Footprints

For 14 years, Li Nannan has devoted her life to elderly care in Nantong, east China's Jiangsu Province. By day, she's a head nurse, tending to residents' medical and daily needs. Each spring, she walks into the Great Hall of the People in Beijing as a deputy to the National People's Congress. Bridging caregiving and policymaking, Li strives to push for reforms to improve the country's aging societ...

Horses have long been a powerful and enduring motif in artistic expression across cultures and centuries. In the modern history of Chinese art, Xu Beihong stands as the most iconic master of horse painting. By seamlessly blending traditional Chinese brushwork with Western artistic techniques, his galloping horses came to embody freedom, resilience, and an indomitable fighting spirit. In this podca...

In the plains of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region's Junggar Basin, a lost species gallops home. Once extinct in the wild, Przewalski's horses now reclaim the steppe, their wild hearts beating free. Decades of quiet dedication, tireless care, and unwavering hope have made this return possible.

In this episode, the hooves are replaced by horse-hair: the Morin Khuur speaks, sighs and gallops in the hands of the soloist Morin Khuur performer Chaoke Jiletu. You'll feel 180 nylon filaments tremble like prairie grass, and learn why the bow is called the instrument's "two legs." Just let the steppe gallop straight into your headphones.

In Beijing's Shunyi District, a nonprofit organization called HOPE (Horses Offering People Enrichment) is bringing children with special needs together with horses, and changing lives in the process. Founded in 2009 by American physical therapist Priscilla Lightsey, HOPE began as a personal mission and has grown into a community of dedicated staff members and hundreds of volunteers. This episode e...

For archaeologist Dong Ningning, horse bones are historical archives. Through scientific analysis, she interprets their clues to reconstruct the animal's profound impact on ancient Chinese transportation, language, social hierarchy and other aspects of lives and culture.

Dong Lina is the first visually impaired person in China to earn a master's degree in broadcasting. With quiet perseverance, she has charted an unconventional path, opening new possibilities for others like her to pursue their life goals.

Nestled in the mountains of southwest China's Guizhou Province, Zheng'an County has become the world's guitar capital – producing one out of every seven guitars around the globe. Amid the hum of factories and the rhythm of craftsmanship, a 25-year-old South Korean named Kim Jung-hun has found his place. As a sales manager for a South Korean guitar accessories company, Kim is embracing new opportun...

Have you ever dreamed of cycling around the world? For most of us, that seems too challenging, too expensive, and too risky. But for Luo Mingning, aka Mowgli, dreams are meant to be chased. A bike mechanic originally from a small village in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, southwest China, Mowgli set off on a bamboo bicycle he had built himself. From April 2022 to November 2025, he spent four yea...

Against all odds, researcher Zhao Zhihai pioneered the world's first hybrid foxtail millet, achieving a major agricultural breakthrough. His "Zhangzagu" varieties broke yield records and introduced herbicide resistance, transforming a subsistence crop into a high-yield, drought-tolerant solution for China and Africa.

When Shanghai police officer Jiang Jingwei was mistaken for a long-lost son, he made a decision that would change the life of a family 1,000 miles away. In 2003, in north China's Shanxi Province, an accident claimed Liang Qiaoying's eldest child and left her paralyzed, with the cognitive level of a young child. To protect her from the devastating truth, her husband, Xia Zhanhai, told her their son...

This July, Thomas Rabe, Chairman of the John Rabe Communication Center, was granted the Friendship Envoy Award at the second Orchid Awards in Beijing for promoting cultural understanding and friendship between China and Germany. Eighty-eight years ago, his grandfather John Rabe, a German businessman stationed in Nanjing in 1937, managed to shelter and save 250,000 Chinese civilians from atrocities...

Women hold up half the sky. This is a well-known saying in China. It's been three decades since China declared gender equality a basic national policy. So, what is the progress in social status of Chinese women today? In this podcast, we will find the answer from Guo Ye, Director of the Women’s Studies Institute of China, who has been actively involved in the promotion of gender equality and women...

