I listen to a Chinese-language learning podcast, based at chinesepod.com, which has helped me keep my Chinese listening and speaking fresh, though it’s not helping my writing. I also subscribe to their blog, which contains both language and cultural news. There’s one quote from the latest story on corrupt government officials and their mistresses, and this quote about one of the mistresses really took me aback:

Li Yuchun exposed him after she learned he was laundering money. After she blew the whistle, she also was sent to jail this summer for five years for harboring a criminal, her brother — a sentence that drew public outcry over the risks of exposing corrupt government officials.

She was so enraged at her prosecution that in the courtroom, she bit her finger and with the blood scrawled on paper: “This is revenge,” her lawyer, Jin Xuekong, said.

“She has a very strong spirit,” he said.

The bolding is mine. Wow, I haven’t heard of anyone writing in their own blood in court before. That’s pretty intense.