This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
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Shaming.
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Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
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Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
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Recruiting for a cause.
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Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
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Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
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Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
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Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
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Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.
Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.
If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service
Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
This made me reflect that I hadn't actually thought critically about the phrase (at least, commensurate to how often it's used). For fun, if you think the purpose of a system is what it does, write what you think that means, before reading Scott's critique, then write if you've updated your opinion. For example:
(Spoilers go between two sets of "||")
Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
This is effectively a reply to @Corvos at https://www.themotte.org/post/1829/tinker-tuesday-for-april-8-2025/316753?context=8#context , but I invite anyone to discuss the topic.
Ask me anything. I love talking about this subject but rarely have the opportunity.
How long ago did you get started?
I started in 2013, and was very active until the lockdown and my subsequent life changes put me out of commission. When I started out, it was basically five core guys reading a medieval manuscript in a university hallway and trying to do what it said with nylon swords. By 2020, we were one of Germany's top clubs, with dozens of members, a proper gym, several courses and a very good tournament track record. I was mostly just along for the ride while others did the heavy lifting, though I like to think that I contributed to that growth, a little. The club, while occasionally dabbling in other weapons systems (dagger, sickle, half-pike, sword and buckler) and eventually establishing a recurring grappling class and a permanent rapier class, mostly teaches longsword, and that mostly based on the Liechtenauer system as documented by Peter von Danzig. We occasionally took a look at other styles as well, but mostly stuck to this, though in latter years the focus transitioned from historical reconstruction to maximizing tournament-effectiveness. I don't have as much as insight into what happened since 2020, or rather since the lockdowns were lifted, but from the looks of it it's been going steady since. If anything the mood seems a little worse than it used to; I feel there's not as much of outright joy and camraderie on display as used to be, but that might just be my own grumpiness coloring my perception. Nowadays I very rarely make it to regular practice, low single-digits per year, since it's an almost 2h drive both ways, and the practice sessions are late in the evening and I'm more of an early bird. Weekend events are more convenient, but somehow there are fewer instructive events than there used to be in my larger area. Tournaments still exist though, and I do like those. I'm just entirely out of shape, and growing old, on top of never having been all that good to begin with.
What do you practice?
Mostly longsword. I tried to get more into rapier, which is reportedly the preferred weapon for old men, but one lucky day I managed to break my thumb and my rapier and since then that's been on ice. The rapier-fencing, I mean - the thumb is fine by now. I used to just do absolutely everything and had lots of fun, but that's just not possible with my severely reduced practice time, so by now it's all longsword. Obviously I started out with the formally correct Liechtenauer style the club in general leaned on, learning the correct stances, master-strikes, infighting techniques, and I think I can say I achieved an acceptable level of technical proficiency across a wide spectrum of skills, though I never quite built up the physical fitness to leverage them properly.
Liechtenauer, compared to Meyer, the style we most love to disrespect, is less flashy and more energy-efficient, and relies more on geometry and less on psychology. You learn a handful master-strikes that efficiently threaten or hit the enemy while preventing him from striking you directly, and the rest is mostly learning which of those techniques to use in a given situation. You can even condense it down further; one very successful fencer (top 5 globally at the time) once told me that he pretty much just practices one strike and one thrust and applying those skillfully enough covers all his needs. So as long as you can avoid becoming too predictable, I think you needn't stress yourself about obtaining an encyclopedic knowledge of dozens of highly situational techniques with hard-to-memorize German names.
Nowadays, being a lot weaker yet and having unreliable knees and a propensity for injury on top, I try to compensate for my physical inadequacy with a more defensive style: Always keep the sword between me and my opponent, keep the range open, use strikes very sparingly and try to go for thrusts from the bind instead. I like to fight from the left, point forward, which takes several powerful striking options off the table for my opponent, so that they have a harder time just battering through my guard. And defensively that works; I can often work out an opening...but fail to exploit it because I lack the explosiveness to generate forward momentum on demand. Something to work on; just plain physical exercise would do me good.
Any tips/advice?
The following will be colored by my tournament-centric view. Obviously it's also possible to just enjoy the archaeological aspects, or the methodical technical exercise, but I mostly speak as someone who wants to go to tournaments and perform as well as possible.
