In 1959, the woman who brought me into this world bundled me in a basket and placed me in a Hong Kong stairwell near Sai Yeung Choi Street, a bustling region of the British colony. I was 4 days old. A passerby called the police, who transported me to St. Christopher's Home, the largest non-government-run orphanage on the island.
A vision lay before him: Fleet Street blanketed with snow, silent, empty, pure white, and, at the end of it, the huge and majestic form of Saint Paul's Cathedral. It was a spellbinding moment: the great thoroughfare temporarily devoid of carts and carriages, the cathedral looming blurrily out of the still-falling snowflakes a real-life snow globe.
It wasn't until Whitmarsh had been herded into the main hall that he grasped what he'd signed up for: 'a geopolitical event, not an intellectual one,' as he put it, with hosts including Greece and China's ministries of culture.
Yiyun Li reads her story 'Calm Sea and Hard Faring,' from the March 9, 2026, issue of the magazine. Li is the author of eight books of fiction, including the novels 'Must I Go' and 'The Book of Goose,' and the story collection 'Wednesday's Child,' which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2024.
Because, let's face it, creative work does require some form of faith. It is a tumultuous thing to launch an idea into a vast nothingness and hope that it makes a light bright enough to be found by others. Luckily, these luminaries were my light, and I hope they may become yours as well, and - more so - that these snippets lead you to more of their work.
Clara Hsu, a renowned Hong Kong-born poet and executive director of the Clarion Performing Arts Center, began teaching the course in 2019 to residents of the Bethany Center, an affordable senior housing community in the Mission District. To some, the layered meanings found in these poems may seem obscure. Yet for the elders, all of whom are women, they are absorbing. "I don't get many chances to learn new things these days," said one 91-year-old, by way of explanation.
Philosophy of Language in Early China characterizes early Chinese philosophy of language through a focus on standards (' fa') and the activity of giving examples (' ju '). It argues that standards are understood by early Chinese philosophers to provide the groundwork for judgment and language, not only in the Mohist school, but also in other thinkers from the Warring States and early Han, particularly the Zhuangzi and Xunzi.
