A new model launched on 22 September, and across the same week markets in Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, English and the Taiwan region of China were all searching for the AI's name. This piece does not review the model; it is about asking — a question at a temple and a question in a chat box actually want the same thing: an answer from outside.
On 22 September, Spain's Congress voted to take up a proposal: people with 40 years of contributions would no longer have their pension cut for retiring early, and the change would reach back to those already retired. Under current rules the cut runs from 2.81% to 21%. This piece is about "enough," and how two different reckonings answer it.
"El Niño" translates literally as "the Christ child" — the baby Jesus. Fishermen in Peru noticed the water warming around Christmas and gave it that name. This piece looks at why we habitually name what we cannot see, and treat it as a being with a temper.
The 2026 autumn equinox (00:05 UTC on 23 September, 08:04:56 Beijing time) lands on the evening of 22 September in Mexico. Around sunset, seven inverted-triangle patches of light surface on the north staircase of the Kukulcán Pyramid at Chichén Itzá and join into a serpent crawling downward. This article looks at how the phenomenon is calculated, and at what locals are doing these days.
Since 22 September, Katmai National Park in the United States has opened its annual Fat Bear Week poll, with brown bears competing for the "fattest" title; the same week, Japan's trending searches are about which street a bear walked into. One bear is stocking up on fat, and a crowd of people is also getting ready for winter — this article looks at what "harvest in autumn, store for winter" has grown into in animals and in people.
The Pacific has been busy on several fronts these days: in the Northwest Pacific, what Japan is tracking is "Typhoon No. 25" (DUJUAN, Dujuan), while in the eastern Pacific there is hurricane "Polo". One side uses only a number, the other hands out a personal name — this article is about the naming of storms, and about why a name has never been a small matter in folklore.
Bear sightings in Japan peak from September to November each year. Matagi bear hunters change the way they speak as they head into the mountains: miso is not called miso, salt is not called salt; once a bear is taken they first perform a rite called kebokai to return the bear's soul to the mountain god. This piece covers only folklore and taboos, not injury incidents.
Mid-Autumn 2026 falls on 25 September (the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month). Under the same moon, what takes the star role in the Taiwan region of China is often not mooncake but a grill — people cook at the front door, on the rooftop, in the riverside parks. This "tradition" is in fact quite young: it was made by a soy sauce advertisement, by grills that switched from export to the domestic market, and by mass retailers' seasonal campaigns.
On 21 September people queue outside flower shops across several Latin American countries for yellow roses: the day comes from a song in the Argentine series Floricienta, and it is bound up with spring beginning in the southern hemisphere. In Chinese floriography, though, the yellow rose is often described as "faded love". One flower, two systems of meaning — this article is about how flower meanings get made.
Chuseok (추석) 2026 in Korea falls on 25 September (day 15 of the eighth lunar month), with the holiday running 24 to 26 September. Among the terms Koreans searched most over these two days are both "parents-in-law" and "daughter-in-law". This article is about how the offering table is laid out: fish east and meat west, jujubes and chestnuts and pears and persimmons, red east and white west — and what Korean media fact-checks found: these rules have no traceable source in the old documents.
In 2026 the Autumn Equinox falls at 08:04:56 on 23 September (about 08:05, China Standard Time), and at that same instant the calendar in Brazil reads 21:05 on 22 September — the minute spring begins in the southern hemisphere. This article is about the range over which solar terms and the month order apply: why one and the same calendar feels out of season in two hemispheres, and the three things anyone born in the southern hemisphere should confirm before casting a chart.
A zodiac annual fortune puts the branch of your birth year against the branch of the year in question, while a full chart has four pillars and eight characters. This piece sets out what that single layer can and cannot tell you, and the order in which it is worth using.
