K. Alexander 亞天恩
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thianun.bsky.social
K. Alexander 亞天恩
@thianun.bsky.social
1.5K followers 250 following 640 posts
台灣戰貓. Associate Professor of Chinese. Early modern popular religious literature and print history. Co-parent of CRTA.info. Book: Teaching and Transformation in Popular Confucian Literature of the Late Qing (Michigan, August 2025). she/hers
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thianun.bsky.social
Today!
Poster for my book talk at the Sem Co-op later this afternoon
November 13, 2025 at 6:40 PM
thianun.bsky.social
Completely spoiled by the sky the last 12 hours
Sunrise this morning when the sky was half cloudy and golden Sunrise a few minutes later with the clouds flaring bright orange and pink.
November 12, 2025 at 2:15 PM
thianun.bsky.social
Calmed down again but 15 mins ago it was amazing
Night sky photo taken on long exposure to show the bright band of hot pink across the northern sky
November 12, 2025 at 3:00 AM
thianun.bsky.social
Last night I loved all the pics from friends along the front range admiring the intense sunset. Tonight it’s time for long exposure pics of the northern lights that are barely visible without a camera
The night sky is mostly pink with a little green, but that’s because the 2 second exposure picks up what can’t be seen just by looking up at the sky.
November 12, 2025 at 1:57 AM
thianun.bsky.social
And if you search Waseda University Library, www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/se... some of the results are other Japanese reprints of the work, and they are delightful!
Tired of chickens, instead this image shows a two page spread of tigers and leopards doing their things.
November 5, 2025 at 2:03 PM
thianun.bsky.social
Good news though! The book made its way to Japan in the early 17th century and there are tons of reprints there. For example, here is one that purports to be a reprint of a Song edition commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CN...
Twelve illustrations of chickens around a center large square filled with text. These chickens are well drawn, maybe even majestic. The cat is less cute but we'll have to let that go.
November 5, 2025 at 2:03 PM
thianun.bsky.social
I haven't found the exact edition (will have to go to SOAS for that!) but starting on p365 of this facsimile reprint of another edition, hosted on @wikimediafoundation.org Commons, which really shows how badly woodblock prints can be done too
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GG...
Screenshot of facing pages, arranged side by side, showing the same text and ostensibly the same images as the picture in my first post, but the text is crudely written and the illustrations are so bad as to be unrecognizable as a chicken or other animals. I don't know where my cat is either!
November 5, 2025 at 2:03 PM
thianun.bsky.social
Why yes, this does in fact entirely have to do with how cute this one cat is, you know me.
Detail from the above image, showing a chicken looking back over its shoulder at a cat that appears to be stalking it.
November 5, 2025 at 2:03 PM
thianun.bsky.social
Entirely thanks to this image, I've been on a tangent looking for a complete version of this Chinese divination text (related to 28 lunar mansions & their animals) - 演禽三世相法 purportedly written in the Tang but the popular printed tradition starts in the late Ming
#woodblockwednesday
Photograph of page 130 from the Catalogue of the Morrison Collection showing a page from Yanqin sanshi xiangfu showing twelve little illustrations of a chicken encountering various situations and other creatures, arranged around a center explanatory text box.
November 5, 2025 at 2:03 PM
thianun.bsky.social
My favorite part of sitting on a friend’s porch and giving candy to random children was when a small band of inflatable dinosaurs piloted by ~10 year olds roared and pretended to chomp down on the entire candy bowl. Also all the toddlers were charming and so confused in general.
Me, earlier this evening, with hastily slapped on black and green makeup around my eyes, wearing a 1930s black dress and a thrifted black velvet jacket, holding an orange bowl filled with Halloween candy.
November 1, 2025 at 4:22 AM
thianun.bsky.social
It's 1997.

Our missionary-run school in Kaohsiung doesn't allow Halloween because they think it's satanic. Three missionary families hold a Halloween party anyway because that's stupid.

Heavily influenced by the first presidential elections in 1996, I go as "The Spirit of Taiwanese Democracy"
Six children stand in a living room in costumes both homemade and store-bought. I'm at the center, wearing presidential candidate campaign flags and swag my dad helped me collect from the street in 1996, tied around me as best as possible. I also have on a 彭明敏 vest. I'm 13. I've always been a nerd guys.
October 31, 2025 at 9:29 PM
thianun.bsky.social
In my offline life, I'm trying to stretch more by following yoga videos most mornings, but if I'd been alive in the Ming & Qing, I would need a book like this!

萬壽僊書 via ANU library, openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/items/f57a10... (v3 has the illustrations!)

#WoodblockWednesday
Two facing pages from the book on health with illustrations of a shirtless man doing stretches. On the R, his hands are behind his head, elbows out, and he's leaning to the side. On the L, his arms are raised about his head, hands facing out, with his head turned slightly. He looks like he's having a great time!
October 15, 2025 at 9:41 PM
thianun.bsky.social
Reminds me I’ve been meaning to give you this 😅
Photo of a sticker of a happy notebook that is exclaiming “I ❤️ footnotes!1” with the 1 leading to a footnote that reads “1. endnotes are acceptable”
October 13, 2025 at 5:26 PM
thianun.bsky.social
This #WoodblockWednesday, musing over the creativity of this Guangzhou publisher's branding on nearly every page of its printed lists of successful provincial exam candidates. Making a dry subject just a little cute, page by page.

