In today’s episode, we talk with journalist and travel writer Thomas Bird about his latest book, The Harmony Express. Entering an uncertain new chapter of his life several years ago, Bird decided to embark on an exploration of the People’s Republic of China via the country’s vast web of railroad lines. In the spiritual footsteps of travel writers such as Paul Theroux (Riding the Iron Rooster and The Great Railway Bazaar), Bird took the trains as his trajectory, exploring and documenting the dive...
Nov 01, 2023•38 min
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 Chinese characters is giving rise to a radical rethinking (no pun intended) of the handwriting and di...
Oct 03, 2023•55 min
Isabel Nepstad’s passion for nature, food, and agriculture can be traced back to her childhood growing up in Belém, a city on the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil. Her connection to China dates to Isabel’s experience studying Chinese at the Beijing Foreign Studies University and economic development and environmental science at Yunnan University while still an undergraduate. For over 11 years, Isabel has worked in the food and agriculture industry in the United States, Brazil, the Netherlands...
Aug 22, 2023•42 min
On this episode of Barbarians at the Gate, Jeremiah talks to Brian “DJ Bo” Offenther. From being the FKFDJ (First Known Foreign DJ) to play in Pyongyang since 1945 to putting together the first Elvis Festival in Mainland China, DJ Bo has been at the center of China’s music scene for over a decade. The self-proclaimed "Shanghai's #2 DJ" is a DJ and event producer based in Shanghai who has performed in 29 countries and 42 cities around China. He’s involved in many cultural activities, including le...
Aug 09, 2023•35 min
David and Jeremiah are on holiday this week, but we hope you enjoy this encore episode with educator Jiang Xueqin, originally released in February 2022. Contrary to the common stereotype that Chinese education is regimented and mired in tradition, the education system in China is actually one of the most dynamic sectors of Chinese society, with core aspects such as the gaokao college entrance exam constantly in flux. On the podcast, this week to discuss the evolution of Chinese education is Jian...
Jul 19, 2023•56 min
This episode of the podcast addresses a worrisome question: Is China’s “cultural space” shrinking? The recent crackdown on stand-up comedy content and the scrutiny of foreign musicians performing in bars have raised worries that other artistic domains will soon be targeted. Over the past decade, there has been a perception of a “death by a thousand cuts,” as increasing scrutiny and tightening regulations have slowly sanitized, squelched, or strangled many areas of artistic and cultural expressio...
Jun 28, 2023•41 min
In this episode, we welcome back Andrew Field to discuss his new book Rocking China: Rock Music Scenes in Beijing, Shanghai and Beyond. While having already conducted valuable research into the history of Shanghai jazz, in 2007, Andrew began a deep dive into the nascent Chinese underground rock scene of the early 2000s with the passion of a rock fan and the intellectual fascination of an anthropologist. He spent years haunting the indie rock bars and performance venues of Beijing and other citie...
Jun 07, 2023•44 min
Fueled by too many red bulls (Jeremiah) and some pretty good pharmaceuticals following an emergency root canal (David), our intrepid cohosts throw caution to the wind and attempt to fix US-China Relations in a single podcast. For those outside of China, the ups and downs of this troubled bilateral relationship are sometimes felt as a rather abstract quandary. Still, for those of us who have invested decades of our lives in this China, the often juvenile skirmishes between the two superpowers hav...
May 16, 2023•42 min
This week we catch up with Jesse Appell, an English-Chinese standup comedy star better known to his more than 3 million Chinese followers as Ai Jiexi 艾杰西. Jesse talks about how he parlayed his Fulbright Fellowship research on Chinese humor into a stellar comedy career in China. Stuck in the US for several years during the Covid-19 crisis, Jesse had to find ways to continue his successful comedy career outside China. Jesse recounts how he began to make a name for himself in the media environment ...
Apr 18, 2023•49 min
In this episode, we are delighted to talk with James Zimmerman about his new book, Peking Express: The Bandits who Stole a Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China . The book is an enthralling account of a largely forgotten chapter in Chinese history, the harrowing 1923 raid on a luxury train by Chinese bandits and the ensuing 37-day hostage standoff. Jim fills us in on the backstory of the incident, based on the treasure trove of diaries, newspaper accounts, and personal testimo...
