NüVoices

This week, we have co-hosts Chenni Xu and Solarina Ho in conversation with Wenchi Yu on the current landscape of the US-China-Taiwan relationship and working as a bridge-builder in this arena.In this episode, Wenchi discusses how her identity is the throughline of her career in labor rights, civil rights, diplomacy, media and non-profit leadership from being  Hakka in Taiwan, to the US, to Mainland China and back to the US again.

This week, we have host Stephanie Tam in conversation with Anne Anlin Cheng about her book, Ordinary Disasters: How I Stopped Being a Model Minority, which debuted in September 2024 and was published by Pantheon.In this episode, Anne discusses her journey from academic scholarship to a personal, deeply vulnerable "new kind of writing." After decades of teaching as one of the foremost scholars of race, literature, and aesthetics at Princeton University, a series of personal and political crises led Anne to grapple with what it means to live firsthand as an Asian American woman in our world. Stephanie and Anne talk about the challenges of "finding your voice" in the first person, the double bind of the model minority myth, and the problem with how Americans think about who deserves social justice — "as though attention to nonwhite groups, their histories and conditions, is only as pressing as the injuries that they have suffered." Anne also shares her personal experiences of grieving her father, a tragic series of student suicides, and the complexities of interracial marriage. Finally, Stephanie and Anne explore what it takes to find and sustain an "ordinary faith" in the midst of all these "ordinary disasters."

This week the NüVoices podcasting team is thrilled to share a special crossover podcast episode from Jane Perlez' Face-Off: The U.S. vs China, on "Feminist Rebels". This is the fifth episode in the podcast's second season, focusing on the feminist wave in Greater China and where we stand now. The NüVoices podcast interview with Jane aired on February 13, 2025 and can be found here: https://nuvoices.com/2025/02/13/nuvoices-podcast-117-career-in-foreign-correspondence-with-jane-perlez/. Thank you to hosts Jane Perlez, Rana Mitter, and special thanks to Maggie Taylor for letting us cross-post this episode. Enjoy the episode and we'll be back in April.(Description below courtesy of Face-Off. Episode was originally aired on March 11, 2025.)China's leader, Mao Zedong famously said that “Women hold up half the sky.” But these days it doesn't feel that way in China. Unfair marriage rules, difficulties getting a divorce, barriers to owning property and many more restrictions are challenging women to speak out, and act. We'll hear about the Chinese “leftover women” who are veering from the traditional path and about the Chinese feminists of today.Guest:  Leta Hong Fincher, author, Leftover Women. Recommended Books: Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China by Leta Hong FincherTiananmen Square by Lai WenSound design, original score, mixing and mastering by Rowhome Productions. Rowhome's Creative Director is Alex Lewis. John Myers is Rowhome's Executive Producer.

This week, NüVoices co-founder and host Joanna Chiu spoke to returning guest Emily Feng about her new book, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping's China. In this episode, Emily and Joanna discuss her recent reporting trip to Syria, how her waiting at the Beijing Airport inspired her to write a book about identity in China, and how important the idea of being Chinese is to non-Chinese people and government policies. Emily also talks about her approach to journalism and why she insists on revealing the soft sides of Chinese people who went through some most challenging and difficult events in the wake of censorship and government control.

This week, NüVoices co-hosts Chenni Xu and Megan Cattel speak to return guest Sue-Lin Wong about her current beat as South East Asia correspondent for The Economist and her investigative journalism into the world of scams that touches on human trafficking, money laundering and corruption.In this episode, Sue-Lin discusses her inspiration for Scam Inc. following her award-winning podcast series The Prince, how she conducted the investigation, how scams affect victims, and how pervasive the multi-billion dollar scam industry is globally. The model is no longer a top-down hierarchy such as the traditional mafia network, but more like a gig economy where anyone can tap in and become a scam artist. What does this say about the structural problems in place in the formal economy in terms of inequality? Sue-Lin, Chenni and Megan discuss all these issues and more.

This week, hosts and NüVoices board members Chenni Xu and Megan Cattel on to discuss a career in foreign correspondence and podcasting with veteran New York Times journalist Jane Perlez. She was also the Beijing bureau chief for The Times until 2019. In this episode, Jane discusses her long-standing foreign correspondence career, which spans Africa, Europe, Asia and the United States, and lessons learned along the way, including the most surprising thing that happened to her during her tenure in China. She touches on handling risk as a foreign correspondent, how to cover stories despite being not in region, and what she is up to now -- podcasting. She discusses why she finds audio journalism to be "her medium", season 1 of her podcast “Face-Off: the US versus China with Jane Perlez and Rana Mitter" and gives us previews of what to expect during Season 2, which premieres February 11.