In no particular order:
- Ignore any clubs or schools that don't have their people go to tournaments.
- Gear is expensive. If your club doesn't have any to borrow, you'll be looking at 500€-1000€ for a set of protective equipment and a Federschwert (steel practice sword). When you get a sword, make sure it suits your build - not too short, not too long - and that it complies with your regional tournament regulations.
- Dry technical practice and instruction are valuable for learning the basics. Don't ignore it early on, you need to get the foundational knowledge, skills and vocabulary from somewhere. But over time it will become less important, as you need to find your own way.
- Outright drill - repeating the same motions over and over - is great for increasing the quickness and reliability with which you deliver a specific technique, but it's effectively an isolation exercise and should not occupy the majority of your practice time.
- On the other hand, don't neglect relaxed, playful sparring. At 100% pressure, you'll stick to what you know. With less pressure, you can experiment. It pays to spend some time trying new things.
- Throw yourself into sparring fights and then tournaments as early as possible. Don't get stuck in endless dry practice sessions thinking you aren't good enough. You never will be, if you don't go out and get your mistakes highlighted by adversarial competition.
- HEMA is overall very woke. Ignore it though - it's superficial. Once you get into the competitive scene, nobody takes that seriously anymore. And have a laugh whenever women go into mixed-gender tournaments. Hell, let me tell you about the one time I fought a pregnant woman...
- Everyone fights differently. There is no standard HEMA fighter, not even within clubs or schools, and there is no singular example to aspire to. You too will need to find ways of fighting that suit your personality, build, weapon of choice, the opponent you face, and whatever other factors come into play.
- Don't waste your practice time chatting. If you need information, then get it and immediately get back to practice. There will be social events at other times.
- That said, talk to more experienced people, as often as possible before and after practice. Don't stick to the kiddie pool, get with the big boys. There's too much ignorant pseudobabble at the entry level.
- Most beginners quit. It's normal. Don't assume that this reflects poorly on a club.
- If your club isn't a commercial school, take over responsibilities to keep it running as soon as possible. Somebody's got to do it.
- Visit other clubs as often as you can. Swim in as many different kinds of water as possible.
- More practice, no matter whether technical, drill, sparring or competition, is always better. The more you do, the better you'll get. Take every opportunity you can.
- When you get hurt in a fight, fight on if you can by any means. If you aren't used to getting repeatedly bruised and battered, any injury will feel much worse than it is.
- The judge is always right. Make your peace with it.
- There is no substitute for physical fitness.
The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.
Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.
If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service
This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).
As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /r/theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.
These are mostly chronologically ordered, but I have in some cases tried to cluster comments by topic so if there is something you are looking for (or trying to avoid), this might be helpful.
Quality Contributions to the Main Motte
Contributions for the week of February 24, 2025
Contributions for the week of March 3, 2025
@kky:
Contributions for the week of March 10, 2025
@gog:
Contributions for the week of March 17, 2025
Contributions for the week of March 24, 2025
Contributions for the week of March 31, 2025
This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.
Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.
If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service
This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
The next day, we start off with a Yechuan-style breakfast with the party member aunt. I'm not quite sure how to differentiate it from other styles; the food is starting to blur together. Too much new stuff all at once. I don't even crave Western food exactly; what I miss is the Western-style meal structure where I pick personal choices and eat them all myself. This might be less the case if I were more able to participate in conversations. The Chinese style is way more conducive to talking while eating, which is why meals last for at least an hour.
Every meal is a kind of frantic context-switching between grabbing food off the lazy Susan, responding to toasts, and talking with neighbors or the whole group. Somehow, aunties universally find time in this frenzy to insist you eat more, invariably when what's available to grab is jellied duck tongue or intestines. I power through, though. They mean well, and it's more a lack of hunger after spending six hours a day at a meal table than the food being unpalatable. My wife is understandably pretty exhausted, and the translations come less frequently. My sister-in-law is picking up some of the slack.
