Chinese Literature Podcast

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, i...

14 Touko 202220min

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 explor...

7 Touko 202218min

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 ...

30 Huhti 202226min

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 ...

23 Huhti 202221min

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 recent...

16 Huhti 202230min

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 t...

9 Huhti 202218min

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....

2 Huhti 202239min

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 ...

26 Maalis 202241min