All from fasc reprint 清歷科廣東鄉試錄 search.worldcat.org/title/34561437
Nine little line drawings of flowers, vases, and other objects with the publisher's name, 錦書堂, incorporated into the design. Slightly more elaborate ad design, as if written on a curling scroll of paper, reads: 貴客光顧請認省城學院前錦書堂為記.
October 1, 2025 at 7:51 PM
thianun.bsky.social
I thought I had a copy too but I’ve discovered instead it’s a different book in the same genre! Mine’s dated 9/66
Cover of my little red book of Hong Kong tourists facts courtesy of the Mandarin hotel Front page of the book explaining it is the official guidebook of the Hongkong Hotels Association with their seal. Below the association welcomes guests to take this book with them as a souvenir and gives instructions on how to buy more copies. Also in this picture, my fingers holding the book open and my research assistant’s paw nearby as he had to take a look too. First content pages of the book: Color pictures of the Mandarin Hotel, inside and out, with text that reads: (epars The MANDARIN HOTEL, overlooking Hong Kong s fabulous harbour, is the foremost hotel in the Far East. In the foreground is the Chinese Junk operated by the hotel for the pleasure of its guests. Above is the elegant staircase in the main lobby, with dominant murals and gold panel carvings, leading to the mezzanine Clipper Lounge and shopping arcade. Below is the Mandarin's roof-top oasis right in the heart of the crowded city. You can spend many lazy hours in the blue waters of the pool, with its beautiful mosaics and cooling green surrounds. Also pictured, my fingers holding the book open and my research assistant’s paw. Final page of the guidebook with an index and copyright information.
September 25, 2025 at 3:08 PM
thianun.bsky.social
Returning to the mothership in November for the first time since graduating, it'll be ... fun?

Enlightening?

Interesting, at least for me, and hopefully also for my generous hosts and my audience.
Image promoting a book talk I am giving at the Sem Co-op bookstore in Hyde Park, Chicago, on Nov 13 at 4pm.
September 24, 2025 at 12:57 AM
thianun.bsky.social
Or this pair of serious men with their mouths sewn shut
An illustration of a pensive looking man with his eyes staring off into the distance and his lips sewn shut, with his back to the viewer, displaying a robe covered in text that seems to be about the value of not saying too much. In the cheap later version the man no longer looks like a man, his eyes look as if they are trying to leap out of his face, his eyebrows are out of control, and the text on his robe is very hard to read.
September 17, 2025 at 5:18 PM
thianun.bsky.social
Compare, if you will, this illustration from the nicer (but no longer complete) edition, with the same illustration in the lower quality one
Nicer version - yes they're still wonky dragons but they are drawn by an artist still better than me. Wonky dragons more like what I could manage to draw with a bit of practice, but really looking like a child drew them after using the previous image as inspiration.
September 17, 2025 at 5:18 PM
thianun.bsky.social
Thanks for the reminder it's #WoodblockWednesday!

Below, @sudasana.bsky.social shares a link to vols 1-8 of 32 from an incomplete copy of Shi Chengjin's (~1658-after 1739) 家寶全集.
BSB also holds a second, complete, & lower budget edition produced later 1/ www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/search?fi...
Title page of the lower budget edition - the quality issues are not immediately obvious here, but once the body text begins a few pages later, the difference in carving quality and detail becomes clear.
September 17, 2025 at 5:18 PM
thianun.bsky.social
From the same low quality edition of 家寶全集, a suggestion for a seal that readers can make which says: 越不聰明越快活
September 16, 2025 at 6:24 PM
thianun.bsky.social
A story I love so much I made a silly needlepoint of it!!
September 16, 2025 at 6:19 PM
thianun.bsky.social
If you see this, quote the energy you bring to Bluesky
A wonky woodblock print illustration from a Qing book of a dude giving serious side eye
September 16, 2025 at 4:57 PM
thianun.bsky.social
Me too, door, me too.
Older wooden door on which someone has graffitied “DREAD”
September 11, 2025 at 8:29 AM
thianun.bsky.social
Me too, room, me too.
Sign posted in the library reading “this room is now alarmed 24/7”
September 9, 2025 at 8:30 AM
thianun.bsky.social
Alas, special collections at Leeds doesn’t allow social media posts of their holdings but my first day of three at the archives lived up to @berincole.bsky.social’s sticker- so much dust, so much fun!

Yes my inky hands are in both pics but it’s the only way I get my hands dirty in this job!
My dirty hand on the back of my laptop next to the sticker that says “Archives! So much dust, so much fun”. Other stickers say “Someday we’ll all be dead” and “I ❤️ history - That thing you thought was bad? Turns out it’s way worse than you thought!” My dirty hand again on an incredibly dusty book cradle. As gentle as I was with these late 18th and early 19th century books, some are just crumbling no matter what.
September 8, 2025 at 5:23 PM