Jack

Sixth Tone wrote a piece on my recent virality on Chinese social media, go check it out if you're interested!

@OfficialBHAFC I really dislike this kind of artificial scarcity value creation from the club. £150 pounds because the club's purposefully printing limited numbers? I could go to any factory and get exactly the same quality of shirt made for £30 max.

Celebrating 125 years of the Albion, honouring club heritage and reflecting our kit worn in 1901. ✨

@AndyNaylorBHAFC Love this, as a Brighton fan based in the north 😅

Miffed by this…for ease of travel reasons.

@maityman Only way to come back after this is to post another 'China Twitter meetup pic' and it's all the local lads in a communal jerk session.

China twitter meetup. Late night in Beijing.

@WhileTravelling Funny, saw this tweet after I've just finished a holiday in Guangxi where I explored some of the cave systems there, very similar karst landscapes with some incredible sinkholes, I'd recommend a visit if you get the chance

I took a little break from the internet, and here’s what I’ve been doing lately. For years, I had this little dream sitting quietly in the back of my mind. One day, I would travel back to Vietnam again and explore its cave systems. I mean properly disappear into the jungle, cross rivers, crawl through mud, rappel into darkness, question my life choices, make peace with my knees, and come back with incredible stories. If you love adventure, Vietnam’s cave systems should be dangerously high on your list. Especially Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park, where the Earth seems to have forgotten to close a few doors and left entire hidden worlds underneath the mountains. This is one of the most extraordinary limestone karst landscapes in the world, with underground rivers, jungle-covered cliffs, sinkholes, enormous chambers, and caves so massive that you feel like you have entered another world. The most famous one, of course, is Sơn Đoòng. The legend. The cave is like there is a world inside a world. Sơn Đoòng is considered the world’s largest cave by volume. It has its own underground river, giant chambers, jungle inside the cave, and even its own weather system. This is the kind of place that makes you feel like Indiana Jones or Bear Grylls lol. Vietnam’s cave world includes so many breathtaking places. Phong Nha Cave, Paradise Cave, Dark Cave, Hang Én, Hang Va, Nuoc Nut Cave, Tu Lan Cave System, Hang Tien, Hang Pygmy, Tiger Cave, Over Cave, and Hang Vom. Some are easier to visit. Some require multi-day expeditions. If you want something more accessible, Phong Nha Cave and Paradise Cave are great starting points. They are beautiful, and much easier for most travelers. If you want a real jungle-and-cave adventure, look into Hang Én, Tu Lan, Hang Va, Hang Tien, Hang Pygmy, or Tiger Cave. Let me remind you. These are not cute little walk-in caves. These are proper expeditions where you should expect a lot of mud, river crossings, leeches, steep jungle paths, slippery rocks, and darkness. And if Sơn Đoòng is your dream, prepare seriously. It is a demanding expedition, and you need a good fitness level, comfort with long trekking days, good rapelling skills, camping, river crossings, and being very far away from your usual comfort zone. What should you bring? Good trekking shoes with grip. Quick-dry clothes. Long socks are a must! Lightweight long sleeves. A small backpack. Dry bags. Insect repellent. Personal medication. Basic toiletries. A power bank. A headlamp. Clothes you do not mind destroying emotionally and physically. And please, bring humility. The cave will provide the rest. What should you expect? oh boy. Expect to get wet. Expect to get muddy. Expect leeches to be the real villains of the story. Expect silence so deep and pitch black at night. But this is exactly why I wanted to do it. Some dreams are meant to shake the dust off your soul. They are meant to remind you that you are still capable of doing things that scare you, things that make you laugh at yourself, things that leave you exhausted, amazed, and weirdly proud at the same time. Vietnam’s cave systems are ancient and beautiful. They make you feel tiny in the best possible way. We all need that sometimes. They remind you that the world is still full of places bigger than our worries and older than our fears. I went underground and came back feeling more alive.

@eyuplovely Dread it, run from it, Eyup Lovely's tweets arrive all the same

I know what you’re thinking. The biggest majority in a generation. A historic landslide, a singular mandate, zero organised opposition. How is it even possible for me to fuck this up? Refill your popcorn. You’ll love this next part.

@americanmcgee This looks beautiful, please could I get an address?! Need to add it to my list of boutique hotels out in the countryside that I'd like to get to...

I really enjoyed my stay at Monster Planet... Though I must confess that name is a bit odd. Then again, who am I to talk about weird names? Beautiful environment, cool design, great food, and friendly people. I did a number of long walks into the mountains while pondering on the latest story I'm writing. Perfect place for that. Even at this little boutique hotel in the mountains, there are two separate charging piles for EVs. One fast charger (which is what the Nio wants) and a slow charger. I topped off the battery from 60% to 95% and it cost $2.20 USD. Easy! 👍

Beautiful weather today as I head back to Shanghai from Anji. It's a three hour drive. I borrowed my wife's Nio ET5t for this trip and will let it do most of the driving. Might post some trip notes and photos along the way ❤️ 🇨🇳 🚗

Sharing, without comment, British newspapers’ depictions of the only Jewish person currently leading a UK political party . Times. Mail. Telegraph. Sun.

