly back to see you.” Also, too many wonders, loving moments, romances, anxieties, emotions, stories. 

The journey made me understand that love is about passions. Passions can easily happen in the blink of eyes, but love is something more complex yet more enduring. For the people, places, matters you love, you will always love. For anything other than that, you don’t have to “hate” it, but I mean anything in between of “like” and one level below “love”. Anything that you do not “love” with the entirety of your heart, like your breath will be taken away your life will lose a piece your being will stop possessing a meaning, is not worth of pursuing. They do not fill your heart. The same principle applies to people and relationships – any relationship that is inundated by the teeny-weenie pieces of an ordinary life, I consider it has lost its soul. Any companion that cannot make you feel his or her existence is the perfection sent by God despite of all his or her humanly foils, I consider him or her only a nice pedestrian of phases of life. Notice, I said feel. Love is a feel. I also said soul. Love is not sex; it is about souls. 

I actually went back to Morocco in year 2016 to surf in Taghazout. In that year, I also went to Turks and Caicos, danced in Palestine, had clubbing fun in Israel, and interned at Citigroup. I had always loved Economics and Finance, as much as I declare to the world that I hate it. I secretly have my heart melting to make a candy of love to the academics, rigidity, and abstractness of the subject. However, from year 2013 to year 2016, I went to many places to travel, read too many books, saw too many people’s lives in the world that I felt my old understanding about how to “succeed” in life does not hold. Investment Banking, despite of its profitability, is still a relatively conservative if not slow and boring place to reach the goal of life. Most importantly, I find many people in the field to be utterly ignorant of the world outside of the financial bubbles. If snob is a word invented alongside of discrimination by human beings to describe the powerful yet unsoulful, I consider some people in Finance to be so. 

Regardless, I said, no thank you IBD. 

Afterwards, I started doing media work, like shooting videos from ground zero. I don’t know why I felt so strong about it. I wanted something creative, so I bought a camera and began shooting some videos. My virgin piece is about golfing in St Andrews, which I edited using iMovie. 

In year 2016, I returned to St Andrews from the US, after all the journeys in between. I changed. Going back to the “bubble”, as St Andrews is often described, I disdained the dandiness of the place. The old “best” friends I had made in my first year mostly stayed in Finance and became close to each other. I couldn’t go into their circle again. I did not feel I needed to fit in anyways. I could equally be happy to dress up in a boutique brand than styling in an Armani. 

In year 2017, I also started founding a Mung Bean company in New York. After trying some lucks selling cooked mung bean food on the street, our start-up flew way with the current of time. The same year, I also started with UPenn, which has been a blessing and a curse at the same time. 

By year 2017, as I freshened up from graduation, as my family and I toured London and Paris, I started my career from ground zero. Only in the next year, I learned how to use Premiere, how to get my writings to be paid, and how to edit photos, how to take photos. Then, at the end of 2017, I stumbled into the Middle East. Studying in Nice at the time, I decided to travel to a place I had never been and somewhere close that also does not have Christmas (so I can do something meaningful). Iran was the country to be. As I told many people, I was very scared before I went the first time. Like most people, I had no idea about the country and associated it to “bombs” per se. 

The actual visit turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable. The country had its 7,000-year of history to offer, some of the sincerest citizens, and a pure landscape and civilisation. As much as headlines make the country sound like the biggest vice to democracy and the evillest enemy to freedom, the country itself is peaceful, nice, safe, and nonchalant. I posted some of the reels I had in Iran online and obtained favourable responses. Then I read more books about the place and started doing more about it. In addition, I made my constant tribute to the land. 

Now the label of “Persia” has become one of my most discerning hashtags. People would still get confused of exactly what I do. Am I a behavioural economist? A student? Someone in Finance? A model? A PR? An entrepreneur? A writer? Where am I from? People also see that I organise many parties since day one; privately, I am also known as the “connector”. So am I a socialite?

Maybe all right. Maybe all wrong. People can never be so easily categorised into things. In an era when everyone is trying to find a “label” for him or herself to win in this “vertical” content world, I just do me. 

The story will come to an end at this particular point, because the story is still in the process of writing; life is a web with many joints of possibilities, and they all take you to the place you want to be as long as you are in the wheel. 

The whole point of this long story is to share with you a slice of my journeys. If those little parsed notes have made you ponder or have inspired you, I have fulfilled my use. In a business, you make it when you can link all the resources and possibilities together. In life, you make it when you can bridge cultures, whether it is the big cultures such as national, or sub-cultures, like regional. 

I remembered a point when I was leaving Greece after several days at the age of 19. I saw the sunshine gradually climbing on the top of my train window. The train was about departure. Despite of the arrow-shooting speed of the train, the lukewarm and constant sunshine wraps my face like a silk scarf. My tears ran wildly all over my place. I hated separation – I had such a good time in Greece with my friends and I was about to leave to the US for years. I said, I want to settle down some day. I do not ever want to leave the people and place I love the dearest. The sunshine did not wipe off my tears. It only held my sorrows and desperation in its arm.

