Guides & How-tos · Worked examples · Real numbers

Chinese Culture guides

Step-by-step how-tos, head-to-head comparisons and honest roundups — every guide worked through with current figures, then backed by a RECATOOLS calculator or AI-directory entry so you can act on it.

185 guides published 15 topic areas Latest guide Aug 2026

All 185 AI & ML 47 Finance 27 Cybersecurity 24 Developer Tools 20 Science 10 Chinese Culture 9

Ink-wash drawing of a scholar's table: a corded stack of thread-bound volumes, one open beside them, with a brush resting on an inkstone.

Chinese Culture 6 min

What Links the 36 Stratagems to the Art of War's 13 Chapters

The two are separate books a thousand years apart, so a stratagem filed under a chapter is a reading aid, not a lineage....

Eva Chin

Pub. 13 Aug

A worn mid-century booklet of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, of the kind the collection first surfaced in.

Chinese Culture 6 min

How Well Attested Are the 36 Stratagems?

The Thirty-Six Stratagems are introduced as ancient military history. Reading all thirty-six origin texts end to end, tw...

Eva Chin

Pub. 13 Aug

A calligraphy brush drawing a broad ink stroke on white paper.

Chinese Culture 10 min

How Chinese Given Names Actually Work — and Why Everyone Picks the Same Ones

A person could once carry four names: a milk name, a generation character shared with every cousin, a given name, and a...

Eva Chin

Pub. 1 Aug

The Khoo Kongsi clan house in George Town, Penang — a Hokkien clan association of the kind that keeps surname and dialect-group records.

Chinese Culture 10 min

Tracing Chinese Ancestry in Southeast Asia: Start With How Your Name Is Spelled

Tan, Chan and Chin are the same character. Which one is on your IC records which dialect group your family belonged to,...

Eva Chin

Pub. 1 Aug

A thin new crescent moon in a deep navy twilight sky above the silhouetted rooflines of tropical shophouses, a minaret and palm trees.

Chinese Culture 9 min

Dates, Calendars and Holidays Across ASEAN

Ask our working-days calculator how many working days Singapore has in 2026 and it used to say 252. The answer is 251 —...

Eva Chin

Pub. 29 Jul

An antique brass compass with degree gradations and cardinal markings resting on an old map beside a rope and book

Chinese Culture 28 min

How a Luopan Actually Works: the Chinese Compass and Its 24 Mountains

An honestly-framed look at the Chinese geomantic compass as an instrument: the needle housing, the rotating plate, and t...

Amelia Wong

Pub. 25 Jul

Looking through a traditional Chinese timber doorway to an inner screen bearing a taiji symbol set in a tiled grid

Chinese Culture 19 min

Feng Shui Kua Numbers and the Eight Mansions, Explained: One Formula, Eight Trigrams, Three New Years

An honestly-framed look at how Eight Mansions (八宅) is actually constructed: the Later Heaven trigram grid it runs on,...

Amelia Wong

Pub. 25 Jul

Rows of red Chinese lanterns with gold tassels strung against a clear blue sky above a tiled roof

Chinese Culture 16 min

The Chinese Zodiac Beyond Horoscopes: 12 Animals, 5 Elements, and How Compatibility Really Works

An honestly-framed look at how the Chinese zodiac is actually built: the twelve animals and the ancient Earthly Branches...

Amelia Wong

Pub. 25 Jul

Traditional Chinese calligraphy brushes resting on paper covered in brushed Chinese characters

Chinese Culture 17 min

What Bazi Actually Is: Reading the Four Pillars of Destiny, for Beginners

A plain-English, honestly-framed look at how a Bazi (Four Pillars) chart is constructed: eight characters, ten Heavenly...

Amelia Wong

Pub. 24 Jul