Chinese Literature Podcast

Death is tough to grapple with, but it is a reality we, all to often, face the wrong way. In this episode, we take a look at how Zhuangzi, the famed Warring States philosopher, mourns his dead wife. 

Where did the Uighur name come from? It might seem crazy, but a poet in the 1930's took Uighur as his penname, and the Uighur people may have taken their name from that man (well, it is a little bit more complicated than that, but those are the basics). Abdukhaliq Uighur called on his people to rise up against the Chinese and become the Uighur people. We look at a poem that he wrote when he was fa...

Xi Xi, one of Hong Kong's most famous writers, pens a weird, postmodern portrait of Hong Kong. Rob does not like it, Lee does. Why? Take a listen as they tackle this weird and sometimes wonderful effort to deal with what Hong Kong is. Or, is it even Hong Kong?

This week, we tackle the biggest question in Confucianism: are people born good and made bad by their environment, or are they inherently bad and only made good through rules and punishments. We look at a passage in the Mencius, arguably the most important text in the Confucian tradition (yes, maybe even more important the Confucius himself). We are looking at the passage from Book 6 A, Passage #...

Today, we take a look at a poet who, astonishingly, was writing interesting poetry during the height of the Maoist era. His is the most underground of the underground poets, and today we look at one of the poems by Shi Zhi, "The Ocean and the Wave."

Can Li Bai, China's greatest poet, be translated into frat-boy-ese? Lee tried.  It is not as crazy as it sounds. Li Bai is an alcoholic poet. Though he has long been translated into a highfalutin English that sounds like a stuffy Shakespere. But Li Bai is just talking about getting drunk.  Does Lee's translation work? Stay tuned and decide for yourself. 

In this episode, Part Two of our two part series on Chen Qiufan's first novel, Rob and Lee try to pivot away from the narrower discussions of what happens in the novel and more on a broader discussion of its place in Chinese Science Fiction. Whether or not they succeed in doing that...well, we'll let you decide.

This is part 一 in a two part series on the novel called Wast Tide. This is Chen Qiufan's first novel, its a science-fiction novel that touches on environmentalism and transhumanism. Join Rob and Lee as the struggle with this novel .

How many cats have been immortalized in poetry that we are still reading a millenium later? At least one, Mr. Five White. Here, we stand with Mei Yaochen as he gives Mr. Five White the appropriate send off after his death.

This week, we get back to our weird poetry series. Today's weird poem is one written by an editor at the Xinhua News Agency, China's state-sponsored answer to Reuters or Bloomberg. Chairman Xi visited Xinhua and told them that the news needed to support the Party. During the visit, Pu wrote this poem, showing that he definitely supports the Party. 

This week's weird poem is weird in an unexpectedly weird way. Upon first glance, it is an anodyne poem published in the overseas edition of the People's Daily, the official rag of the CCP. Until you see the political message hidden in the poem that caused a small controversy in the 1990's. This is the last of our weird poem series. 

One San Francisco poet, writing in the early 20th century, wrote something that no other poet ever said in the history of Chinese literature (probably): having money is more important than having sons! This is a huge statement that runs against much of traditional Chinese thinking. But, this anonymous poet, though writing in a mixture of Cantonese and Classical Chinese, is an American, so it makes...

This week and next week, in honor of Asian American History month, we are interrupting our wierd poetry series to shoehorn in two poems by Chinese-speaking poets. This week, we look at a poem by an unnamed poet who was jailed by immigration officers in San Francisco and writes of his mistreatment.

The beginning of our weird poetry series, today we look at a crazy poem written by a Qing official to celebrate Empress Dowager Cixi's 60th Birthday. What makes it strange: it is written in English, in the Scottish dialect, and it celebrates a leader of the Boxer Rebels who attacked foreigners and those Chinese people who associated with them, particularly converts to Christianity. 

Last week, we did Zhang Jie's Song Dynasty poem, the "Water Dragon Chant." This week, we look Su Dongpo's response to that poem, his own poem with the exact same title, "Water Dragon Chant." We explore why Su Dongpo's poem is so much better. 

Today, we begin a quick mini series on a pair of poems. Both poems are titled "Water Dragon Chant," the first is by Zhang Jie, the latter by Su Dongpo. The latter was written in response to the first one. Both choose a specific kind of flower as their subject. This week, Lee and Rob debate whether Zhang Jie's poem is a nasty poem about that uses flower petals as metaphors for sperm and skeeting (p...

Today, we are looking at a science fiction short story, translated in Ken Liu's excellent collection  Invisible Planets . It is by Xia Jia, who is both a science fiction writer and a scholar of Chinese science fiction. Her story, Hundred Ghosts Parade, is a fascinating look at tradition, change and Chinese culture.

This week, we are honored to get Megan Walsh on the podcast. She is the author of  The Subplot: What China is Reading and Why It Matters , an excellent survey of Chinese literature today that was recently published as a part of the Columbia Global Reports. Megan was kind enough to share her insights into the state of contemporary Chinese literature with Rob and Lee. 

In this last episode in our lengthy series on Lu Xun, we look not so much at Lu Xun himself, but the Lu Xun that has been imagined in the minds of Communist Party apparatchiks. Here we try to tackle the legacy of Lu Xun and how it is has been interpreted.

Today, we interview Professor Roy Chan . Professor Chan is not only one of the most interesting thinkers trying to tackle Lu Xun in the American academia, but he is also the mentor of both Lee and Rob. Professor Chan is the author of The Edge of Knowing , an exploration dreams in the work of Lu Xun and other 20th Century Chinese writers. Today, Professor Chan discusses one of Lu Xun's most enigmat...

What is a Zawen ? It is complicated. In this episode, we try to tackle what zawen are and what they meant to Lu Xun's career. Guiding us on our journey is Professor Andrew Jones of UC Berkeley, one of the most well-regarded scholars of Lu Xun in American academia. Professor Jones is the author of Developmental Fairy Tales , and is a contributing translator to the new collection of Lu Xun's zawen i...

On Today's podcast, we have one of the best writers on contemporary Chinese youth, Alec Ash. Alec wrote an excellent book on Chinese young adults called  Wish Lanterns.  It was renamed China's New Youth for the American book market. Alec joins us today on the podcast to talk about one of Lu Xun's shortest stories. We debate how close Lu Xun is to the narrator of the story and what it says about th...

One of Lu Xun's most trenchant stories, in this episode, part of our series on Lu Xun, we tackle a story about gender, rape and class. The story is brutal, one of Lu Xun's masterpieces. 

Blood and Bread.  A national reckoning between two mourning mothers. Today, Rob and Lee interview Professor James Carter , Dean of the History Department at Saint Joseph's University. The story that the three discuss is Lu Xun's story "Medicine."  Professor Carter's most recent book is Champions Day , a book about the last gasp of old Shanghai.  

Today, we are interrupting our podcast series on Lu Xun to celebrate the  anniversary of Nixon's earth-shattering visit to Beijing 50 years ago this week. In this episode, we take a look at the John Adams Opera, Nixon in China, tackling how the opera incorportates elements of Chinese Cultural Revolution opera and how some of the controversies surrounding the opera have played out in recent years.