​For more than a decade, Hu Zijing has championed Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in South Africa against all odds. His contributions have been both foundational and far-reaching: he played an instrumental role in launching South Africa’s first accredited university degree program in acupuncture and drafted the national regulations governing the dispensing of TCM medicines.

When Louis Koen first came to China in 2002, it wasn't part of a grand plan. As a teenager, he and his sister followed their mother from South Africa to Yinchuan in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, where she had taken a job teaching English. That move kick-started a journey of connection, discovery, and belonging that has lasted more than two decades. Today, Louis teaches English at Lanzhou Universi...

The ancient city of Kashi boasts a history of more than 2,000 years. Its rich history, distinctive architectural style and vibrant ethnic culture are trademarks of its charm. Sitting in the earthquake zone in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the ancient city, whose old buildings were mainly adobe-structured, have undergone a major renovation in recent years, to improve its tremor resistan...

​For over three decades, Jing Laihong has shaped China's water conservancy through innovative work on projects like the sediment-challenged Xiaolangdi Water Conservancy Project on the Yellow River. His engineering innovations in flood and sediment control prove that a lasting harmony between humanity and the power of nature can be achieved.

Nestled in the mountains of southwest China's Guizhou Province, Zheng'an County has become the world's guitar capital – producing one out of every seven guitars around the globe. Amid the hum of factories and the rhythm of craftsmanship, a 25-year-old South Korean named Kim Jung-hun has found his place. As a sales manager for a South Korean guitar accessories company, Kim is embracing new opportun...

Join us for an insightful conversation with Dato' Abdul Majid Ahmad Khan, a veteran Malaysian diplomat who spent 12 years in China. From serving as Malaysian Ambassador to China (1998-2005) to his current role leading the Malaysia-China Friendship Association, Dato' Majid has dedicated decades to fostering mutual understanding and collaboration between the two nations.

Joshua Dominick, affectionately known as "Lao Tan" in Chinese, has spent more than two decades in Beijing. Originally from the U.S., Josh speaks fluent Chinese and has become a familiar face in the local community. In 2013, he founded Krankin' Thru China, an organization dedicated to empowering individuals with disabilities to engage in outdoor sports across the country.

For Luo Dingjun, traveling between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland has become second nature. Born and raised in Taipei, the 37-year-old has built a life in Shenyang, a vibrant city in northeast China's Liaoning Province. As the founder of the WeChat Official Account "Cross-Strait Youths," Luo has spent over a decade fostering connections and understanding between people on both sides of the Taiwan...

Known as the world's capital of small commodities, Yiwu in eastern China attracts hundreds of thousands of sellers and buyers from home and abroad every day. Harold Mori, a young Peruvian man, is one of them. In this podcast, Mori shares his story of how he started his trading business from scratch right here in Yiwu.

She came to China to study but ended up building a home, a thriving career and so much more. Meet Nguyen Thi Lan, a Vietnamese entrepreneur who has spent over a decade in Chongqing, southwest China. From navigating student life to launching two successful businesses, she has embraced the energy of this dynamic "Mountain City." Now, as the leader of the Vietnamese Association in Chongqing-Sichuan,...

A healer by day, a warrior by night – can these two worlds coexist? For Shi Ming, they don't just coexist – they collide. The 30-year-old is both a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioner and an MMA fighter. In November 2024, she stunned the world with a crushing head kick at the Road to UFC finals, sending the crowd into a frenzy. What drives her to both heal and conquer? How does she bal...

On the tranquil shores of Lugu Lake in southwestern China live the Mosuo people, an ethnic group known for their matrilineal traditions. Right by the lake, in a village called Daluoshui in Lijiang, Yunnan Province, stands a modest yet remarkable museum dedicated to preserving this vibrant culture. Founded by two locals in the late 1990s, the Mosuo Folk Museum struggled for years to survive until a...