This weekend I went back to the village and walked around. Several of the newly built houses have a small structure sitting on their rooftops — a neat little box, like a tiny house on top of a big one. Ours doesn’t have one, and I found myself staring at them, genuinely puzzled. After asking
A few days ago I was scrolling TikTok when I kept seeing the same thing: a “pricy noodle bowl” in the next city over — 88 RMB (~$13), ten toppings, served in a giant blue-and-white porcelain bowl big enough to feed a small family. Apparently it was worth the hype. So this weekend, I got
Today I ordered lunch on the food delivery app and tried a new place for a change — a hotel restaurant (yes, an actual hotel that does takeout). And the moment I opened the box, I had one of those small but very clear thoughts: So THIS is what 18 RMB can buy when a
This weekend I ate two local dishes I’ve been eating my whole life — 肉麦饼 (rou mai bing, pork-stuffed flatbread) and 小麦饼 (xiao mai bing, wheat pancake). Delicious as always. And then, for the first time, I really looked at them and realized something strange: The best food in my hometown is all designed to
Quick answer: yes, it was worth it — and here’s exactly what 80,000 RMB (~USD 11,000) gets you when you install a home elevator in a rural Chinese house, with numbers, not marketing. Our family house in Zhejiang is finally coming together — windows and doors are in, and we just finished installing the elevator.
My friend just bought a new electric car, and he announced it with a straight face: “I’m becoming the Massage Parlor Emperor.” Then he showed me what he bought — a Cadillac. Not just any Cadillac. A Cadillac LYRIQ (锐歌), the brand’s first fully electric SUV. And I have to be honest: in our small
I was going out to dinner the other day when I spotted two cars parked next to each other: one orange, one blue. Nothing special at first glance. Then I looked closer and nearly laughed out loud — it was a 保时泰 (Baoshitai) and a 陆风 (Lufeng), sitting side by side like old friends. If
Next to my neighborhood there’s a driving school. And in the middle of the driving school sits a tower that looks exactly like a flying saucer that landed on a concrete stalk. I’ve seen these towers my whole life. There’s one in almost every Chinese town — an old concrete column with a fat, mushroom-like
I took this photo on a business trip to Russia. The whole side of an apartment building, covered top to bottom in air conditioning units — a hundred of them, maybe more. No balconies on that side. No windows you could climb out of. And I remember standing there thinking: how did anyone get these
Our estate started selling in 2008 — the year of the Beijing Olympics. My family moved in a year later, in 2009. The estate is mostly five- and six-storey buildings; only three towers are above eight floors, and we happen to live in one of them. So we have an elevator. And let me tell