Just found out: the post about a 2024 Chinese spy drama (pre-1949) includes a historical telegraph character-number chart. Well done!

Great presentation Over language and feminism by Coraline Jortay @qiaoj.bsky.social In Leiden.

“What am I to make of Roorda van Eisinga? Such half scholar and half fool are almost impossible to deal with. How are the natives supposed to respect them? How are the admin and the plantations to be managed by them?”

-1846 Letter from Dutch East Indies Governor Rochussen to Minister of Colony Baud

Two Working LEGO Printing Presses | LEGO® Ideas The development of mechanical printing changed how ideas move through the world. Once text and images could be printed rather than copied by hand, knowledge was…

everyone needs to go support this lego printing press on lego ideas it’s incredibly cute 🥹

beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

a drawing of a monk wearing dark glasses and rolling dice at a table

gambling monk, germany, 15th century

It would be interesting to see a show or exhibition of the origins of daily use words with Indonesian Chinese backgrounds:)

Just found out, “bami” this Dutch/Indonesian word comes from minnanyu baiduyin 闽南语 白读音 ‘Bah mī’ (pork noodles)🍜😱…….

Juan de Borba, a Portuguese, his ship sank in a storm, he and 8 crew members drifted in a boat for 9 days before reaching Aceh in East Indies in 1521. During the time, without eating and drinking anything😱, each of them only took a tiny piece of opium, size of a pepper, which were carried by a Moor.

Unkind = 爱情🤔？The 19th c missionary who compiled this dictionary perhaps wanted to send some messages to the secular world….

English-Japanese dictionary, by W H Medhurst, 1830, printed in Batavia.

Karl Gützlaff's Chinese handwriting.

Letter From Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff (1803-1851) to Nicolaas Beets (1814-1903); 1849.

Robert Morrison’s Chinese teacher always took poison with him so that he could kill himself in case he was caught teaching Morrison Chinese ….😱

Reading about Karl Gützlaff.

It looks quite nice actually!

In de supermarkt opletten
app

University of Arizona Libraries is hiring for a RARE BOOK LIBRARIAN! 1st review of applications February 9, 2026.
arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...
We have great collections and great people here. Not on the committee, happy to chat.

I know in the beginning of a new year I am supposed to be positive but the words of this man in Dejima (a Japanese translator) from 170 years ago really struck me:
“what I like, is doing nothing just lying down”.
我想做的就是啥也不干躺平！😩
(Waar ik van houd, …is niets te doen en op mijn zij te liggen.”)

Tables in a bookstore. Scheltema Amsterdam.

1933 reconstruction of Moxon’s wood press (described in 1683-84), photo taken before 1975.
London University College.
I wonder if the graffiti on it still exists 🤓….

Printing press sketch (1628) by Pieter Jansz. Saenredam (1597-1665) (Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België, Inv. 4060 / 3119), (pretty much certain) the draft sketch for the illustration in Petri Scriverii Lavre-Kranz Voor Lavrens Koster Van Haerlem (1628).

Doing a phd is dangerous…..😎
#typoinchinese#chinesetypo

In 1840s Dutch academia, how to address a professor of non-European languages in a causal way?
Chinese, of course.

Philippus Pieter Roorda van Eysinga (1796–1856), whose actual specialty was Malay, he was called by his colleagues in private “the Chinese professor.”
(from A lifelong passion Veth)

Two title pages of the same book, showing their likeness.

First #bookhistory post of the year. Some books simply scream for a thread!

We have two copies of the same #EarlyModern edition. Why would we want to collect two copies of the same book, you ask? Read on!

EHC Antwerp, K 54092 copy 1 and 2.

[1/16] 📜 💙📚

Records of the Western Regions 大唐西域记, written by Xuanzhuang 玄奘 (602-664), woodblock printing, reprinted by Jinling Sutra Press 金陵刻经处 in 1957, sponsored by the Buddhist Association of China.

Purchased in 2025 at the Drukkunstbeurs in Amersfoort.

Sun Guoting 孙过庭 (ca 646-691), theorist of Calligraphy from Tang Dynasty.
According to Sun, the essence of calligraphy, “同自然之妙有，非力运之能成, 信可谓智巧兼优” ( the same grace with nature, not attained by effort, but requires both wisdom and skill).

The printing press of a Christian missionary organisation, northern China, c.1905, by Arthur H Smith

I don’t mind Shin ramyun teaming up with k-pop, but couldn’t they find a better designer?

Font matters 😓: Rubio orders return to Times New Roman font over 'wasteful' Calibri

#CyberMonday ‘s quiz: Philipp F B van Siebold’s Chinese assistant was named 郭成章 (in pinyin as Guo Chengzhang). Siebold romanized his name as Ko Tsching Dschang. On which language or dialect was Siebold’s transcription based? 🤓