Intro for February 17, 2026

Dear Gossips,

新年快樂!

Happy New Year!

May the Year of the Horse bring happiness and good health, and do I ever need it. My ma was sick last weekend, I’ve been sick this past weekend, so the most apt Lunar New Year greeting for me right now is…

龍馬精神!

The first character in that expression is “dragon”, the second is “horse”. And the last two together mean wide awake, high spirits. So 龍馬精神 means “wishing you the energy of a dragon and a horse”. We’re all going to need it to keep up.

You know who has the energy of a dragon and a horse? Jackie Chan.

Lunar New Year is a huge deal in the entertainment industry in China. One of the most important traditions in Chinese culture during LNY is for people to return home, 回家, as the holiday is a time for reunion. Many if not most families gather for the annual togetherness dinner on Lunar New Year’s eve – in Cantonese we call it 團年飯 – and if it’s happening at home, the TV is always on and everyone’s always watching one of the broadcasts. The North American equivalent would be the New York City ball drop shows.

With all due respect though, the Chinese LNY telecasts make the western versions look like high school talent contests. First of all, many if not most of the biggest stars in the Chinese entertainment industry are expected to show up for the LNY galas and perform. Wang Yibo is a megastar in the east, like it’s impossible to overstate his reach. And he was out here dancing and singing for his life last night on the national broadcast along with Aaron Kwok, one of the four Canto Heavenly Kings, who is now 60 years old, but you wouldn’t know it from the way he moves because he too has the energy of the dragon and horse.

But that’s still eleven years younger than Jackie Chan, now 71 years old, who performed a digital duet with Lionel Richie that by western standards is corny, by Chinese standards earnest, and by my standards, as a product of two cultures, bonkers in the best way. But also… look at the f-cking scale of this production.

If we’re talking about the scale of production, though, that’s not the moment from the Lunar New Year galas that’s gone the most viral and broke through the algorithm. This is what’s crossed over into every feed because… well… if you haven’t seen the martial arts robotic performance yet, your mind is about to be blown. I played this for Jacek who is never patient with whatever I’m trying to show him and he stood there, mesmerised in disbelief, for several minutes. It’s already terrifyingly impressive in the first 30 seconds but they just keep flexing all the way to the end.

I don’t know what this means for us, eventually, but today, I can confidently assure you that there is one thing robots can’t do with the vigor of the dragon and the horse: GOSSIP.

So may the Year of the Gossip bless us with good, fun gossip. May we gossip with the vitality of dragon and the horse alongside the reliability and responsibility of the Ox.

恭喜發財!

萬事如意!

Yours in gossip,

Lainey