5 Things This Week | Who Gets to Be Punished

A crossdresser’s arrest, a college girl’s expulsion, and why it all connects

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It was still incredibly hot this week in Beijing. The air hung thick with humidity, so much so that, netizens complained the city’s last remaining advantage of being dry hot seemed to have vanished. Everyone, it seems, is walking around with a quiet sense of angst.

While I’m still struggling to write consistently here, I’m trying to use this space as a way to shift gears from my usual long-form feature writing. So here are a few things on my radar this week: links, notes on what I’m working on, reading curiosities, literary questions, and small murmurs from friends. The kind of content I live and breathe. Bon appétit!

This week, I tried using Deepseek to edit my writing, mainly to fix grammar and smooth out awkward phrasing. But my editor noticed right away and asked me to stop. Not as a warning, but as advice to someone who makes a living with words. She said: AI sterilizes writing.

That word, sterilize, really struck me. As if it could erase the life from a sentence.

One of my journalist friends shared a similar concern. She writes mostly in tech, and worries that using tools like Deepseek might erode her ability to construct elaborate sentences on her own. Another writer I know told me her classmate had been caught using AI to write their work. Since then, she’s been wary of using it even just to revise her English, especially because English is her second language.

So if you’re an ESL writer using AI for revision, what changes have you noticed in your writing? Do these tools help, or quietly hinder, your growth in learning it?

People

From Interiors to Afterlife: The Rise of China’s Life Organizer

I spent a month interviewing a life organizer in China, aka Marie Kondo in China. Her career began in interior magazine editing, but a turning point came when her father, who had Alzheimer’s, passed away. Around the same time, her best friend betrayed her, and the magazine she worked for shut down. These events collectively pushed her into the field of organizing.

She told me how she regularly updates her own death wishes and has personally handled the remains and belongings of her parents, as an act that slowly taught her to accept aging. Increasingly so, a huge part of her clients are kids who have a hard time cleaning out their elder parents’ retirement home.

Writing this piece filled me with a quiet sadness. Every act of organizing is also a kind of letting go, a small death. And yet, I deeply respect the care she brings to it: the emotional labor, the interpersonal navigation, the way she enters and mediates delicate, often explosive, family dynamics.

Aging is becoming an urgent topic in China. You now see design shops selling luxury coffins, “death workshops” teaching preparation and acceptance, and young people turning their mortician training into influencer careers.

Sister Hong and the Online Collapse of Male Standards

A 38-year-old crossdresser, known online as Sister Hong, reportedly invited over 1,600 men into his apartment. Hidden-camera sex tapes of the encounters have been widely circulated online, what stunned people was not just the number of participants, but the range: delivery drivers, college students, foreigners, men of all professions and skin colors. Most were lured through dating apps, where Sister Hong presented himself as a married woman, enticing the fantasy of intimate relations with another person's spouse.‍

In an absurd twist, many men reportedly chose to stay even after realizing Sister Hong was a man. The phrase “来都来了” (“I already came [so might as well]”) went viral and sent women to much rage and confusion. In exchange for the sex, men brought gifts like peanut oil, fruit, milk, or a small appliance. One analysis even tracked consumer behavior based on the milk brands these men brought to the apartment.

I first encountered the news in a trans community chat, where some expressed empathy for Sister Hong being arrested. In Thailand, photos of him were even turned into deity-like trading cards.

Posts on Xiaohongshu soon emerged, where women claimed to have recognized their boyfriends, co-workers, gym coaches, even fiancée, in the footage. To many, Sister Hong exposed a terrifying and raw layer of male desire that felt unchecked and indiscriminate.

College Girl Expelled for Affair With Foreigner

Another story that stirred feminist outrage: a college girl was expelled after intimate photos of her with a western gamer leaked online. The photos were allegedly shared by the man himself. Public opinion quickly split into two camps:

A. Those who supported the school’s decision, claiming her actions were “a disgrace to the country.”

B. Those who defended the girl, outraged that she alone was punished for a private matter.

I couldn’t understand how this was considered a disgrace to the nation. One article analyzed it as a reflection of the male gaze in China, that the shame wasn’t about morality per se, but about Chinese women sleeping with Western men. The institution, in this case, acted almost like a gatekeeper of that imagined dignity. Disturbingly, the school’s code of conduct reportedly includes clauses supporting such punishment.

One friend tested the generational divide by sharing the news with her father, who sided with the school. Another’s father reacted with compassion for the girl. That tension of that split surely feels very real among people’s daily life right now.

Places

Guizhou’s Singing Court

In Guizhou, singing has long been a way to preserve oral history, but now, it’s also an official form of legal practice. In certain villages, where older generations may not understand written contracts or formal court language, conflict resolution happens through song. Whether it’s about unpaid debts, divorce, or land disputes, justice is carried out in melody.

Since 2019, courts in Rongjiang County, Guizhou, have been experimenting with turning legal hearings into what essentially become singing contests, two-hour sessions where grievances and arguments are performed instead of spoken.

My friend Nessa, a curator from Guizhou, has been working at the intersection of art, ecology, and local culture for years. She recently launched a public art education project called Art as Practice, which treats art not as aesthetic output but as a way of thinking, doing, and engaging with the world.

This September, during the Chuan’ge Festival, she’s organizing a seven-day immersive trip featuring artist-led workshops, field research, and exhibitions. Participants will explore ancestral knowledge and experiment with collaborative, site-specific practices—connecting creativity with cultural and social awareness. If you’re interested in joining, message me. It’s a paid trip, and slots are limited.

Murmurs

Indie Foreign Bands Face Growing Limits in China

I’ve always loved the live band scene in China, but over a few puffs of hookah with musician friends recently, I realized just how rare it’s become, especially for foreign artists.

The rules have gotten stricter. It’s not just that touring bands need permits and lyric approvals; it’s that even foreigners with day jobs who casually play in bands at night are now at risk. Playing without proper permits can lead to expulsion from the country.

As a result, venues that once welcomed small indie acts are quietly opting out. It’s sad to see the casual, experimental spaces drying up. If anyone has more details about this shift, I’d love to know, message me!

And a special thanks to Louise and Bill for being my very first paid subscribers. Your support keeps me writing what I love.

Until next time!