Chinese Literature Podcast

By far the most well-known part of Journey to the W est is the first 7 chapters. A quasi-divine monkey figures out how to get nearly limitless power, has a whole lot of fun with it, then starts a war with heaven. And almost wins. Join us for a discussion of one of the most beloved figures in all of Chinese literature: the Monkey King (Sun Wukong).

Today, we begin our series on on of the most influential novels in the history or China, really in the history of Asia. Today, we begin the Journey of the Journey by contextualizing the novel. 

Today is the last in our podcast series on the Song (we think...). Our subject, Ouyang Xiu is one of the most famous literatis of the 11th century, and he helped inspire the turn towards antiquarianism in Chinese culture. He was obsessed with collecting old stuff, particularly epigraphs (writing carved into rocks or other medium). This is a short prose passage/poem where we see Ouyang Xiu beginnin...

Brandon Folse joins us in our next installment on our Song Dynasty series. Today, we are discussing what is definitely the greatest female writer of the Song dynasty and is possibly the greatest female writer in all of Chinese literature, Li Qingzhao. Some might even consider her the greatest poet in Chinese history, though this would be a controversial claim. Still, what is not controversial is t...

This week, Rob and I are travelling, so we have decided to go back into the vault and dig up one of our first podcasts ever...the sound quality is bad, our explanations are even worse...but the story is great. A man falls in love with a very young boy and things take off from there. This story has everything: an execution, a castration and a spontaneously-growing vagina. 

Did you know writing a poem could get you exiled? Well, it could and it did, in Su Dongpo's case. Join us in our ongoing accidental series on Song Dynasty poetry!

This is part of our accidental series on the Song, and this is also our second episode on the poetry of Wang Anshi (王安石). Today, we look at a ballad that Wang wrote upon the death of his wife and continue our debate about the merits of Wang.

This week, we decide, in the middle of doing the podcast, that the Song has so much interesting stuff going on during it that we have to make this series into a longer series. Today, we are going to tackle a single poem by Su Dongpo. The poem we are looking at is Su's "Waking up on a Boat at Night."

This week, we explore Jing Tsu's fascinating exploration of the history of language in her book Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora. 

On today's podcast, we go all the way back to the Northern Song Dynasty, one of the highpoints of Chinese culture, but also a point in which consensus was breaking down. Infighting in the 1070's began a process that would weaken China to the point which it could not face up against its external threats and would collapse in 1127, losing half of Song territory. Today's podcast is on Wang Anshi, one...

Today's podcast is an interesting poem that functions less as a beautiful poem but more a historical artifact. In 1793, the English Ambassador met with the Chinese Emperor. After their meeting, the emperor, Qianlong, wrote an interesting poem about the encounter. In today's podcast, we dissect that poem. Below is also Lee's English translation of the poem, along with the original, straight from th...

This week's episode is a Supplement, where we will talk about China's Good War , Rana Mitter's latest book. Mitter is a historian, but a lot of the content he analyzes is literary or filmic. Mitter's argument is that China today is trying to rethink World War II in a way that is advantageous to contemporary politics, both domestic and international.

In today's podcast, we interview author Yang Huang about her new book looking at the intersection of China, the US, and the politics of family and gender. The book is titled My Good Son , and it is her third work of fiction. The book's plot revolves around two father-son pairs, one Chinese, one American. In the Chinese pair, the son does not meet the father's academic standards, while in the Ameri...

Today, we dig back into a podcast recorded several years before but never before aired. The topic is Nie Zheng (聂政), a story in the biography of the assassins, in Sima Qian's Shiji . The story may be one of the early predecessors to Kung Fu film and literature.

This is it, this is the end of our decade-by-decade exploration of Chinese Literature in the 20th Century. Lee explores Mo Yan, while Rob chooses Xi Chuan. Join them for the final episode in this series.

This week's episode looks at a Tang Dynasty Poem that cost Meituan Dianping, one of China's unicorn internet companies, 26 Billion dollars off its market capitalization. In this episode, we take a look at the Zhang Jie's "Book Burning Pit" and explore the full story behind the poem that the media is not explaining.

Today, we are rebroadcasting an episode that we did on the Three-Character Classic in honor of Chloe Zhao's quoting of the text during the Oscars. The audio quality is a little...well, you'll hear. We apologize. Just think, it has only been a year since we recorded this and already we are this much better. 

At last! Out of the Maoist wilderness and into what may be the most riveting period for literature and the arts in the entire 20th century in China.  

Today, the Chinese Literature Podcast asks the ultimate geopolitical question: Is Taiwan Chinese? Actually, we are looking at a book titled  Is Taiwan Chinese , an anthropological study by Melissa Brown that examines how identity, Chineseness and ethnicity are constituted on both sides of the Taiwan Straits...that is just a fancy way of saying that identity is something that one does rather than s...

The dark night lifts at last! 1976 marks the end of both the Cultural Revolution and the Maoist era. It also marks the beginning of one of the most remarkable periods of literature in Chinese history. Literature on Taiwan is also flourishing. Join us to find out more!

Okay, fine, so Prof. Chan is on our dissertation committees. But you know what? That lack of objectivity on our parts doesn't mean  The Edge of Knowing  isn't still a thoroughly remarkable book, because it is. Join us to find out more!

You want a hard period for a good literary discussion? Then this is your port of call. The 1960's wasn't just a bleak literary landscape in China; it was practically nonexistent. We got around the problem by going across the Straits or underground. Join us to find out more!

Shalom and welcome to the Chinese Literature Podcast. Today, we have a very special Chinese Literature Podcast in celebration of Passover. We will be looking at the book The Haggadah of the Kaifeng Jews of China by Fook-Kong Wong and Dalia Yasharpour. 

...And then there were the Maoist years. Following the Chinese Communist Party's victory in 1949, literature was tightly controlled until 1976. That means, well, it's a pretty rough period to discuss. But we still found some gems! Join us to find out more!

19 different translations of a single short Tang Dynasty poem add up to a fascinating guided tour of how rich and peculiar it is to encounter the Chinese poetic tradition. Join us to find out more!