Next, we stop by the Nanjing Museum. Not too much to say about the museum itself. If you've been to a museum, then you can guess what to expect. My sister-in-law and I got the English digital audio tour, everyone else Chinese. The voice is text-to-speech and quiet but good enough. I use this time to relax a bit; it's been nonstop all week. One thing I'll mention is that mainland Chinese people are comfortable bumping into each other and having very little personal space. The museum is packed, and you'd never get near any exhibit if you weren't comfortable with boxing people in or being boxed in.
After the museum, it's lunch again. This time, the baijiu is a green bean variety. We're seated next to a cousin who was at MIL's grandpa's ceremony. I didn't have an opportunity to talk to him much then. He's a few years older than us. He reportedly was TikTok famous for workout videos and now sells used cars through TikTok. According to him, the Chinese used car market is only about 20 years old, and there are big counterfeit and fraud issues.
After lunch, we head to the Confucius Temple. One shouldn't confuse this with a Confucius temple, which may have something to do with Confucianism. This is a very large shopping and amusement district. Supposedly, at one point, it also contained the red light district. My wife spent the first eight years of her life before moving to the US a few blocks from here. MIL claims she took her through the shopping district every evening to calm her down before bed.
We take a quick detour to Laodongmen, or the Old East Gate, at her parents' insistence. It's much the same market-type district as the Confucius Temple, but the architecture is from the Ming and Qing dynasties, and they go to great lengths to keep it that way. Everything is ornate dark wood or carved stone. The storefronts are impressive, but the merchandise is not very compelling. It's all the same baubles from Yu Gardens, and this is much the same as we get back to the Confucius Temple area.
We run into kids in the same uniform as the top school in China again at the market, furthering doubt that this isn't some universal high school uniform. The party member aunt independently confirms their identity as the number one school. It starts to rain, and there is some confusion about what our actual plan is. The party member aunt has some connections, and it's not clear we've actually paid for any of the attractions we've been to since arriving in Nanjing. We take separate lines, plausibly for lack of Chinese ID.
After the sun sets and some confusion, we end up in a museum dedicated to keju, or the merit-based test originally established during the Sui Dynasty circa 600 AD, which spiritually survives today in the form of the gaokao that consumes the childhoods of many Chinese people. There was a small section dedicated to the military version established a century later, where a man would need to pass several tests, including archery and the ability to deadlift a stone. They had some stone examples available, but to my disappointment, there were no opportunities to try or even a standardized weight listed.
The test apparently was originally a series of essays written over three days. I only got vague answers as to what the actual questions were—something about understanding Confucius' ideas or writing about proper government structures. But when asked how cheating and corruption were combated, answers came readily. Your essay was to be transcribed by an official before being judged to prevent handwriting from being used to allow bribes. It was administered every three years in tiers, starting locally and then finishing in the imperial exam, in which only 300 people got top marks.
FIL answered a question I'm sure many have had: What's up with those weird hats with wings on either side? He claims it's to keep officials from being able to whisper to each other in secret, making it one of the earliest pieces of anti-encryption technology. The Chinese surveillance state has deep roots.
After we finish the exhibit, we go straight to another. This one is a lantern festival at the actual Confucius Temple. My wife's feet are hurting, so she sits down, and I wander about without translation aid. There's not much to say about the lanterns; they're impressive in large numbers but really just paper or cloth over lights—very similar vibes to a Christmas light display.
We don't stay long, and next up is a boat tour on the river. It's nice, and there are some displays about a drunken poet that normally I'd be amused by. There were huge advertisements for some baijiu that nearly entirely obscured one statue of him. But we're a little burnt out on sightseeing at this point. My wife recounts a quote by her mother that after a proper trip, one should collapse in misery at the end of the day, and I'm starting to think she wasn't exaggerating.
The boat tour ends at 10 p.m., and we were told to expect a light dinner. So we spend a mere two hours in a nearby restaurant. No baijiu, fortunately. The next day, her parents are going back to visit both grandmas, giving our generation a free day.
We plan to hike Zijin Mountain, the same one with those mausoleums, with Syracuse and his technically-not-girlfriend. She pulls up in a green Jeep analogue with "TANK" written on the back in block letters. She brought her dog Dan-Dan, or Egg-Egg, a one-year-old English Sheepdog. Despite all these signs, she seems to get along well with our nerdy cousin. The two gifts he got her were makeup, which was a mistake. It's an understandable mistake—girls use a lot of makeup, and it can be expensive. Boys, buying a girl makeup is like her trying to buy you a video game without consulting you or having any idea what makes a game good or in your tastes. Just don't do it. She's merely annoyed with him.
