Chinese Literature Podcast

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 sense. Join Rob and Lee for their look at this poem published in either 1911 or 1915 in San Francisco's Chinatown. 

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 (please do not google this term). 

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 enigmatic works, Wild Grass.

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 in a book titled Jottings Under Lamplight.

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 the China of the early 20th and early 21st Century. 

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. 

Today's podcast is an interview with Professor Carolyn Brown, author of Reading Lu Xun through Carl Jung. We had a great conversation with her about Lu Xun's story "Soap." This story, in Lu Xun's collection titled 彷徨 (not the more well-known collection 吶喊), is too often ignored. Professor Brown shows that this story touches on issues of gender, class and modernity in a way that deserves more attention. 

This week's podcast is on one of the most important stories in modern Chinese literature, Lu Xun's True Story of Ah Q (鲁迅 - 阿Q正传). Rob and Lee attempt to tackle the story that changed China and still echos down to the present.