I'm Ray Chen — a curious person who writes to think and thinks to write.

This digital garden is where I collect and connect ideas across the things I care about: technology, design, learning, and how knowledge actually works. Some posts are polished essays; others are seeds — loose thoughts that might grow into something bigger over time. There's no publishing schedule, no pressure. Just a place to think out loud.

What you'll find here

I write about whatever I'm curious about at the time. That means you'll find a mix of topics — books I'm reading, food I'm cooking, music I'm listening to, places I've travelled, and trails I've hiked. On the technical side, I dig into web development, software design, and the tools that shape how we build things. The thread that connects it all is a love of learning and a habit of writing things down to understand them better.

I read and write in both English and Chinese, which is why this site has built-in translation support for Simplified and Traditional Chinese readers.

About the site

Digital Garden is built with Astro, a modern web framework that ships zero JavaScript by default. Every page is pre-rendered at build time — fast load times, no unnecessary bloat. If you're curious about the technical decisions behind this site, I wrote a whole post about it.

Get in touch

If something I've written resonates with you, or if you just want to say hi, feel free to reach out. You can find me on GitHub.