Happy holiday season to all! This month, we are re-sharing a 2022 episode in honor of Sheila Wiecke, one of the episode's interviewees, who passed away in October 2023 in Vancouver, Canada. Please also check out our free bonus episode where Sheila shares more details about her immigration journey during the Chinese Civil War. In this encore episode of the NüVoices podcast, historians Arlene Chan and Melanie Ng chat with us about the first Chinese migrants who made their way to Canada in the 19th century. From there, Arlene and Melanie retrace the throughline of Chinese Canadian migration, from exclusionary anti-Chinese immigration laws to present-day Sinophobia found in many Western countries today.We also learn about Arlene's trailblazing mother, Jean Lumb, who played a major role in changing Canada's racist immigration laws.Throughout the episode, we hear from Sheila, a Chinese immigrant who came to Canada following the turmoil of WWII and the Chinese Civil War. Many thanks to Solarina Ho, who hosted this episode and Joanna Chiu, who recorded Sheila's riveting first-hand account of her immigration journey.

This week, we have host Chenni Xu to discuss the new book of an old friend from her expat days in Beijing, Qin Qin (formerly Lisa Qin), Model Minority Gone Rogue: How an unfulfilled daughter of a tiger mother went way off-script, which debuted earlier this year in Australia and New Zealand and was published by Hachette.In this episode, Qin Qin discusses her journey of transformation into her true self, challenges along the way of this reconstruction, and also her writing journey and the road to publishing. Qin Qin and Chenni also discuss their similar upbringings, expectations, and how to break out of those constrictions -- successfully or not. Qin Qin's spiritual, career, personal and her own sexual identity figure into her "Becoming" story.

In this two-part episode, we have Yi Chien Jade Ho on anti-gentrification activism in Vancouver's Chinatown and Judith Shapiro on environmentalism in China. We are ending our spring 2024 season with a collaboration between NüVoices and four students from the University of British Columbia's Human Rights in a Globalized World class. Over the course of last semester, these students conducted interviews and tied their research into their coursework. Part I (which starts at 1:25) is with Yi Chien Jade Ho, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria, about her anti-gentrification efforts and tenant organizing in Vancouver's Chinatown. With students Vanessa Matsubara and Kylla Castillo, Yi Chien discusses her work protesting the Keefer 105 Project. Part II (which starts at 21:26) is Dr. Judith Shapiro of American University on the intersection of social and political influences that shape environmental challenges in China. In November 2023, both China and the U.S. pledged to work together to increase renewable energy sources and lower carbon emissions. But what are the unexamined effects of China's environmental policy implementation? In this episode, students Jake Yuen and Ariyana Dina seek to answer these questions as they consult Dr. Shapiro's expertise on China's environmental movements and policy. Many thanks to UBC course coordinator Gaylean Davies for working with us. 

In the latest episode of our series focusing on Taiwan, Solarina Ho speaks with Tuhi Martukaw, an Indigenous policy advocate, journalist, community organizer.Solarina and Tuhi delve into what it means to be Indigenous, what reconciliation and activism look like today, as well as the communities' complicated relationship with Taiwan politics and Taiwanese settlers. Tuhi shares her own journey of how she connected with her roots and addresses some common misconceptions. We discuss the history, politics, and political structures that impacted  (and continue to impact)  Indigenous communities across the island.

This week, we have prolific cartoonist and illustrator Kaitlin Chan joining the podcast to discuss her recently published graphic novel, 'Eric's Sister.' Kaitlin talks about why she wanted to focus a narrative on sibling relationships, family, creative doubt, and the importance of friendship and community. This episode was hosted by Megan Cattel and produced by Kyle Leung and Megan Cattel.

When Leta Hong Fincher's book “Leftover Women” was first published ten years ago, it was considered a seminal work on Chinese feminism. The book outlines the structural discrimination, wholly reinforced by the government, used to demonize educated women in their late twenties and early thirties who remain unmarried. A decade later, and with Xi's continual reinforcement of patriarchal ideals and traditional family structures, the book is more pertinent than ever. This week on the podcast, host Jessie Lau speaks with Leta about why the book is still as relevant today and what has changed (for better and for worse) since the book was first published. Leta shares the book's origin story and how she started researching ‘leftover women' in the first place while pursuing a PhD at Tsinghua University. Jessie and Leta also discuss whether women in China are still facing the same immense pressure to settle down, get married, and have a family. Lastly, Leta outlines how she went about rewriting this latest edition and what topics she felt were important to include in the new preface. 

