China

The most important thing to do in Chengdu was eat hot pot, and this particular hot pot quickly taught me a lesson. Its spicy broth seemed to exist in an entirely different dimension from anything I had tried before. The proper method was to swish food from the pot through the bowl of sesame oil shown below. Much of the chili oil would slide off, leaving the food considerably less spicy.

I knew none of this. The sesame oil simply struck me as strange. Wouldn’t dipping meat in oil make it unbearably greasy? So I ate it straight from the pot. I remember the fourth slice of meat very clearly: that was when I hit my limit. I could not swallow it and had to spit it out. It was far too spicy.

Then I tried the sesame oil. Consider me converted.

I do not know exactly what was in it, but the meat did not taste greasy at all after the dip, and the heat dropped to a level I could actually handle. It felt like magic.

Next we went to Kuanzhai Alley. And once there, one naturally has to mention a famous old verse that has absolutely nothing to do with it: a letter sent a thousand miles over a wall, the wisdom of yielding three feet, the Great Wall still standing while Qin Shi Huang is long gone.

Never mind the actual allusion. The guide was certainly going to find a connection somehow.

The lanes were lined with snacks. At a restaurant I also tried ice plant for the first time. The beadlike structures that look like water droplets are actually specialized bladder cells on the plant’s surface. They store water and salt, clinging to the stems and leaves like tiny translucent pouches.

That was new to me. It probably was not a Sichuan specialty, but I had certainly never seen it before.

Beyond food, a few things seemed to be everywhere in Chengdu. First came street mahjong—so many people were playing mahjong. The city felt leisurely and unhurried to me, and we often passed large groups playing out on the street. It is difficult to describe the scale of it; if you have never seen the scene for yourself, it is hard to imagine.

Then there were pandas. Shops selling panda merchandise, especially stuffed animals, seemed endless.

On the second day, we went to Dujiangyan.

Dujiangyan was first built during the Warring States period under the direction of Li Bing. Its great achievement was not simply damming the Min River. Instead, an integrated system—including the Fish Mouth, Flying Sand Weir, and Bottle-Neck Channel—diverted the river, carried away sediment, and guided water into the Chengdu Plain. More than two thousand years later, the system still functions, and it played an important role in turning the plain into the fertile region known as the “Land of Abundance.”

Our guide delivered a wonderfully animated explanation of water diversion, sediment removal, and flood control. I followed the words, but the engineering itself remained well beyond me. After staring at it for quite a while, my main conclusion was simple: the ancient engineers were brilliant; I understood almost none of it.

After that, we wandered around and took the obligatory photographs.

On the third day, we visited Du Fu Thatched Cottage, the site of the poet’s former home in Chengdu. Du Fu arrived here after being displaced by the An Lushan Rebellion and lived in Chengdu for several years. During that period, he wrote many of the poems that would later appear in Chinese school textbooks.

Then we found proof that even an oil lamp can be remarkably economical…

The grounds themselves were wonderfully peaceful, with bamboo, winding paths, old trees, and traditional buildings scattered throughout. Most of what stands today was reconstructed or expanded in later periods, but as a place honoring Du Fu, the atmosphere felt exactly right. A winding path into a secluded garden, with trees and flowers gathered around a quiet retreat—that old line of poetry suited the place rather well.

We then visited Wuhou Shrine. The shrine primarily commemorates Zhuge Liang, while also honoring Liu Bei and other figures from the state of Shu Han.

Lines I had known from school textbooks were suddenly there in front of me. One famous couplet praises Zhuge Liang for devising the strategy of the realm after three earnest visits and for serving two reigns with a veteran minister’s devotion. I had only memorized it from a textbook before; now I was reading it at the shrine of the person it described.

That brought our independent wandering around Chengdu to an end. Next, we were preparing to fly to Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic Area.

After our flight landed, we spent two hours being tossed from side to side on a bus before finally reaching Huanglong Scenic Area.

Our timing was unfortunate. The water level at Huanglong was still very low. People generally come here for the mountains and water, but the colorful pools before us held precious little of the latter. Huanglong is best known for its tiered travertine pools. When there is plenty of water, it flows through one terrace and shallow pool after another, creating a beautiful scene. During our visit, however, many of the pools along the way were almost completely dry. What appears below was about as much water as we saw that day.

And then came what felt like the comparison shots. It almost seemed as though the park knew that visitors might be disappointed when there was so little water, so it had put up photographs showing what the scenery should look like when the pools were full.

The difference was, shall we say, not exactly subtle. Since the water in those photographs was nowhere to be found in reality, we had to supply it with our imagination.

And then we left disappointed. No twist. No sequel.

Jiuzhaigou lies in Jiuzhaigou County, part of the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in northern Sichuan. It is a World Natural Heritage site defined by alpine lakes and waterfalls.

That is enough background.

