⚠️ Notice

This post is a draft translation from the Chinese version which have not yet been thoroughly proofread.

Some people believe that Chinese calligraphy (hereinafter referred to as calligraphy) should be included in the compulsory education system, just like in Japan. Currently in Hong Kong, the Education Bureau has not made any regulations regarding calligraphy education, and most schools treat it as an extracurricular activity rather than part of the unified curriculum. Does this situation seem to be similar in other parts of Greater China?

My personal opinion

It’s true that fewer and fewer people are using pens these days. Many modern people, when asked to pick up a pen, easily forget how to write characters or have illegible handwriting. However, modern people rarely receive systematic guidance on “proper penmanship” in compulsory education, so many are forced to just get by. Consider the ancient imperial examination system: the standards for “proper handwriting” were extremely high (although literacy rates were low then), and illegible handwriting was immediately considered a disqualification. However, from another perspective, modern people really rarely need to use a calligraphy brush frequently. After all, writing in an extremely physically demanding and unergonomic way for extended periods can lead to negative impacts to health (perhaps I’m saying this because I ended up failing to learn the correct way to write with a calligraphy brush?).

Therefore, my view is that it’s necessary to strengthen education in pen calligraphy, but not necessarily brush calligraphy.

Personal experience

My experience in the Hong Kong education system was somewhat irrational, but I don’t know if it qualifies as “strange” (because perhaps my situation is actually the norm, just a distorted norm). Although there was no calligraphy lessons in primary school (and I never attended extra calligraphy classes), something a bit strange was that every now and then everyone would be asked to write something and hand it in, and most of the time I just did a perfunctory job. By secondary school, I had basically never touched a brush pen again, only having some experience with Chinese painting in visual art lessons in junior high. However, my calligraphy foundation was so weak that I couldn’t even write my own name properly with a brush (I mean, the kind that’s barely legible).

My parents bought me some shoes from “Hong ×× Ke” in Shenzhen. I tried many shoe sizes but they often didn’t quite fit my feet. They were all narrow on the left and right, but quite spacious on the front and back. I came to the following conclusion: Mainlanders’ feet are different from ours, and they are probably still have the foot-binding practice.

⚠️ Notice

This post is a draft translation from the Chinese version which have not yet been thoroughly proofread.

Old passage

I have a semi-joking essay that I originally published in 2018, the original text of which is as follows:

話說在 1910 年代，有一群人看見人們讀文言文實在太辛苦了，於是便發起了白話文運動，可是直到現在，文言文仍然是中文義務教育（特別是大中華地區）當中的重要一環，仍然有不少人被迫為文言文而苦練、浪費光陰，而這些也不是他們感興趣的東西。社會的資源都被浪費在文言教育上（而且沒有甚麼實質用途，除了應付考試），造成現在的青少年的由於分心在文言而導致語文能力低下。所以由此可見，白話文運動是失敗的。

有人認為，要是沒有人再學習文言文，我們就會與五千年的中國文化和歷史割裂，持這些觀點的人認為，一旦文言文不再列入義務教育，就不會再有人學習文言文。可見我認為，這個世界上或多或少都會有一些對文言有興趣、有天分的人，他們可以替另一群沒有興趣的人去繼承這些歷史。文言文也可以作為選修科目，讓有興趣的人自行研究，而不是去強迫所有人去學習這門艱深的密碼。不是所有人都有這樣的能耐，於是導致他們不僅對文言失去興趣，令他們在各方面的能力或多或少有些影響，他們也有可能因為這樣而得上心理疾病，這樣長遠對社會的發展是很不利的。

既然白話文運動是失敗的，矯正文字的方法無效，何不矯正人們的口語，讓人們說文言文，讓文言作為人們的第一語言，這樣人們自然也能更高效地學好文言，也能符合白話文運動「我手寫我口」的初衷。

強迫所有學生學習自己母語以外的語言對不少人來說頗為辛苦，我認為讓他們專心學好一種語言能提高整體的語文能力，因為學生不用為其他外語（甚至密碼）而分心。想當年，香港曾出現「重英輕中」的社會風氣，可是他們沒有完全摒棄中文（或英文），導致學生們有雙重負擔，學習水平自然會下降。

那麼從現在開始，對下一代的文言教育作好打算吧！我們儘早應該為下一代以文言作第一語言鋪路！

A classical Chinese version translated by a friend:

夫一九一零之際，或見人語文言者誠苦，則發白文之運，然今，文言仍中文義務教區之大者也，是猶以中原為甚，仍有苦習文言，光陰揮霍者甚蕃，而彼亦其無心者也。社稷之資，皆廢文言，且除應試外，實用之無，致今青年由之低語之能。由是，則知白文之運，敗也。

