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This week on Sinica, Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn take a closer look at the beautiful city of Chongqing with a forthright discussion that delves into the myriad attractions of this beautiful and occasionally mysterious Chinese city, famous recently not only for its spicy cuisine and panda reserves, but now also as a leading destination for vacation-style medical treatment among the mainland elite. Beyond this standard tourist fare, we're also pleased this week to host Jeremiah Jenne of Granite Studio renown, who shares his thoughts on the openly racist Super Bowl advert which has been stirring controversy in the United States and a sort of mystified astonishment from most foreigners in China. We're also privileged to hear from Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt of the International Crisis Group, who joins us with an audio postcard to share her expertise on what China's recent veto in the Syria question means in terms of its relations with other members of the Security Council. Enjoy Sinica? While you can always download this show as a standalone mp3 file, don't forget you can subscribe via iTunes as well. Just select "Subscribe to Podcast" from the advanced file menu and provide the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when prompted. iTunes should take care of everything else.

We're developing a conspiracy theory that the Great Wall was really designed to act as a two-way non-permeable culture membrane. Because while it manages to keep an enormous amount of foreign music from getting into China, it also tends to trap what little amount trickles in, amplifying seemingly random musicians into Asian megastars and ricocheting their work around the country until it pervades everything from banking telephone hotlines to railways to practically every handheld device with an audio-out function.

Today we are pleased to present another HSK listening test for students preparing for China's official test of mandarin proficiency. These questions lie at the more difficult end of the spectrum for the this level. If you have no difficulty with this material challenge yourself and consider testing for a higher grade. You can find more difficult materials and many more sample tests in our HSK test center, along with official wordlists and other HSK study materials.

Ongoing tension between Hong Kong and mainland citizens erupted into open flames on February 1 when a Hong Kong group raised more than HKD 100,000 to publish a full-page anti-China advertisement in the Apple Daily comparing mainlanders to parasitic locusts and calling for curtailment of benefits enjoyed by Chinese visitors to the Special Administrative Region. The ad was the latest move in an increasingly acrimonious spat that shows no sign of letting up. Joining Kaiser Kuo this week are Sinica co-host Jeremy Goldkorn, Mary Kay Magistad of Public Radio International, and the ever-stalwart Gady Epstein. We're also pleased to have Evan Osnos for joining in for discussion of how China has figured into the U.S. presidential race, a surprise appearance that leads to the sort of award-winning podcasting that can only happen when you put the China correspondents for the New Yorker (Evan) and Economist (Gady) together in the same room. Enjoy Sinica? If you're looking for a less browser-centric way of enjoying the show, why not subscribe via RSS? Just click on "Subscribe to Podcast" in the Advanced file menu in iTunes and provide the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when prompted. We also welcome everyone to download this show as a standalone mp3 file if you're more old-fashioned about this sort of thing.

It's probably the biggest source of misinformation out there about the Chinese language, so today Echo and David take to our studio to chat about what exactly constitutes the difference between standard mandarin and the Beijing dialect. If you're totally new to Chinese, you can use this show to practice some key words in a way that will help you come across like a native speaker. And if you're a more advanced beginner, we also have some real Beijing slang in here we encourage you to throw into conversation to bewilder and amaze your landlords, friends and neighbors. Learning Chinese? Our podcast today is designed for absolute beginners to the Chinese language. What that means here at Popup Chinese is that even if you don't know any Chinese, you should find most of the materials covered totally accessible. We keep our discussion to high-frequency vocabulary, practice using words and phrases that you're actually going to use, and don't get into overly-complicated explanations that distract from having you talking in Chinese right away. So take a listen, and if you like what you hear, be sure to signup for a free account for much, much more.

