Middle Earth - China’s cultural industry podcast

Send us Fan Mail Today I plug in a new show that I'm working on where we interviewed Georges Berne, a true master in the art of lighting design who worked on the Mona Lisa. Today, he reflects on his long career and shares his thoughts on his work. Winland Art Podcast Architecture is solidified art, and art is the soul of architecture. Created by the Carte Blanche art team from in Beijing, Win...

Send us Fan Mail A billion internet users means a lot of followers for some content creators in China. But with ad revenue dropping China’s economy is slowing down, are tips and patrons a viable alternative for creators? Featuring - Lulu | 璐璐 : LHH Speak Easy ( 璐璐的英文小酒馆 ) - Founder - Luigi Liu :  BtoZ-Movie - Founder  To go further - " Career Fans " article by The World of Chin...

Send us Fan Mail Culture is expensive, and China makes no exception to that. Without the support of public and private entities, many artists could not create anything or be overly commercial. After getting through the regulations hurdle, what kind of art are supported by the big companies and local governments? Featuring - Yilin Chen : Winland Group - Art Project Director - Elie Rosenberg : Impro...

Send us Fan Mail For a decade or more, rural Chinese have been setting up online stores in their homes, hoping to make a living through e-commerce rather than factory work or farming. But any easy money there was in online selling is beginning to dry up. Village neighbors have been pitted against each other in competition for customers, unscrupulous merchants copy products and images from competit...

Send us Fan Mail As China becomes more assertive on the global stage with its diplomacy and state media, “patriotic KOLs” have appeared on domestic Chinese social media platforms, influencing the political opinions of their millions of fans. But how do KOLs craft their message to be successful, and who’s paying their bills? Featuring - Fang Kecheng : The Chinese University of Hong Kong - Assistant...

Send us Fan Mail NFTS are legal to be bought in China, but reselling them is an all other matters. Yet a local scene of buyers and artists keeps growing, while some lost a great amount of money as they were hoping for a quick return on investment. How does the scene keep growing while local regulations are put into place? Featuring - Ellwood Chen : Digital Artist & Pills Labs Founder - Rory Me...

Send us Fan Mail While China struggles to export its cultural abroad, neighbors like Korea and Japan seem immune to this problem. Apart from local regulations in art, what are the issues creators from China face when trying to take their cultural products abroad, and what are some products that actually became hits? Featuring - Li Jianbin: Beijing Inmost Media - Senior BD Director - Alex Taggart:...

Send us Fan Mail In 2021, there were 2 billion visits to China’s outdoor tourism sites, such as nature reserves and natural scenic areas. How is this part of the tourism industry coping with a growing demand for outdoor experiences, and did that influence the creation of the country’s national park system? Featuring - Justin Culkin : A Trails - Business Development Director - Rose Niu 牛红卫 : Pau...

Send us Fan Mail As the year 2023 starts, we review our top 3 stories from 2022 and make a few predictions for trends in China’s culture industries in 2023.  Featuring - Aladin Farré : Founder of Middle Earth Podcast - Hatty Liu : Managing editor at TWOC - Jesse Appel, Sara Huang, Yang Yu, & Jingtong Zhu To go further - our podcast top 3 stories of the year #79 Exploring Wuxia #67 Creating Gam...

Send us Fan Mail Greater China is now the biggest art-market in the world, but thousands of galleries in the middle kingdom have closed up, while many artists are struggling to make a living. How are gallery curators, artists, and tech companies keeping up with this ultra-competitive art market?  Featuring - Ashley Qin – YITIAO Art Director - Lin Zi – SANTO HALL Gallery curator - Sima Yuan – Artis...

Send us Fan Mail Wuxia , martial arts stories about heroes and outlaws, used to be one of the most popular genres of literature in the Chinese-speaking world. After countless novels, films and video games, how are the people creating China’s “knight errant” stories modernizing the genre?  Featuring - Gigi Chang: wuxia translator - Lai Jingping: Wuxiaworld founder and CEO - Felix Lou: former vice-m...

Send us Fan Mail After being ostracized for years, motorbike culture is slowly building momentum among Chinese youths. Between 2016 and 2019, the number of bike sales doubled, and since the pandemic especially, a lot of entrepreneurs are jumping on new business opportunities provided by people craving the open road. Featuring Steven Tsui :  BG Performance - CEO Zhang Shuren : Pansaki North Station...

