Popup Chinese

Feel that your jokes have been falling flat lately? Enough that you've even started wondering whether China is a grand experiment in irony and deadpan humor? This week on Sinica, hosts Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn are delighted to invite guests David Moser and Jesse Appell on our show for a discussion on the differences between Chinese and American senses of humor, asking why these two cultures feel so different and where - if anywhere - they meet? If you're a longtime Sinica listener, you'll already know David Moser as a regular guest on our show and as director of the CET Immersion program in Beijing. You may not be aware that David also studied Chinese crosstalk with Ding Guangquan and has written on Chinese humor in the past. Jesse Appell is has also given a lot of thought to this subject, first as an academic doing research into contemporary Chinese humor, and second as the producer of a Gangnam Style parody video that ended up spreading through the Chinese Internet. Enjoy Sinica? We're actually sorry about getting the show out so late this week: the Internet ended up being quite slow and that delayed us. Since this could always happen in the future, if you're looking for an easy way to keep up-to-date on what we produce, feel free to subscribe to our iTunes feed. This will download new episodes for you automatically as they become available. And let us know if you have any suggestions or feedback at sinica@popupchinese.com. [standalone mp3 download]

After succumbing last episode to Brendan's wide-ranging knowledge of everything save contemporary pop music, Echo has switched sides this week to serve as Chinese quizmaster in a show that pits podcaster Sylvia against voice-legend Andy in a China-vs-China battle of the wits. And with a Chinese Mobile recharge card hanging in the balance, and SMS messages just waiting to be sent, the stakes could not be higher for our contestants. Learning Chinese? Our quiz show is intended for people who already have pretty good mandarin but are looking for a fun way to expand their vocabulary. And with that in mind, our topics covered this week include famous American companies which have bought other famous American companies, people who did not win the Nobel Peace Prize, and Communist beards we know and love. This is a fun romp through history, pop culture, and German facial hair, so join us for the quiz and let us know what you think.

This week on Sinica, we deliver a salacious podcast that covers everything you always wanted to know about Sex in China, but have been afraid to ask. And with a discussion that stretches from Daoist sex manuals and imperial sex customs to getting jiggy during the Cultural Revolution and even matters like homosexuality in contemporary China, this is a podcast you don't want to miss... unless talking about sex makes you uncomfortable in which case you might actually want to skip it. For the rest of us, this is a stellar show however. With Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn leading the questioning as usual, in this episode of Sinica we're delighted to be joined by Richard Burger, subject matter expert and author of the book Behind the Red Door: Sex in China. Also joining us for this conversation is Richard's publisher Graham Earnshaw, founder of Earnshaw Books, and one of the most well-traveled expats living in China today. Enjoy Sinica? If you use an RSS feed reader like iTunes, please remember that you can subscribe to all of our Sinica shows by hooking up to our custom Sinica feed at: http://popupchinese.com/custom/feeds/sinica. We also warmly invite all listeners to download this show as a standalone mp3 file and share with friends and colleagues.

Sean couldn't mask his dismay at the literal exactitude with which his Chinese lecturer approached her teaching duties. Even after months of parroting back her sentences like a trained parrot, he still struggled with spontaneous communication. It struck him as absurd that anyone expect a student to reach fluency this way, but that was why he'd finally taken the plunge and hired a local tutor. Even if his new teacher wasn't professionally trained, at least his time with her would afford the chance for some genuine conversation. On the off-chance that this is your first lesson, don't be scared: while this is the longest dialogue we've ever produced at the Elementary level, the vocabulary is not terribly complex and we think you can handle it. And if you have any questions or comments? Feel free to write us anytime at service@popupchinese.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

