gem 🌺

just got back from china and i don’t know what to eat anymore

two dates in one weekend is true effort!

if i happen to invest in a promising mainland chinese tech company that also happens to receive funding from the chinese govt, does that make me a ccp supporter??

say it with me: no!!

fantastic. class dismissed

visiting and liking china as a country =\= ccp affiliation!! eating mainland chinese food =/= PLA support!! speaking mandarin, investing in chinese companies to earn a buck (or many), working in china, working with mainland chinese people =/= ccp or PLA affiliation!!!

also i just want to point out that ethnic chinese people are not inherently loyal to china and/or the ccp!!! 😄 chinese people have had a long history of mass migration!! many overseas chinese identify with their born and bred nationality & not with mainland china!! shocking, i know!

as we are now firmly in the era where anyone and everyone who is ethnic chinese can freely be accused of “ties to the ccp and PLA”, it’s useful to know these fun facts about names so you can identify straight off if an ethnic chinese person is actually from china or not!!

“tan lip-bu” is most likely an older (boomer) southeast asian chinese man bc his name is fully spelled in dialect romanisation

whereas, “chew shou zi” is a millennial southeast asian name because “chew” is hokkien romanisation while “shou zi” is mando pinyin. this mix is more often seen now

when ethnic non-mainland chinese are referred to in china, their mandarin / pinyin names are used.

eg andy lau is “lau dak wah” in hk canto but “liu de hua” in china (mando)

“tan lip-bu” is hokkien. his mando name is “chen li wu”

fun fact, you can also surmise someone’s age from their name!

generally, mainland names use pinyin while other areas don’t. eg:

- lau, kwok, cheung: hk; cantonese romanisation
- tsai, chou, hsu: taiwanese; wade giles romanisation
- tan, tay, chua, teo, yeo: malaysian and singaporean; surnames romanised as per dialect group (hokkien, teochew, canto, etc)

do people realise that “tan lip-bu” is not a mainland chinese name? his name shows that he’s southeast asian chinese (born in malaysia, to be exact)

it’s easy to tell! chinese names are spelled differently based on which country you’re from, due to dialect groups and inconsistent romanization

but despite this, some feel the confidence to make bold statements, “research” articles and conjectures about china / chinese authors and celebrities that i, as an overseas chinese living in a majority chinese country who has visited and worked in china many times, would not dare to make

there’s also a frog in the well mentality where there’s a deep lack of awareness or understanding of chinese internet and social media spaces hence an inability to distinguish what’s unique to a celebrity/author and what’s just your regular anti bullshit that happens to every popular person

non-chinese people are so willing to accept sinister framing of things in china that are logically quite normal.

eg “her weibo account was closed therefore she must be in prison” …i know tons of english fic writers who closed their accounts & vanished off the internet. are they in prison?

just a consideration to have when evaluating how accurate her research would be using translation apps given she won’t be able to spot pretty basic translation errors

uh i opened the link and literally the author got mxtx’s translated name wrong in the first paragraph 😅 “xiu” is a character that has two readings and the second way is “chou” which means stink. “xiu” does not mean stink. the MTL was wrong & the author didn’t know enough chinese to realise it

where was that mentioned?

i have finished zhz and therefore my social media “blackout” has ended

but i still have SO MANY BURNING QUESTIONS that i guess will never be answered now 😭

no more new zanghai eps until saturday because i’m being stubborn but in a sense, i can’t bear to end this drama so early too ;;

i really need to know his whole deal too!!!

it’s not usually about avenging your family but yourself

i think it’s also what we are used to… chinese people grew up with countless 报仇 dramas so the concept is really familiar

my parents are now also obsessed with zanghai zhuan. fucking phenomenal show

the entirety of my reactions when watching zanghai:

“fuck that is smart”
“xz is so fucking hot”
“holy shit”
“arrrghhh”
“god xz is so hot”
“!!!!!”
“GOD HE IS SO HOT AND TALL AND BIG AND…”
“omfg”
“awww shifu”
“FUCK HE IS SO HOT”

they don’t get how hot a scheming man is 🥹

that shadow of a smirk truly got to me

also, xz looks SO BEAUTIFUL when he’s being cunning, god, i had goosebumps in the scene where he was looking down at zhuang zhixiang in the pig pen

re zang hai, i can genuinely say that i’ve not enjoyed a cdrama so much since yanxi palace. 13 eps in and still going really strong, nonstop intrigue & plot twists and layered characters and mystery

also xz is so incredibly beautiful in zanghai, it’s unbelievable

ZANGHAI IS NAIL-BITINGLY GOOD OH MY GOD

so easy to miss a plot point if you look away!