Popup Chinese

In recent news, Beijing University has disbanded its Chinese philosophy department. "We listened to the latest advanced show from Popup Chinese," department chairman Wang Xiaoming stated, "and realized that they nailed it... wrapping up essentially all outstanding academic disputes in a mere fifteen minutes." With no research remaining to be done and no need for further books on the matter, the professoriat is disbanding to focus on university administration. Learning Chinese? There are a couple of philosophical debates in mandarin that form such a core part of the language that it's impossible to be a well-rounded Chinese speaker without being aware of them. The question of "original sin" is exactly one such issue: is evil inherent to the nature of man, or a product of social upbringing? We were curious how everyone at Popup Towers came down on this, which is why we invited Sylvia, Echo and David into our studio for a debate over 性本善 or 性本恶. Why not take a listen and let us know what you think?

This week, Kaiser and Jeremy are pleased to be joined by Isabel Hilton, a longstanding British journalist whose youthful interest in China got her blacklisted by the British security services and the British Broadcasting Corporation and redirected into a career in journalism in Latin America and China, where she has covered the country for publications including the Daily Express, Sunday Times, The Independent and The Guardian among others. In addition to talking about what China was like for a junior reporter back in the 1980s, we move on to talk about Daniel Ortega and the Falklands Wars, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Gere, water and air pollution, and of course Isabel's work promoting greater knowledge of China abroad first as editor-in-chief of Open Democracy as well as China Dialogue, one of the most longstanding bilingual journals online. Enjoy Sinica? In addition to listening to our show online, or grabbing it as a standalone mp3 file, please feel yourself warmly welcome to visit the Sinica Facebook page, as well as hooking up iTunes to our dedicated RSS feed. And if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to write us at sinica@popupchinese.com as well.

It's an all-American (and all-star) lineup of guests this week, as Bill Bishop, Gady Epstein and James Fallows join Kaiser for an in-depth discussion of the Third Plenary Session, the outcome of which has produced a rare consensus among China-watchers — and an even rarer consensus among guests and host at Sinica. Trust us on this: this one is actually interesting. So tune in for the latest political gossip from the dusty hutongs of the Capital, for the view on things from Washington these days courtesy of Jim Fallows, and for everyone's take on the troubles a certain financial news organization has been facing in recent weeks. And remember, in addition to listening online, you are also warmly invited to download this episode as a standalone mp3 file. Enjoy!

Few will dispute that the Sino-American relationship constitute the most important bilateral relationship of our time, shedding a sort of lunar influence on international politics which helps shape not only the dynamic of global tensions, but also the course of domestic politics in both superpowers. And while the United States may look uneasily on China as both partner and potential threat, there is no question that China harbors aspirations for a more important role in global politics. With this in mind, Jeremy and Kaiser are delighted to be joined by Wendy Dobson to discuss the state of US-Chinese relations in our show today. For those who may not know her, Wendy is the Former Associate Deputy Minister of Canada and now Adjunct Professor and Co-Director of the Rotman Institute of International Business at the University of Toronto, where she has recently published the book Partners and Rivals: the Uneasy Future of China's Relations with the United States. Note: if you'd prefer to download this show for listening later, please feel free to grab it as a standalone mp3 file.

Huang Xiaoming brushed his hand through his hair, which glistened in the morning sunshine in a somewhat unusual way. "After the army, I wanted to be able to express myself more fully." Pens scratched against paper in the silence that followed. "But how could I do that with clothing and music alone?" Xiaoming's voice dropped into quiet intimacy, as if he was reaching out to each listener personally. "And that was when I knew I needed to make real innovations in Chinese hairstyling." Learning Chinese? Or stuck in Yiwu on a sourcing trip and really need to get a haircut? Fortunately, in this Elementary show, we cover both of these likely possibilities in a show that reviews most of the language you'll need to get a haircut, or maybe just a trim, at your neighborhood hairdresser. And - yes - we actually mean hairdresser. If the shop doesn't have scissors you're on your own....