Happy Lunar New Year to all who celebrate! To kick off the year of the dragon, we have the one and only Fuchsia Dunlop on our podcast this week. She discusses her recent book, 'Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food.' This episode is hosted by Lijia Zhang. Thank you for your interest in our bimonthly, independent podcast. To support our editorial goals and help us keep producing podcast episodes, please consider donating through our Paypal page or becoming a Patreon member. We encourage listeners to send us feedback, questions, and connect with our podcast team at nuvoices@protonmail.com. 

This week, NüVoices board members and co-hosts Jessie Lau and Lijia Zhang are in conversation with Wanqing Zhang, an independent journalist, to discuss China's feminist movement taking place online. Despite formidable challenges such as censorship, harassment, and societal pressures, these feminists continue to resist patriarchal norms, as revealed in Wanqing's recent in-depth feature for Rest of World.In the podcast episode, Wanqing shares the stories of women she spoke to regarding this latest wave of digital activism — taking place on Chinese social media platforms like Xiaohongshu. Lijia Zhang discusses how feminism in China has transformed since the early 2000s, and Jessie highlights the ongoing crackdowns on Chinese gender activism both domestically and internationally. Together, the three writers discuss how feminists are innovatively navigating recent periods of crackdowns and immense adversity.

Everyone in our NüVoices community: happy 2024! To start the new year, host Solarina Ho delves into the new captivating documentary, "How to Have an American Baby" with filmmaker Leslie Tai. An exploration of a shadow economy catering to Chinese tourists seeking U.S. citizenship for their newborns, the film unveils the fortunes and tragedies of the mothers involved.Leslie Tai, the creative force behind this documentary, is a recipient of the 2019 Creative Capital Award and an MFA graduate from Stanford University. Leslie's short films have graced prestigious platforms like Tribeca Film Festival and MoMA.Solarina and Leslie engage in a thought-provoking conversation exploring the intricate dynamics of trust-building with the women at the heart of the film. Leslie shares the challenges of maintaining detachment in the face of personal and often harrowing stories. The dialogue also navigates the evolving landscape of birth tourism post-Trump and amid the COVID-19 pandemic, unraveling the tensions between these women and the adjacent American communities.

It has been more than half a year since a Facebook post referencing the Netflix drama Wave Makers sparked a wave of #MeToo revelations across Taiwanese society. In this episode, we trace the origins of the movement, what has happened since, and where things stand going forward with guests Darice Chang and Rita Jhang. Alongside host Solarina Ho, they also share their insights and perspectives on the attitudes and conflicts over #MeToo issues, feminism, the challenges that arise when competing concerns get in the way, and the intersection of #MeToo with the upcoming Taiwan election.Darice Chang is a non-binary Taiwanese American writer, artist, activist, journalist, host, speaker, and filmmaker. They were featured in the Netflix docuseries “Midnight Asia” for their drag performance. As an activist they are concerned with intersectional trans-inclusive women's rights, human rights, veganism & animal rights, consistent anti-oppression, climate change mitigation & ethical sustainable living. They are currently working on an independent documentary highlighting the gender non-conforming experience in Taiwan.JhuCin Rita Jhang is an activist, podcast host, and teacher. She's a project assistant professor at the Global Health Program at National Taiwan University and a long-time gender equity and tongzhi/LGBTQ+ rights activist. Her podcast show Z Green Party Z色派對 provides social commentaries on gender, sex, sexuality, and other social issues.

In this special collaboration with Ghost Island Media,  host Emily Y. Wu discusses the importance of local and diverse perspectives when it comes to global coverage of Taiwan. Taipei-based journalists Silva Shih, Afore Hsieh, Wen-Yee Lee join Emily in this wide-ranging discussion.  Taiwan's upcoming election has become one of the most closely monitored  events in decades, drawing the attention of foreign press members, international scholars, and think-tank or trade delegations. This heightened interest is reflected not only in the increased number of books published about Taiwan, spanning countries such as Denmark, Germany, and the U.S., but also in the creation of numerous high-quality newsletters dedicated to Taiwan this year. As global attention on Taiwan intensifies, so does the significance of the work undertaken by domestic journalists. During a recent news forum hosted by RTI, the Chief China Correspondent of the New York Times emphasized the crucial role of local journalism, stating that the ideas shaping global news often originate from local reporting. In light of this, Emily Y. Wu, Silva, Wen-Yee, and Afore provide a glimpse into the landscape of local reporting during this period of rare foreign press attention and international curiosity focused on Taiwan. Many thanks to our panelists, Emily, and the team at Ghost Island Media for partnering with us for this collaborative episode. 