或以若無人習文言，则我輩失五千年華夏文化，絕史矣。執此見者以以為，若文言去義學，則無人習之。而余以為，是世果存趣於文言，質於文言者若干，彼等可代無趣於文言者承此史也。文言亦可為选修之科，請趣之者自研，而非迫人悉習此高深密碼。微人皆有是能，故致其不僅失趣，動於各面若干，更亦或因是而心疾染，長此以往，不利社稷進也。

今者白文之運既敗，正文之法不效，何不正人口語，使人語文言，以之正音，如是，則人自速習文言，亦切白文之運初云「我手寫我口」者耳。

迫悉生習外語，多人苦之。余以為，以學者無需分心於外語，甚至密碼者，使之專於一語之學，可拔其總語之能。觀夫香港舊日，現「重英輕華」之相，然彼等均盡未棄其二者之一，致其雙負，習能自下。

故今者語始於計慮後人之文言！後人以文言為語，我等當早路之！

My current view

Eight years have passed, so has my view changed? The answer is: not significantly.

Unless you intend to study Chinese history and culture, or become a Chinese teacher, classical Chinese is completely useless for daily life “after exam-oriented education.” You only need a basic level of Chinese for everyday communication to get by.

As for what language to teach your children at home in the future, that’s another topic altogether.

⚠️ Notice

This post is a draft translation from the Chinese version which have not yet been thoroughly proofread.

When I take the MBTI test privately, my results consistently fall between INTP and INFP (50-something % of T). However, I don’t know why everyone around me describes me as an INFP.

Since I’m not a typical T or F, some statements that might apply to typical T or F people don’t entirely apply to me. Sometimes I might lean towards F, and sometimes I might lean towards T.

I recently attended a workshop discussing MBTI, where it was mentioned that NF people need to “experience God in suffering”¹ and are very interested in “expanding their business beyond a certain area”, which I’m not very keen on. The workshop also mentioned suitable gifts for different personality types:

• ST: Gifts with practical value, such as cash.
• SF: A gift that shows thoughtfulness and care.
• NF: A “meaningful” gift, which does the job by giving some random trash and then make up a touching story about it.
• NT: Novel and creative gifts.

I’m not very keen on those gifts or NF, and I’d actually prefer gifts for NT or even ST. I even think gifts for NF are a bit ridiculous.

Like Wiwi said, isn’t it quite good to stick in the midpoint between T and F?

By the way, the seating arrangement² in that workshop virtually made that all I-people have to seat closer in the front, it was truly hellish.

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This post is a draft translation from the Chinese version which have not yet been thoroughly proofread.

There is a community called BlogBlog Club which is promoting the advantages of RSS recently, claiming that RSS can help us break free from the control of algorithms, and so on. There are many articles in this community introducing the advantages of RSS, so I won’t list them here. But have you ever considered whether RSS is really as perfect as you imagine?

Pushing vs Polling

RSS is a technology that only supports polling and cannot push, which means that RSS readers need to constantly get data from websites that provide RSS. And this problem became serious after the advent of the AI ​​​​era.

Battle of webcrawlers

After the advent of the AI ​​​​era, web crawlers in order to extract data on a large scale for training, began to become unethical, even the ancient gentleman protocol robots.txt simply ignored, indiscriminately crawled public website pages in large numbers, disguised as DDoS, making webmasters all over the world miserable. Faced with this situation, websites have resorted to various countermeasures. Some websites require login to use certain functions, or enable human-machine verification for filtering. These countermeasures are completely contrary to the mechanism of RSS only supporting polling.

Should we hate RSS?

I don’t know either. I will provide RSS in this blog for now, but I do have some improvements in mind:

• Use pushing, don’t update data using lagging polling
• Strengthen security mechanisms to prevent XSS
• Promote format standardization
• Establish a “verify first then grab” mechanism to reduce the DDoS burden brought by the polling mechanism. This also provides an improvement for survival in the paywall ecosystem.

⚠️ Notice

This post is a draft translation from the Chinese version which have not yet been thoroughly proofread.

💡 BlogBlog Club!

The content of this post seems quite match the topic “Am I the only one like this?”, which is the topic of February 2026’s BlogBlog Club, but unfortunately I ended up coming too late! I didn’t even get the inspiration to write it until mid-March.

