AliExpress’ “weird delivery system” is THE FUCKING POST OFFICE YOU IDIOT!

I hate you so much right now.

Well, I kind of think blaming the right people is important. But it’s easier to blame people literally half a world away from you, isn’t it?

It’s not “their” delivery system, though. Their logistics system ends at the border. After that it’s in the hands of whoever did the local delivery.

Living in China my own time sink for this kind of stuff is obviously Chinese. 🤣 But before I came to China I was always intrigued by the central American civilizations.

The kit I got was the most expensive of that particular vendor’s starter kit family and it cost me about 105RMB (15USD). It comes with everything in this picture—original left, (bad) translation right. (Click through to see full size with readable translation.)

It’s not a top-quality kit, obviously, at that price. A top-quality set of chisels alone would be more than five times the price of that whole set, but for beginners it’s absolutely fine. The weird rubber stamps are basically a way of getting an image onto your stone for practice. Anything that’s not red after you do your impression is to be carved down. I don’t want to have to learn carving while I’m learning Chinese calligraphy, so that’s a bonus. Loads of these kinds of rubber stamps are available for both direct use and for practising seal carving, and practice-grade stones are about 0.25USD each. (High quality chop stones can exceed $20 for the size range displayed here and can exceed $600 for the more esoteric stone types in larger sizes.)

And if I decide I enjoy the hobby, I’ll upgrade the components over time.

I’m a sucker for anything non-European in history and folklore. (I don’t dislike the European stuff, just that I’ve been exposed to it all my life so it feels “ordinary”.)

There’s some special stones used for most chops that are durable, yet paradoxically easy to carve. (Not entirely dissimilar to soapstone, but without the soapy feel.) I’ve got about a dozen practice stones, each of which is probably good for at least a dozen attempts to get a proper image on them. That’ll last me for a while and when I reach the end that when I decide if I want to continue or not.

I literally just this week picked up a kit for carving 印章 (those Chinese seal stamps) and carved my first one last night.

I botched it.

Thankfully it’s really easy to erase and start over. 🤣

“Set” to flee.

The best time to leave X for being a Nazi bar was at least a year ago.

The second best time to leave X for being a Nazi bar is right now.

And they’re “set”. Implying future.