Have you ever been laughed at by family or friends when you tried speaking a new language? It's particularly disheartening when it's your family's language,In this episode,  we speak to artist and illustrator Pearl Low on the difficulties of finding safe spaces for language learning, especially for heritage language learners. Heritage language learners are people who have a certain language in their family but cannot speak it themselves.  Learning a heritage language can be especially difficult because of the immense cultural expectations. Pearl knows firsthand the difficulties in finding an inclusive environment to learn your heritage language. That's why they founded Cantonese Connection, a learning platform with resources to learn Cantonese in a way that feels welcoming and open.Join Megan and Pearl as they candidly address the delicate experiences of navigating heritage languages within one's family circle. They also try to figure out why Chinese language textbooks always use Dawei (the businessman) in all their examples.

In this week's episode, we delve deep into the LGBTQ movement in Taiwan. Our guest, Wen Liu, brings her expertise as an assistant research professor at Academia Sinica, adding valuable insights into the history and evolution of queer rights in Taiwan.Wen Liu and our host, Sophia Yan, explore the movement's origins, its pivotal moments, and the courageous individuals who paved the way for progress.Furthermore, the conversation touches on the challenges that lie ahead for the LGBTQ community in Taiwan, providing a nuanced understanding of the ongoing struggles and areas that require attention and support.

This week, Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, China reporter at Axios, joins host Joanna Chiu to dive deep into her latest book, Beijing Rules. In its pages, Bethany details China's sophisticated strategy of leveraging its economic prowess, manipulating both access and denial, to shape the behavior of individuals, governments, and companies globally.Bethany illustrates how entities are compelled not just to avoid crossing Beijing's red lines, but also to actively support the CCP's interests. Joanna and Bethany discuss the exclusive reporting covered in the book, including China's interference in a Zoom memorial for the Tiananmen massacre and the misuse of the Sister City programs. The latter reveals how an initiative meant to foster exchanges between local governments has been exploited by Beijing to undermine US interactions with Taiwan.Yet, as Bethany emphasizes, this situation isn't set in stone. With the right policies, democracies can safeguard their values while still fostering economic relations with China. She critiques the prevailing assumption that economic freedom and democratic freedom are one and the same. One suggestion is to put sanctions on Chinese companies that execute Beijing's authoritarian censorship.Don't miss this compelling episode where challenging questions are posed about democracy's relationship with commerce in an increasingly interconnected world.

Journalist Clarissa Wei and chef Ivy Chen join us this week to talk about their new book Made in Taiwan: Recipes and Stories from the Island Nation. According to host Solarina Ho, Made in Taiwan is both timeless and timely, and is more than a recipe book. It's a celebration of Taiwanese culture and its people through its unique culinary identity. In this episode, we discuss how food fits into discussions around identity, common culinary misconceptions, Indigenous and Hakka influences, how Clarissa and Ivy designed the recipes, as well as the contrast between Western coverage of cross-straight tensions and the local mood and mindset. This episode is jam packed with a lot of behind-the-scenes tidbits and discussions of Taiwan's history and culture — make sure to tune in! 

We're flying into fall with new episodes two weeks in a row! Scholar and author Julia Lovell is in conversation with host Lijia Zhang about her role as chief organizer of The Hidden Century, an exhibition currently on display at the British Museum until October 8th. The exhibition is the first of its kind to pay tribute to the creative expression and individuality of the Qing dynasty – an era usually more associated with foreign aggression, violence, and turmoil than culture or artistic expression. Lijia talks to Julia about how she curated the exhibit, specific artifacts on display, and changing perceptions of the Qing dynasty. The episode also touches on Julia's academic career. About Julia Lovell: Lovell is professor of Modern Chinese History and Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. Lovell is a translator of Chinese literature, and has also written books such as The Politics of Cultural Capital: China's Quest for a Nobel Prize in Literature and The Great Wall: China Against the World 1000 BC – AD 2000. Lovell has also written articles on the topic of China for the likes of The Guardian, The Times, and The Economist.