From a very young age, I’ve always found the sight of dogs baring their teeth terrifying, coupled with my parents’ mentions of dogs biting behaviours (though I’ve probably never been bitten), in addition to myself thinking that I can’t control the behaviour of animals (it’s already quite tough for me to face other humans), even now, the mere sight of a dog triggers a strong physical unease (though this fear only occurs when I see a real dog; looking at photos or watching them on a screen is fine). This often leads to difficulties when I go out.

I don’t know when it started, but more and more people are bringing their dogs into indoor shopping malls¹, medias are reporting that there’s an upward trend in the number of people keeping pets, as well as many organizations are actively promoting pet-friendly facilities. It feels like they’re declaring war on someone like me who is not good at interacting with pets. I truly feel that I’m drifting further and further away from being a “normal person”, someone who can be accepted by the society.

Every time I go out, I have to worry about whether I will encounter dogs on the road, whether I will have to take a long detour or take a more dangerous route (such as a bike path or a place close to the road, which are not designed as a pavement), and my fear response is proportional to the size of the dog. On several occasions, when I was in unfamiliar areas, I tried many different routes but encountered large dogs blocking my way, which eventually led to my emotional breakdown on the street.

Is cynophobia an illness? Does it need to be treated?

⚠️ Notice

This post is a draft translation from the Chinese version which have not yet been thoroughly proofread.

💡 BlogBlog Club!

The content of this post seems quite fit the topic “Am I the only one like this?”, which is the topic of February 2026’s BlogBlog Club, but unfortunately I ended up coming too late! I didn’t even get the inspiration to write it until mid-March.

Despite never having travelled to very far places¹, and rarely eat during early morning time, my biological clock inexplicably suffers from severe jet lag. This problem seems to be innate; when I’m not in school or working, my mind stays awake until 2 or 3 am before I start feeling sleepy, then I fall into a deep sleep and don’t wake up naturally until the afternoon of the next day². In recent years, this has been trending later and later. If I try to force myself to go to bed early, I end up with insomnia, lying in bed for hours without being able to fall asleep. However, I personally feel that as long as I’m allowed to go to bed late and wake up late, my sleep is generally sufficient. I only feel sleep-deprived when I force myself to wake up early, as if my biological clock has drifted to another time zone, creating a time difference with the surrounding society. Over time, my lifestyle has become completely reversed, making it impossible for me to adapt to any social demands.

Hypothetical solutions

I’ve been wondering if it’s possible that if I were sent abroad and then sent back, my biological clock might actually be restored. Let’s do the math:

• Flying westward: Suppose I’m flying from Hong Kong to London. Let’s say I take off at 12 midnight Hong Kong time and arrive in London at 7 am (in summer), which is about 14 hours physically. Of those 14 hours on the plane, the latter 7 hours are roughly my current sleep time, and my biological clock immediately returns to normal upon landing. However, this only considers the outbound journey. It’s said that this approach virtually compresses the day on the return trip, essentially forcing myself to go to sleep earlier again, making the symptoms of a disrupted biological clock more likely to recur.
• Flying eastward: Suppose I’m flying from Hong Kong to Vancouver. Let’s say I take off at 12 noon Hong Kong time and arrive in Vancouver at 9 am (in summer), which is about 12 hours physically. I’ll arrive in what would be afternoon on my biological clock, and then I’ll start staying up late to fall asleep in what feels like the early morning (late night on the West Coast of North America). However, to correct my biological clock this way, I would probably have to stay in North America for at least a week, which would essentially shift my biological clock phase backward until the time difference exceeds 24 hours. Doesn’t that seem to put a greater strain on my body?

Poor light exposure

Scientific research suggests that if you simply want to adjust your biological clock, light exposure may be more effective than a long-distance travel. In fact, my light exposure habits in Hong Kong are already quite poor, I’m constantly exposed to indoor environments filled with white and blue light, even late at night. Perhaps I should install a warm light in the room where my brain is working at its peak late at night.

This page is still work in progress, stay focus for continuous upcoming updates on this page!

This page is intended to be used as notes, pardon me for the somewhat disorganized passage. FEN strings appear on this page are planned to be made into an interactive web gadget at a later stage, in order to make the passage more convenient to read.

Bare king endgames

King & queen vs bare king

After forcing the defending king to the edge of the board, the queen should keep a 4 × 2 distance (a knight move stretched by one square) from the opponent’s king until both kings are close enough, to prevent stalemate.

King & rook vs bare king

If the rook is attacked by the defending king and cannot proceed, move the rook along the same file or rank that can restrict the opponent’s king’s movement as a waiting move.

