Today, we look at Qiu Fengjia, a Taiwanese-born Mandarin, who, in 1895, upon hearing that Taiwan had been given to Japan as a part of the Treaty of Shiminoseki, wrote a poem expressing his sadness and confusion. We discuss that poem and Qiu’s larger legacy.
Today, we have an interview with Professor Zhang Yanshuo, a scholar at Pomona College who studies a group of people that have existed on the peripheries of Chinese soceity for several millennia. The Qiang are a group of people who exist in China today, but also who have records discussing them as early as the […]
Today, I got the opportunity to interview Professor Todd Foley at NYU. Todd just translated a book I Love Bill and Other Stories which you can purchase here. The interview was fantastic, the book is great. Check out the podcast and then go buy the book.
The Book of Poetry is the earliest work of Chinese lyric poetry in existance. But it has a reputation as being a bit fusty. Today, we are going to explore the naughtier side of the anthology. Here is my translation: Spanking the Pan He spanked my pan in the mountain valley, The big man was […]
The third in the series on the Book of Poems, this episode looks at the mythological poem on the birth of the god of agriculture, Lord Millet.
Can Xue is the odds on favorite for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature tomorrow. Rob and I did a podcast on her way back in 2018, and I am rereleasing it in honor of her consideration. Whatever the choice of the Swedish Academy, Can Xue has already won in my heart.
Today, we are taking a look at a poem from the oldest extant work of Chinese literature, the Shijing (Book of Poem) Today’s poem is a poem about rats, but also a poem about government, and it is the first in our series on the Shijing.
Today’s episode is a joke. No really, we are looking at a joke that is making the rounds on Weibo. This is a joke that is very opaque, but that opacity points to how autocracy in China works today.
One of the world’s great philosophers meditates on the value of being useless with a parable about an old, ugly tree.
Did you know that in the 13th Century a Chinese emperor and a Tibetan monk tried to get rid of Chinese characters and create a universal script, one writing system to write every language in the world. Today’s podcast is about that writing system, Phags-Pa.