I read the latest volume of Ballad of Sword and Wine. I am so in love with this novel. The world building is A+ (even though I still get a little confused with some of the factions in the imperial drama). Shen Zechuan and Xiao Ce’an are just great. Their relationship is dynamic and interesting. One of my big gripes with Stars of Chaos is that Chang Geng and Gu Yun spent so much of the narrative apart. It was necessary for the story, but I really wanted to see their interactions. BSW balances the plot-relevant separations with more frequent reunions.

Legend of Exorcism wasn’t particularly on my radar. I picked up the first volume after seeing it at Barnes and Noble this winter, and it is awesome! It’s a historical fantasy danmei, with lots of action and humor. This is another one of those series that, if I were a billionaire, I would fund a lavish live-action drama adaptation. I polished off volumes one and two in about a week.

In non-danmei reading, I read all the current English translations of Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! I know there are several adaptations of this, including (I think, I can’t be bothered to check rn) a Thai adaptation. It’s a very sweet series. I needed a palate cleanser after the dramatic battles in BSW. I’ll keep up with this series. It also reminds me I need to get back to What Did You Eat Yesterday? because I do love stories about proper adults.

10 Things I Want to do Before I Turn 40 is a single-volume (as far as I can tell) BL manga with a similar plot to Old Fashioned Cupcake. It’s fine. It’s as satisfying as a decent cupcake.

Finally, I read Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (On a Dead Man), an absolutely charming and wonderful cozy mystery by Jesse Q. Sutanto, and follow-up to Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice to Murderers. Vera is a wonderful character who would certainly be besties with Jane Marple. I love how Vera just adopts a gaggle of misfits and makes this wonderful family for herself -- and in the process of the two books, builds a better relationship with her actual son. I cannot recommend these two novels enough.

I have a few other non-danmei books queued up for summer break, but tbh, I’m mostly excited to dive into a bunch of series as they get official English translations. I’m especially enjoying branching out into different genres. When I first started, I thought danmei was basically fantasy because my first exposure to danmei was to MDZS, but that’s not the case at all. My current reading tastes seem to be either danmei or Japanese/Korean slice of life stories set in bookshops and cafes. I also have some non-danmei books on my tbr list, such as the latest Rivers of London novel, The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo, some nonfiction books like Ghosts of the British Museum that I’ll pick up at my hometown library. Plus, bestie and I are road-tripping to Oregon this summer, and we’re stopping at Powell’s, so who knows what treasures I’ll find there?

I’ll keep you posted.

I learned that Clown School lost its accreditation. Color me shocked lol. I do feel bad for the families that put their faith in the school, especially the kids who are juniors this year. They will have to find a new school or some other way to get their diploma. They’re pretty much all rich, so I’m sure something will work out for them, but still, it’s not their fault. Well, it’s a little bit of their fault because I think the grift was pretty obvious, and they decided the pain was worth it. But I don’t have kids, so I don’t know what lengths I would go to in order to secure their future if I did have kids.

It’s starting to get too hot and humid to go out comfortably because I get too sweaty, so after next weekend (my friend is coming to visit), I’ll probably go out less, which is fine because I have a lot of books to read, and I really need to deep clean my apartment before I go home for my summer break.

I started and stopped a few dramas — the dubbing was so bad! It took me right out of the story. I’ve been reading more, though. So far in May, I’ve read You’ve Got Mail: The Perils of Pigeon Post Vol 1, which is basically a smutty romance book. I picked it up based on the cover, and wow, it was a lot. 😬 I know I often say I’m not going to finish a series and then immediately turn around and dive back in (for example, I dove right in and read volume 2 of Case File Compendium lol), but the character development is super thin in this book. Like paper thin. It reminded me of why I basically stopped reading smutty romance books — I like a bit of emotion and character development with my sex scenes. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The next book I read was Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge. It’s kind of a downer of a speculative fiction book. A (crypto)zoologist-turned-novelist writes about all the types of beasts in the city of Yong’an Each chapter documents a different type of beast that lives in the city. They also build on a larger story about the mystery who (what) are the real beasts. It's very metaphor-heavy, and I almost gave up because there wasn't enough plot to drive the story for my tastes, but I held on and the plot picked up. I can't say that I loved it, but I don't feel like it was a waste of time reading it.

I read volume one of the Cherry Magic manga. I'd read it before but I have a few more volumes, so I reread it. I needed something light an fluffy, and so far, it's fitting the bill.

