NüVoices

When Leta Hong Fincher’s book “ Leftover Women” was first published ten years ago, it was considered a seminal work on Chinese feminism. The book outlines the structural discrimination, wholly reinforced by the government, used to demonize educated women in their late twenties and early thirties who remain unmarried. A decade later, and with Xi’s continual reinforcement of patriarchal ideals and t...

Happy Lunar New Year to all who celebrate! To kick off the year of the dragon, we have the one and only Fuchsia Dunlop on our podcast this week. She discusses her recent book, ' Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food .' This episode is hosted by Lijia Zhang. Thank you for your interest in our bimonthly, independent podcast. To support our editorial goals and help us keep prod...

This week, NüVoices board members and co-hosts Jessie Lau and Lijia Zhang are in conversation with Wanqing Zhang , an independent journalist, to discuss China's feminist movement taking place online. Despite formidable challenges such as censorship, harassment, and societal pressures, these feminists continue to resist patriarchal norms, as revealed in Wanqing's recent in-depth feature f...

Everyone in our NüVoices community: happy 2024! To start the new year, host Solarina Ho delves into the new captivating documentary, " How to Have an American Baby " with filmmaker Leslie Tai. An exploration of a shadow economy catering to Chinese tourists seeking U.S. citizenship for their newborns, the film unveils the fortunes and tragedies of the mothers involved. Leslie Tai, the cre...

It has been more than half a year since a Facebook post referencing the Netflix drama Wave Makers sparked a wave of #MeToo revelations across Taiwanese society. In this episode, we trace the origins of the movement, what has happened since, and where things stand going forward with guests Darice Chang and Rita Jhang. Alongside host Solarina Ho, they also share their insights and perspectives on th...

In this special collaboration with Ghost Island Media ,  host Emily Y. Wu discusses the importance of local and diverse perspectives when it comes to global coverage of Taiwan. Taipei-based journalists Silva Shih, Afore Hsieh, Wen-Yee Lee join Emily in this wide-ranging discussion.   Taiwan's upcoming election has become one of the most closely monitored  events in decades, drawing the attent...

Have you ever been laughed at by family or friends when you tried speaking a new language? It's particularly disheartening when it’s the language your family speaks. In this episode,  we speak to artist and illustrator Pearl Low on the difficulties of finding safe spaces for language learning, especially for heritage language learners. Heritage language learners are people who have a certain...

In this week's episode, we delve deep into the LGBTQ movement in Taiwan. Our guest, Wen Liu , brings her expertise as an assistant research professor at Academia Sinica, adding valuable insights into the history and evolution of queer rights in Taiwan. Wen Liu and our host, Sophia Yan , explore the movement's origins, its pivotal moments, and the courageous individuals who paved the way...

This week, Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian , China reporter at Axios, joins host Joanna Chiu to dive deep into her latest book, Beijing Rules . In its pages, Bethany details China's sophisticated strategy of leveraging its economic prowess, manipulating both access and denial, to shape the behavior of individuals, governments, and companies globally. Bethany illustrates how entities are compelled no...

Journalist Clarissa Wei and chef Ivy Chen join us this week to talk about their new book Made in Taiwan: Recipes and Stories from the Island Nation . According to host Solarina Ho, Made in Taiwan is both timeless and timely, and is more than a recipe book. It's a celebration of Taiwanese culture and its people through its unique culinary identity.  In this episode, we discuss how food fits in...

We're flying into fall with new episodes two weeks in a row! Scholar and author Julia Lovell is in conversation with host Lijia Zhang about her role as chief organizer of The Hidden Century , an exhibition currently on display at the British Museum until October 8th. The exhibition is the first of its kind to pay tribute to the creative expression and individuality of the Qing dynasty – an er...

Happy end of summer! We're continuing our Taiwan series with Yun-Ching Ko, campaign director for the Taiwan Innocence Project (TIP), the only NGO in Taiwan that's committed to exonerating the wrongfully convicted by providing legal services and working to reform the judicial system. In this episode, Ko delves into her work with host Sophia Yan and discusses cases she has worked on. Those...

Author Abigail Hing Wen joins NüVoices to discuss her NYT best selling YA novel, Loveboat, Taipei and its film adaptation Love in Taipei , based on the summer study tour that started more than half a century ago. For the price of a plane ticket and about $400, diaspora students between 18 and 23 from the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere participated in the government-subsidized, six-week language and c...

