sisi jiang

i finally get it now. i finally get eggs benedict (in shenzhen)

you don't understand what the wapo cuts did to public knowledge unless you've worked in a newsroom. you can't replace all the resources and institutional heft with independent substackers. you just can't.

sorry man this isn't how i wanted to find out that you were on this site. do consider you yourself trying to eat 10 pounds of shrimp

China has brought millions out of poverty. The US has not – by choice Despite the US’s economic success, income inequality remains breathtaking. But this is no glitch – it’s the system

results over rhetoric: this article sums up my feelings on the issue after having been here and admittedly not gone anywhere rural for a lack of time but still having seen more of western china than the average american

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

china is fun but by god does being here make me mad that the US does not take poverty alleviation seriously even during the neoliberal years. like yeah i’m reading a party publication about rural economic revitalization but there are not scores of disabled/elderly on every street like in the past.

friend: you should visit guangzhou
me: oh? what is there to do there?
friend: eat

😂😂😂 this is really high praise i guess if i need to take a train just to try the food there

i can’t stress enough that actual big name actors have gotten arrested and their names dragged through the news for tax evasion

i will say the two museums i’ve been to seem to be heavily dominated by traditional ink painting styles or socialist realism and MAYBE something aesthetically influenced by western contemporary art. makes me better appreciate that american art exhibits have such a wide range of subjects and styles.

painting of traffic being directed, painted by miao artist meng ruizhi

swan painting by gao guanfeng

been thinking about that fox clip that claimed china doesn’t do DEI. the chongqing art museum lists the ethnicity of some painters (han and otherwise) and whether they completed a minority arts training program. can’t speak deeper on issues i know little about but People Definitely See Race Here.

chongqing’s vegetables scared us so bad we didn’t even try the hot pot even though it was my “must try” when i arrived lol

i am way more scared of figuring out how to go to bayside or the brooklyn ikea than i am of going to a random chinese city i have no connection to

i think the Concept of china is scary and big for people who have never been but honestly navigating cities ive never been is easier than navigating new york city. you can do it. i just need to write some general blog posts about navigating infrastructure, buying tickets, scams, and squat toilets.

like you probably DON’T need to travel to the US for an authentic cheeseburger. also the cheeseburger doesn’t try to set your bowels on fire.

my boring opinion of sichuan after having been here for three days is that you don’t REALLY need to try spicy sichuan food in sichuan unless you’re from here. the dishes are so popular that you’re more or less set as long as you’re at a decent restaurant for chinese diners.

yo that is a WILD case of food poisoning, glad you lived

tea set with nuts and dried fruit

cat coming over for tea

tea drinking cat

mountainside teatime in chongqing

…huh? what’s this? an unexpected guest???

war flashbacks to every american who told me china was unilaterally bad because it was controlled by communists when the us was/is unironically controlled by pedophiles

BETTER THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!

i’ve been visiting china every few years since 2007 and it’s just so remarkable how much infrastructure has meaningfully improved over the past two decades. how the air quality death spiral seems to have been fully reversed. the country is not perfect but it’s not stagnant or self-satisfied.

visited 4 chinese cities in 10 days so far and i’m now fully convinced that if you have the desire and/or resources to learn any asian language for pure use value then it should be mandarin

i like the part where i can see a guy get emotionally degraded a little bit and it's not driven by unexamined sexism on the part of the author

chongqing la zi chicken and vegetables covered in mala seasoning

i’m fucking crying and snot is coming out of my nose

chongqing cityscape across the river

sorry about the shitty subway window photo but let me gape about how cyberpunk chongqing is at night

WAIT CHONGQING LOOKS AMAZING??????? (just got out of the subway tunnel but was too busy gaping at the sights to take a photo 😭)

just saw a young guy with a bishounen itabag… contemporary china sure is a Place

no switch btw the first emperor of the han dynasty was a BOTTOM!!!!!

this is my sign to write xiang yu x liu bang lovers to enemies doomed yaoi

update: i will have LOTS to write about common scams 😂 (dw i did not pay for anything)

sour fish boil

sichuan stir fry

i’ve had red curries milder than the stir fry on the right

“Weixin Is Not Your Enemy But Alipay Absolutely Is”