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Chinese Literature Podcast

A Podcast 5000 Years in the Making

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Come to My Talk on Zoom – Nov 6th, 2025 Noon PST

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2025/11/04

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Return of the Rob

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2025/10/10

On this episode, I give a brief update on the book’s status, which should be in your hands by mid-November. And also, Rob returns, joining the podcast from France to talk about what he has been up to and also to chat with Lee about the book. Transcript generated by AI My name is Lee […]

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Interview with Professor Emily – Peking Gazette

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2025/08/30

Today, I get to speak with Professor Emily Mokros about her fascinating book, The Peking Gazette in Late Imperial China – State News and Political Authority. The book is about a media outlet in the Qing Dynasty that published discussions that the emperor held with his bureaucrats. The book is available for purchase here at the […]

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Mao Zedong – Soaked Garden in Spring – Snow

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2025/08/05

This episode, the podcast takes a look at a poem Mao Zedong wrote in February 1936, after he and his party had undergone the near-death experience of the Long March. Yet still, Mao has the gumption to imply in the poem that he would be the greatest ruler China had ever seen. My Translation: Original […]

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Fox Butterfield Interview – First Post-1949 – New...

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2025/06/04

This episode is a special one. The podcast has a conversation with Fox Butterfield, the first correspondent for the New York Times after 1949. Mr. Butterfield set up the Beijing Bureau for the New York Times in 1979 and was the bureau chief from 1979 to 1981. Mr. Butterfield started studying Chinese in 1958, and […]

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Mo Yan – Explosions

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2025/05/24

In today’s episode, we look at a work that tackles the controversial topics of aborition and the One-Child Policy. Today’s story, by Nobel-Prize Laureate Mo Yan, watches a father/government official after his wife becomes pregnant with a son. Their first child, a daughter, is not good enough for the official’s dad, he wants a son. […]

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Hao Jingfang – Folding Beijing

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2025/04/26

“Folding Beijing” is one of the most talked-about science fiction stories to come out of China since Liu Cixin, Hao Jingfang’s story is about a Beijing divided into three parts. First Space is for the rich, Second Space is for the middle class and Third Space is for the poor, who clean up after First […]

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The Greatest Fart Joke in Chinese History

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2025/03/30

Today, we are looking at Chinese Literature’s greatest Fart Joke. This involves Su Dongpo, one of China’s greatest poets, and a monk who punctures Su Dongpo’s self importance. Here are some of the things I mentioned I would put on the podcast. Su Dongpo’s Poem on the 8 Winds: I bow my head to the […]

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More Swindles from the Late Ming – Sex, Scams and...

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2025/02/28

Lock up your daughters and watch your wallet. In this episode, we are going to take a look at stories from the late Ming’s most famous grift manual, a book by Zhang Yingyu. For this episode, the translators, Bruce Rusk and Christopher Rea have kindly agreed to come on talk about this text without stealing […]

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A Very Jewish Journey to the West

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2025/01/26

Today, we have an interview Joel Bigman, the author of The Second Journey. The Second Journey is a continuation novel of Journey to the West (西遊記). In this journey to the West, Tang monk travels ever farther to the west, all the way to modern day Israel. Bigman has written his novel with some of the same characters that you […]

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2024 End of the Year Podcast

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2024/12/28

It is that time of year again, the time when the Chinese Literature Podcast takes stock of the year and what has happened. In this podcast, Lee talks about his book and also about teaching Chinese Literature at the University of Oregon.

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Huang Chunming – Sayonara, Zaijian

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2024/11/24

Today, we have an exciting and disturbing episode about Taiwan and prostitution. This is Number 6 in my series on Taiwanese literature, and the second episode on Huang Chunming, Taiwan’s most famous nativist author. Last episode, the podcast looked at the story, “Drowning of an Old Cat.” This week we look at a story from […]

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Huang Chunming – The Drowning of an Old Cat

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2024/11/02

Today, we take a look at Huang Chunming, one of the most important writers in Taiwan’s nativist movement. He is an author who developed this sense of a Taiwanese identity in his work. Also, don’t worry, no cats die in this story. Finally, I mentioned that Rob and I did a podcast on the 1884 […]

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Interview with Professor Daniel Bell

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2024/09/28

Today, Lee is talking with Professor Daniel Bell, most recently the author of Dean of Shandong, but also the author of the famous China Model. Professor Bell and Lee chat about his book and about his wider experience of Chinese culture and philosophy while serving as the first foreign dean of a university in the PRC. To purchase […]

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Edward Yang – Yi Yi or A One and a Two

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2024/08/31

Today, the podcast does something different. In this episode, we are looking at a film. And not just any film. It is perhaps the greatest film ever made. Yi Yi or A One and a Two is the magmum opus of Edward Yang, the Taiwanese filmmaker. We are going to explore the symbolism of balloons, sticks and […]

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Bai Xianyong – Winter Nights

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2024/07/27

The greatest of Taiwan’s modernists, Bai Xianyong’s short story, “Winter Nights,” is a tale about history and how little we are able to change things. These revolutionaries of Beijing’s hot summer of 1919 reconvene in Taipei in the 1960’s having lost their cause and their country. Lee taught this story about protestors during the height […]

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Taiwanese Comfort Women

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2024/07/06

This episode is different. I am first explaining the issue of Taiwanese comfort women, and then letting yall hear a speech that I gave to a group in Vienna on the only comfort women museum in Taiwan. Stick around for some interesting history and a discussion of museums.

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Yu Yonghe – Small Sea Travel Diary

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2024/06/22

This week’s podcast is on one of the earliest documents we have in Taiwanese history, a 1697 journey by Yu Yonghe into the wilds of Taiwan’s north, where he mined sulfur amongst the barbarians. Yu gets off on traveling, and this journey is deep into the heart of Taiwan. In this podcast, I discuss the […]

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Ge Fei – The Invisibility Cloak

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2024/06/08

Love and amplifers is the topic of Ge Fei’s novella “The Invisibility Cloak.” Ge Fei uses a discussion of stereo systems to try to articulate changes in value system in China in the late 20th century. Turn up the volume for this exploration of one of contemporary China’s most acclaimed novelists.

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Nicky Harman Interview on Jia Pingwa’s The Sojourn...

Chinese Literature Podcast ·

2024/05/24

Today, the podcast interviews one of contemporary Chinese literature’s extraordinary translators. Nicky Harman translated, along with her partner in crime, Liu Jun, Jia Pingwa’s recent novel The Sojourn Teashop. Nicky is well known in Chinese literature circles as a translator and promoter of Chinese literature to the broader public. The novel, Sojourn Teashop, is available […]

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