Apr 03, 2023•42 min
In this episode, we are joined by Ben Cubbage, who calls in from the lofty heights of Xining, the capital of Qinghai province. Ben co-founded Elevated Trips, an organization that offers specialized tours in the remote regions of Tibet, Qinghai, Mongolia, and Gansu provinces. As a passionate advocate for eco-friendly tourism, Ben emphasizes principles such as respect for local cultures, providing sustainable economic value to local communities, minimizing visitor impact, and prioritizing biodiver...
Mar 22, 2023•36 min
This week’s topic is the Forbidden City, and our tour guide once again is Matthew Hu Xinyu, Trustee of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP) and founder of the Courtyard Institute. Matthew provides us with updates on recently renovated sections of the Palace Museum previously inaccessible to tourists, such as the Palace of Compassion and Tranquility (Cining Gong 慈宁宫), where the Empress Dowager celebrated her birthdays and worshipped the Buddha, and the living quarters of the impe...
Mar 06, 2023•41 min
In this episode, we welcome to the podcast journalist Philip Cunningham, freelance writer for newspapers such as South China Morning Post and Japan Times, and was a former Knight Fellow and Harvard Nieman Fellowship recipient. Philip is currently posting a daily Substack entitled CCTV Follies , which provides a visual chronicle of the daily CCTV evening news report Xinwen Lianbo《新闻联播》, accompanied with running commentary that is illuminating and humorous. Phil talks about the program’s quasi-rit...
Feb 15, 2023•32 min
In this episode, recorded on Jan 13, 2023, Jeremiah in Florida and David in Taiwan touch base and exchange updates on the evolving Covid-19 situation in China and elsewhere. We compare and contrast the foreign media accounts of China’s current Covid struggles with the reports from friends and family within China. David gives an account of his wife’s bout with Covid-19 in Taiwan. We also offer a quick update on the gradual opening of student visas for study in China and provide prognostications o...
Jan 17, 2023•43 min
David and Jeremiah are both traveling this week, and in that spirit, we offer a rebroadcast of one of our favorite episodes from the archives. In this episode from March 2022, we spoke with historian and author Mo Yajun about her book Touring China: A History of Travel Culture, 1912-1949. Enjoy, and Happy New Year! As Covid-19 gradually recedes and China resumes domestic travel, we are pleased to interview Mo Yajun about her book Touring China: A History of Travel Culture, 1912-1949 , a fascinat...
Jan 03, 2023•40 min
In an abrupt reversal, On December 7, China announced a rollback of most of its most draconian anti-COVID-19 restrictions, including limiting lockdowns, mass testing, and health app requirements for public transportation. About that same time – it had to happen sooner or later – Jeremiah caught COVID-19. In this episode, we talk about what it's like to deal with the virus at this historic juncture, joined by our frequent guest Zhang Yajun – who also has COVID-19. In addition to the first-hand ex...
Dec 15, 2022•40 min
This episode of BATG provides a “time stamp” and an initial reaction to protests in several major Chinese cities on November 26 and 27, events that are still developing at the time of this recording. After a week of growing frustration over renewed lockdowns amid a spike in Covid cases, and increasing anger over the death of 10 people in a fire in Urumqi, Chinese citizens took to the streets in Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Wuhan, and other cities to protest the continuing disruptive effects of th...
Nov 29, 2022•36 min
In this week’s podcast, we are delighted and honored to talk to Melinda Liu, legendary journalist and long-time observer of post-Mao China. In addition to her long-time stint as Beijing Bureau Chief for Newsweek, Melinda has also covered the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the 1991 liberation of Kuwait, and the fall of Saddam Hussein. The conversation begins with updates on China’s “zero Covid” strategy against a backdrop of a new set of lockdowns in Beijing. Melinda then provides a journalist...
Nov 16, 2022•52 min
In this week’s episode, we catch up with our old friend Alec Ash, writer, journalist, and author of the Wish Lanterns, a portrait of six diverse members of China’s “post-80s” generation. Having resided in Beijing since 2008, Alec migrated to the mountain valley of Dali in Yunnan province in 2019, where he encountered other like-minded Chinese and ex-pats who had fled the big cities for the relative tranquility of the Chinese countryside. His experiences in Yunnan became his latest book project, ...
