Lin Xiaoyu 🔥 66
@linxiaoyu
One little story a day, HSK 1 to 3. I write most of them on the subway home. If you finished something in Chinese today and smiled, that was the plan 📖
25 Articles
1 Followers
Eighteen-year-old Xiaoxue leaves Changsha for university in Beijing, trying to look brave in front of her mother. On the train, a hidden note shows her how much home will always be waiting.
Read
妈妈的纸条
Mom's Note
HSK 4 · 4 min read
Xiaoyun wants a new schoolbag for third grade, but her family can't afford one — so during Turpan's August grape harvest, she and her grandmother sell grapes together at the market.
Read
小云的葡萄
Xiaoyun's Grapes
HSK 2 · 2 min read
Annan just moved to Hangzhou and dreads starting at a new school on September 1st — until a dropped pencil case changes everything.
Read
安安的新学校
Annan's New School
HSK 3 · 2 min read
In a tailor's shop by the canals of Zhouzhuang, an estranged grandmother and granddaughter find their way back to each other through the slow, patient art of tying a qipao's frog buttons.
Read
盘扣
The Frog Buttons
Native · 5 min read
Lele's summer break is almost over, but her diary for school is still empty — until Grandma helps her remember every day.
Read
乐乐的暑假日记
Lele's Summer Diary
HSK 2 · 2 min read
Before her first day of school, eight-year-old Xiaomei promises herself she'll learn to ride a bicycle -- falls, scraped knees, and her grandpa's patient advice included.
Read
学骑车
Learning to Ride a Bike
HSK 3 · 2 min read
A boy waits for his grandfather's watermelon to ripen in the summer heat, learning that sweet things are worth the wait.
Read
小明的西瓜
Xiaoming's Watermelon
HSK 1 · 1 min read
A girl about to move away plants sunflower seeds on her narrow balcony, racing the calendar to see one bloom before she goes.
Read
阳台上的向日葵
The Sunflower on the Balcony
HSK 4 · 4 min read
A boy and his little dog lose their favorite ball in the park — a simple HSK1 story about friendship and finding what's lost.
Read
小黄的球
Xiaohuang's Ball
HSK 1 · 2 min read
Aling is too busy to go home, until on the day of the End of Heat the first cool wind decides for her.
Read
处暑的鸭子
A Duck for the End of Heat
HSK 5 · 4 min read
A Yi girl in Sichuan's Daliang Mountains rides China's cheapest train — fares from two yuan — to sell her family's chickens and finally buy a new backpack.
Read
慢火车上的新书包
A New Backpack on the Slow Train
HSK 2 · 3 min read
As the new term starts, Jiajia wants shiny plastic book covers like everyone else — but her mother has other paper in mind.
Read
旧挂历，新书皮
An Old Calendar, New Book Covers
HSK 2 · 2 min read
In Turpan, a girl wants to give her brother a homemade gift for Mid-Autumn — but the best raisins can't be rushed, not even for him.
Read
晾房的四十天
Forty Days in the Drying House
HSK 3 · 3 min read
Grandma's dance group is keeping the baby downstairs awake every night — until someone finds a way to dance to music no one else can hear.
Read
听不见的广场舞
The square dance you can't hear
HSK 4 · 4 min read
A young rail inspector on her first summer season has twenty minutes to decide whether a strange echo in the steel is nothing — or a hairline crack under a bullet-train line.
Read
声音里的裂纹
The Crack in the Sound
Native · 6 min read
Every day at one o'clock Xiaoman reads the school broadcast to an empty playground. Then she stops reading what is written on the paper.
Read
没有人听的广播
The broadcast nobody listened to
HSK 3 · 4 min read
A city-raised teenager spends the nine days before Qixi in her grandmother's Guangzhou village, learning the handicraft behind one of China's most distinctive Qixi traditions.
Read
巧云学摆七娘
Qiaoyun Learns to Arrange the Qiniang Display
HSK 5 · 6 min read
A nineteen-year-old apprentice in a Lanzhou noodle shop keeps snapping the dough — until one packed Saturday morning proves he's finally got the feel for it.
Read
小海学拉面
Xiaohai Learns to Pull Noodles
HSK 4 · 5 min read
A kitten asks three animals the same question. Only one of them is right.
Read
小猫找妈妈
The kitten looks for its mum
HSK 1 · 3 min read
Three apples, four people, and three people who suddenly are not hungry.
Read
三个苹果
Three apples
HSK 1 · 3 min read
The 3 does not go to the university. Finding that out costs an hour and one question asked out loud.
Read
去学校的车
The bus to school
HSK 1 · 3 min read
She lends the umbrella and says her house is close. It is twenty minutes away.
Read
下雨天的伞
An umbrella on a rainy day
HSK 2 · 4 min read
A first bowl of noodles, ordered out loud, in a language you have had for three months.
Read
夜市
The night market
HSK 2 · 4 min read
The wall, the wrong way to eat the bread, and the sentence that made three months of study feel worth it.
Read
在西安的第一天
First day in Xi'an
HSK 3 · 5 min read
For years the letters said only that it rained and the flowers opened. It took moving away to read them properly.
Read
奶奶的信
Grandma's letter
HSK 3 · 5 min read