Today we take a break from showcasing Chinese literature to feature the epilogue from the Chinese translation of Philip K. Dick's well-known short novel, A Scanner Darkly. As fans of PKD, we found the full translations to a number of his books buried in the foreign literature section of the Xinhua bookstore at Xidan and thought it might be worthwhile highlighting a passage as an example of a fairly straightforward English to Chinese translation. On a related note, reading foreign literature in translation is an excellent strategy for making rapid progress towards communicative fluency, partly because Chinese translators tend to render complex phrasings into more commonplace expressions, and partly because native works often embrace obscurity in service to literary style. For someone working to master functional Chinese, reading foreign books in translation can be a good strategy for accelerating your exposure to the most high-frequency language you can really use: you'll spend less time consulting the dictionary and perhaps enjoying the writing more as well.

It felt as though the household was passing through some horrible wartime rationing. Once a daily luxury, the mid-afternoon milking had become at first irregular before fading to an almost complete absence. Conferring on the crisis from the comfort of the third floor sun deck, Edmund and Susan decided that the time had passed for inaction. If they were not to live at the mercy of others for their basic food security, it would be necessary to root out their own reserves, however problematic that might be without opposable thumbs. Learning Chinese? Our elementary Chinese lesson for today covers the most native way Chinese people ask exasperated rhetorical questions, so that you can sound as world-weary as everyone else. Also in the mix: how to complain about Beijing's air quality and traffic problems and a cultural note on why no-one has their phones stolen in China. So if you're learning Chinese or just learning to get by in China, listen to our show and let us know what you think in the comments section below.

It had been particularly dark that evening, which lent some credence to the claims of the parking lot attendants not to have seen the actual killing. But while the evidence against the main suspect was admittedly circumstantial, the drive to secure a conviction was shared at all levels of government, with it being quite clear to those in power that whoever killed Andrei Prodan had not only an uncommon viciousness, but a fundamental disregard for the institutions of public governance itself.

If your impression of Taiwanese politics has been dominated by the island's recurring stories of vote-buying and parliamentary brawls, you'll probably be shocked to hear what Mary Kay Magistad has to say about her recent trip to cover last week's elections on the island, in which Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomingtang Party was re-elected to a second term in a surprisingly sedate process. Trying to keep up with what's going on in China? Today Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn are joined by Mary Kay Magistad for a closer look at the political situation in Taiwan as well as a more general discussion about what it implies for the prospects for democratization in other countries where people also happen to speak mandarin. Also up for discussion are the latest trends in Chinese Internet and mobile usage, and of course a special list of holiday recommendations along with our best wishes for the upcoming Spring Festival. So regardless of whether you're off work, join us for our last show in the Year of the Rabbit. We hope you enjoy it. Like Sinica and want more? An easy way to download all of the Sinica shows is to subscribe to our RSS feed via iTunes. To do this, simply open iTunes and pick the option "Subscribe to Podcast" from the Advanced file menu and provide the URL "http://popupchinese.com/custom/feeds/sinica" when prompted. If you'd just like to download this single episode as a standalone mp3 file and play it manually, you're more than welcome to do that as well.

The sales report was taking longer than Xiao Hong expected, which was surprising considering that sales were down two hundred percent in the quarter and there wasn't actually that much to write-up. Yet the document weighed on his mind, clouding his mid-morning QQ chats and distracting him during his pre-lunch sales meeting. Fortunately, the prospect of lunch with an old friend promised at least a brief respite from the dark clouds of work left undone. Learning Chinese? The stark terror the Chinese labor force seems to install in workers abroad is lost on us, if only because our limited experience suggests that not a terrible amount of work gets done in large Chinese organizations and nepotism rather than meritocracy is the overarching organizational principle. That said, in the event you've hired someone like this or are underpaid for the work you do, you should find this podcast useful: it's all about giving ultimatums in Chinese.

Our collective vote for the most incomprehensible Chinese we've ever heard still goes to whatever that farmer selling miniature Terracotta statues was speaking the day we stopped by Qin Shihuang's tomb in Xi'an. And compared to that, the Sichuanese accent is delightful and funny and amazingly comprehensible. And it's actually so very *almost* mandarin that - had history turned but slightly differently in 1955 - we would all be speaking it today. Learning Chinese? Our advanced shows at Popup Chinese are entirely in native level Chinese. So you should be fluent at communicative Chinese if you hope to make much sense of them. And our show this time is all about the Sichuanese accent. We had a good time recording this show, so if you're looking to pass yourself off as a southwesterner or just want to pick up some Sichuanese slang to impress or confuse the relatives, take a listen. We hope you enjoy the show.

