Weekend Tales #4: My focus in 2024 is 'beauty'

Tai Tales' new approach. And how I'm standing firm against outrage culture on the Internet.

Photo by 张 岱 on Unsplash

There’s so much beauty in the world, yet the Internet is full of rage.

That’s what I was thinking about when the whole Substack drama went down in early January. And this happened right after my own personal drama with Substack!

The whole thing made me exasperated, and I even considered leaving Substack at one point. Not to avoid Nazis, but to get away from the people screaming about Nazis.

It is also a big reason why I took so long to write this issue for you, dear reader. It is because I was so, so, so tempted to comment about it and add to the boiling pot of fury.

But what good is there to add to the existing outrage?

Take the photo above. Here’s a beautiful woman in Peking opera hanfu. There are so many beautiful things about China and her people. But all you see these days (in the Western media anyway) is hatred and sinophobia.

I’m exhausted by all the outrage, my friends. It seems like everyone is trying to rally someone to get angry about something, to other a platform, a person or a nation. And some of you may feel like you need to do this because you’re not a bad person so as a good person you should be on “their” side.

But, but … what if we do the opposite? What if we put out messages of beauty instead of outrage?

A weekend to think about 2024

I partially wrote this edition of Weekend Tales from this gorgeous hotel suite. Every year, I give myself a lovely treat, hole myself away in somewhere fancy, to think. I once joked that the best job in the world for me is a job in a co-working space where I can spend all day writing and thinking.

So, that’s what I did in this hotel room. I thought hard about how I could publish beautiful and simple things from Tai Tales rather than outrage.

For three days, I wrote my heart away.

And I noticed something interesting during this retreat. I was writing a whole lot more, but not … fiction. I found myself writing for my new passion project instead: Drama Tea, my Chinese drama blog and podcast.

A few weeks ago,

Simon K Jones

left an interesting comment on my post, What I learned from one year of Substack:

I don't think I could do it if I didn't really love it. If reviews and essays are what gives you most joy, that sounds like that route to go?

I don’t seem to feel the same joy I used to when I started writing fiction online in the early 2000s. Back then, I looked forward to Saturday mornings because that’s when I would head to my home office to write, usually fiction, for hours. I could not wait to add another chapter to my novel.

Now … that same enthusiasm has been transferred to Drama Tea.

And this got me thinking: Should I quit writing fiction?

For a few weeks, I was really sure that I’d probably stop … but then I realise something.

I was still doing what I’ve been doing since I was a kid — at night, before sleeping, I would spin stories to lull me to sleep.

But the stories I’m entertaining myself with look very different from the stories I’m currently writing.

In the last few years, I’ve been more and more drawn to my heritage. My very mixed heritage, that is. Although a large part of it comes from China, another part of it comes from Malaysia.

I’ve always felt like an inferior Asian because I spoke English so much better than my native dialect — Hokkien — and Mandarin, the lingua franca of Chinese people globally.

I also get confused — which values should I adhere to? I do relate to some Western values, but I am also very Asian in many ways.

I think I know why I love writing for Drama Tea so much. Because it’s all about joy.

The joy that comes with celebrating the intricate stories that come from an ancient civilization. The joy that comes from seeing my values, my people, and my culture onscreen. Writing for Drama Tea is writing about beauty.

And for a long time, I didn’t even want to write stories about my culture or people. Now, that’s a very long story which I hope to tell you guys one day, and it is tied up with my insecurity as a not-so-good Asian, irritation and anger at Orientalism, and how the West depicts Asia and Asians in fiction.

And maybe that’s why I kept writing space operas set in distant, distant futures, where race is meaningless. Because talking about my heritage is complicated.

And maybe a tad painful.

But my tastes are shifting, and I should honour that.

I will still write stories for the Distant Stars universe.

However … I want to write personal essays about life in Malaysia and what it’s like being Chinese.

I want to write whimsical tales about my culture.

I want my tales, fiction or non-fiction, to celebrate life.

I want to publish beauty into the world.

Quick Tales — Substack drama and the value of going small

Instead of telling you what I think about the whole Platformer/Substack drama, I’ll be sharing the great posts I’ve found:

Let’s start with this great comment from

Elle Griffin

:

Let the writers and readers moderate, not the social media platforms. And don’t have one big town square we all have to be exposed to, have a bunch of smaller ones that we can choose to be part of. — Substack shouldn’t decide what we read

In 2024, I’m having smaller ambitions. Smaller stories. Smaller communities. That’s my goal.

.. socializing doesn't scale. Once a group reaches a certain size, each participant starts to feel anonymous again, and the person they're following — who once seemed proximal, like a friend — now seems larger than life and remote. - Clive Thompson in Praise of Online Obscurity

This article, and what Elle said here are in line with what I’ve been thinking lately, and why chasing growth may not be what I want. (Especially after my own painful, personal experience with a Substack influencer.) If an intimate community of friends that I trust is what I want, bigger is not necessarily better.

Shalom Auslander

also wrote two brilliant pieces that reflect my dismay and discomfort at the overuse of the word “Nazi”, often use to brand people who have opinions they don’t agree with:

I’m Nazi-ed out, folks. I’m racist-ed out. I’m homophobe-ed out. That doesn’t make me a Nazi or a racist or a homophobe. It makes me human, and it makes the casual dispensers of those vital words lazy at best, opportunistic at worst. It sickens me, and it should sicken anyone who cares about those issues, because dead words don’t return. — The Asshole Question

… people are condemned, as they should be, for being Nazis, but nobody faces any admonishment for labelling people Nazis. Or racists. Or homophobes. Or transphobes. Or misogynists. Sometimes, they even get rewarded. Handsomely. And so the words die. — The Nazi in the Haystack

The quote below is from someone often labelled a Nazi, but as far as I can see from reading his content for a year now, he is not, but he may be a tad caught up with the outrage culture spinning cycle. Read the article if you want to get an understanding of what happened:

Frankly, I think the more likely explanation here is that Newton and his team didn’t find very many Nazi Substacks, but that this would have been a difficult thing for them to report. If they did, it would complicate the leading role Platformer had played in stoking this controversy, not to mention piss off subscribers already increasingly convinced Substack is basically the film-premiere scene in Inglourious Basterds. — Platformer’s Reporting On Substack’s Supposed “Nazi Problem” Is Shoddy And Misleading

Platformer has since left Substack.

I’m glad, for their sake. Substack obviously does not fit them.

But mostly, I’m really tired of “tech journos” stirring outrage in the masses for every. single. platform. I wrote about this before in the The puritanical pursuit of platform purity.

Also, see How to ‘un-ruin’ the internet: The ultimate guide for SEOs by

Mariya Delano

. It is an excellent article describing how The Verge’s coverage was more about stirring outrage than doing real journalism.

As I was about to hit publish I spotted I, too, have a "Nazi Problem" by

Samuel Lopez-Barrantes

. I’m glad that there are writers brave enough to risk being labelled that word just to speak up about this issue.

I wrote

Goodness, if I’m to spam you with everything I wrote it’s going to be loooong newsletter.

Like I said, I’m pretty active writing Chinese drama reviews at Drama Tea and occasionally you can hear me at my podcast about Chinese dramas too. There are dozens of reviews published now. So, if you’re thinking of exploring Chinese or Korean dramas, have a look!

Also:

• Year-end reflections and how I do them

• 2023 Recap: Concepts and discoveries that made the year better for me

• Why I am learning Mandarin in 2024

I’m watching

Far too many Chinese dramas, but I’m currently enjoying Joy of Life!