In Shanghai during the 五一 holiday (labour holiday) and I love how many families of 3 generations I'm seeing out together, very wholesome

@0bNARA There's some empty roads behind my apartment that don't lead anywhere, I sometimes walk my dog there. Once came across a car parked at the side and the owner was stood in the road playing his saxophone, surreal experience. Hope the guy you saw gets better and better!

i was in the park listening to a guy playing really awful saxophone . i mean really bad . better than me obviously but i originally thought he was playing violin . i stood there watching for a while and it got me thinking, i think the public park is the only place where you can really get to be bad at saxophone . his wife probably doesn't put up with it at home, and neither would his neighbors . i love the public park . i wish our parks were more like the ones here back in england . you can really do whatever you want . i like to go to the park and chat to the uncles playing poker or whatever . it's fun and they're really frindly .

@bdguan "nobody's afraid of losing their job to AI" is categorically untrue btw. My friends and ex-colleagues in the Chinese games industry have basically been reduced to training AI until it can completely replace them, and many have already lost their jobs.

just spent 2 weeks in china. went into it thinking we're cooked. came back more bullish on america than ever. here's why: 1. chinese citizens are way more chronically online. on the subway, train, anywhere, literally everyone is glued to their phone. gaming, short form, wechat. "don't walk and look at your phone, it's dangerous!" announcements flood crowded areas. their tiktok isn't any better, its still garbage, soft-core porn, etc. 2. everyone's using AI — deepseek, kimi, doubao. but nobody's afraid of losing their job to it. here it feels like there's an existential crisis every week. in china, nothing. i think the CCP won't let companies mass-layoff workers. great for short-term stability. terrible for long-term competitiveness on a global scale. 3. china doesn't produce weirdos. i sat in on a class at tsinghua (china's MIT). not one student spoke unless the professor read their name out loud. no questions. no debate. chinese education produces world-class executors, not contrarians. it does make it a safer place to live though. 4. china doesn't have christianity but it has something america doesn't have: a shared story everyone believes in. every person age 25-70 watched their country go from abject poverty to skyscrapers in one lifetime. that kind of collective proof has a deep unifying effect. compare that to how divided we are right now. america has a huge meaning vacuum that needs to be filled. nevertheless, i return back to my home in america reinvigorated. because everything i saw confirms one thing: china optimizes. america innovates. and the innovators always win.

@ryanadsett As much as I rated him down the left he was always atrocious off the ball for us, perhaps in that way he's somewhat suited to a top team that'll see more of the ball? Also always had a personal theory that he matured as soon as he became a father, which was right as he left us.

Didn't even need to wait a few years. Top talented player, now off to Chelsea. What a joke.

@TheGrouchHK In my experience here it's nearly always elderly people, who probably were actually alive when China was starving? I think the habit will disappear in a generation or two.

Breakfast in Chinese 5-star hotels is still the same hand-to-hand combat as in popular all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants. Why do they behave like China's been starving? And I didn't have Chinese christians praying in public on my bingo card today...

@CurtExplores One day!

Met the big boss of Universal Beijing earlier (he thanked me for putting my empty bottle in the bin) Pic unrelated - I am not the big boss of Universal Beijing (yet)

@CurtExplores Actually I was on the verge of being kicked out of Harbin as soon as I arrived during COVID, but eventually the airport staff gave up and let me in (I still think he perhaps just wanted a sweet 红包 to let me in)

@CurtExplores Two more than me, impressive work

I have been kicked out of two cities in my lifetime. Not a huge number by any means, but two more than I suspect most other people I've ever met have.

Looks like his ego hasn't changed then (assuming this is true)

@itsxiaoyan @0bNARA The joke I hear from Chinese friends is that everyone with allergies in China died out already 😭

@0bNARA Do people tend to have less allergies in China? Could it be from people in the US having a more sheltered early childhood? I am half-chinese half-latino, don't know anyone on either side...

traveling with someone with allergies in china is so cool because there is no allergy woke . the average chinese person will only encounter someone with an itchy seafood allergy, so has little understanding of anaphylaxis . you tell the server that they have a peanut allergy but not the itchy type, the type where they’ll die, so they might take it seriously . then you ask which dishes contain peanut oil in case they forgot that bit . they ask the chef . you order only dishes with vegetable oil, but several come out containing peanuts, or using them as garnish, because you forgot to mention that bit specifically

@sighyam Surely you'd bring a salt and pepper share box... Which incidentally will most likely have chips, and probably also has some curry sauce in there too, so you're spot on!

The concept of Southeast Asian guests bringing the best food anyone’s ever had to a potluck, and then a Brit showing up with a box of chips and Chinese slop gravy

@Marceline878 @GuestName10 @SweatieAngle As someone who's active on Chinese social media, it's rly not that strict. Of course there's restrictions and certain things just won't get posted, but I see LGBTQ content regularly. It's perhaps more understated, but there's plenty of popular LGBTQ couple vloggers.

@GuestName10 @SweatieAngle isn't Chinese social media heavily restricted? like if you post something deemed "LGBTQ content" you could get banned, or go to prison (if you live in China).

What’s the Chinese word for simp?

@Cromwelp It's what I call a Marvel film game

Crimson Desert is fun to play, but it is such a cynical amalgamation of borrowed mechanics. It is Now That's What I Call Gaming plucked off a gas station shelf, for better & worse. Expect a lot more of this in premium & F2P. There is less risk in it.