Old North Whale is a newsletter for people who are curious about China.
I write long-form essays that use history, culture, religion, architecture, and everyday street life to explain how modern China became thinkable: what it inherits, what it reinvents, and what it accelerates into the future. If China often feels like a symbol: vast, abstract, contradictory, this is my attempt to turn it back into something concrete: a question, a place, a mechanism, a scene.
Start here
How “philosophy” became a modern lens that reshaped how Chinese thought is narrated.
Why political language and legitimacy in China so often sound historical.
Islam’s long history in China, told through architecture and everyday geography.
What I write about
I organize the newsletter around a few recurring series:
China Primer Questions — one big question per essay, written for curious readers.
Empire’s Balance Sheet — fiscal states, hidden taxes, silver, land finance, and the machinery behind “public good.”
China Street Corners — Street-level scenes that reveal larger systems: consumption, control, belief, luck, status, and the everyday logic of life.
Objects of China — essays on relics, heritage sites, inscriptions, murals, and the art of survival across dynasties.
Why subscribe?
Because understanding China isn’t only about “knowing the facts.” It’s about the categories: moral, political, aesthetic, that organize what feels normal, what feels dangerous, and what feels possible.
If you enjoy writing that is narrative-driven, historically grounded, and skeptical of easy explanations, you’ll feel at home here.
New essays usually arrive once a week.
