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📍Beijing.
I like to learn languages.

This worked out really well last year, so I’m go

This worked out really well last year, so I’m going to do it again: if I tell you the books I loved in 2024, could you
tell me some of yours?

The three books that really flipped me inside out were Another Country (James Baldwin), Chip War (Chris Miller), and Death’s End (the third book of Three Body Problem - yes, I know, I’m not a sci-fi person either! Trust me, it is worth it. If you read it, let’s...talk.)

And yes, I joined the millions of other Chinese and Anglo readers that have fallen for Yu Xiuhua’s poetry long after “Crossing China to Sleep With You” went viral.

So if you’ve read anything good lately, could you let me know?

Fiction

Serve the People! (Yan Lianke, thx @ludovicwbodin )
Another Country (James Baldwin)
Giovanni’s Room (James Baldwin, thx @richardjulianmusic )
Mobility (Lydia Kiesling)
Sister Snake (by @amandaleekoe )
Ministry of Moral Panic (Amanda Lee Koe) (thx @elena_hasbun )
Death’s End (3-Body Problem Book 3, Liu Cixin translated by Ken Liu, thx @emceeinsg )
England is Mine (by @npadamsee , thx @vishpap )
Liars (Sarah Mancuso)
Set My Heart on Fire (Izumi Suzuki)
Brave New World (thx @iankearney_ )

Nonfiction

La diplomatie n’est pas un dîner de gala (French, Claude Martin)
Madame l’Ambassadeur (French, Sylvie Bermann)
Chip War (Chris Miller)
Get the Picture (Bianca Bosker)
From Warsaw with Love: Polish Spies, the CIA, and the
Forging of an Unlikely Alliance (John Pomfret)
The Age of Magical Overthinking (@amanda_montell )
Didion & Babitz (Lili Anolik)
The White Album (Joan Didion)
Slow Days, Fast Company (Eve Babitz)
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (Oliver Burkeman) (thx @seonaidbeckwith )
Georgia Diary (Thomas Goltz)
Learn to Read Georgian in Five Days (Irakli Aleksidze,)
Sovietistan (Erika Fatland)
Murder in Samarkand (Craig Murray)
Knife (Salman Rushdie)
Supercommunicators (Charles Duhigg)
Salt Fat Acid Heat (Samin Nosrat) (thx @m.r.b.s )
Aftermath (Rachel Cusk, thx @bourreelam )

Poetry continued in the comments.

When I flip back through the pictures and playlist

When I flip back through the pictures and playlists of 2024, I can’t believe it was all the same year. Dancing in snow boots on the Great Wall, smelling the roses in Tbilisi. Finding beauty in DC. Sucking worm salt out of orange slices in Brooklyn, hitting every book cafe in Baku, and saying goodbye at Opposite House.

A million bottles of wine at Zarah, several dozen Hutong Fortunes, a few golden weasels (sometimes in the form of a cocktail, sometimes in the form of an animal darting in front of a scooter, at the end of a good night).

A thousand fights for the bill.

Pancakes and disco balls and German lessons.

Mosquito bites at the river.

Gallons of coffee. Some boxing, no KOs. Lots of walks. 40 failed attempts at a chin-up. And according to Oura, 27 naps.

Some scary moments, some tears, some goodbyes. But it all turned out fine. And I’m told these are common side effects, of 🎵 being alive.

I’ve always loved the concept of the “shibbole

I’ve always loved the concept of the “shibboleth”: a word that is so unique to a particular group of people that in some cases it can even be used to root out an outsider. In extreme cases, a spy.

In Ukraine they use the word “паляниця”, a traditional hearth-baked bread, which contains a couple sound clusters that are notoriously difficult for Russians to pronounce.

During the Nazi occupation the Dutch used the name of the seaside town of Scheveningen, to root out hidden Germans.

What’s the opposite of a shibboleth? A word designed to bring someone in, to let them belong? A password?

聚散离合 is a Chinese idiom referring to gathe

聚散离合 is a Chinese idiom referring to gathering and scattering, parting and reuniting, the inevitable cycles of life. It was very sad to say goodbye to Beijing’s Opposite House, whose hotel was a pandemic refuge, and whose bar was my “office” for many a writing afternoon.

The goodbye party was so Opposite House: Genghis Khan martinis, dancers on stilts, pizza eaten mid-boogie. Who ever thought they would go quietly? Bartenders poured out the last of the bottles into open waiting mouths, artwork was eased off of hooks and given happy new homes. And there were so many faces from throughout the years, found in the crowd, then lost again in the melee. But isn’t that just Beijing, to make a goodbye feel like a reunion.

“Time is the one thing that can’t be stopped.

“Time is the one thing that can’t be stopped. Like a sharp blade, it silently cuts through hard and soft, constantly advancing. Nothing is capable of jolting it even the slightest bit, but it changes everything.”

Liu Cixin, translated by Joel Martinsen, “The Dark Forest”

Working my way through book two of Three Body Problem. What did you think of it?

I’ll be in North America soon! SF (a short one) then Vancouver, Toronto, DC, New York. Let me know if you’re around.

Samarkand was a wonder, plov a treasure. But more

Samarkand was a wonder, plov a treasure. But more than anything I loved just sitting in cafes, sipping a good колд брю (coldbrew) in the 95-degree heat, listening to the ways that Tashkent hipsters played with language.

I’ve always been fascinated by bilingual societies. In Tashkent most signs are bilingual, menus are bilingual, and nearly everyone I met could switch between Uzbek and Russian seamlessly. And they did! Sometimes to greet an unexpected friend who stopped by their table, sometimes just to introduce a new topic.

Anywhere touristy used Russian as the default. My college Russian is pretty decrepit at this point, but everyone was so patient, so encouraging. I attended a Russian-language wine tasting with a small group of new Russian friends, and was advised that perhaps my linguistic deficiencies were related to my slow drinking speed. I’ll work on that for next time.

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