Journals, fiction, and short essays from the WeChat blog I started in secondary school, 阿莫東森的無聊生活. Most were written between 2017 and 2020; all began in Chinese, and I have translated them here with links to the originals.
journal
Danya
A French Defence video found on Reddit, a King's Indian that still follows his teaching, and a teacher gone at twenty-nine.
Shanwei
汕尾A visit to Shanwei for the shark meat and Lighthouse Island, and the sea that will not change.
Two Freedoms
兩種自由Walking Castle Hill after work with Radiohead in the earphones, and the difference between being left alone and being free.
Shaking Hands with Humans
与人类握手On trusting easily, drinking a cider called Pink Floyd, and the octopus that reached out.
fiction
Return to the Edge of the World
返回世界边缘A story set in Guangzhou about a private school band, Prozac, a girl by the lake, and a Dylan Thomas poem with the last line missing.
Him / Her / Ah Ming
他 / 她 / 阿明Three linked stories about closeness and distance, held together by the light on someone's hair.
Tamako's Summer
玉子的夏天A girl arrives at a mountain lodge for a reunion, finds a black cat, and goes looking for someone who was already gone.
Escape
逃Two boys flee across the desert on a motorcycle, carrying a Peppa Pig lamp and leaving behind a country that would rather they did not exist.
scicomm
Malice as Neuroscience
用雙聲道拍頻「綁架大腦」？On auditory illusions and entrainment, and why monetising pseudoscience is not stupidity but malice.