And that's it for now!

So… are there four kids absent or three?

I’m talking through this, trying to make the attendance math work, and the kids are giggling but they aren’t saying anything. I figure they’re just giggling because Ms. Debra is a weird teacher and they like to laugh at me. Fair enough. Except the math isn’t mathing, especially as I hand back papers. I call for Anna. I look at the girl in Anna’s seat. She doesn’t come up. I call again, more insistently. Is… she Victoria? And just being cheeky and sitting in another seat?

I tell the kids to go to their assigned seats. No one moves.

I call Anna and look at her. She doesn’t get up.

I move on. I can’t deal with this right now. I have a headache.

I still have Anna’s and Victoria’s tests at the end.

I call William over. I trust William. He’s an outsider (his mom is Chinese and dad is American and he’s got a special schedule) like me. I point to Anna.

“Who is that girl?”

William looks at her. He hasn’t seen her all semester. He remembers -- it’s OLIVIA! Olivia, who moved at the end of the first term and WAS in this class before today. Olivia, who put on her old uniform and snuck (?) in to hang out with her friends because her new school is on holiday. (IIRC -- and that’s a big IF -- she and her family moved to New Zealand, so they might be on Easter break.)

Y’ALL. I LEGIT thought I was losing my mind. I recognized her, but once she moved and my class rosters got rearranged at the start of the new term, I put her out of my mind. So my brain recognized her as My Student but gave me no other information. None of the other kids offered information as I was clearly having a breakdown.

Or maybe not so clearly. I’m pretty silly a lot of the time, pretty dramatic, so maybe they thought I was just being silly and dramatic. They aren’t malicious kids, although they are sometimes naughty.

But none of them said, “Miss, that’s Olivia,” so I had to fight my brain and figure it out.

And that made me think -- is this what it was like for, say, my Granny, all the time? Seeing people that weren’t actually there and wondering why we were not backing her up? Asking for people who were long gone and being angry that we were keeping them from her?

Maybe I’m just being my silly and dramatic self, but it was a genuinely distressing ten minutes to not be able to trust my own mind because I couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Here is a synopsis from Kirkus Reviews:

Even though her boyfriend broke her heart and, in despair, she lost her job, 25-year-old Takako doesn’t want to leave Tokyo. Her uncle Satoru, though, owns a cramped, musty bookstore in Jimbocho, Japan’s famous book town, and he offers her a room in exchange for her assistance. Surveying her temporary abode among the piles of books, Takako says, “If I got even the slightest bit careless, my Towers of Babel would collapse.” Yagisawa’s short and engaging novel is simply structured, following the ordinary events of Takako’s days at the bookstore.

I read a book with a similar premise last year, the Korean novel Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum, and I liked it better because we get the POV of multiple characters. Still, this book was an easy read, a nice palate cleanser between doomscrolling the news.

The gist of the whole Everything is learning that this school is as corrupt and morally bankrupt as pretty much any other school, especially in China. Parents and students rule the roost (i.e. a teacher was fired because he graded students fairly and the previous teacher had given all the kids A+s regardless of their ability and Precious Baby G8 student was an A+ student, so current teacher is obviously terrible and should be fired or we’ll take our children — and our tuition — elsewhere, so teacher was fired). Some changes to our duties were announced so late in the season that we don’t have the opportunity to go to any more job fairs this season, even though these changes have been in the works for years. The international principal told us, when discussing the issue of salaries, that she thinks of her live as volunteering! She comes to school every day for free, and when the shit hits the fan, as it does 3-4 times a year, well, she divides her salary up and Wow, she got paid a lot to deal with that! 😃 Cool, but passion doesn’t pay my rent. Nurturing the Youths doesn’t pay my rent. I fucking hate how teachers are constantly (and apparently all over the world) told how valuable and important we are and yet we can’t be just fucking paid for our time and expertise!

Anyway, none of the garbage is particularly new or interesting, but I had so hoped to find a school where I could feel good staying for a while, but this school ain’t it. I talked it over with my mom and made a little questionnaire for myself: Is this a place I want to stay long-term? No. Can I tolerate another year (finish my contract) without too much agony? Yes. So I updated my resume, will reactivate my profiles on job placement sites and hope for the best. I mean, it’s not like US schools are much better.

