Editions

People always ask where the name Falafelinhotpot comes from.

القصة وراء الاسم

The answer was inshallah. Three weeks later, it happened.

ثقافتان لا تستعجلان

The homecoming - why the China-Arabia relationship is not new.

كان هنا قبل أن يولد فاسكو دا غاما

Every time I tell someone I speak Chinese, I get the same reaction.

السر النحوي الذي يجعل الصينية أبسط مما تظن

China and the Arab world have something in common that nobody ever taught you.

لم يقولوا لا أبداً. لكن الجواب كان دائماً لا.

It is cooked. It is placed in front of you. It is portioned without explanation.

لم يقل أحد أحبك. لكن المائدة كانت ممتلئة.

Most Arabs know China as a trade partner. A rising power. A complicated relationship.

٢٦ مليون مسلم. بلد واحد. قصص لم يخبرك بها أحد.

In China and the Arab world, you don't just marry a person.

الحب، الزواج، والعائلة التي لديها رأي في كل شيء.

Neither culture will tell you directly that you have done something wrong.

ثقافة العيب في الصين والعالم العربي.

In China and the Arab world, sharing is not a gesture.

لا أحد يأكل وحده. لا أحد.

In the West, the relationship between generations is remarkably horizontal. A twenty-five year old and a sixty-five year old can be genuine friends. They…

كلما تقدّمت في العمر، كلما ازددت قيمةً.

the deal from the relationship. They are the same thing.

العمل أمر شخصي. لطالما كان كذلك.

What if I told you there's a version of Chinese written right to left — in the Arabic alphabet?

كتبوا الصينية بحروف عربية. لستمائة عام.

Two hospitality cultures, thousands of miles apart — the exact same ritual.

الشاي الصيني، والقهوة العربية.

One man ignored both rules. His entire life's work is the thing this newsletter keeps trying to describe — except he does it with ink instead of words.

الرجل الذي يكتب العربية بفرشاة صينية.

China burns agarwood to disappear into thought; Arabia burns it to welcome you into the room. One precious tree resin — completely opposite rituals.

نفس الخشب، يُحرق لسببين متضادين.

A Tang-dynasty mistranslation, three color-coded caliphates, and the word Mecca didn't have yet.

داشي : اسم العرب قديماً

Cake. Candles. A song sung slightly off-key every single year, for every single person. That's not universal — it's just one culture's habit, dressed up as a human default.

لم يتفق أحد على الاحتفال بعيد ميلادك

Every character started as a drawing. A picture of something real — an animal, a natural force, a shape in the world. Over thousands of years those drawings…

It is not a mistake. It is not an accent thing. It is a habit so deeply wired into how Chinese people communicate that it follows them even when they switch…

In English, you feel blue when you are sad. You see red when you are angry. Chinese does the same thing — but the colours land in completely unexpected places.…

Chinese has a whole vocabulary of animal expressions used to describe people — their character, their behaviour, their energy. Some are compliments. Some are…

Chinese is full of four-character expressions — 成语 chéngyǔ — that use numbers to paint a picture of a person's character, behaviour, or energy. The numbers are…

Many of you have been asking how to flirt in Chinese — well, today I am giving it all away unconditionally! Here are the actual phrases Chinese people use to…

In Chinese culture, 我爱你 — I love you — exists. But it is said rarely. Carefully. Only when truly meant. For everything else — the daily, ordinary, relentless…

So instead, Chinese people say something else. Something that sounds like maybe, or not quite, or let me think about it — and means no. Every single time. Here…

The most important thing about learning is the goal. Most people skip this step entirely — and that one missing question is exactly why so many people quit.

If you've studied Chinese from a textbook, you probably learned 你好 for hello, 你好吗 for "how are you," and 很高兴认识你 for "nice to meet you." All technically correct. Almost nobody actually talks like this.

Everyone learns 很高兴认识你. Almost nobody in real business settings actually leads with it. Here are five phrases that'll make you sound like you actually know what you're doing.

你好吗 is grammatically perfect, and every Chinese person will understand exactly what you mean. It's also almost never what people actually say. Real "how are you" in Chinese asks about something specific instead.

Before Duolingo, there was 毛选. For decades, Chinese language classes — inside China and out — leaned on Selected Works of Mao Zedong for one simple reason: the sentences are short, the grammar is clean, and the rhythm sticks.

On 生日快乐 and the handful of phrases that make it sound like you mean it — six phrases for the next birthday you're at.