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打鐵花 (da2tie3hua1; struck iron fireworks) is a traditional folk firework that began in Henan and Shanxi, first arising in Queshan county, Henan and later circulating through the whole country. It had first appeared during the Northern Song dynasty, and was most popular during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

For Queshan struck iron fireworks, a two-layer pergola is built and covered with willow branches for performances, under which the molten iron is struck up with two willow sticks to create a rain of fire.

[eng by me + edited an ad out]

(On top of the information in the video, I have some more about its recent history under the cut.)

*Also, a note about one of the subtitles: I realized later that "going into battle without a shield" actually just meant going shirtless. I was only confused about this phrasing while translating because she didn't go shirtless, although that is for obvious reasons

Queshan struck iron fireworks had almost been lost before Yang Jianjun unearthed it again in 1988. It had almost died out in the early years of the Republic of China being established, after which there had only been three performances until 1988: 1952, 1956, 1962. Yang Jianjun had seen the 1956 performance as a 7-8 year old and later on as the director of a cultural centre, began digging up the skill and its history. In the process, he became an apprentice to Li Wanfa, who had been the last head of the Queshan Struck Iron Fireworks Society. He practised with sand and water, learning of its historical origin, its ancestral inheritors, craftsmanship and performance arts, but didn't touch the real thing until 1988. Through Yang Jianjun's efforts and investment, the first struck iron fireworks performance in more than 25 years took place in Nanshan Square (then a deserted area) in Queshan county.

Queshan struck iron fireworks are different from other struck iron fireworks in that it requires a wide area to perform, whereas others only needed a wall or could be hit straight up into the air, and it costed much more money to set up.

The names of inheritors are difficult to trace, and can only be traced back to the Qing dynasty during the Qian long period, making Yang Jianjun a sixth-generation inheritor, and Jiang Xunqian (OP) the first woman and a seventh-generation inheritor.

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This is a comment by OP:

Ever since two years ago when I saw the stunning iron fireworks, the notion of striking iron fireworks has always lingered in my mind, but I never made a firm resolution, scared that after an accident, I wouldn't have to ability to bear it. After communicating with Teacher Yang Jianjun's iron fireworks team, they never had much confidence that I could strike them successfully. Teacher said in the past thousand years, struck iron fireworks had only been passed down to men, never women, and he had never taken in a female disciple.

After seeing myself, he thought it was even less possible, and the kindhearted Teacher Yang was particularly afraid of the iron fireworks injuring me. The shixiong* in the iron fireworks team also particularly looked after me, and attentively instructed me how to strike so that the large chunks of molten iron wouldn't splash on my body. My camera operator was completely equipped with 1500 degree fire resistant protective clothing, and we had even searched up the closest hospital's address before starting. Under the pergola we prayed for Taishang Laojun** and grandpa to bless and protect me hahaha

The good thing is all of it went very smoothly, although my clothes now have a lot of holes in them, I have some small burns, and some of my hair was also burnt off, but all of this was worth it. I've finally become the first female disciple in the past thousand years, and a seventh generation inheritor of Queshan struck iron fireworks! I hope everyone who sees this video can be courageous, and I hope the iron fireworks blesses and protects everyone to be safe, sound, happy, and for all things to go smoothly!

*师兄 - older martial brother, used for men older than yourself who learned under the same teacher

**太上老君 - lit. The Supreme Lord Lao, one of the main gods of Daoism and the reincarnation of the philosopher Laozi

On Bilibili, OP expands on the significance of the pergola design:

Let me explain to everyone the pergola of the "National Level Cultural Heritage Queshan Struck Iron Fireworks".

The Supreme Ultimate: The whole pergola.

Yin and yang: The upper and lower layers.

The Three Powers: The two layers of the pergola plus the pole going through the centre. The three spaces are a total of 15 metres tall, containing the meaning of "Heaven, Earth, Humans". This type of expression can also be found in "Mawangdui Han Tombs No. 1 Silk Painting" (马王堆一号汉墓帛画)

The four constellation groups: The four directions.

The five elements: East is wood, south is fire, west is metal, north is water, and the centre is earth. At each of the five directions, five flags of green, red, white, black, and yellow are inserted to represent the five elements.

The eight trigrams: The pergola is separated into the upper and lower floors, and the two sets of four corners are staggered to create eight corners, the same shape as an eight trigram compass.

There are three dos and three don'ts for iron fireworks. Don't strike during bad harvest years, don't strike during national mourning, don't strike during war. [T/N: The three "dos" are do strike during good harvest years, do strike during happy occasions, do strike during prospering years.] In the recent past, natural calamities and man-made disasters have extended into several decades, and the chaos of war continuing year after year. The Daoists had passed away, and no one could build a pergola anymore.

