I won’t be in Chengdu this time (though I’d love to go there another time), I’ll instead mostly be in Hunan province (though my plane lands in Xi’an, and I also end this leg of the trip in Kunming; so I’ll get many chances to take Chinese trains yay!), but please don’t hesitate to recommend places there to me if you know of interesting spots that I might not have heard of.

I said “this leg of the trip” and I now realise that I left out a pretty important part in my original post: I’m not only visiting one Socialist country, I’ll be visiting two!!! Indeed, I’ve heard that tourists shouldn’t travel in China during the Spring Festival, and since my semester starts in Taiwan Province after the Spring Festival I figured I’d visit the mainland before it, then go to visit Laos where I’ve also wanted to go to for a long time, and only then go to Taiwan.

(no Laos emotes )

I’ve bought my plane ticket to China, I found quite a bargain: around 360 euros for a direct flight, normally this is around the price of flights with layovers (many of which are even above this price). I’ll be visiting a bit of the mainland on the way to Taiwan Province where I have my student exchange, I’m so excited! This will be my first time out of Europe, as well as my first time visiting a Socialist country!

They didn’t execute enough of them

well I guess I’ve won my bet (I’ve bet a box of chocolates with an old teacher from high school on a Trump victory in 2020 and lost, and again this year) which is about the only way in which I was invested in the elections as a non-Burgerperson

There is no alternative

pop cult

GOOD bot

I really liked his Idols of Nations; pretty niche indeed, but also very interesting and it touches a subject I know next to nothing about. I guess I should read his other works since he has many others on similar subjects. Which ones would you most recommend off the top of your head?

At this point I don’t know why I am even surprised.

chicanery

I think I remember seeing BadEmpanada jokingly saying that there should be a “we will dance again” festival on 7 October and explaining it for a few minutes. This poster seems too similar to a shitpost related to this, this can’t be genuine right?

The other day I found a book titled Our Enver at home. It’s not the first time I find pro-Enver Hoxha literature which was bought by my monarchist family (very cringe, I know; thankfully it’s only the older generations that are still like that) but it’s pretty funny that I keep finding them.

Here’s a picture of Enver Hoxha kissing flags:

I finally got a notice today that my state scholarship application was accepted (this is normally supposed to happen before the summer holidays, but due to circumstances I could only apply very late), so I’ll finally have a scholarship this year! I especially need it this year too, seeing as I have my student exchange to Taiwan next semester. This latter half of the year is starting pretty great, if you count July as part of the first half which doesn’t make sense but let’s just roll with it.

Insidejob

the automatic image spoiler made this look like the Pol Pot/Elon head meme lol

Exactly, I read 1984 when I was still kind of a lib and I still thought “hey, this just sounds like the US!” lol

Good cop: sad cop

Thanks! Of course, I am so unbelievably happy about this, I made the comment about it being the most liberal part of China as a bit of a joke (funnily enough I’ll even be in one of the most liberal cities of the province). In fact, I have been anticipating this for the two first years of my time in my uni!

I’ve finally gotten the email I’ve been waiting for: my uni has finished selections for student exchanges with partner unis abroad next semester. Our uni has no partners in AES-controlled territories, but has a few in Taiwan Province, so I applied to go there, so I could practise my Mandarin and also finally go outside of the continent for the first time of my life. And I got selected!!! So by February I should be on Chinese soil!!! (though on the most liberal part of it)