Send us Fan Mail With over 1 billion internet users, China’s online video and music platforms are the place to be for every creator trying to grow their audience. What does it take for international talent to make it in this cutthroat market?  Featuring Tinko Georgiev: Kanjian - VP of Int'l Business Raffi Kamalian: Collab Asia - Head of Greater China Middle Earth is distributed by The World o...

Send us Fan Mail Thanks to its rich history, China’s has plenty of artifacts that are being sold and exposed in museums. And there is a market for it, a huge one, where some pieces can be sold for several thousand yuan. How did that market evolve, and what are the dark corners of this industry?  Featuring Isaac Duffy : Collector Sun Jiahui : Freelance writer Zhang Bo : Architect & Collector Mi...

Send us Fan Mail After being underground for decades, the Chinese rap scene got a sudden boost in 2017 thanks to the reality show The Rap of China on the online streaming platform IQiyi. How has the scene evolved since then, and what lies ahead?   Featuring Dojo Shaolin: Producer & Dj JFever :  Hip pop artist Stanley Yang : Zhong TV – Founder Middle Earth is made by China Compass Productions a...

Send us Fan Mail C-Dramas have certainly changed over the years as the competitions grew fierce for eyeballs. Why did such changes happen, and what's the future for Chinese TV series industry?  Featuring   Sara Huang : Scriptwriter  Jia Liu : TV Producer  Middle Earth is distributed by The World of Chinese ( www.theworldofchinese.com ). Every two months, both in print and online, the team at...

Send us Fan Mail With 400 million fans watching over 5000 professional team competing over many games, China’s e-sports industry is one of the most vivid area of China’s cultural industry. How come this industry keeps growing, and what are the recent issues that e-sports players and companies had to face?   Featuring   - Josh Lee: Perfect World Esports & tournaments director  - Zeng Wensen : R...

Send us Fan Mail China has become the biggest film’s market in the world after Covid-19, with 82,000 screens, so distributing a movie in Chinese cinemas seems like it would be an easy task. But with dozens of films coming out each week, what are the tricks for film distributors to find their audience?   Featuring   - Cai Yuchen : UEP Media film distributor  - Fan Lixin : Director & InHope Pict...

Send us Fan Mail Music festivals have only been around for two decades in China, but have increased exponentially—even leading some to worry about a bubble—until the Covid-19 outbreak. Since then, how has the industry tried to make a comeback for Chinese music-lovers?  Featuring   - Eric de Fontenay - MusicDish 独立小炒 President - Yang Yu - Midi Festival Head of International  Middle Earth is dis...

Send us Fan Mail China’s video game industry is huge, but most of the games are made for the mass market of online mobile players. But what about the niche market of indie games, often focused more on single player story or particular game mechanics? How do Chinese creators find their audience, and do they have an audience outside of China?   Featuring   - Jin Yu : Wanba Studio Founder & Game...

Send us Fan Mail As China’s cultural market becomes more and more competitive, some content producers are looking for the silver bullet to avoid failure: IP. What does IP mean in the Chinese market, and what’s the best way to create one?   Featuring   - Kevin Feng : Stars Collective China Executive Officer  - Li Danlei : Story FM Podcast Copyright Manager  - Xu Xinyi : Bridging the Dragon Sales Co...

Send us Fan Mail Chinese literature is generating an increasing amount of interest overseas. More and more books are getting translated, while Chinese authors are winning international prizes. Yet are the authors and stories being translated representative of what China’s general public is reading?   Featuring   - Yan Ge : author  - Daniel Li: production manager at ACA Publishing & Sinoist Boo...

Send us Fan Mail If China has some issues exporting its music & film, did you know that video games often meet success on the international market? What kind of games meet success abroad, what kind of strategy Chinese companies have to use, and what are the issues inherent to game localization?   Featuring   - Chen Jia - Oasis Game COO  - Joshua Ogden-Davis - Video Game Localizer  - Stacey Lee...

Send us Fan Mail ASCENSION has been nominated for an Academy Award in the feature documentary category. The film  is a portrait of China’s industrial supply chain and its different social ladders. It is advised to watch the film before listening to this episode. This conversation  was originally produced by SupChina .  Middle Earth is made by China Compass Productions and hosted by Aladin Farré ....

Send us Fan Mail  At the intersection of KOLs and metaverse lies the niche world of “virtual idols”—animated characters created for the purpose of becoming celebrities. Started in Japan in the 1980s, virtual idols have exploded in popularity in China, especially as Covid-19 continues to change the world of live entertainment: In 2021, the Chinese virtual idol industry was worth 6.2 billion renminb...