The first month after the apocalypse was the worst, as China struggled not only with efforts to fend off its relentless onslaught of undead, but also to keep its survivors motivated and well-fed as food supplies ran low and major cities found themselves cut-off from more well-stocked regional outposts. Fortunately, it was not long before Chinese ingenuity offered a solution to the nation's predicament. Learning Chinese? In today's show we cover a pretty strange grammar pattern that appears twice in our dialogue. And it's strange not only because it fails to obey common grammar conventions, but also because we can't really explain what is happening ourselves on a fundamental level. If you think you can do better, take a listen and share your thoughts in the comments section below. We'd be curious if anyone can give us a good systematic explanation for what is going on.

Feeling crowded out by all the laowai speaking putonghua these days? Fortunately for the more adventurous among us, China has no shortage of other dialects, which is why we're delighted to host the creators of Phonemica, a crowd-sourced project to build a digital map of Chinese languages. In our studio to talk about their project and how it's being received in China are the two founders: Kellen Parker, a linguistics graduate student at National Tsinghua University in Taiwan, and Steve Hansen, a university professor and long-time resident in Beijing. Enjoy Sinica? If you find listening to the show through our online flash player inconvenient, remember that you are warmly invited to download this show as a standalone mp3 file. Alternately, you can subscribe to all of our shows by RSS using our public feed at http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica. Inquiries and suggestions for future show topics are also always welcome by email at sinica@popupchinese.com.

After almost three years of podcasting, this week on Sinica we bow to the inevitable with a show about Chinese cuisine, and in particular the strange history of pasta in China. Joining us for this journey is Jen Lin-Liu, author of On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome, with Love and Pasta. Joining her in our studio is Sinica regular David Moser, academic director of CET Beijing and our go-to man for restaurant recommendations in Beijing. Enjoy Sinica? Remember that you can download this show as a standalone mp3 file. If you want to subscribe to this and future shows by RSS to automate the downloading via iTunes, please remember that you can subscribe to our public feed at http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica. Inquiries and suggestions for future show topics are also always welcome by email at sinica@popupchinese.com.

It was at precisely the moment Xiao Zhang was supposed to be mulling over his options and trying to find an escape from his predicament, that his mind somehow veered back to Einstein's theory of General Relativity and the conceptual experiment of the accelerating elevator. Because if gravity was the same thing as constant acceleration, then what exactly was five minutes anyway? Wasn't time relative? And if it was, then how could it ever come to an end? The thought seemed oddly comforting. Learning Chinese? Rather than assault you with more , today we're pleased to present a simpler lesson intended to help you practice all the Chinese you need to deal with time, whether it involves procrastinating at work or hectoring the overattentive wait staff at your favorite Chinese restaurant. We hope you enjoy it, and if you have suggestions on future topics you'd like to hear covered, let us know anytime at service@popupchinese.com.

The Beijing Capital Airport is not only the busiest airport in the world by traffic volume, but it's apparently also the most vindictive and spiteful when it comes to the treatment of non-national airlines. Or that's the most likely explanation we can think of for how a four hour flight to Beijing transformed into a thirty hour Odyssey that included a two day layover in Taiyuan while our plane was cleared for "permission to land" in the capital. Admittedly, the delay could have been an accident. Or it could have involved mechanical difficulties. But we're leaning towards corruption as the most likely answer, and if you're interested in the reasons why, Echo and Sylvia in our advanced show for today as they talk about this epic flight delay, and share some local gossip about the airline industry in China. And with that in mind, we'd be interested to hear if anyone has similar stories, so please feel invited to leave a comment in the discussion section below, or write Echo directly with your experiences at echo@popupchinese.com.

Deep within the bowels of his Shanxi fortress, lungs safely ensconced behind an industrial breathing apparatus, Gao opened his oven to gaze inside with paternal pride. Thick, rich and spewing forth unquestionably carcinogenic vapour, his second generation of brownies looked deliciously irresistible. In fact, it if weren't for his intimate knowledge of the physical agony awaiting anyone who sampled even a single bite, Gao would have been tempted to try one himself. Learning Chinese? Newcomers to Popup Towers might wonder why our staff seem so intent on killing each other using homemade imitations of popular Western desserts. We worry less about the homicidal impulses of our voice actors and more about providing interesting Chinese learning materials that also feature Chinese the way it is actually spoken here in China. So we hope you enjoy this lesson. And if you're still confused by the story, be sure to check out this lesson which outlines the background to Gao and 9527's epic Popup rivalry.