The state of healthcare in China is in many ways better than it was in the era of the barefoot doctors, with average life expectancy in the country now trailing the United States by only three years and morbidity rates far lower too. But while even the most cutting-edge medical services are available in first-tier cities for a price, China's transition to a market economy has left many in the lurch, with out-of-pocket healthcare costs soaring even as the government rolls out more comprehensive health insurance support. How have the new healthcare system reforms inaugurated in 2009 worked out so far? If you're curious what's happening in the Chinese healthcare industry, don't miss this show. Joining Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn from Danwei (a Financial Times company) are three guests with deep expertise on the healthcare industry in China: Dai Lian, a former reporter for Caixin and now executive editor at CN-Healthcare; Benjamin Shobert, founder and managing director of Rubicon Strategy Group who writes on the Chinese healthcare market for CNBC and Forbes; and Dr. David Rutstein, Vice-President for Medical Affairs at United Family Healthcare and former acting deputy surgeon general of the United States. Note, our thanks to Damjan Denoble who writes for the Asia Healthcare Blog and was instrumental in setting up our guests for this week's discussion. So thanks Damjan! And please also note that we invite everyone to download and share this week's show as a standalone mp3 file, or keep yourself updated on the release of new shows with our Sinica RSS feed. And we hope you like the show!

Our Popup crew had dinner at a Sichuan restaurant last week, and for whatever reason the conversation quickly turned to traumatic childhood experiences. And it turns out that while attending school in any country can give kids a rough time, if you attended school in China in the 1980s and 1990s you had to add teacher-management and bribery strategies into your list of daily problems, as Echo and Sylvia discuss in today's show. Curious what it was like attending primary school in China in the late 1980s and early 1990s? If so, join us today for a podcast that shares the dirt on the Chinese school system, and finally gives Sylvia and Echo a chance to come clean about their traumatic pasts. And if you have comments of your own or suggestions about future topics you'd like to see us discuss in the future, leave us a note below or send us an email at service@popupchinese.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy are delighted to be joined by Joy Chen, former deputy mayor of Los Angeles, and now high-profile author of the book Do Not Marry Before Age 30, a look at the state of gender issues in China that's finding traction among a generation of women facing frustrations with their careers, marriages and life prospects in general. Join us as we look into the state of things for women in China. Like Sinica? If you'd like to subscribe via iTunes, just open the software and click on the "Subscribe to Podcast" option from the main File menu. When prompted copy the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica into the box provided and you're done. We also encourage all listeners to download and share this show as a standalone mp3 file. Enjoy!

Our new Ayi is great, except for her propensity to gossip. We'll tell her things like what we had for breakfast or how much sleep we got the night before, and the next thing you know she's shared that on Weibo and Facebook and then we're getting inbound telephone calls from strangers in Henan with occasionally useful but somewhat overfamiliar advice. Truth be told, we're not sure exactly how to deal with it, since she does a really good job otherwise. Learning Chinese? In this lesson, we cover an incredibly useful expression that is unfairly ignored by textbooks worldwide. And in the process, we try to illustrate one of the nicest things about learning mandarin: the looser grammatical structure makes many Chinese expressions more flexible and universally applicable than their English counterparts.

People often ask us how we get such great voice acting, as if there were a secret we could simply put into words. Whereas the truth is that acting is a form of Zen, and it takes years to develop a sensitivity to the art. For us a key part was spending our formative years at the Central Academy of Drama. And as much as it pains us to admit now that we are trained thespians, we'd never even heard of the Bard before attending that venerable institute. In those days, as our teachers would often tell us, truly we were green as lettuce. Learning Chinese? This lesson is mostly just fun listening practice, but if you're looking for a challenging way to build from it, spend a few minutes on our associated vocabulary list and quiz, which will test you on how well you can recognize famous quotes from Shakespeare... translated into Chinese. This ends up being harder than you think, although it may help to note that we've only used one selection per play.

The Internet was expected to help democratize China, but has instead enabled the authoritarian state to get a firmer grip. So begins The Economist's special fourteen page report on the state of the Internet in China, a survey that paints the country's online communities as canaries in gilded cages of sorts, and touches on everything from what censorship tells us about who really wields power in China, to more broader patterns of innovation and investment in China's high-tech industry. Given our longstanding predilection for tech gossip, we are delighted to be joined on Sinica this week by none other than Gady Epstein, author of the Economist's fourteen page survey and our resident expert on general techniques for nailing jello to the wall. And if you're interested on the Internet in China be sure to listen up: we promise is a wide-ranging and fun discussion touching on many of the pieces in The Economist, along with some insider gossip about what points the Economist decided were simply too much to print. Like Sinica? If you enjoy this podcast, be sure to give us your take on things in the comment section, or write us at sinica@popupchinese.com. We also invite you to download this show as a standalone mp3 file, or subscribe to the Sinica podcast via RSS by opening iTunes, selecting "Subscribe to Podcast" from the "Advanced" file menu, and providing the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when prompted. Enjoy!