The hike up is relatively uneventful; the path is nearly deserted. Hiking doesn't seem as popular in China as other activities. At the top, we stop for KFC. They have hamburgers and grilled chicken but no actual fried chicken—a sad state of affairs that may have cost them their lives in the States, but it is still crowded. The burgers were... weird, kind of loose and almost wet.
On the hike down, we talk about what to do for the evening. I suggest goinf to a Chinese bar, pub, or basically any Chinese drinking establishment that isn't a club. These are probably not the right people to ask but the suggestion turns into a plan. Syracuse has never seen the inside of a bar anywhere, and his girl acquaintance doesn't seem to understand the question. But nothing else is suggested and no one comes up with anything better.
Dinner is another lazy Susan with Cantonese-style roast duck and a birthday cake for Syracuse, as he'll turn 29 American and 30 Chinese the next day. In China, you come out at one year old. He makes a wish, and the girl says she already knows what it is: to finish his PhD. He comes back with, "That is one of my three wishes." From the reaction, he won the exchange. Chinese people generally think everything in America is too sweet, and their cakes tend to be lighter and covered in fruit.
After dinner, we reiterate anything but a club. We make our way to a place they found online. It's up an elevator, and as soon as we arrive, we confirm that it is indeed a club. Without a reservation, they only have a back table with a 1,500 yuan cover. I might have been willing to eat the cover even though we only planned to be out an hour or two, but even the waitstaff is giving me the stink eye.
We make our exit, and part of me wants to just cut and hang out at the hotel, but they're committed. We end up finding our way to a James Bond-inspired cocktail bar with a vibe that I would describe as schizophrenic. The lights are dim with what seems to be essentially a random playlist of Western songs that go from upbeat country to emo while The Big Bang Theory, subtitled in Chinese, plays on the back wall. Despite the relative clown-show nature of the bar, the bartenders could not be more serious, adopting severe expressions and using exclusively the English names of the cocktails. I don't think it was representative of the Nanjing drinking scene, but I approve of it nonetheless.
After we get into our first round, the mood improves. My wife tells stories of her patients. We find out Chinese working people get practically no paid time off—five days a year to start—but are able to take unpaid time off without too much hassle and have longer holidays.
We have to be up early for our train back to Shanghai the next morning, so we head back to the hotel at midnight. The parents have retrieved a few more gifts for us while we were out. We now have a thick silk quilt with a long list of prohibitions that are surprisingly similar to how one should treat a Mogwai in order to avoid creating a gremlin, along with a number of trinkets and a pair of little red books. I'd have preferred to find them myself but accept the help.
I am looking for story where group of characters (family or friends) form together a group that is NOT dysfunctional.
Them dealing with problematic/oppressive/bureaucratic/evil world is fine, in fact I want to have some conflict. On the other hand I do not want them to win effortlessly or get some insanely OP powers that invalidate any opposition. I do not want tragic/bad ending, I also do not want obvious 100% perfect absurd success thanks to blatant plot armor.
I also want story to not feature blatantly stupid setting or characters that make no sense whatsoever. Initially I phrased it as "no unrealistic stuff" but I am in fact fine with dragon-flying slave traders as antagonists, as long as suspension of disbelief is achievable.
I strongly prefer avoidance of current politics in either direction, I have seen remarkably few cases where it was done well. I also do not want books that would be recommended only due to current politics, quality of that is even worse.
Story may be small scale. I actually prefer to avoid "saving the world" story. I think that within last decade I seen two stories that did it and were done well (House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds, Deepness in the sky by Vernor Vinge). And maybe few more that I read earlier (LOTR, Ursula K. Le Guin)
I was thinking about fiction when I was writing this, but if you have anything that is nonfiction and fits - even better!
I hope that it is fine to ask for book recommendations here? If not, then please delete/downvote this and let me know what went wrong.
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