NüVoices

For years, Hollywood has been trying to reach Chinese audiences, but has yet to find a winning formula. The remake of Mulan , which cost $200 million, is projected to make only $41 million over the entirety of its monthlong China box-office run.  As U.S.-China tensions ratchet up, is there a future for movies that try to cross cultural divides and bring ordinary people together? Does politics play...

This week’s bonus episode of NüVoices was recorded live from Beijing, where Anthony Tao had a conversation with Huang Chenkuang , a journalist and creative who runs the interview series Beijing Lights (published on the website of the arts collective Spittoon ). They spoke in front of an audience at the bar Camera Stylo, which was — believe it or not — launching a cocktail named after Huang’s Beiji...

An executive order signed in July has indefinitely ended the Fulbright program in China and Hong Kong. What happened in the lead-up to the program’s cancellation, and where does the closure fit into the larger context of deteriorating U.S.-China relations? For answers, Sophie Lu (a Fulbrighter herself) convened a panel of scholarship recipients, who shared their Fulbright experiences and the impor...

Simone Tong is a chef and co-owner of Little Tong Noodle Shop and the newly opened restaurant Silver Apricot in New York City. Cindy sat down with her to discuss her life as a chef and restaurateur in New York during the pandemic, Chinese cuisine and identity in America, and the inspiration behind the food she cooks. Recommendations: Simone: Educated , by Tara Westover. Cindy: The works of Grace L...

Shantha Bloemen is the founding director of Mobility for Africa , a social enterprise that aims to bring the electric mobility revolution to rural Africa. Having spent the last two decades working in international humanitarian and development assistance in Africa and Asia, she is now eager to put her experience into this venture, which she believes will improve the lives of rural women. Shantha is...

April Zhu is a freelance journalist and writer based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her work focuses on gender, urban inequality, and China-Kenya relations. In this episode, NüVoices board member Cindy Gao talks to April about:  How Nairobi is a city with a plot Why covering women's issues helps us understand power "Ecosystems" of violence in Nairobi's informal settlements Why the opposite...

April Zhu is a freelance journalist and writer based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her work focuses on gender, urban inequality, and China-Kenya relations. In this episode, NüVoices board member Cindy Gao talks to April about:  How Nairobi is a city with a plot Why covering women's issues helps us understand power "Ecosystems" of violence in Nairobi's informal settlements Why the opposite...

Qiàn Zhāng 张倩 is a cross-border creative entrepreneur who founded the tea brand The Pu'er Movement while at Harvard Business School, and currently serves as chief of staff to the global president at SharkNinja. Qian is an alumni of the famed Alibaba Global Leadership Academy, which was conceived of and now mentored by Jack Ma himself. In this episode, Qian and NüVoices board member Chenni X...

Journalism is a tough industry to break into, but expanding your multimedia and broadcast skills is a great way to enhance your versatility and job prospects.  For Chinese journalist Yuan Ren, who has worked as a Time Out magazine editor and a columnist for U.K. newspapers The Telegraph and The Prospect , transitioning into broadcast media helped her fire up her creativity and experiment with crea...

Megha Rajagopalan is an award-winning international correspondent for BuzzFeed News, based in London. In this conversation recorded on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean in London and New York, Megha and NüVoices board member Chenni Xu discuss Megha's career trajectory from the U.S. to China, the Middle East, and beyond. This includes her award-winning reporting, her time on the board of the Fo...

As racism and the COVID-19 virus spread simultaneously, Asian people around the world are finding themselves terrified to step outside — and not just because they're worried about getting sick.  In this episode, NüVoices chair Joanna Chiu interviews NüVoices co-founder Sophie Lu and journalist and author Jessie Tu , who both live in Sydney. All three have experienced the harmful effects of pe...

Julia Voo is the research director for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center’s new China Cyber Policy Initiative. In this episode, Julia and NüVoices board member Cindy Gao talk about China's increased efforts to influence international technical standards, updates and challenges of the Digital Silk Road, how her Track II diplomatic work with the China Institute for International Strateg...

Di Wang is a feminist researcher and Ph. D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She joined NüVoices co-host Cindy Gao in Brooklyn to converse about the LGBTQ movement that is underway in China. In this episode, they discuss some of the social and legal challenges that gay and transgender individuals face, the rights that are afforded to members of China’s LGBTQ community, and terms u...

