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A gentle Chinese bedtime story about a little bamboo shoot who sleeps under the soil all winter. When the spring rain taps on the earth, it wakes him. He pushes up a little each day, comes out into the light, sees the tall mother bamboo, slips off four old coats and grows. At night the whole bamboo forest goes to sleep. Short sentences and warm spring light.

A gentle Chinese bedtime story about a big green lotus leaf floating on a summer pond. A tired dragonfly, a small water drop and a little frog all climb on. As the wind blows, the leaf rocks them up and down like a tiny cradle, and one by one they fall asleep. Short sentences, warm evening light, and the old name for the lotus leaf.

A gentle Chinese bedtime story about a family of ants. All day they carry home a grain of rice, a flower petal, a grass seed and a crumb of bread. When the wind smells of rain, they build their door a little higher, then tuck in close and listen to the rain until they fall asleep. Short sentences, warm daylight, and the old saying that when ants move house, rain is coming.

At the school gate it is often a grandmother, not a parent, who meets the child. In many Chinese households grandparents are the daily backbone of childcare, a bargain built from two incomes, high costs and deep ideas about family duty. An explainer on why.

Village BA began as a harvest festival game in a mountain village in Guizhou and grew into one of the most-watched sporting events in China. Amateur players, a hillside of fans and a champion’s prize that is a cow. An explainer on why it became a phenomenon.

In China, water arrives warm, a thermos stands on the desk and the phrase drink more hot water is a reflex. The habit is older than tea and was reshaped by a century of public health. An explainer on why hot water became the country’s default drink.

Mianzi, usually translated as face, is a shared currency of respect that runs through offices, banquets and family life in China. It explains why a no can sound like a maybe and why criticism often waits for a private moment. An explainer on how face works.

The hukou is the household registration that ties every Chinese family to one place. It decides which schools, clinics and pensions a family can reach, even after years of living in another city. An explainer on how the system works and how it quietly shapes daily life.

He Xiaoyan raises her son and looks after her in-laws in a county town while her husband drives a forklift in the provincial capital, more than a thousand kilometers away. Every year she packs his bag with chili sauce and hand-stitched insoles. When she takes the boy to surprise him, she finds the tin box he left behind, and everything he has been keeping to himself for eight years.

Su Qing runs a small stationery shop across from a primary school in a county town. Her husband comes home later each month, brings home less money, and starts leaving his phone face down. Then one cold morning she reaches into his toolbox for a screwdriver and finds a second phone at the bottom. What she does next is not what the neighbours would expect.