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Ten years after his elevation to General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, Hu Jintao remains almost as much of an enigma now as he was on first taking power. What do we know about the man beyond his reputation as a somewhat robotic consensus-seeker, and how will history look back at his time in power? To discuss this question and all the other news that is fit to podcast, Sinica host Jeremy Goldkorn is delighted to be joined for Sinica today with Economist correspondent Gady Epstein, and none other than Kerry Brown, director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and author of the recent book Hu Jintao: China's Silent Ruler. Trying to keep current on what's happening in China? Stay up-to-date on everything we think is worth mentioning by subscribing to the Sinica show on iTunes. The easiest way to do this is selecting the option "Subscribe to Podcast" from the Advanced file menu once iTunes is running, and then providing the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when prompted. Alternately, you are welcome to download this show as a standalone mp3 file as always.

Things we love about Shanghai include its great subway system, fantastic nightlife, and its green and walkable city streets. But then there are the taxis... and have you ever tried getting a cab in Shanghai? First there is the matter of flagging one down in a place where convention demands that taxi lines are formed in parallel to the road. And assuming you wrest one from the masses and clamber in? Well... then your adventure has only begun. Learning Chinese? Our lesson today is all about over-specifying when giving directions, a skill that is actually quite useful to have regardless of where you end up living in China. So if you're learning mandarin and already know the basics, join us for a show that will help push you beyond them and towards more upper-level fluency. And if you have any questions, please do let us know in the comment section below, or by email at service@popupchinese.com.

Squeak is our office cat who in the last few years has turned Popup Towers into his own private fiefdom of glass, aluminum and dot-com excellence. Whenever we're recording, he'll paw at the studio door trying to get in. Visitors are always greeted with excitement out of the hope they might bring something edible, and when he wants to relax on his favorite chair, good luck dragging him away from the computer or getting any work done. Learning Chinese? This lesson is intended for Absolute Beginners to the Chinese language. We start with a fairly simple and straightforward dialogue, and move on with a podcast that will teach you some of the absolute basics to speaking mandarin. So if you're new to Chinese give it a listen and see what you think. And if you have comments or questions, feel free to leave a note, or contact us anytime by email at service@popupchinese.com.

This week on Sinica, we go to the Olympics in recognition of what is unarguably the biggest story coming out of London: the spectacular performance of Chinese swimming sensation Ye Shiwen and the subsequent allegations of doping and anti-competitive behavior by the international and particularly American media which has - unsurprisingly - prompted a defensive backlash throughout the Chinese Internet. Beyond the various Olympic scandals, we also turn our attention to other China stories that have slipped more unnoticed in the press. Hosting our discussion this week is Jeremy Goldkorn. We are delighted to have him joined in our studios this week by Will Moss, popular blogger and founder of Imagethief. Also in our studio for his first time on the show is Andrew Jacobs, whose name discerning readers will recognize as a leading China correspondent for the New York Times. Trying to keep current on all things China? Sinica is a regular podcast covering the lastest news worth knowing about the China scene. And while you can always download our shows as standalone mp3 files, if you like the show and want your computer to download new episodes automatically, remember that you can subscribe manually in iTunes by selecting "Subscribe to Podcast" from your "Advanced" file menu and providing the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when prompted. Let us know if you have any problems.

The Shenzhen company's pricing strategy was simple but effective. Five minutes after any customer arrived, they would be guided to the executive sundeck and given several glasses of cool spring water while they waited for the executive team. Once the customer was sufficiently hydrated, their counterparts would arrive with apologies and a gift of the region's finest green tea. After several toasts, the pricing negotiations were never quite as protracted as some customers may have wished. Learning Chinese? Our elementary lessons at Popup Chinese stretch beyond the baics into dialogues which feature more complex constructions. While these feature common sentence patterns and can help you push your way to fluency, they also highlight the same sort of conversational and colloquial speech you'll find spoken every day in mainland China. So if you're learning Chinese, give us a listen and hear for yourself how much different real spoken Chinese is from the dry, unnatural texts you may be accustomed to from other textbooks.