I really cannot reconcile the knowledge that people can be better and just … aren’t. I fucking hate it here (this planet, humanity), but I’m going to make it everyone else’s problem by being a thorn in the side of every lazy, greedy fucker I possibly can. And still find time for coffee and reading on the weekends.

Here is a synopsis from Good Reads:

Christian Cooper is a self-described “Blerd” (Black nerd), an avid comics fan and expert birder who devotes every spring to gazing upon the migratory birds that stop to rest in Central Park, just a subway ride away from where he lives in New York City. While in the park one morning in May 2020, Cooper was engaged in the birdwatching ritual that had been a part of his life since he was ten years old when what might have been a routine encounter with a dog walker exploded age-old racial tensions. Cooper’s viral video of the incident would send shock waves through the nation.

In Better Living Through Birding, Cooper tells the story of his extraordinary life leading up to the now-infamous incident in Central Park and shows how a life spent looking up at the birds prepared him, in the most uncanny of ways, to be a gay, Black man in America today. From sharpened senses that work just as well at a protest as in a park to what a bird like the Common Grackle can teach us about self-acceptance, Better Living Through Birding exults in the pleasures of a life lived in pursuit of the natural world and invites you to discover them yourself.

Equal parts memoir, travelogue, and primer on the art of birding, this is Cooper’s story of learning to claim and defend space for himself and others like him, from his days at Marvel Comics introducing the first gay storylines to vivid and life-changing birding expeditions through Africa, Australia, the Americas, and the Himalayas. Better Living Through Birding recounts Cooper’s journey through the wonderful world of birds and what they can teach us about life, if only we would look and listen.

This book was very easy to read. Cooper has an engaging voice and has led an interesting life. There is less birding than I hoped for. I think I wanted something more like World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, a collection of autobiographical essays each centered on a plant or animal. However, since I’ve been “reading” that book for about two years now, it’s probably a good thing Cooper’s book is a more linear, straightforward memoir, or I might have found it too easy to put down and leave.

I recommend this book if you want to read about an interesting life. Cooper seems like a cool guy, and I enjoyed spending time with him through this book.

I was really glad to spend time with the doggos, because at this age, you know any day can be it. And this morning, Spike's time came. It was quick and seemed to be painless. I guess it's the best you can hope for in these circumstances. I'm certainly glad that my mom didn't have to make any decisions about it, and I'm glad I was here because being alone in China and getting the news would have sucked. I haven't gotten to see my best friend at all this trip because she had pneumonia, but at least I got to text her and get an immediate reply because we're in the same time zone.

If you have pets, give them all an extra cuddle today.

I really, really enjoyed this novel. I'm so glad I stuck with it when I had trouble getting into volume one. The world building is interesting, the political intrigue is intriguing enough to keep me interested but not so heavy that it bogged down the narrative, and the relationship between Chang Geng and Gu Yun was a lot of fun to follow.

Volume five clocks in at 436 pages, and only about half is spent wrapping up the main story. Most of the rest is extra stories that give us glimpses of the characters' lives in the decades after the main story. They are a bit of a mixed bag, as you might expect, but some give a bit of back story, some give glimpses into a happy future. (I'll admit, I skimmed the one about Liao Ran because he's kind of a drip.)

At the end, there is an author afterword, however, that really warms me down to my toes.

THIS STORY İs a fairytale written for kidults.

It often seems that, in life, loneliness is more inevitable than death. To young readers, perhaps death is far off, something to be considered only in the distant future. If one can find meaning in life and death during one's time on this earth, then perhaps the prospect of leaving it might even become, to some, something romantic.

The same cannot be said of loneliness. Loneliness grows in the cracks in our bones and lingers in the spaces between our breaths. The extroverted reach out to their peers in every way they can, hoping to establish a flash of connection and forget their solitude. Meanwhile, the introverted turn to their own souls for comfort in a futile attempt to bury their loneliness beneath a veneer of calm.

During Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang's initial serialization on JJWXC, many readers, yet to finish the novel, left their pessimistic predictions under each chapter. Some believed the protagonists' intense feelings for each other would be tainted by power, while others presumed the chaos of war would force them to part forever, in life and death. Everyone knows the world is as changeable as the tide, human emotions are as thin as paper, and regardless of whether one is a saint, sage, deity, or demon, everyone is bound by their own circumstances.