Wuhan native Rui Zhong is a program associate for the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center, in Washington, D.C. In this episode, Rui and co-host Cindy Gao work through a timeline of the spread of COVID-19, discuss tactics employed by the Chinese central government to co-opt the narrative surrounding the outbreak, identify those most affected by the virus within C...

Emily Weaver, a social impact and philanthropy consultant who was based in China for over a decade, joins Chenni and Cindy as their guest this week. She has worked with major philanthropic organizations, such as Jet Li’s One Foundation and the Clinton Foundation, and is a founding member of the China Philanthropy Research Institute and the China Global Philanthropy Institute.  In this episode, Emi...

Jessie Lau is a writer, editor, and researcher from Hong Kong who explores identity, human rights, and politics. Her writing has been published by The Economist, Foreign Policy, The Diplomat, and Quartz, among others. In this episode, Lau speaks with Hong Kong-Canadian journalist and NüVoices chair Joanna Chiu about the generational divides and diverging opinions on the Hong Kong protests that hav...

Keisha Brown is an assistant professor of history at Tennessee State University and a fellow in the Public Intellectuals Program at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. In this episode, she explains the history of Sino-Black relations, tells the story of influential African-American individuals like W. E. B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes and their ties to China, and the changing perceptio...

Xin Wang is a John Tisch Teaching Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City and a Ph. D. student studying contemporary art at the NYU Institute of Fine Arts. Chenni Xu and Cindy Gao joined her for a wide-ranging discussion on the state of contemporary Chinese art: who are the major players, what defines it, and where to find it. She also discusses her own career and experiences...

Rachel Morarjee is the director of the Economist Corporate Network and a former foreign correspondent for the Financial Times. In this episode, she talks about the 30% Club , an organization dedicated to increasing the representation of women in high-level positions in the workplace, how to mindfully navigate modern work environments, and how her current work compares to her former experiences as...

In this episode of NüVoices, Alice Xin Liu interviews Chenni Xu, corporate communications head for Alipay in North America and a board member and local chapter co-head of NüVoices in New York City. Chenni discusses her experiences navigating the corporate world, from Brunswick to Alipay and from Beijing to America. She stresses the importance of forming strong peer networks, finding mentorship, an...

In episode 17 of the NüVoices Podcast, host Joanna Chiu sits down with Siodhbhra Parkin, the director of the new, nonprofit arm of SupChina, to discuss her work in the field of legal advocacy against domestic violence when she was based at an international non-governmental organization (NGO) in Beijing. The two discuss the inspiring efforts of anti-domestic-violence activists in China both before...

Episode 17 of the NüVoices Podcast is here! This week, Alice Xin Liu is joined by co-host Zhāng Líjīa 张丽佳. The two interviewed Zōu Shuǎng 邹爽, a director and playwright. As of 2018, she was made the artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival, following in the footsteps of legendary conductor Maestro Yú Lóng 余隆. She was recently nominated at the 2019 International Opera Awards in London...

In episode 15 of the NüVoices Podcast, co-host Alice Xin Liu interviews the co-founder and lead singer of Xiao Wang 小王, Anlin Fan. Since she started the band with her best friend, Yuyang, just a few years ago, Xiao Wang has become a staple of the Chinese rock and punk scene. When Anlin isn’t tearing up the stage, she spends her time finishing her master’s degree at McGill University. Here, she d...

Recorded live at the Beijing Bookworm Literary Festival, this week’s episode of the NüVoices podcast features a discussion with two prominent science fiction authors, Tang Fei and Ji Shaoting. The episode was recorded as part of a series of five live SupChina events at this year’s festival. Tang Fei and Ji Shaoting are both titans in the Chinese science fiction world. Tang Fei is a speculative fic...

In episode 13 of the NüVoices podcast, co-hosts Alice Xin Liu and Sophie Lu interview Cate Cadell, a tech writer for Reuters who is based in Beijing. Cate covers Chinese tech companies with a focus on cybersecurity, AI, surveillance, censorship, and ethics issues. This episode focuses on the troubled relationship between the Chinese government, technology, and ethics. In particular, spurred by rec...