Memories of last week's floods in Beijing are dying hard, at least judging by the way the hottest selling items on Taobao continue to be car escape kits, and the way traffic now manages to grind to a halt everywhere around the capital anytime there's even a touch of inclement weather. As a consequence, today on Popup Chinese we're happy to publish a fully-Chinese discussion podcast for advanced listeners. This is really just listening practice, but we have a discussion focused on the topic of last week's flooding in Beijing and there is plenty of new vocabulary for those of you boning up on disaster terminology. And in an interesting twist, we also managed to get Bunny in the studio to talk about this with Echo. In addition to being a now-famous voice-actor, Bunny is also working his way up the ranks as a member of the Chinese security establishment and was out on the streets that day. We hope you like the show.

This week on Sinica, attention turns to the torrential flooding which plagued Beijing earlier this week and claimed the lives of at least 77 residents in the Chinese capital. As tempers flare and city officials resign, questions mount over whether this natural disaster is turning into a political crisis for the city government. Also under discussion is a sharp increase in hospital killings, a brazen rise in online shadow banking, Chinese acquisitions in foreign oil-field markets, and first-hand reports of potentially edible wildlife in the vicinity of the Lido Hotel. Joining Kaiser and Jeremy in our studio to discuss all of these issues and more are Alexa Olesen, a long-time China watcher and journalist for the Associated Press, and Josh Chin who writes for the Wall Street Journal and does a lot of detailed investigative work for the China Real Time Report. We're privileged to have such great journalists join us to share their perspectives on these stories yet again. As always, let us remind you that if you'd like to download new episodes of Sinica automatically as a new show is released, you can subscribe to the show via iTunes. The easiest way of doing this is to open iTunes, select the option "Subscribe to Podcast" from the Advanced menu and copy the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica into the box when prompted. We also encourage people to download this show directly from Popup Chinese as a standalone mp3 file. Enjoy and let us know what you think!

Samuel had always appreciated architecture, which was why he had insisted on hiring a top-tier architect to design his new office. So how ironic that it would be here - in the iconic glass lobby that had symbolized his success - that he would end both his career and his life. It had not been an easy choice, but what other could he make? In the last week everything he had lived for had been taken away in an elaborate and cruel con game in which even his closest friends and relatives seemed complicit. Learning Chinese? In our Chinese lesson for today, Brendan, David, Echo and take to our studios to talk about scams in Chinese. This lesson features a fast and natural-speed dialogue involving a man on the brink, so if your mandarin is already at the intermediate level, join us for both it, as well as a discussion on common scams in China and the language you need to know to talk about them. And let us know what you think in the comments section below.

This week on Sinica, Chinese economic growth is on the rocks, ASEAN tensions are breaking through the facade of East-Asian political unity, a major Chinese telecom company is implicated in an international trade scandal, and man-eating fish have escaped into the wilds of Guangxi, prompting a profusion of local get-rich-quick schemes and threatening our plans to take a break from it all with a swimming vacation in southern China. Joining host Jeremy Goldkorn for this week's wide-ranging show is public relations expert and amateur ichthyologist Will Moss, a frequent Sinica guest you might also recognize through his other life as a blogger on Imagethief and Rectified.name. We're also delighted to be joined by Tania Branigan, Beijing correspondent for The Guardian and now-connoisseur of fish-eats-man stories. Like Sinica? One easy way to stay in touch with all things China is to subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. To do this, open iTunes and click on the option "Subscribe to Podcast" from the "Advanced" file menu. iTunes will prompt you to provide the address of your desired podcast. Give it the address http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica and -- voila -- subscribing couldn't be easier. Of course, those without iTunes are welcome to download this show as a standalone mp3 file as always.

