A reference library of Chinese civilisation · written in Taiwan
Two and a half thousand years of thought, written down and still argued over. Here it is in English, with the original beside it.
The Analects and the Tao Te Ching; 道 and 氣 as their own tradition defines them; the characters in the forms they were written in; and the festivals and temple practice that are still ordinary life here. Every line is traceable to its source — that part is the seal, not the subject.
Quotes
What Confucius, Laozi and Sunzi actually wrote — the passage in its own words, its chapter, and what the popular English version left behind.
Concepts
道, 氣, 無為 — the working vocabulary of the tradition, defined the way its own texts define it.
Traditional characters
The written form itself: how a character was built, what it once pictured, and why the traditional shape still carries that history.
Classical texts
The Analects, the Tao Te Ching and the rest — what each book is, how to read it, and the centuries of commentary that shaped what it means.
Living tradition
The tradition as a living thing: the festival calendar, temple practice and folk belief, as they are observed in Taiwan today.
Recently added
The first entries are being prepared now.
Why you can trust what you read here
Writing about Chinese culture in English has a quality problem: most of it is copied from other English writing, several removes from anything anyone actually wrote in Chinese. Here, every entry goes back to the text: read against the primary source by someone who reads classical Chinese, with nothing published until that check passes. Where the sources are genuinely unclear, the entry says so rather than choosing for you.
Read the full methodology, including which editions are used and how translations are made.