Chinese Literature Podcast

Oracle Bones (甲骨文) are the oldest written Chinese texts that have ever been discovered. Today, Lee looks at what Oracle Bones are, how they were discovered in the 1890's and reads out the translation ...

21 Jan 202317min

Our 'traditional' new year/end of the year podcast where we update listeners on what is happening with our lives and the podcast. This year, we sadly have to announce that Rob is no longer going to be...

7 Jan 202348min

This week we have a poem by Gu Cheng 顧城, one of the wonderboys to come out of the 1980's. He left China, immigrating to New Zealand, got a teaching job and then murdered his wife with an ax. His poetr...

24 Des 202219min

In this week's episode, we look at a series of three poems by Su Dongpo, the Song poet who was sent into exile multiple times. This series of poems is about his time in the crummiest of exiles, on Hai...

10 Des 202214min

This week, Rob and Lee look at a short essay where Ouyang Xiu talks about a Mei Yaochen poem that he finds woven into the fabric of a barbarian's bag. Their discussion touches not only on the poem, bu...

26 Nov 202215min

Bei Dao is one of the first great poets in the Post-Mao era, and this short poem demonstrates why.

12 Nov 202218min

This week looks a poem by Mao Zedong celebrating the communist defeat of a tiny parasite. "Shooing Away the God of Epidemics" was written in 1956 upon Mao hearing that a county in Jiangxi had eliminat...

29 Okt 202211min

This week, we are looking at a poem in the news. We are airing on Saturday, October 15th, 2022. On Thursday October 13th, 2022, just three days before Chairman Xi Jinping is supposed to be anointed fo...

15 Okt 202211min