#52 Back on the Mainland

Back in Mainland China (in Shaoxing) after a short parenthesis in Taiwan.

How time flies! Our trip to Taiwan has already come to an end. It was a big shock to observe how different this island feels compared to its gigantic neighbor. From our tourist point of view, it seemed like people are more welcoming of outsiders (or more used to us?), and trying to conform less (or it appeared more diverse, at least). Of course, let's not even talk about the absence of surveillance cameras and censorship — which was amazing.

Hyperlinks

• Katerine Yang: Katerine's special poetic place on the internet
• CSS Stats: haven't used it yet, but I like the concept
• I Was a Liberal Who Worked at Fox News. Here’s What That Taught Me About Arguing Politics: finally a practical guide on talking (and listening) to each other like human beings
• CSS JOY Webring: a webring for people who love messing around with CSS
• Fedi.Tips: tips to get started in the Fediverse

Media diet

• Always Home (short story by Jeff Vandermeer, 2022): Read it here. Another great Terraform-curated story that asks the big question: what does it mean to be alive?
• The Residence (season 1) (TV series by Paul William Davies, 2025): entertaining murder mystery set in the White House, not the best but would watch it again.
• Severance (season 2) (TV series by Dan Erickson, 2025): good follow-up to season 1, how many years until season 3 though?
• Kneecap (movie by Rich Peppiatt, 2024): loved it, best biopic I've seen in a long time — and how come J. J. Ó Dochartaigh (a.k.a. DJ Próvaí) is not a professional actor?!

Miscellaneous

• First time: cycled up a mountain under the (warm) rain during our bike trip in Taiwan — which was surprisingly fun.
• Plugged into the Fediverse with Mastodon and BookWyrm.
• Some new words on my mandarin vocab list: chòu (stinky), huŏchē (fire + vehicle = train), dòujiāng (soy milk)
• And some Chinese characters: 鱷 (fish + shocking = alligator), 上 (upper), 下 (lower), 车/車 (vehicle)

Until next time ⊙