EDITORIAL NOTE
A personal voice needs a public method.
This is a character-led website about Zhong Kui for readers who may be meeting the figure for the first time. “I” belongs to a literary voice. Claims about texts, objects, practices, and adaptations belong to named sources.
How the site works
The notebook is for first-person essays: short, dated posts written as a conversation with the reader. The archive is the brake pedal. It names source type, institution, date range, edition or chapter when available, and the limit of the claim.
- Texts are linked to public, legitimate reading or catalogue routes. A later retelling is not silently presented as an early witness.
- Objects keep their maker, material, date, institution, accession number, and rights context. Images link back to the institution that holds the record.
- Ritual and folklore are described with place and source context. They are never reduced to a universal practice.
- Film, opera, games, and television are adaptations. The site links to official or host-platform pages rather than reuploading protected work.
What this site will not do
It will not distribute supplied research PDFs, reproduce modern books, pretend that a chatbot is a source, or use a beautiful image as evidence for a claim it cannot support. A small archive that says “not yet verified” is more useful than a large one that blurs its evidence.
Why a blog?
A personal blog creates a reason to return: a dated note, an opinionated voice, a visible archive, and an authorial point of view. The aim is not to impersonate a museum or to turn a Chinese figure into generic fantasy. It is to make research feel like a conversation at the threshold.