Scenery this beautiful needs no introduction; it can speak for itself. It also more than made up for what we’d missed at Huanglong the day before.

Sunlight moved across water so clear that forest, mountain, and reflection seemed to share the same depth.

Where the wind left the lakes alone, the mountains appeared twice—once above the shore and once beneath it.

Water slipped through the forest, then gathered itself into broad curtains over the rock.

Between one view and the next, the boardwalk kept threading through the mountains.

Fresh snow had turned the upper slopes white, while spring was already returning below.

All right, that is enough of my brief career as a landscape poet. The photographs can take it from here.

After landing in Xi’an, our first stop was the Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum to see the Terracotta Army. The scale is immense: thousands of terracotta soldiers and horses form a vast underground army, with noticeable differences in clothing, hairstyles, and expressions from one figure to another. Preparing an army this large for himself more than two thousand years ago—Qin Shi Huang certainly knew how to plan ahead.

I seem to remember coming here back when I was doing academic competitions in high school. But that memory is now so distant that not even a vague impression remains.

But wait—is this high-ranking officer actually Louis Koo? After all, he did travel back to the Qin era as Xiang Shaolong in A Step into the Past.

The view from Mount Li was excellent.

I also fed a peacock nearby, and the photograph turned out remarkably well.

That evening, we watched The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, a large-scale outdoor historical dance drama at Huaqing Palace. The production follows the story of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and Yang Guifei, using Huaqing Palace and Mount Li as its real-world backdrop alongside lighting, dance, and elaborate stage effects.

The production certainly earned its “large-scale” billing.

The next day, we visited the Shaanxi History Museum. Its collection spans the long history of artifacts unearthed across Shaanxi, including objects from the Qin dynasty. The bronze sword in the photo was excavated from Pit No. 1 of the Terracotta Warriors, and nearby was the famous Du Tiger Tally.

More than two thousand years old, the swords could still be seen intact before us. Their long, slender blades retained a remarkably sleek profile.

Nothing else left much of an impression.

And with that, the journey was over. It was time to return to the United States and take the team to the finals.

I was even more disappointed by the choice of host city that year. I had been a coach for two years, and the World Finals had sent me once to the United States and once to China. Why? As a travel destination, I would personally take Beijing over Rapid City by an enormous margin, but I had already visited Beijing more times than I could count. I had never even studied there, yet I felt as though I had ridden at least ten complete circuits of Subway Line 2.

I wanted to see somewhere else in the world.

Still, the university was paying. I could treat it as a free trip home.

The team had three members that year, all American. For convenience, I will call them American One, American Two, and American Three. Their qualification campaign had been remarkably smooth: American One had delivered an exceptional performance and carried much of the regional contest. For the full story, see the regional-contest collection.

American Two had attended my algorithms class consistently since the previous year and worked extremely hard. I had taught him everything I knew. That was not an infinite supply of knowledge, but in terms of algorithmic breadth, it covered the kinds of problems one might encounter around the World Finals silver-medal level. How much of it he had absorbed was now up to him.

American Three’s distinct role in this particular lineup was, well, rather limited. American One was much faster at implementation, so there was little chance that he would take the keyboard. American Two had a broader range of algorithmic knowledge. Between those two strengths, most of what American Three might otherwise have contributed was already covered.

The hotel provided by the organizers was extremely luxurious. Our room was on the thirty-fifth floor—if I remember correctly, the highest floor accessible to guests—and the view was excellent.

The organizers arranged an excursion to the Great Wall. I did not go. Guess why.

A small group from our university then organized its own visit to the Forbidden City. I did not join that either.

In truth, I probably should have gone with them, but I had plans that day, so I let them venture out on their own. I decided to trust in the English-language competence Beijing had accumulated since the era of “Beijing Welcomes You.” Before they left, I asked the assistant coach, “Do you have any money?” He said no. “Do you have WeChat?” He did, but he had not yet worked out whether the payment function would actually work. “And you’re still willing to leave the hotel?” I asked.

I gave them all the cash I had, a little over 500 yuan. That seemed as though it should cover a day out. At the very least, it ought to pay for the tickets. Beyond that, they were on their own.

Apart from those larger excursions, I took them to the food streets near Peking University. That was when the limitations of my English as a non-native speaker became painfully clear. The assistant coach wanted milk tea. I looked at an entirely Chinese storefront and its endless list of optional ingredients and realized I had no idea how to translate any of it. All I could offer was: “They’re sweet. Just pick one.”

On contest day, I was still quite relaxed.

Compared with the previous year, however, I was slightly more nervous. In 2017 I had essentially been there for the experience. This time I had modest expectations for the team, especially given American One’s extraordinary implementation speed and American Two’s solid command of algorithms.

The result justified some of that optimism. They solved four problems and were officially listed in a tie for 56th place. More than forty teams finished on four problems, but our team was near the front of that very large group. If all the four-problem teams had been separated by the usual ICPC penalty ordering, they would have been around 60th overall. That was better than my own result in my first World Finals.