But I did not allow this story to develop that way. Instead, I did my best to turn this novel into a dreamy reverie— a puff of cotton candy that might be sold by Disney. To that end, I constructed an intricate plot with many details to give the semblance of realism. This way, in the handful of hours during which readers immersed themselves in this story, they could forget the trials and tribulations of life and find some small measure of solace.

This is the kind of author I am. I do not wish to touch the truths of the world, nor do I wish to interrogate any one's soul. I only wish to comfort you, my readers.

Good night.

priest

Written on the night of January 14, 2024, in Beijing, China.

I love this, especially since being so overtly comforting is often a mark against a story, and that is just silly. And I also love that all the Seven Seas danmei titles have illustrations throughout. I think all books should have illustrations.

Anyway, if you were waiting for all the English novels to be published, they're out now. I'm looking forward to the publication of Mo Du/Silent Reading, which, from what I've gleaned so far, seems to make a liar out of the priest who wrote Sha Po Lang's afterword, but I really like priest's works, so I'm going to give it a shot.

Friends, I was wrong! I did not prepare for winter well at all! January 5th marked the start of 小寒 (xiǎo hán, or Minor Cold) month on the Chinese 24 month solar calendar (I haven’t researched more into it, I’ve just picked up tidbits from various social media posts) and yikes! The temps have dipped below freezing AND the humidity has dropped, so my skin is tight and itchy and cold. Plus, my apartment is not well insulated and doesn’t have central heating (typical of Chinese apartments). And Songjiang is really windy, and my apartment windows sit in the path of the wind, so it’s dang cold! And tomorrow marked the start of 大寒 (dà hán, or Major Cold)! I’ll be heading to Idaho on Tuesday for three weeks, right into Idaho’s dà hán season. But I’ve ordered warmer clothes so I’ll be able to better handle the weather there and when I come back. AND crucially, it’s generally been sunny out, which has made a HUGE difference. Minsk was always cloudy and, being so far north, had long, dark winters. And Taiwan, while warmer, was also cloudy and rainy.

Despite the cold, I’m really enjoying life here overall. School is still school, and I’m still going to look for a new job for when my contract ends, but it’s bearable. And I’m back into writing fic, in my first new fandom since I watched The Untamed in 2020. I started watching Under the Skin, a c-drama about a police detective and an artist who becomes the sketch artist. The characters make some WILD choices as police officers, but the lead actors are so charismatic (and handsome) and I’m hooked.

I also finally joined 小红书 — I meant to do it when I got here, but I forgot. However, the TikTok refugee flood reminded me to sign up. My friend Breeze recommended it to me months ago, and I’ve been struggling to find non-Starbucks cafes on Instagram, so I joined and will explore when I get back from vacation in furtherance of my goals to have more treats AND learn more Chinese.

This new school is not a good fit, which is a shame. I had wanted to find somewhere to stay for a while. I really like living in Shanghai, even though I don’t feel like I’m living in Shanghai because I’m so far out in the ‘burbs. I like the seasons, I like the cold! I like being dry most of the time! (It’s far less humid here in the winter than I was expecting, so I’m having to adjust some things, but basically, when I dry my hair in the morning, it stays dry during the day, which it did NOT do when I lived in Taiwan.)

But I really miss living in Taiwan. I miss my friends, of course. I do NOT miss Clown School. I was lucky enough to go visit them on the 3 days off that foreign staff got for Christmas. I think Taipei might be my favorite city in the world. Unfortunately, the international school situation in Taipei is very small and very competitive, and living in other cities is tough because the pay is a lot lower, so it’s hard to save, which I definitely need to do as I creep out of middle age. (Yes, I’m barely IN middle age, but the years start coming and they don’t stop coming, y’know?)

Well, I hope after my contract is up here, I’ll find a school where I can be for a while. Till then, I’ll make do here. It’s not great, but it’s also not Clown School, so I’ll take it.

Now that I’m over pneumonia, I’m back on my weekend explorations. The weekend before I went to Taiwan, I went to check out Xujiahui Cathedral (right by my LEAST favorite metro station in Shanghai, lol), Longhua Temple and Pagoda, the Wukang Building, Jing’an Temple, and Xintiandi Walking Street (a shopping district that is too fancy for my tastes, but has cool vibes).

I have some plans for this weekend, and then the following weekend, I’m gonna have a little staycation so I can check out the Lantern Festival displays without having to worry about getting a ride back to my district late in the evening. And then I get to go home to see my family!

I hope 2025 treats you all kindly. I hope you have a very calm year.