Oct 30, 2022•45 min
Post-Covid China border closings, the expulsion of western journalists, and suspensions of academic exchanges have resulted in a woeful lack of foreign “eyes on the ground” to provide updates and insights into the current situation in China. While the like-minded community of foreign journalists and China watchers often constitutes an insular community whose reportage devolves into group-think and fixed narratives, the presence of knowledgeable China-based reporters and researchers is essential ...
Oct 03, 2022•42 min
In this episode, David phones in from Taiwan to share some of his impressions of the current mood of the beleaguered island. The discussion touches on the recent visit of Nancy Pelosi, how the Taiwan people cope with their geopolitical plight, how the Taiwan health authorities have handled the COVID-19 crisis, the lack of Taiwanese voices in both Mainland and Western media, the influence of mainland China pop culture and media in Taiwan social life, Taiwan food culture, and the evolving ethnic s...
Aug 31, 2022•39 min
David and Jeremiah are on vacation this month, which means, like the days of summer TV (pre-Internet and pre-InfiniteStreamingNetflixVerse), we are replaying one of our favorite earlier episodes. We hope you enjoy this one from the vault, and we'll be back with fresh episodes later this month. This episode was originally posted on October 26, 2020. Yuanmingyuan, the "Garden of Perfect Brightness," commonly referred to as the Old Summer Palace, was a Qing Dynasty imperial residence comprised of h...
Aug 04, 2022•47 min
with special guest Zhang Yajun of the WOMEN podcast
Jul 19, 2022•44 min
This week we talk with Hatty Liu, Managing Editor of The World of Chinese . This bi-monthly magazine explores all aspects of Chinese culture and society, providing vivid storytelling accounts of the experiences of Chinese people from all walks of life. We discuss the publication’s editorial mission and target audience and the challenges of conveying complex Chinese social issues in an accessible way to foreign readers. Whether it be topics of consent culture, Chinese UFO hunters, or the plight o...
Jul 07, 2022•1 hr
Contrary to the common stereotype that Chinese education is regimented and mired in tradition, the education system in China is actually one of the most dynamic sectors of Chinese society, with core aspects such as the gaokao college entrance exam constantly in flux. On the podcast this week to discuss the evolution of Chinese education is Jiang Xueqin, an educational consultant who has worked with schools throughout China to promote the ideas of creativity and critical thinking skills. Topics i...
Jun 01, 2022•56 min
What do we know about Chinese nationalism? Do nationalistic sentiments manifest differently among different demographic groups, as is often the case in Western democratic countries? What kinds of global situations can provoke bouts of nationalism? And to what extent does grassroots nationalism influence China’s foreign policy? We explore these questions with this week’s guest, Peter Gries, Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Manchester, and the Lee Kai Hung Chair of the Manchester...
May 17, 2022•50 min
No sooner had Jeremiah’s lockdown experience come to an end when Shanghai announced plans to shut down the entire city as cases of the Omicron variant skyrocketed. Now entering its third week, Shanghai’s historic citywide lockdown has imposed unprecedented restrictions and sacrifices on its 25 million people. Among the hapless homebound residents was our longtime friend and colleague, Andrew Field, who – unfortunately for him -- had plenty of free time to talk with us about his experiences durin...
Apr 19, 2022•46 min
Jeremiah and David discuss the current COVID-19 situation in China along with special guest Zhang Yajun (Wo Men Podcast). Jeremiah and Yajun have been confined to their apartment complex for (as of taping) 13 days after one of their neighbors tested positive for COVID-19. Jeremiah, David, and Yajun share stories of living with the current outbreak, how other folks are handling the situation, the response by local officials, and where China's Zero COVID policy goes from here.
Mar 29, 2022•47 min
As Covid-19 gradually recedes and China resumes domestic travel, we are pleased to interview Mo Yajun about her book Touring China: A History of Travel Culture, 1912-1949 , a fascinating history of the development of China’s travel industry during the Republican period. Professor Mo recounts how early tourism guides and photographic travel journals enabled Chinese people to expand the concept of quanguo 全国 ”the nation as a whole,” providing the public with an enhanced mental image of the vast sc...
Mar 17, 2022•40 min
with special guest host Yajun Zhang of the Wo Men Podcast
Mar 03, 2022•53 min
