Chinese Literature Podcast

This work of Daoism is one of the most translated books in the world. But what is it really about? Rob and Lee explore the Laozi (he probably was not a real person, so we call him the Laozi or the Lao tze) and a passage from his Dao De Jing.

This podcast we take a look at a story from a strange Daoist classic, the Huainanzi 淮南子. The tale is called Old Man on the Border Loses his Horse 塞翁失馬. The story title is, itself a chengyu, that means something like you never know if something that seems unfortunate is actually fortunate. Here is the original Chinese from the Huainanzi: 夫禍福之轉而相生，其變難見也。近塞上之人有善術者，馬無故亡而入胡。人皆吊之。其父曰：「此何遽不為福乎？」居數月，其馬將胡駿馬而歸。人皆賀之。其父曰：「此何遽不能為禍乎？」家富良馬，其子好騎，墮而折其髀。人皆吊之。其父曰：「此何遽不為福乎？」居一年，胡人大入塞，丁壯者引弦而戰，近塞之人，死者十九，此獨以跛之故，父子相保。故福之為禍，禍之為福，化不可極，深不可測也。 Lee's Translation: Oh, the vicissitudes of fortune and misfortune, the two are born together, and it is hard to distinguish between the two. There was a man who was a good fortune teller who lived near the border. His horse ran into the barbarian's territory. Everybody said that this was unfortunate, but the man said, "Not so fast. Maybe this is fortunate." They waited several months and the horse returned, bringing with them a barbarian horse. Everybody said, this was fortunate. The man

When most folks outside of China hear of the Tiananmen Square Incident, and most people either think of the massacre that occurred in 1989. But there was an earlier incident. In 1976, people were getting tired of the Cultural Revolution, but any one who stepped out of line could be criticized. Zhou Enlai, the premier of the country and a beloved figure, died. Mao was sick, and leftists forces were preparing to take over the country and continue the Cultural Revolution. But on the death of Zhou Enlai, masses of people filled up Tiananmen Square without authorization from the government as a way to protest the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. These people also posted numerous poems on the walls throughout the city. Today, we look at what happened during the 1976 Tiananmen Incident and analyze one of the poems. 

Today, we look at one of the most popular writers during socialist China (1949-1976). His name is Lei Feng. He wrote poetry about dump trucks, but he was killed when a dump truck backed up into a telephone pole which came crashing down on him. As they were cleaning up the deceased earthly possessions, they found a diary that showed such dedication to the party and to Chairman Mao that they decided to use Lei Feng as a model for the ideal party member. Some say it is all made up, that the communists invented Lei Feng out of thin air as a work of propaganda (but only capitalists and their running dogs believe that). Whatever you believe, take a journey with us as we read Lei Feng's Ode to a Dumptruck.

Today, Rob and Lee say goodbye, or, at least, say goodbye to the face to face format of podcasting. Rob has earned a Chateaubriand Scholarship to the Sorbonne in Paris, where he will be researching the nexus of Chinese and French culture in the late Qing. That means Lee and Rob may have to change some things up in the way the podcast is done, but fear not, the podcast will continue.  The poem they will look at is one of Li Shangyin's most famous goodbye poems. Here is Lee's translation of it: It was hard to meet, and hard to part the east wind is weak, the hundred flowers are withering the spring's silkworms move towards death, the silk is done the candle grows gray, wax tears turn dry she looks into the mirror but worries that her hair is changing at night, she chants, the moonlight's chill is all she knows the mystic home is not far away the blue bird will be the messenger of my love.    And the original: 相見時難別亦難，東風無力百花殘。 春蠶到死絲方盡，蠟炬成灰淚始乾。 曉鏡但愁雲鬢改，夜吟應覺月光寒。 蓬山此去無多路，青鳥殷勤為探看

Today, Nick Stember, the expert on Chinese Manhua (similar to Japanese Manga), joins us as we discuss a short manhua cartoon booklet that was published in 1950. The booklet was meant to be a simple way to explain the 1950 Marriage Law, one of the first acts passed by the new Communist government. The Law legitimized the Communists in the eyes of many Chinese women and their progressive allies. It was the first Chinese to legalize a woman's right to divorce (divorce had been permitted before, but under circumstances generally unfavorable to women), and it modernized many of the old customs in rural China. This was the first in a series of feminist policies the Communists implemented, and the text we explore today provides an interesting angle through which to explore gender, propaganda and ideology in 1950's China. 

 Today's podcast is a solo podcast where Lee interviews China journalist and author, Robert Delaney. Delaney has just published a novel which is semi-autobiographical, in which a film-maker disappears into the maw of the Chinese police.

Today, we get to interview a flesh-and-blood maker of Chinese literature who has recently put out a series of short stories on a fictionalized version of real Chinese families. We talked to her to find out how she went about her craft and what motivated her to write the stories she did.

We go back to Zhang Ailing, the author Lee claims to be the best Chinese writer of the 20th Century. Rob and Lee discuss her most anthologized work in English, Sealed Off. It is a psychological story occurring inside the heads of a handful of people stuck on a tram in Shanghai under the control of the Japanese. Zhang Ailing is responding to Shi Zhecun's One Night in the Rainy Season, but her work universalizes this psychologicalized narrator; now, women can be narrators, something seemingly impossible in Shi Zhecun's work. The question that hangs over the story is what is sealed off from what? We drift in between the minds of men and women on the tram; we are not sealed off from the most intimate parts of their heads. So what are we sealed off from?

No one expected it, least of all us, but this is our 50th episode with the podcast. Today, Rob and Lee are going to celebrate just like the ancients used to....with a Top 5 Countdown! The pair will share what the top five works of Chinese literature they will still be reading in fifty years. 

In this episode, we return to the Root-seeking authors (xungen), this time with Han Shaogong and his enigmatic story Bababa. The story, if you can call it that, has a disjointed plot. It is focused on a village, and maybe the main character is a boy who can only say two things, Papa (baba) and F#$* Mama. Does this boy serve as a good leader for the village? Does he destroy the village? Every time he utters one of his two phrases, villagers try to divine what he means and what it means for the fate of the village. The story questions whether or not language means anything, whether we can say stories even mean anything

This story, The Great Maudgalyayana Rescues his Mom from Hell, is one of the earliest in Chinese vernacular fiction. The version we are reading was found in Dunhuang by Aurel Stein, the Hungarian Britisher who discovered the world's oldest known book. Today's story looks at Maudgalyayana, the Indian Buddhist who travels into the depths of hell to rescue his misbehaving mother and is one of the most successful advertisements for Buddhism in China.