Vol. I · ISSUE NO. 001 Thursday, March 12, 2026
Morning Ed. Weekly

Essay

A Beginning

Every newspaper has the day it is first printed.

The ink is still fresh, the paper hasn’t yet softened from handling, and the fold is clean and straight. Readers don’t yet know how many mornings this paper will accompany them. The editor doesn’t know when it will stop, or whether it ever will.

Yanlines is the beginning of such a publication.


The name comes from a simple idea: lines are both the way words arrange themselves on a page, and the paths that a life takes. Between words and lines is the place where thinking takes shape — the space where language breathes.

I’m not entirely sure what will be written here. Perhaps reading notes, extended meditations on small everyday things, technical observations, or the sudden clarity of an idea at midnight. Sometimes in Chinese, sometimes in English.

One thing I’m certain of: it will be written slowly, and carefully.


I have always liked the typography of newspapers. Not out of nostalgia, but because the form itself carries an attitude: the page has limits, so every inch is worth allocating with care. The typeface is chosen, so the act of reading is itself an aesthetic experience. The column rule between stories is a quiet kind of order.

There is too much content in the digital age. Everything competes for attention. Everything demands an immediate response. What I want is a different rhythm — like picking up a newspaper, folding it properly, finding a quiet place, and reading from the first column.

This is the first line of Yanlines.


Written in March 2026, on an ordinary afternoon.