This week, we’ve reached the 100th episode of the NüVoices podcast! To celebrate, we’ve brought together hosts Megan Cattel, Solarina Ho, and Sophia Yan for a panel discussion with a grab-bag of topics – from geopolitical current events to pop culture.  We’ll be discussing the recent news of Coco Lee’s death, and the hosts share their favorite songs as well as what the singer meant to them. They’l...

For the next half year leading up to the elections in Taiwan, we will be bringing you a mini-series focusing entirely on the island, from domestic politics to its relationship to neighboring China. For this first installment of the Taiwan mini-series, host Sophia Yan speaks to Yu-Jie Chen, an assistant research fellow from Academic Sinica who focuses on Human Rights and International relations wit...

"Commercial dating agencies that facilitate marriages across national borders comprise a $2.5 billion global industry. Ideas about the industry are rife with stereotypes—younger ... brides being paired with older Western men. These ideas are more myth than fact, Monica Liu finds in Seeking Western Men ." This week, NüVoices host Solarina Ho speaks with sociologist and assistant professor...

This week, NüVoices co-host and editor of the podcast, Megan Cattel speaks to Charlotte Ming and Beimeng Fu, two founders of the Far & Near Substack newsletter .  Far & Near aims to depict China in all its complexity by shining a light on the country's visual journalism and showing the human side of some of the biggest headlines coming out of the country. At a time where in-depth, on-...

Chinese millennials are fed up with the 996 grind (working from 9 AM until 9 PM, 6 days a week) and are going remote. Office workers across the country are freelancing, consulting clients, and starting their own businesses from their laptops; some are traveling to neighboring countries and regions with cheaper living costs. To shed light on this trend, Jing Daily's senior editor, Crystal Tai,...

This week, NüVoices host and co-founder Joanna Chiu speaks to Canadian journalist and author Jan Wong.  Jan was one of very few foreigners able to travel to China during the Cultural Revolution where she talked herself into studying at Peking University before working as a news assistant in the New York Times’ first Beijing bureau. Back then, the “office” consisted of two rooms in the Peking Hotel...

This week, Yaxue Cao, the founder and editor of ChinaChange.org, joins the NüVoices podcast. ChinaChange.org is an English-language website devoted to news and commentary related to civil society, rule of law, and human rights activities in China. She works to help the rest of the world understand what people are thinking and doing to effect change in the country. Reports and translations on China...

Today, we have a special guest on the podcast (and a worthy NüVoices ally) MIT Tech Review reporter, Zeyi Yang! Together with co-hosts Megan Cattel and Solarina Ho, Zeyi talks about China's initial reception to ChatGPT and all the uproar and suspicion surrounding TikTok. What are valid concerns surrounding the app and Bytedance? What are oversimplifications made by members of Congress and Wes...

This week, host Megan Cattel speaks to science fiction and fantasy translator, Emily Xueni Jin, on the art of translation and the rise of Chinese science fiction. During the course of this discussion, Emily explains her process of translating work, and the special relationship she develops to writers who are bilingual themselves. The result is often a collaborative process, as Emily herself explai...

Trigger warning: This episode briefly mentions suicide at 01:15 and 15:45. This week host Lijia Zhang speaks to Tania Branigan , current Foreign Leader Writer and former China Correspondent at The Guardian . In this episode, they discuss her new book Red Memory , about the Cultural Revolution, and more importantly about the suppression of memories, and how a society comes to terms with a tragedy d...

A Ming Dynasty courtesan who transforms into a zombie. A family of ghosts wreaking havoc on a local hot spring. Elite Hong Kong bankers who are secretly serial killers.  Welcome to the world of Lindsay Wong's new short story collection Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality, a pleasantly grotesque series of "immigrant horror stories." Lindsay joins Joanna Chiu and Megan Cattel to...

This week we speak to Liza Lin, an award-winning journalist and technology reporter at The Wall Street Journal who has covered China for over a decade on topics ranging from digital surveillance to venture capital. Liza has reported on the acceleration of digital tools like facial recognition in China, tracing the initial large investments in this sector to its implementation by the Chinese govern...