This is the pilot episode of a new concept show we're developing for upper-intermediate students: a quiz game featuring mostly Chinese questions with just enough bilingual discussion thrown in to keep things intelligible. We had a good time producing this, and if you're stretching past the intermediate level we think you'll like it too -- our topics range from ancient Rome to 19th century English literature and there is plenty of useful vocab here you won't find elsewhere, if only because dialogues about malaria are generally considered to be a bummer. And what exactly is at stake? This week we pitch China against the rest of the world in a climactic showdown that aims to establish definitively whether East or West is better at trivia. So if your Chinese is already pretty good and you're looking for a fun way to make it even better, join us and put your general knowledge to the test. And then don't forget to send us feedback by email at service@popupchinese.com so we can improve on things and hopefully turn this into a regular feature here at Popup Chinese.

While foreign media coverage these last two weeks has focused on environmental disasters, over-fishing and emerging forms of the avian flu, the Chinese state media has turned its gaze towards the transgressions of Apple Computer, which found itself excoriated by CCTV on World Consumer Rights Day for its warranty policy and for using refurbished parts in mainland phone repairs. Considering the enthusiasm of the Chinese market for Apple products, the state media-led hullabaloo has raised questions about whether the Chinese government is targeting Apple as a competitive threat to mainland companies. And what exactly is going on behind the scenes and what does it forebode for Apple? In today's episode of Sinica, we are delighted to welcome David Wolf from Allison + Partners and Laurie Burkitt of the Wall Street Journal to our studio to join hosts Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn for a discussion and analysis of the situation. As always, we would like to remind you that you can use iTunes to subscribe to Sinica, and get the latest episodes delivered automatically to your iPad or iPhone. To get started, just click on the "File" menu and select the option "Subscribe to Podcast". When prompted, enter the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica and let iTunes work its magic. Alternately, you are welcome to download this show and others as a standalone mp3 file. We hope you enjoy it.

When Detective Smith started his slow climb up the professional ladder, his unorthodox crime-fighting techniques and obsession with furniture made him a laughingstock to the local criminal underclass, as well as many of his more conventional colleagues. Yet his persistent and creative efforts to clean up the city would eventually earn him the grudging admiration of even his most vocal foe, and lead to a sea change in policing techniques nationwide. Learning Chinese? This is among the more difficult of our Elementary lessons, but if you're working towards understanding television and radio in China you should find it useful: the conversation is natural and reflects the sort of Chinese you'll hear every day in real media. So give it a listen and let us know what you think by email at service@popupchinese.com or in the comments section below.

Xi Jinping's trip to Moscow earlier this week, his first journey abroad as China's new head of state, has raised interesting questions about China's ambitions in Asia, and coupled with Washington's "pivot to Asia" is resurrecting the spectre of a strategic standoff between southern and northern Asia around the world's two leading superpowers. How realistic is this vision? In today's show, we try our best to find out.... Joining Kaiser Kuo for this discussion are two longstanding followers of Chinese foreign policy: Ananth Krishnan who reports for The Hindu, and Jane Perlez who works as the Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for the New York Times. We are also delighted to have Jeremy Goldkorn back in the studio again this week following his month-long trip to the Southern Hemisphere for some fresh air. Enjoy Sinica? On a final note, if you want to download all of our shows to your computer you have two options. The first is to download them manually through links like this one that point to standalone mp3 files for each show. The second is to open iTunes, and click on "File" and then "Subscribe to Podcast". Provide this URL when prompted: http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica and iTunes will take care of the rest. Let us know if you run into any problems.

If this show is a bit introspective, that's because the "at what cost" question has been a recurring theme of late in our conversations with colleagues and friends. For some the decision to move on is about money and lifestyle, while for others it is just time to do something different. What do we think about this? What do you think about this? If you understand native-level Chinese and are looking for listening practice, why not join us for this advanced show and let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.