ℹ️ I rewrote this newsletter several times. I want to be very careful not to make this an anti-West rant; the last thing I want is to make people feel bad about being born in a region; that’s not something we have any control over!

Also, the reason why I pivoted my newsletter to talk about cultural issues is because I want to promote the positive things about Chinese culture. There’s so much content that ends up making you angry at a country or a region – I don’t want to be a part of that. I want to be a bridge builder, not a bridge basher.

However, this is an issue that’s been nagging at me for years, and I want to get it off my chest. And I hope by doing so, you’d understand how careless, badly researched takes about a country can affect its citizens and her diaspora. There are forces in the world right now agitating for conflict rather than cooperation, and they are creeping into “light” spaces like fandoms too.

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So, recently, I wanted to share an article about To the Wonder, a Chinese drama selected for the 2024 Cannes, in a Chinese drama Reddit forum.

I almost completed the post when I realised where the drama was set:

The mini-series is an adaptation of the award-winning essay collection My Altay by Li Juan, a renowned Chinese essayist. Set in Northwest China’s Xinjiang’s pristine Altay region, the eight-episode series offers audiences a fresh narrative and sensory experience, blending light comedy with Li’s literary aesthetics to explore themes of nature reverence, self-discovery, and the simple yet resilient spirit of the northern Xinjiang herders. – To the Wonder selected CANNESERIES, marking the first Chinese language drama in longform competition

Oh.