In Episode 3 in our Lu Xun Series, we interview one of the experts in the field of Lu Xun studies (and advisor to both Rob and Lee) about the Preface to Lu Xun’s most important collection of short stories War Cry (Nahan). This preface has been the subject of numerous debates in China and in […]
Today, we have our second installment in the Lu Xun series. This week we are joined by Professor Theodore Huters, Professor Emeriti in UCLA’s Asian Languages and Cultures Department and Chief Editor, Renditions, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the author of several excellent books, including Bringing the World Home: Appropriating the West in Late Qing […]
This is the first episode in our series on Lu Xun, and, for this episode, we are going to look at some of the earliest aspects of Lu Xun’s career, both his time growing up in Shaoxing, his time in Japan and his attempts to become a translator.
A disturbing if sometimes trite story of a country girl who goes to boarding school in 1930’s China, gets treated like crap and is eventually pushed out of the school, all because she is low class and her hands, stained by the dye her family uses to put her through school, are ugly. Rob and […]
Zhu Ziqing (朱自清) wrote a short, touching essay on his father. In the essay, Retreating Figure (背影), Zhu grows up a great deal by watching his father grow old.
We have another spooky story for Halloween, this time a story from Lu Xun. This story, “White Light,” is not as discussed as it ought to be, but it has a skull, a suicide and a question of China’s future direction.
Yu Dafu is an early 20th Century writer known for one work: Sinking. This novella is highly autobiographical, and it discusses the trials and tribulations of a Chinese student living in Japan. His attitude towards Japanese women and the Chinese nation is both fascinating and disturbing, and Rob and Lee dive into those attitudes. This is […]
50th Podcast Anniversary We Made it to 50! 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 […]
Welcome to Cat Country! In 1932, Lao She, the famous Chinese writer, penned a book about a Chinese astronaut crashing into Mars and finding the planet populated with Cat People. These Cat People are a way for Lao She to satirize the Chinese. Let the craziness begin! http://traffic.libsyn.com/chineseliteraturepodcast/Cat_Country_Edited_1.mp3
Finding a “first” of anything is a tricky proposition, but if we had to pick a “first” great work of feminism in modern Chinese literature, it would by Miss Sophie’s Diary, by Ding Ling, published in 1928. An absolutely fascinating work that takes full advantage of the diary format, in a way Lu Xun’s own Diary of […]