seconding this.

i personally do some tai chi, and some other eastern meditations in addition, but learning how to get into that meditative state where you can just exist, is really really nice. I like to think of it as taking a break from reality and giving your mind some time to rest and in return you get like a +5% buff to everything you do.

Thanks for writing this up. I’m also chinese diaspora, but with a slightly different experience than you because I was both born and raised in the good ol us of a. I’m still completely unsure of my roots, but I do know my grandfather was a revolutionary before he passed. I’m just sad I was too young to ever talk to him about my experiences when I was back in china. I can definitely relate to these social pressures, and especially the social pressures that happen at the intersection of being from an asian culture in a western environment. Get good grades, get into a good college, i’ve heard that my entire life and now that i’ve done it, get a good internship, get a good job… and the pressures to conform never stop. I don’t have too much to say, but thank you for writing this, it really resonated with me.

I am ashamed to admit that the merch i got on my china trip mostly consists of… checks notes… hatsune miku, jjk, and sanrio merch… oops.

hahaha i was just in chongqing and it was 40 too. they’re not called the 四大火炉 for no reason.

Also how do you do the furigana like superscript?

I just came back from china where like 5 star hotels go for $100, luxury hotels go for like $50, and like regular ones for like $25 and these prices feel even more absurd…

Does anyone know what the status of the qinghua university implant was. I remember reading about it a while ago but anyone have any updates?

Went to the university i’m going to next fall’s encampment. It’s crazy to go from high school where i could barely find anyone supportive of palestine(supportive enough to actually take action. most people were supportive but like no one did anything which pisses me off to no end but tangent aside) to a full on encampment. food was bussin tho

to be fair the shanghai metro also has security(which imo kinda unnecessary but fair ig). but even then they have an actually nice metro

I have also had the chance to meet a pre-new china member of the cpc. He was my grandpa actually. Unfortunately he died a couple years ago and the last time I was back in china I didn’t know what a marx was…

I wish you the best of experiences though.

While musk’s antics are pure stupidity, something that has at least come out of it is its influence in the push for more reusable rockets and influencing chinas long march 9 plans. All credit of course goes to the SpaceX engineers and not musk.

I mean they’ve done this before… a quick invasion, taking of a treaty port, and a whole lot of opium

I personally really like to journal but even if you don’t I like to prepare for interview by writing down like what i would answer to the questions. Then in the case of an interview I kinda already know where I want to go so i can focus on making myself more articulate and prose more interesting. Of course you won’t cover everything you will get asked and will still need to impromptu some questions but i find i feel a lot more prepared and that helps with my anxiety.

others have said a lot, but i just wanted to add

I’ve tried talking to a therapist about it but they just suggested that I try to stop identifying as Chinese and start identifying as American.

is ridiculous to the point of satire. It feels like something someone would satirically say rather than unironic advice from a therapist.

I wish you the happiest of birthdays comrade. Long live the revolution

Just finished finals, will have to wait to see how I did but I’m pretty proud of how it went.

but at what cost

Hmm for me a pretty recent 180 i took was on Deng Xiaoping. I was a commie but I really wasn’t super educated on the state of AES(even though i am part of the chinese diaspora) and was always under the impression that it was capitalism. That deng xiaoping turned china capitalist. Probably not really as big of an 180 as some other people here but really learning about china was really inspiring and restored my hope in the world ig. I feel way more patriotic towards china right than amerikkka.

Thinking of possibly doing my master’s in china after my undergrad.

TFU

thanks! Another reason to finally get around to reading imperialism i guess. Been meaning to for a while.

Can you expand on this? I haven’t read too much theory so i’m guessing this is something in capital?