It was the year of the housing market (up then down), Ai Weiwei's imprisonment, Wukan, the Wenzhou train crash, air pollution, gutter oil, tainted milk, clenbuterol, China bulls and bears, government transparency, the soaring price of Maotai, Guo Meimei sticking it to the Red Cross, drinking and driving crackdowns, the sixth plenary session, Weibo and the real name system, Shenzhou 8 and Chinese space exploration, the 100th anniversary of the Xinhai revolution, SARFT declaration of war on vulgar culture, Yue Yue and Good/Bad Samaritan laws, the anti-child tracking campaign, the nationwide abuse of tablesalt, a Chinese upset at the French Open, Steve Jobs and Pan Shiyi, and more school bus accidents than we can count. Today on Sinica hosts Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn take a closer look at the year that was as seen through some of the top ten lists circulating on the Internet. What do we all agree were the top news stories of the past year? How do Chinese and foreign accounts differ, and what stories have slipped through the cracks? Joining Kaiser and Jeremy as we work through the last year are two Sinica regulars: Will Moss of Imagethief fame and Josh Chin of the Wall Street Journal. So check out the show and we hope you enjoy it. Want more Sinica? Manually downloading our entire Sinica archive is admittedly not for the faint at heart by now. Which is where RSS and iTunes can come in. If you want to subscribe to Sinica and have your computer download all of our shows, including new ones as they're released, just open iTunes and select "Subscribe to Podcast" from the Advanced menu. Provide the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica and you'll be set. And if you have any problems, leave us a comment or send us an email at service@popuchinese.com. Hate iTunes? You can also download this show as a standalone MP3 file.

Surrounded by an objectively unpleasant mass of grunting, sweating fleshcakes, Hank's body resented his mind for its foolish attempt to impose such Spartan discipline on them both. And to have the gall to disguise it as self-improvement? Gone indeed were the halcyon days of 2011 with its late nights at the pub and mid-morning breakfasts, replaced with this daily hell of early-morning suffering and pain. Learning Chinese? Even if you're as generally slothful as some of us you'll still be able to get quite a bit out of this mandarin lesson for absolute beginners to the Chinese language. The reason is that while our dialogue centers around generally athletic behavior, what we focus on linguistically is talking about taking turns, and this is remarkably useful language regardless of whether you're pushing your body to the limits at a health club, or just buying another round of drinks for some friends.

Now that Chinese New Years is barreling down on us like a t-shirt salesperson at the Great Wall, the thoughts of pretty much everyone throughout China are turning to the obvious question of the holidays: how on earth to get home. If you've ever experienced traveling during what the locals euphemistically refer to as the "Golden Week", you'll know what this involves. And if you've been lucky enough to avoid the spectacle, let our Chinese podcast for today provide the horrifying illumination. Learning Chinese? Our Chinese podcast for today isn't a lesson so much as a discussion aimed to provide advanced conversational listening practice. In the studio with Echo today are Gao and Tan, two younger actors on the Beijing scene who face the unpleasant prospect of figuring out how to get home. At least they're not from Xinjiang.

The Captain grew reflective as earth loomed out the starboard window. His crew would be pleased with their extended shore leave, but the inner planets were far too crowded for his tastes. Although the first few days off-ship were always refreshing, after that he would miss the constant adventures and brotherly camaraderie that had made his time in space so professionally and personally fulfilling. Years traversing the galaxy would do that to a man, he thought. In time you could come to feel free only in uniform. Learning Chinese? In addition to a Chinese dialogue infused with space-faring camaraderie, we've also filled this podcast with some of the most underrated adjectives you'll need to know in China. Because while you may be able to express joy and delight by this point, what about frustration, angst, blame and resentment? All these emotions and more are yours for the listening. So take a listen, and we hope you enjoy the show.