I can never forget that moment. Yet ironically, years later, I became so numb and insouciant; I am so accustomed to separations that nothing and nobody matter. I embraced every preaching of the zen, the “neutrality”, the “nothing stays at the end”, “life is zero from the beginning and at the end”, the “je ne sais quoi”. 

We all grow up. Nothing matters anymore.

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The idea starts with a short video, in which I try to capture the wisdom of "thinking out of the box" in the very traditional field - angel investing. 

I met John at a peculiarly cool ski-pitch event, the 2-day franca of entrepreneurs and investors coming together, dining, chatting, and skiing in the far part of New Jersey. Thanks to the courtesy of Peak Pitch. 

In the brief conversation I had with John and checking on his career background, I am in awe, much inspired and favoured. I have a very unusual and insouciant life so far, so his seemingly freestyle investing has attracted my interests greatly and served as a torchlight of my own life. When he says he invests out of "intuition" or "gut feeling", many of you may feel the wow effects. Most of the investors, no matter how much emotion-driven, are unlikely to admit that their career is an impulse-played gamble. Many would still try to analyse the macro market, the system of the founding team, the sales, etc. before they put their cash token in that milk box.

John says, no, no all those troubles.

He can say so only after he has gained success using his untraditional mindset, sitting on a pile of failures that the public tends to ignore. In our conversation, I tried to explore the bruises John had. He spread his hands, and said, "oh too many."

Fortunately, after 22 years of beating the currents and being beaten by the currents, he is in a much better position now.

When we just met, we talked about how he began snowballing his rudimentary capital before getting into angel. He made his fortune in the security market in a few years, after first losing all of his money for so much that he couldn't even pay his taxes. My eyes were brightened like the green dots of tiger cubs in the dark - oh I've been there too, a well-off girl trying my luck and losing all my money that I couldn't even afford to eat a meal.

Another anecdote is that I started off wanting to portray a "cool" video, so I wanted him to pretend "bossy". He said, well, for him, investing or having fortunes makes no difference between him and the mass. He is not a boss and does not want to be "bossy". Casual style is the cue.

Indeed, casual style is the cue. I am not a big fan of the people and things that have been glossed as if success windfalls in one day - but impressions of John, being through things, having made it there, and chilling are pretty cool.

Q1: John you are known as one of the most prolific and wide ranging angel investors in New York. Please tell me about some companies you have invested in and what is the common denominator?

I have done over 90 early seed stage companies. Some of them are Xlibris – the first internet book publisher circa 1996; Centrak – a real time location based system for hospitals, it was an IOT company before IOT was known; Tunity – we unmute muted TVs in airports and sports bars by sending you the voice over the internet; Scentbird – a perfume subscription company where you can get just about any perfume for $15 a month and Trendalytics – company predicts fashion sales by ingesting a trillion data points every day. What is common is that all these companies had no revenues, no customers and were in industries I knew nothing about.

Q2: Well this goes against the grain of what investors usually want to see like revenues, business models, industry experts etc.

Yes I struggled with this. After about 10 years of investing I was no longer accepting any business plans or looking at any spreadsheets. I did understand that my investments were based on intuition. I then met David Dabscheck, a visiting scholar at Columbia, he introduced me to the concept of Foxes and Hedgehogs. Foxes are generalists who take appropriate risks like creating new markets or disrupting existing markets. Hedgehogs do one thing all day – they eat, they are subject matter experts and/or industry veterans who create better products, cheaper products, find niches in market, make the industry more efficient etc. The Foxes are early seed stage angels like me and the micro VCs who are chartered to be like angels. The Hedgehogs are most angels, all angel groups, most VCs.

Q3: This is interesting. Did this new paradigm answer any other questions?

Yes – it predicted that Fox entrepreneurs would get investment from Fox investors and Hedgehogs from Hedgehogs. To my surprise this was true for my portfolio. It also predicted that Fox founders would come from outside the industry. And for my five biggest exits whose total sale price exceeded $4 billion dollars, all the founders were from outside the industry with no prior experience in the industry.

Q4: WOW!! You have been doing this for over 20 years are there any new challenges you are pursuing?

Yes! I have been to 18 countries speaking at conferences, judging pitches, helping governments build startup ecosystems etc. I have done 16 international companies. The majority have failed but that is the price of tuition. What I am trying to address isthe severe risk aversion of entrepreneurs and the severe lack of capital for Fox companies.

Watch our video Investing Like a Fox

John's wisdom has influenced me in my further career, too, when I start my own VC fund focusing on helping founders from subcultural background in their angel/seed round.