The sheer scale of Emilio Largo's China operations -- including the military bunker in which James found himself sequestered -- suggested far more menacing plans than the mere narcotics-smuggling suspected in London. But there were more questions here than how MI5 had missed the rebirth of SPECTRE, such as how his former adversary had survived their last encounter, or how anyone could setup such a labyrinthine operation in Shanghai without attracting the attention of the Chinese government? As the sun rose into view through the cell window, James' thoughts turned back to the question of why he was still alive. Perhaps Largo was simply unsure of what exactly Britain knew. If true, this offered some small point of leverage for the imprisoned spy, although after thirty hours without sleep James wondered if he could possibly be alert enough to seize any advantage afforded by it when meeting Emilio later this morning. What he really needed was a coffee.

Although he couldn't remember any details of the accident, having been knocked unconscious by the force of the truck's initial impact, Xiao Li found himself scarred by the collision in unexpected ways. Even months after waking up in a Shunyi hospital, the young man would find his thoughts drifting off at the strangest of times. And his memory was not what it had been in the past, something particularly problematic for someone in the service profession. Learning Chinese? This is a Chinese lesson for Absolute Beginners. This means that even if you don't know any Chinese, we keep things simple enough that this lesson should be accessible to you. If you're a higher-level student, check out our massive archive for tons more difficult lessons covering everything from simple grammar patterns to advanced colloquial Chinese. And let us know if you have any feedback by writing us at service@popupchinese.com.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser Kuo is joined by two guests from the Committee of 100, an organization formed over twenty years ago by I.M. Pei and other prominent Chinese-Americans to address issues in the Sino-American relationship. The Committee recently released its fourth in-depth survey, the 2012 US China Public Opinion Perceptions Survey which turns up some surprising findings about changes in how Americans and Chinese perceive each other. Representing the Committee of 100 to talk about some of the surprises from the recent survey is Angie Tang, the executive director of the organization, who has previously served as regional representative for the US Department of Labor in 2001 and who headed up former NYC mayor Giuiliani's Office of Immigrant Affairs and Language Services. Also in our studio is Mercy Kuo, the committee's research director and author of a book on Chinese foreign policy and the Sino-Soviet Split. Enjoy the Sinica show? To download all of our past episodes using iTunes, simply open iTunes, pick the option "Subscribe to Podcast" from the Advanced file menu, and provide the URL http://popupchinese.com/custom/feeds/sinica when prompted. All listeners are also welcome to download individual shows as standalone mp3 files, as with our link to today's show here.

Officer Stevens pried open the warehouse door and slipped into the musty interior. Although armed solely with a knife, he was not the least concerned about his lack of firepower. More pressing in his mind was the far-off wail of sirens, an audible sign the rest of his squad was closing in on this complex. In perhaps fifteen minutes the entire compound would be surrounded by uniformed officers, at which point the escape options for everyone would narrow considerably. Learning Chinese? This lesson has been a long time in coming, but today we're pleased to present a lesson on verbs which are "secretly gei". And our point here is simple but unexpected. Because while most verbs in Chinese take 给 as either a coverb or complement when they want to communicate the idea of giving something to someone, there are a few curious outliers which can still go-it-alone.

Hands trussed behind his back as the thieves ransacked his flat, the diamond merchant reflected with unromantic detachment that this could be the work of almost any of his colleagues. Yet he was not totally unprepared for this eventuality, which was why his thoughts kept returning to his home security system. "There's a special wireless mode enabled by default," the salesperson had confided in him. "It can't be bypassed by cutting the wire, and when the alarm is forcibly disabled it will alert us through secondary channels." Learning Chinese? Our Elementary level at Popup Chinese is where things get a bit more complicated. By this level you should already know the basics and be able to parse simple sentences. This lets us start exploring more complicated grammar structures and more colloquial expressions that are harder to translate literally into English. But we still do this within the context of dialogues that showcase the sort of genuine mandarin you'll hear the next time you're trussed up in a home invasion waiting for the police to arrive.

Providing emotional support isn't exactly our forte here at Popup Towers, and it probably isn't wrong to call our philosophy closer to the sink-or-swim variety. But when an esteemed listener wrote in requesting a lesson on how to console a distraught friend, we couldn't say no. So if you're curious how to handle yourself the next time a Chinese-speaking friend suffers a nervous breakdown, we have your back with this podcast. Because life will probably get better for them. Maybe.