Unfortunately, Peking University did not win the championship. As the host team, they were clearly very strong and had given it everything they had.

One final episode occurred as I was preparing to leave Beijing. I was standing in a subway station with my suitcase, waiting for someone, when a salesperson from an English-language training company approached and asked whether I wanted to study English. I looked remarkably young then—young enough to be a student. In fact, I still was one.

“I don’t want to study English,” I said. “Are you hiring teachers?”

He replied that their standards for teachers were extremely strict, then launched into a long explanation to which I paid little attention.

At the end, for reasons I never understood—perhaps simple politeness, perhaps one final attempt to salvage the sale—he asked where I lived.

“San Francisco,” I said.

He went silent. After roughly three seconds, he said, “Are you messing with me?” Then he walked away.

You were the one who came over and started the conversation.

Today I visited Miyou Miaomiaowu in Shanghai’s Putuo District for my first cosplay experience. It does not appear to be an official HoYoverse store, but its selection of HoYoverse costumes was extensive. It also carried plenty of popular characters from other companies.

I had booked online several weeks earlier, choosing both the studio set and the costume in advance. Today’s character was Zhongli from Genshin Impact.

The first step after I arrived was makeup. The makeup artist tucked all my hair into a wig cap and went to work. An hour and a half later, she was finally done. Full makeup really does take time.

Then I looked in the mirror—and the result was almost impossible to look at. I could vaguely see what she was working toward, but it clearly needed the costume to make any sense. On its own, the makeup looked profoundly strange: my face was ghostly pale, the eyeliner was dramatic, and there was even a touch of blush and lipstick. With all my hair hidden under the cap and none visible around my face, I looked like a screen portrayal of Li Lianying, the well-known Qing-dynasty court eunuch.

No photograph, no proof. It looked too awful to share.

Next came the colored contact lenses. My prescription is very strong, so I was surprised that they had lenses close to it in the right color. The shop was impressively well prepared.

Then it was time for the costume. I strongly recommend choosing a slightly larger size. Following the shop’s size chart, I had selected an outfit that came only in M and XL. My waist was exactly at the upper limit for M. Once I got there, however, the trousers decisively refused to fit. More precisely, I could just about squeeze into them with considerable effort. The problem was that any sudden movement—or simply sitting down—seemed likely to split the seam. At that point, who would be paying for the damaged costume?

So I left the trousers unbuttoned, which improved matters considerably. The top covered the waistband, so no one could tell.

Then came the photography. The photographer was equally professional. If I had no idea how to pose, he showed me exactly what to do and how to make it look suitably dramatic. I spent less time worrying about looking dramatic than about whether each dramatic pose might finally tear the trousers.

After the shoot, I had half an hour to explore on my own. Any unoccupied studio set was available for photographs, and the selection was quite varied.

Once the session ended, I could simply change and leave. I had no desire to go outside wearing the full Li Lianying look, however, so I removed the makeup there. The shop supplied makeup remover and every tool I might need. The trouble was that I had no idea how to use any of them. I simply scrubbed away, with enough determination that it felt as though I might take off a layer of skin.

Eventually my complexion seemed to have returned to normal, so I left. That evening at the hotel, I washed my face and discovered that the eyeliner along my waterline was still completely intact. I had not noticed it, but one wipe with a towel produced a black streak. Another painstaking round of washing followed.

Then came the photo editing. The shop’s packages included different numbers of professionally retouched images, but they all had one thing in common: a wait of at least two weeks.

The official service also did not create the special effects I wanted. I therefore looked online for someone else to edit the photographs, only to find that the paid retouchers I contacted did not make those effects either. In the end, I had to create them myself with AI. Fortunately, by then AI image editing was capable enough to produce fairly good results; otherwise, the effects would probably never have happened.

At the time, AI seemed very good at special effects but much less convincing at portrait retouching. I asked it to smooth my skin, slim my body, and lengthen my legs. It appeared to understand none of this: the edited result looked exactly like the original. So I hired a person to retouch the portrait instead. Once special effects were no longer part of the request, finding someone was easy.

That is how this first set emerged: AI effects followed by human portrait retouching. I thought the results were rather good.

I was still being naïve. Eventually the shop’s own retouched photographs arrived. One look was enough: these were formidable. The degree of retouching went far beyond what I had received from the freelancer I found online. The freelancer had done the paid job, met the basic requirements, and stopped there. The shop’s retoucher seemed to be working with genuine devotion to the cause.

Here are the results.

The retouching was so aggressive that my own mother might not have recognized me. At that intensity, cosplaying a female character next time would present no difficulty at all: beautification filters during the shoot, then more editing afterward.

To borrow—and thoroughly butcher—an old Chinese verse:

One photo polished, one photo refined; Side by side, can you tell which gender is mine?