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Bruce Wayne surveyed the hospital room where Gordon lay in babbling incoherence. The police commissioner had been delusional since being pulled from the Gotham sewers two days ago. And while the fallen officer could offer no words to explain his predicament, the keen eyes of his guest nonetheless understood. For lying on the table beside him were the remnants of a dinner too much for any man to bear: an untouched slab of beefsteak, a spoonful of mashed potatoes. And then the corn. Two pieces of corn on the cob, gnawed clean to the bone. Learning Chinese? We are working with industry contacts in Hollywood to bring a greater and better vision of The Dark Knight to Chinese cinemas, one with more corn and less Dickens. Shooting a film is a pretty big endeavor, but while we get it off the ground we are pleased to bring a double-header podcast to help share our vision of the film, and drum up support for what we think will be a much more ambitious and literary take on the Batman mythos.

"There's no excuse to find oneself stuck in a desert these days," Philip muttered as he crested another dune. Between satellite positioning systems and cellular phones, it was practically impossible to get disconnected from society at all. So what were they doing trudging through what appeared to be the Sahara desert? The last few days may have been a bit muddled in his mind, but whatever the reason, Philip was pretty sure this was somehow James' fault. Whenever they got into a situation like this it was always James' fault.... Learning Chinese? Our lesson today is intended for absolute beginners who are just starting to learn Chinese. This means that even if you don't know any mandarin, you'll still be able to make sense of this dialogue. And by the end of our ten minute lesson, you'll be able to use a simple sentence pattern to say or ask how much more of something is left, whether it be distance or time.

When Xi Jinping headed to the United States earlier this year in what everyone assumed was a pre-coronation victory lap, one of the more surprising outcomes of his visit ended up being a stopover in Los Angeles, where China agreed to increase the number of Hollywood films released in mainland theaters each year and significantly hike the percentage of box office revenue allocated to overseas producers. With these pledges finally beginning to take effect, Jeremy Goldkorn hosts a special look at the state of the Chinese film industry this week in an episode of Sinica that features two veterans of the Chinese media scene: Will Moss from Imagethief and Jonathan Landreth, a Beijing-based freelance media and entertainment reporter who has written for major American publications ranging from the New York Times to the Hollywood Reporter. In a long and wide-ranging discussion, all three talk about China's on-again-off-again relationship with Hollywood, discuss China's new concessions and what they mean for the cinema industry, and ask how the rise of the Internet and digital distribution is affecting box office sales and the prospects of Chinese entertainment companies both at home and in foreign markets like the United States. Tired of watching Chinese movies? Get a better grip on what is happening in China by listening to Sinica: a regular podcast we host that covers the lastest chit worth chatting about in the China scene. If you like the show, remember that you can subscribe to it manually by selecting "Subscribe to Podcast" from the "Advanced" file menu in iTunes and providing the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when prompted. We also encourage listeners to download this episode as a standalone mp3 file directly from our server.

Let us break from the tradition of language instruction and instead offer some practical home-cleaning tips for making the best of your time in China. First, we recommend buying separate mops for the washroom and the rest of your home. Having a third mop dedicated for kitchen use is advisable but not necessary. And don't forget to keep your cleaning rags out of the kitchen, and take care lest they get tossed into the wash with the rest of your clothing. Other than that, living in China is great.

After the scandalous acquittal of Nathan Darnell, Jeremy Harvale became one of the more sought-after solicitors in the city, his services in demand by everyone from white-collar criminals to gang leaders and hardened murderers. And while his popularity may not have reflected a vote of confidence in the ethics of the legal profession, it never helped to be too fastidious about morality when hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of personal freedom were on the line. Learning Chinese? Let us confess up-front that today's Elementary lesson is harder than most of the others at this level: our dialogue really pushes the limits of what we consider elementary. What we want you to take away from this show is much simpler though, being an easy way to transform fairly straightforward questions into skeptical expressions of doubt. This is an easy emotional twist that will make you sound a lot more fluent, so if you're learning Chinese, be sure to take a listen and then let us know what you think in the comments section below.

After reading our declaration of solidarity with the workers of the world, Naomi Klein dropped by Popup Towers the other day for a solidarity march to Wangfujing, where we mobilized the masses in protest of oppressive capitalism in general, and the replacement of sensible, logo-free clothing with rhinestone-encrusted t-shirts and pleated stonewashed jeans in particular. And then we went shopping. Learning Chinese? Our elementary Chinese lesson is like most of the others at this level: it features a fast and colloquial dialogue that's representative of the sort of Chinese that is rarely featured in modern textbooks, but is the way people actually speak here in China. So if you haven't created an account at Popup Chinese yet, be sure to signup for a free account and get immediate access to not only this lesson, but our archive of literally thousands of other great shows to pull your Chinese up into fluency.

Lest there be any doubt to the French protestors who have taken to milling about outside Popup Towers, let it be known that - like Byron - our hearts stand firmly with your people, save in those edge cases where demonstrations of solidarity run up against our inveterate hatred of early-morning calisthenics and other forms of fascist reveille. And what is that mon ami, you are learning Chinese but tired of the oppressive pablum that constitutes most Chinese textbooks? Then shake off your shackles and liberate your mind with a free account here at Popup Chinese. We have well over a thousand shows in our free lesson archive, and you're welcome to listen to them all.

