Editor’s note for April 5, 2023
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
Dear reader,
Today is Qīngmíng 清明, or Tomb-Sweeping Day, a celebration of spring when Chinese people traditionally clean the graves of their ancestors and make ritual offerings such as burning paper money.
Chinese almanacs based on the traditional solar-lunar calendar also say today is good for getting engaged, seeing a doctor or getting surgery, and demolishing buildings. It’s inauspicious for getting married, opening a business, or holding funerals.
Almanacs, however, do not comment on whether today is a good day for a Taiwanese president to meet with a senior U.S. official. So to interpret the possible outcome of today’s encounter between Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文 Cài Yīngwén) and U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, we turn to our correspondent in Taiwan, Chris Horton. Scroll down for a summary, or click through to our website for the whole thing.
Our Word of the Day is: Ernie Bot (文心一言 wénxīn yīyán), Baidu’s answer to ChatGPT.