The style of the pergola you see now is because of Teacher Yang Jianjun spending more than ten years doing textual research from all sides and reviving it from that.

[translated by me]

Pictures of the comments and a picture OP included with her comment under cut:

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I didn't notice this video (a short film about the preference towards sons over daughters in rural Fujian, i.e. giving daughters disdainful names, denying them schooling, and forcing marriages) was made with AI until like a minute in. Apparently AI can generate Hokkien now (the video uses both accented Mandarin and Hokkien). It's also pretty consistent between shots, although I spotted some inconsistencies. The fact that it was AI was a little unexpected to me, probably because in the West, the type of person who would create this type of short film would also never use AI for it. Until now, the few AI videos I saw on Douyin were mostly meme-y videos or absurd, overly dramatic short dramas.

AI videos are labelled on Douyin, but I still haven't made a habit of checking the label immediately, so I usually only see the label after I've already noticed an AI quality to the video, although I've been tricked before (I think it was a parrot video). My point of reference for AI videos is those Youtube ads for AI vertical short dramas, though, so I'm not all that great at spotting them.

AI is viewed much more positively in China (84% of Chinese respondents agreed with "Products and services using artificial intelligence make me excited" in 2025), and in some polls, China views AI the most positively/least negatively out of all countries polled. Compare this to the West, where 30-40% of Europe and the anglosphere view AI positively. This could be partly because physical labour is still a large portion of China's workforce, or that Doubao (China's most popular AI assistant) is kinda dumb (from what I've heard), so it's less of a threat, but that's speculation. I don't live in China, so I can't say how it is IRL, but that number is definitely reflected on Douyin.

For instance, people candidly talk about their use of Doubao for anything and everything, and often use it to generate images to post in Douyin comments. People commenting under AI videos also pretty much only do so to express shock at the capabilities of AI, and I see pretty much no pushback on the actual use of AI. AI does get brought up a lot under non-AI videos, though, mostly "I can't believe it's not AI!" and the like. One comment I see a lot under process videos is: "In a time when AI is popular, there are still older generations that persevere in making things by hand."

Whenever I do see people concerned about AI, their concerns are pretty much limited to employment, the uncanniness of AI-generated content, and that the ease of generating AI content squeezes out real creators. On the other hand, comments under the video linked above talk about how OP is a talented director (prompting the AI), that the common people creating short films about social issues like this is what AI should be used for, and that "this is what high quality looks like".

I guess I don't really have an actual point, just musing on the difference between attitudes. Obviously I'm not going to post anything AI (unless it's by mistake), so this kind of lets you all get an idea of what I'm wading through here.

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I'm very cis, so it's be great if my trans followers could provide any input. One of my profs used to present 100% as a guy and use he/him pronouns, but now presents androgynously. Someone claimed that the prof goes by she/her now, and some students are using he/him and some are using she/her. Would it be rude to ask what pronouns to use when at office hours?

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Thanks to everyone for the input! Just wanted to know how to be respectful!

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A dad showing off

[eng by me]

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I'm very cis, so it's be great if my trans followers could provide any input. One of my profs used to present 100% as a guy and use he/him pronouns, but now presents androgynously. Someone claimed that the prof goes by she/her now, and some students are using he/him and some are using she/her. Would it be rude to ask what pronouns to use when at office hours?

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Playing on a seesaw

[eng by me]

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OP: "Decarbonized formaldehyde is great. Just wash daikons with decarbonized formaldehyde and they turn white."

"Decarbonized formaldehyde" (脫碳甲醛) is an online phrase used to make fun of people that blindly avoid chemicals. Formaldehyde (H2CO) decarbonized is water (H2O).

[eng by me]

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OP: "Rushing to fly kites in the easterly wind."

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Challenging a cat

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The Asian supermarket by me is selling zongzi (粽子; rice dumpling) for Dragon Boat Festival!

Usually I just eat the ones my grandma or dad make, which are (Southern) Taiwanese style (vegetarian if it's my grandma's).

My parents grew up sometimes eating 鹼粽 (sweet lye water rice dumplings), but I've never eaten sweet zongzi before, so I'm mostly interested in trying the sweet ones. Some of these are more traditional, some are more modern. Which ones should I try, or try first?

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Okay, so I took way too long but I've now tried the Cantonese-style zongzi as well as most of the sweet zongzi. I was also going to try the mixed mushroom one and the taro/coconut milk one, but both sold out before I could get any. Here's my rankings:

Cantonese-style (savoury): 9/10. The mung bean filling was good! The egg yolk and pork were already familiar fillings to me and were >>. Just a tad different from what I'm used to.