In Egypt in 2011, what was by all accounts a free and fair democratic election resulted in the victory of Mohammed Morsi, a controversial figure whose brief rule ended last week after being overthrown by the Egyptian military. With Western media outlets largely stepping in to support this coup d'etat, the events have raised questions about popular commitment to democratic reforms worldwide, and raised questions about what this implies for the future of even gradualist democratic reforms in China. This week on Sinica, Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn are delighted to be joined by Anthony Kuhn, longtime China correspondent for NPR who has recently reported on developments throughout Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Joining him is Sinica stalwart David Moser, the most renaissance of renaissance men in Beijing, and director of the CET immersion program at Capital Normal University. Enjoy Sinica? If you've been listening for a while, you should know that you can always download the latest episodes of Sinica either from our custom Sinica RSS feed or individually from our site as standalone mp3 files like this one. And if you have any suggestions or comments, write us anytime at sinica@popupchinese.com.

As the most handsome member of his squadron, Huang Xiaoming was routinely tasked with the more photogenic military duties: fielding media interviews, organizing photo shoots for recruiting purposes and posing as "Mr. December" for the division's annual charity calendar. Content with their second-tier status in the world of masculine beauty, Huang's squadmates would drift into supporting roles on these projects: lifting heavy items, cleaning weapons, or playing with animals for b-roll. Learning Chinese? Our dialogue today is a bit of a mix of more formal public speech, as well as the sort of casual mandarin that you'll hear people speak in more unguarded moments. And what are we learning? Beyond the listening practice, what we hope you take away from this is that Chinese speakers regularly make exactly the sort of mistakes that Chinese learners do as well. So don't worry too much about getting your speaking habits perfect, although we'll tell you how to do that too.

Buddhist terrorists, military juntas, resource clashes and pro-Western democracy movements? If China has lulled you into thinking that Southeast Asia is predictable and boring, join us for this week's discussion of Myanmar, the former client state of China which has undergone a remarkable transformation in the past five years, launching itself into an uncertain Glasnost that has opened the country to democracy internally as well as set it on course for a foreign policy that is more skeptical of China and sympathetic to the west. Joining Jeremy Goldkorn for this closer look at China's southern neighbor are guests Simon Montlake and Josh Gordon. The Beijing Bureau Chief for Forbes Magazine, Simon has been a frequent visitor to Burma since 1998, and is the recent author of a piece on General Electric and their Burmese dreams. Coming from a more academic background, Josh is an expert on Burmese-Chinese relations. We are lucky to have them both on our show. Like Sinica? As usual, let us take a minute to remind you that it is possible to subscribe to Sinica by RSS. We are also pleased to make each episode available as a standalone mp3 file for you to download and share as you please. And if you have any questions, contact us anytime at service@popupchinese.com.

Buddhist terrorists, military juntas, resource clashes and pro-Western democracy movements? If China has lulled you into thinking that Southeast Asia is predictable and boring, join us for this week's discussion of Myanmar, the former client state of China which has undergone a remarkable transformation in the past five years, launched itself into an uncertain Glastnost that has opened the country to democracy internally as well as set it on course for a foreign policy that is more skeptical of China and sympathetic to the west. Joining Jeremy Goldkorn for this closer look at China's southern neighbor are guests Simon Montlake and Josh Gordon. The Beijing Bureau Chief for Forbes Magazine, Simon has been a frequent visitor to Burma since 1998, and is the recent author of a piece on General Electric and their Burmese dreams. Coming from a more academic background, Josh is an expert on Burmese-Chinese relations. We are lucky to have them both on our show. Like Sinica? As usual, let us take a minute to remind you that it is possible to subscribe to Sinica by RSS. We are also pleased to make each episode available as a standalone mp3 file for you to download and share as you please. And if you have any questions, contact us anytime at service@popupchinese.com.