Is there any other company that better captures the dual way China is perceived internationally than Huawei? As one of China's few market-based telecommunications equipment providers, the company is in many ways a symbol of China's high-tech, global future. And yet this is the same company frequently tarred as a security threat by foreign journalists who play up the military background of founder Ren Zhangfei and point with some justification to China's dismal record in Internet security and online freedom. How do people in the telecommunications industry think about Huawei? And what is really going on with the Shenzhen-based ICT conglomerate. Joining Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn this week to talk about Ren Zhangfei and the company he built are two experts in the Chinese telecommunications market: David Wolf, president of the ICT consulting firm Wolf Group Asia, and Will Moss, a Chinese public relations expert who works in the telecommunications industry. As always, two quick reminders before we get to the show. First please be aware that you can subscribe to Sinica through iTunes using our RSS feed at http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica. Facebook users are also welcome to check us out there on our group page at http://facebook.com/sinicapodcast. And as always, please be aware that if you don't want to listen to our show online, you're always welcome to download it directly from our site as a standalone mp3 file.

It turns out that our first mistake doing business in China was giving our hosts a gift of dessicated turtle bones wrapped in bamboo and silk. They were polite enough to accept our offering and one of the younger staffers even commented on how well preserved the carapace seemed to be, but we never did get that contract, and they stopped replying to our emails. Chalk it up to cultural differences. This is an advanced show,and it's a bit different from anything we've done to date. While we have a reading here that teaches some of the basics in parsing classical Chinese, our focus is more than just providing a resource for those interested in reading classical Chinese, since we also have the chance to highlight some of the debates that real Chinese people continue to have about traditional Chinese philosophy, and Zhuang Zi in particular.

This week on Sinica, we take a break from the trial of Gu Kailai, the 18th Party Congress, and the recent flurry of disgruntled expat blog posts to cast our gaze back to the age of Mongol politics, barbarian cross-border raids, and that period in Chinese history which gave us the Great Wall as it currently stands in the mountains north of Beijing. With Kaiser Kuo abroad on business our show is a more intimate interview this week. Hosting is Jeremy Goldkorn of danwei.com renown, who is speaking with David Spindler, graduate of the Harvard Law School, alumni of the McKinsey consulting company, and now self-motivated and self-funded Great Wall scholar whose research over the past fifteen years has made him one of the foremost experts on the subject, not to mention more familiar with the countryside north of Beijing than anyone else we know. Need to feed your addition to Sinica? Have your computer download new episodes as they're released by subscribing through iTunes. This is as easy as selecting "Subscribe to Podcast" from the Advanced file menu and providing the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when asked. As always, we also welcome people to download copies of our shows as standalone mp3 files.

Learning Chinese? We've already had a few lessons about basic numbers in mandarin, so in today's show we take a step beyond that and talk about ordinals, or how to say that it is your first, second, third or four hundredth time doing something. The rules for doing this are much easier in Chinese than in English, so take a listen and in less than ten minutes you'll be well on your way to the elementary level, at least as far as numbers are concerned.

This introduction has zero bearing on our actual lesson, but considering the gravity of the subject matter, if you live in Shanghai please throw us a bone and tell us where on earth people go for late-night dining. The "Eat Drink Man Woman" diner on Tongren Lu used to be a great place with serviceable coffee and 24-hours of nutritious WIFI. But with that shut down it seems the entire city's late-night dining options are restricted to McDonalds, 永和大王 and 避风塘. Say it ain't so.

Following the Chinese media's intense coverage of the blitzkrieg trial of Gu Kailai, those of us at Sinica want to take this opportunity to look back at the most riveting China story of the year. And while we've covered developments week-by-week and assume you have too, as Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn point out in today's show, there's been very little discussion of how the story itself broke: how and when did Western journalists cut through the Chinese rumor mill? Answering these questions and representing the fourth estate in our studio today are two excellent journalists who've covered the story from unsubstantiated rumor through to courtroom trial. We're pleased to be joined specifically by Gady Epstein, a long-time China correspondent currently writing for the Economist, as well as Jeremy Page, an experienced China journalist who writes for the Wall Street Journal and made his name as one of the first investigative reporters to crack and confirm the Gu Kailai / Neil Heywood connection back when most coverage of the Wang Lijun affair consisted of myriad and conflicting rumors centered on Bo Xilai and the United States consulate in Chengdu. Like Sinica? To subscribe to the show automatically through iTunes, just select the option "Subscribe to Podcast" from the Advanced menu in iTunes and provide the URL: http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when prompted. This will setup your computer to download new episodes of Sinica as they're released. Alternately, we warmly invite all listeners to download this show as a standalone mp3 file.

Andy Serkis tossed the dungeons and dragons treatment onto his coffee table, where it thudded to rest atop the scattered remains of nine other fantasy scripts previously discarded. With The Hobbit in post-production and Game of Thrones earning rave reviews on HBO, there was no shortage of epic fantasy projects looking for his participation. How ironic that after years of struggling for this sort of legitimacy he was now hoping for a more conventional role in a dramatic comedy. And it was exactly then, just as Andy was beginning to feel sorry for both himself and Western culture more broadly, that he noticed the small yellow envelope which had fallen from the table to the yellow carpeting. The writing on the front was written in curiously formal capital letters. And while this was enough to entice him to open the letter and begin scanning it in nonchalant boredom, it wasn't long until his eyes returned afresh to the start of the page, and began anew as he realized the invitation to Beijing was serious.

Murder, wiretapping and blackmail aside, our focus today is actually on a more pedestrian form of linguistic crime: the way many Chinese speakers are managing to butcher mandarin by virtue of not understanding its origins. Specifically, today we focus on five useful idioms that almost every single native speaker now uses to mean the exact opposite of what they actually mean. This is more difficult show than most of our intermediate lessons, since we spend a bit of time talking about classical Chinese, but if you're looking to push your way past colloquial mandarin into our upper level, we think you'll find this really useful. In addition to covering some extremely useful chengyu, in the next fifteen minutes you'll learn more about their origins than most native speakers ever will, knowledge we expect you to put to good use at your own discretion.