In this Barbarians at the Gate x China Books Review crossover, Jeremiah Jenne is joined by CBR Associate Editor Alexander Boyd to discuss the latest addition to the China Archives: W. Somerset Maugham's On a Chinese Screen (1922) , a collection of vignettes from Maugham's trip through China in the winter of 1919–1920. Maugham came to China and mostly found... the English. Missionaries who profess…
It’s the summer travel season, and one of the most popular sites here in Beijing is the Palace Museum at the Forbidden City. To talk about China’s most famous imperial palace, we are joined by Matthew Hu Xinyu, Trustee of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP) and founder of the Courtyard Institute. Matthew provides us with updates on renovated sections of the Palace Museum…
We are honored to have Professor Neysun Mahboubi, Director of the Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations, a program that provides a platform for talented U.S.-based China scholars to contribute academically informed analysis on the most important issues in U.S.-China relations. Neysun recounts his experiences as a legal scholar in China during the 1990s Reform and Opening Up period,…
Should we view today’s powerful AI language tools as intellectual crutches or as incredibly useful assets? Can they be safely integrated into our existing toolkit for business and academia, or should we approach them with justified caution? And why is the Western world terrified of AI, whereas China is already incorporating it into all sectors of society? Spoiler alert: The West views AI as a…
The Politburo had given Mao Zedong’s personal physician Li Zhisui a direct order: prepare the Chairman’s body so that he can be on permanent display. Li was aghast. It was not what Mao had wanted, and besides, “How to pickle your country’s leader” wasn’t one of the courses he studied in medical school. But after the turbulence of the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s death meant a potential political…
On this episode, we sit down with the one and only Jesse Appell—Chinese TV stand-up comedian, blogger, lecturer, tea entrepreneur, and passionate bridge-builder for US–China cultural exchange. In his newly published book, Jesse shares the unlikely story of how a Fulbright Fellowship to study the traditional Chinese humor form “crosstalk” (xiangsheng) launched him from student to television star,…
Mike Wester launched the first Burger Fest in Beijing 13 years ago as a scrappy response to the collapse of print ad revenue. Today, burger festivals run in third-tier cities across China, subsidized by local governments trying to drive foot traffic into half-empty malls. Hefei alone has four a year. In this episode, Jeremiah talks with Mike Wester, co-founder of True Run Media and publisher of…
Warning: GEEKY CONTENT Hosting solo in this week’s episode, David takes a geeky deep dive into the digital revolution in Chinese language learning in conversation with Chinese language pedagogy expert Matt Coss. The Sisyphean task of learning to write hundreds of Chinese characters has long been the bête noire of Chinese language students. The explosion of digital devices and apps for processing…
In this episode, we reconnect with an old friend of the podcast, Canadian performer Mark Rowswell—better known in China as Dashan, or “Big Mountain.” Mark reflects on his early career in China, where his remarkable fluency in Mandarin launched him from a young foreign newcomer into the world of xiangsheng (相声, crosstalk), and soon after into a highly sought-after TV host and cultural ambassador…
Lee Moore's new book challenges both Chinese state propaganda and Western pundits on Taiwan, Xinjiang, the Chinese economy, and Hong Kong with 1400 endnotes, and a drinking game for beheadings. A historian who writes about Ming emperors getting stabbed in the balls, a drinking game for beheadings in Xinjiang, and why almost everything politicians say about Taiwan’s history is wrong. In this…