Chestnut/millet: 9/10. Love the chestnut paste! Both the millet and chestnut paste were slightly sweetened, IMO to the perfect amount!

Red bean paste: 9/10. The glutinous rice seemed to be plain, which matched well with the sweet red bean paste.

Longan/runner black bean: 8/10. A little too sweet for me, but I love longan so it's getting bumped up a point.

Red date: 7/10. The glutinous rice was a little too sweet, so to me it was a bit much. I think it would benefit from being smaller or having more red date to balance the sweetness.

Lye water/red bean paste: 6/10. The texture was a bit different from the rest (which I actually liked), but it was a bit too sweet and had a weird aftertaste (probably from the lye).

Eight treasures: 5/10. The red bean filling was only slightly sweetened, and the grains didn't seem to be sweetened. Definitely tasted "healthy" lol.

I think the fact that the sweet zongzi were the same size was the savoury ones was a bit of a detriment to them. I did split the sweeter ones in half, but still thought they were too much. I think this might be a me thing?

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Setting up a new yurt for friends to live in during the summer in Inner Mongolia, China. OP has noted in comments that a yurt costs around RMB￥20K.

*Khatas are traditional, ceremonial scarves. Mongolian khatas are usually blue, symbolising the sky.

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OP: "Come visit Kaifeng, Henan, meimei!"

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OP: "Just that one lucky seat, and you drew it?"

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A current Douyin dance trend: Gangnam Style

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Dragon Boat Festival (端午節; duan1wu3jie2) occurs every year on the 5th day of the 5th lunarsolar month, which was June 19 this year (2026). One way that people celebrate is by wrapping and eating zongzi (粽子; sticky rice dumplings).

For Dragon Boat Festival last year (May 31, 2025), I attended a Taiwanese culture club event at National Taiwan University, where they had prepared all the ingredients for the zongzi.

The timing was actually perfect, because finals week was right after Dragon Boat Festival, and "wrapping zongzi" (包粽; bao1zong4) sounds similar to 包中 (bao1zhong4; short for 包考中 or "ensure [you] pass the exam"). Many families will wrap zongzi before a big exam to give their kids a boost of luck.

Since we were making Taiwanese vegan zongzi, they provided glutinous rice stir-fried with peanuts, shitake mushrooms, chestnuts, gluten (in place of pork), kabocha (in place of egg yolk), and more roasted peanuts. (There are no peanuts in the batch in the picture, though, as it was prepared separately from the rest.)

Zongzi in Taiwan can be split into northern and southern types, which differ in ingredients and cooking methods. Other types exist, but are not as popular. Since we were in Taipei, we made northern Taiwanese zongzi (北部粽), in which the glutinous rice is stir-fried, and the wrapped zongzi are steamed. Southern Taiwanese zongzi (南部粽) instead use raw or half-stir-fried glutinous rice, and the wrapped zongzi are boiled. Many southerners will say that northern zongzi is just fried sticky rice (油飯; you2fan4) in the shape of zongzi (my southerner roommates agree), and many northerners find southern zongzi to be too gummy. As a result, every year there are arguments over which is better. (Sidenote: 北方/南方 is used to refer to southern/northern Mainland China, 北部/南部 is used to refer to southern/northern Taiwan).

They then had a few alumni teach everyone how to wrap the zongzi. The method we used was the same as in this video, only there was a lot of emphasis on compacting the rice before wrapping. Since this was a culture club for Taiwanese students to mingle with foreign exchange students, half the attendees did not speak Mandarin (or at least, not to a high enough level), so they had me interpret the instructions into English. I think I did okay for my first time interpreting!

Although it was my first time wrapping zongzi, I ended up helping a few others out and wrapped 6 of them! I was a little surprised how few of the Taiwanese attendees had wrapped zongzi before.

We each got to take 2 home to eat. I didn't have soy sauce paste, so I made do with normal soy sauce.

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Dragon boat racing on land in Yunnan. Land boats are also a prop used in folk art performances for New Year's or other festivals, popular in Shandong, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Hebei.

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Making Cantonese-style zongzi (粽子; sticky rice dumplings) for Dragon Boat Festival (which is on June 19th for 2026). The glutinous rice has red beans added to it, and the filling consists of mung bean, pork, and egg yolk. They are wrapped with bamboo leaves into tetrahedons and then cooked.

As usual, the comments under the video are arguing if sweet (preferred by northerners) or savoury (preferred by southerners) zongzi are better.