King & two bishops vs bare king

• First force the defending king to the edge of the board.
• Arrange the attacking pieces as a “bishop-bishop-king” shape, with one of the bishop and the defending king forming a shape similar to opposition.
• W manoeuvre the bishops to force the defending king to the corner. If the defending king touches a bishop, move the attacking king to protect the bishop.
• After the defending king is trapped on the corner, make good use of middle bishop’s waiting move to make the defending king be only able to move back and forth between two squares at the edge of the board.

FEN string: k7/8/BBK5/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1

1. Bg1 Kb8 2. Kb6 Ka8 3. Bb7 Kb8 4. Bg2#

King & bishop & knight vs bare king

(Work in progress)

King & pawn endgames

Many king & pawn endgames have only one correct solution, with only a single inaccuracy often leads to a draw, or even reverse the position.

King & single pawn vs bare king

The attacking side can ensure a win if at least any two of the following conditions are met:

• The attacking king is in front of the pawn;
• The attacking king has the opposition;
• The attacking king is on the sixth rank.

If the attacking sides pawn is on a or h-file, it would be very hard to win if the defending king ever get in front of the pawn. Exception exists as follow:

FEN string: 5k2/8/6KP/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1

White wins by playing h7 first.

Rook & pawn endgames

In the situation of a single rook versus a single pawn (KRKP), the pawn side can draw the game if they can prevent the opponent’s king from approaching their pawn. The rook side should try to approach the pawn with their king, as well as watching the pawn from behind with the rook.

FEN string: 3r4/8/1PK2p2/5k2/8/8/8/1R6 b - - 0 1

If black moves first, the only solution is Ke4, shouldering the enemy king.

FEN string: 1B6/8/4k3/1K6/4r2p/1P6/8/8 w - - 0 1

After exchanging black’s passed pawn with a white bishop, a single rook versus single pawn position forms.

⚠️ Notice

This post is a draft translation from the Chinese version which have not yet been thoroughly proofread.

💡 BlogBlog Club!

The content of this post seems quite match the topic “Am I the only one like this?”, which is the topic of February 2026’s BlogBlog Club, but unfortunately I ended up coming too late! I didn’t even get the inspiration to write it until early-March.

I seem to have never really grasped the concept of personal financial management.

So I went out with a group of friends I hadn’t known for very long, and we all had to chip in to pay. I paid with cash on the spot at the first time; On the second time, they stated that they whish to collect the money via PayMe or FPS beforehand, so I found someone who’s more familiar with me to help me out first, since I wasn’t quite familiar with such things at the moment. Though that person ended up ask me to return the money to them via FPS later on. 🤣

On one occasion when I dined out with this group of people, I paid in cash, I was probably the only one among them who paid in cash. 🤣

The education I’ve received since my childhood seems to only involve cash and Octopus cards regarding to payment methods, and nobody’s ever really instructed me about some newer electronic payment methods grown up in the recent years. Maybe one day I have to be accustomed to these newer payment methods too? However, where should I begin, and how should I get started? Nobody can answer that for me.

⚠️ Notice

This post is a draft translation from the Chinese version which have not yet been thoroughly proofread.

It is well known that Christianity does not advocate “superstition”. Some people say that MBTI is “pseudoscience”, so should MBTI be a “superstition”, like Chinese zodiacs and astronomy?

Pseudoscience = superstition?

MBTI is similar to fortune-telling theories (like Chinese zodiacs, Bazi, Zi Wei Dou Shu, etc.), astrology, and blood type personality theory, which analyzes a person’s personality traits. Some claim that MBTI, like typical fortune-telling theories, is pseudoscience. The MBTI article on English Wikipedia explicitly states that MBTI is pseudoscience from the outset. So, what exactly are the differences between MBTI and these traditional fortune-telling theories?

When Christians become fortune tellers

Recently, I’ve noticed that Christians around me have started seriously analyzing the personality traits of different people using MBTI, some have even enrolled in in-depth MBTI courses and are now starting analyzing the MBTI of people around them or celebrities. Their discussions include detailed analyses of different MBTI types, how different traits behave at different ages, and so on—it’s like fortune-telling. So, what’s the difference between these Christians and those fortune tellers they accuse of being “superstitious”?

Is Christianity also a kind of “superstition”?

Conversely, since no one can prove that Christianity is necessarily correct, isn’t Christianity also a kind of “superstition”?

Conclusion

Anyway, I’m personally not a Christian myself, neither have I a specific faith. Maintaining good social relationships is much more important for me at the moment, so I probably shouldn’t raise this question to them in person for now.