Chinese Literature Podcast

Today, Lee has a fascinating interview with Professor Christopher Atwood , of the University of Pennsylvania. He studies the Mongolian and Chinese Frontier, and he recently published  The Rise of the Mongols: Five Chinese Sources . Lee and Professor Atwood talk about the book and, more broadly, the early Chinese experience with the Mongols. 

In this episode, a century-old Lu Xun story, Kong Yi Ji, has become popular again. The story reflects the struggles of youth unemployment in modern China. The story blows up on the Chinese internet. A rap song reinterprets that story, addressing contemporary issues like education and working conditions. The story demonstrates that Lu Xun remains relevant, and the debates he sparked continue today....

A Taiwanese lesbian begins using dating apps, finds the love of her life, and then realizes she is not the love of her  life , but decides to marry her any ways. You won't want to miss this week's episode is a strange look at marriage and death.

Today, we look at the somber poem of a Foxconn worker, Xu Lizhi. His poem, "A Screw Falls to the Ground," is a masterclass of how modern Chinese poetry is able to live up to the standards set by classical Chinese poetry. In this episode, I try to discuss what role the author's biography plays in how we interpret their poetry.

This is the first in a two-part mini-series on the screw in modern Chinese literature. Yep, that is right, the screw, the humble tool which binds the world. This week, I am looking at a passage in Lei Feng's diary on how he wants to be a screw for the Revolution, with a capital R. 

Mr. Close Enough...Mr. Cha Buduo. He never seems to get things quite right, but he represents everything China is about. This is his story, a short, sardonic piece by the scholar and UN Ambassador Hu Shi. In some ways, Mr. Close Enough echos Lu Xun's Ah Q, in other ways it is the polar opposite of that story. 

Xu Xu is a writer who was very famous in the 1930's and 1940's. He lived in China until 1949, he was one of the country's most important writers during this period. Then, after the victory of the CCP, he, fearing for his safety, left for Hong Kong. He continued to write but drifted into obscurity. Professor Frederik Green at San Francisco State University published a translation of his work with S...

Liu Xijun was a princess. Her father and mother were executed when they rebelled against the emperor, her great uncle. Liu was sent to marry a king of the distant Wusun, a group of Central Asian herders that the emperor was trying to curry favor with. This is her poem. 

This week, the Chinese Literature Podcast goes where few literary scholars have gone before. We take a look at some poetry by sex workers in the city of Dalian. In the podcast, I use the poem to tackle issues of gender in China. Be forewarned, there is some explicit language in this poetry. 

This week, Lee interviews Kyle Anderson, who has just published the first volume in a young adult series titled MountainSea Scrolls. This first volume is called The 9 Tailed Fox . Dr. Anderson describes the series as Narnia meets China.  Dr. Anderson has also worked in translation and academia, and his work includes the translation of the fascinating  Forget Me . 

On the previous episode, I went all the way to the beginning of Chinese literature. This episode, I explore a contemporary novel, Mo Yan's Red Sorghum. It won Mo Yan the Nobel Prize, it has been made into a famous movie, this novel has been very influential. Let's dive in!

Oracle Bones (甲骨文) are the oldest written Chinese texts that have ever been discovered. Today, Lee looks at what Oracle Bones are, how they were discovered in the 1890's and reads out the translation of two of them in a podcast that takes it back to the very beginning of Chinese literature. 

Our 'traditional' new year/end of the year podcast where we update listeners on what is happening with our lives and the podcast. This year, we sadly have to announce that Rob is no longer going to be a regular contributer to the podcast. Lee will be taking both reins, though Rob will come back on from time to time. In this episode, Rob and Lee discuss the podcast, its history and their lives. 

This week we have a poem by Gu Cheng 顧城, one of the wonderboys to come out of the 1980's. He left China, immigrating to New Zealand, got a teaching job and then murdered his wife with an ax. His poetry was as sharp and succinct as his ax.

In this week's episode, we look at a series of three poems by Su Dongpo, the Song poet who was sent into exile multiple times. This series of poems is about his time in the crummiest of exiles, on Hainan Island. Drunkeness here is a metaphor for giving up on life in officialdom (though it was also non-metaphorical as well...). 

This week, Rob and Lee look at a short essay where Ouyang Xiu talks about a Mei Yaochen poem that he finds woven into the fabric of a barbarian's bag. Their discussion touches not only on the poem, but also on questions of the materiality of literature. 

Bei Dao is one of the first great poets in the Post-Mao era, and this short poem demonstrates why. 

This week looks a poem by Mao Zedong celebrating the communist defeat of a tiny parasite. "Shooing Away the God of Epidemics" was written in 1956 upon Mao hearing that a county in Jiangxi had eliminated all their blood flukes.  #1 China's green waters and the blue mountains are so numerous but even the great ancient Chinese medical theorist Hua Tou is unable to take care of this little worm, The t...

This week, we are looking at a poem in the news. We are airing on Saturday, October 15th, 2022. On Thursday October 13th, 2022, just three days before Chairman Xi Jinping is supposed to be anointed for his third term, someone mounted the Sitong Bridge in Beijing and unfurled two banners. One had a poem which read:   We don't want nucleic acid [tests], we want to eat We don't want the Cultural Revo...

Today's podcast is Rob-less, and it looks at the 1052 poem by Wang Anshi, China's controversial economic thinker. This poem (probably) has little to do with Wang's economic policies, but is rather all about his love for his father and elder brothers and his meditation on his own mortality. 

The last episode in our mini-series on Zhuangzi, we look at one of the most elequent passages in all of the Zhuangzi, even if it almost certainly was not written by Zhuangzi himself. Autumn Floods focuses on understanding how tiny we are in the universe. 

He cuts the ox without dulling his blade because he uses the Dao to do it. He does not hack, but rather finds the spaces in between to seek out the path of least resistance for his cleaver. And he is one of the most important parables to come out of Zhuangzi. This week, Rob and Lee turn to Butcher Ting. 

Today is part 2 of our accidental series onf Zhuangzi. We did not mean to do a series on Zhuangzi, but the book is just too fascinating to put down. This week, we try to get at what the meaning of Dao (not Tao, as we explain), at least, what it means according to Zhuangzi.