Happy end of summer! We're continuing our Taiwan series with Yun-Ching Ko, campaign director for the Taiwan Innocence Project (TIP), the only NGO in Taiwan that's committed to exonerating the wrongfully convicted by providing legal services and working to reform the judicial system. In this episode, Ko delves into her work with host Sophia Yan and discusses cases she has worked on. Those interested in criminal justice won't want to miss this episode.  About TIP: "Taiwan Innocence Project (TIP) was founded in 2012 to address the issue of wrongful conviction in Taiwan.We provide pro bono legal services for the wrongfully convicted, work to redress the causes of wrongful convictions, and support the exonerated after they are proven innocent. We also urge to reform the criminal justice system and seek institutional changes to prevent innocent people from entering a flawed legal process in the first place.TIP only accepts post-conviction cases that claim to be innocent, either with flawed forensic evidence or severe due process violation. We also seeks to support our clients during and after exonerations.We hope to create an open and dynamic space that can spur more public discussion and the exchange of ideas to resolve the problem of wrongful conviction. We hold training workshops for attorneys, ask experts from different disciplines to give talks, and hold campus tours to share the stories of the innocent people and to show documentaries about their lives.In 2015, we officially joined the Innocence Network, and became the second member in Asia. In 2018, we, along with innocence organizations and activists from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, co-signed the “Statement of the Asian Innocence Movement Activists,” collectively devoting ourselves into addressing wrongful convictions in Asia." 

Author Abigail Hing Wen joins NüVoices to discuss her NYT best selling YA novel, Loveboat, Taipei and its film adaptation Love in Taipei, based on the summer study tour that started more than half a century ago.For the price of a plane ticket and about $400, diaspora students between 18 and 23 from the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere participated in the government-subsidized, six-week language and cultural summer program. At its peak during the 1990s, some 1,000 students descended onto Taiwan every summer to have fun, escape from parents, and connect with their roots. Nicknamed after the 1970s/80s American TV show for the lasting relationships that developed, attendees found deep and lasting bonds. There are other cultural study opportunities and programs for youths and young adults today, but the "Love Boat" as many knew it shrank and changed considerably over the last two decades along with the changing political tides in Taiwan.In this episode, Abigail discusses the program and its history, her own experiences with the tour, the legendary stories and escapades that sprang from the students' experiences, and what it was like to make a film adaptation for a new generation of diaspora youth.Love in Taipei is available for streaming now through Paramount+

This week, we've reached the 100th episode of the NüVoices podcast! To celebrate, we've brought together hosts Megan Cattel, Solarina Ho, and Sophia Yan for a panel discussion with a grab-bag of topics – from geopolitical current events to pop culture. We'll be discussing the recent news of Coco Lee's death, and the hosts share their favorite songs as well as what the singer meant to them. They'll also dive into U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's visit to Beijing during a time of worsening relations between the two countries. On a slightly lighter note, the hosts also discuss the Netflix show Never Have I Ever about an Indian-American teenager and her family reconciling the two cultures and coming to terms with the intergenerational differences within the family.We would like to take this 100th episode to thank all our listeners and especially our Patreon subscribers! NüVoices is a non-profit organization and we appreciate all your support – even if it's just a recommendation of the podcast to your friends. 

For the next half year leading up to the elections in Taiwan, we will be bringing you a mini-series focusing entirely on the island, from domestic politics to its relationship to neighboring China.For this first installment of the Taiwan mini-series, host Sophia Yan speaks to Yu-Jie Chen, an assistant research fellow from Academic Sinica who focuses on Human Rights and International relations with a specific focus on cross-strait relations.Not only does Yu-Jie provide listeners with one of the clearest, most succinct summaries of three hundred years of Taiwanese history, but she also delves into how political and personal identities on the island have changed in the past three decades. With cross-strait tensions worsening in recent years, what does the future hold for Taiwan? Yu-Jie also explains how the ambiguity of the 1992 Consensus has caused the modern-day complexities in the region. Taiwan is so much more than the occasional headline, so make sure you don't miss this episode!

"Commercial dating agencies that facilitate marriages across national borders comprise a $2.5 billion global industry. Ideas about the industry are rife with stereotypes—younger ... brides being paired with older Western men. These ideas are more myth than fact, Monica Liu finds in Seeking Western Men."This week, NüVoices host Solarina Ho speaks with sociologist and assistant professor Monica Liu about her new book, Seeking Western Men, which explores the phenomenon of global internet dating and cross-border marriages, partiularly among middle-aged, divorced women in China. She discusses the grievances women in China have with society and their own failed marriages, and why some believe a better life exists through this route. But reality is often very different. Liu explains why, and how the experiences of these women challenge scholars and others to rethink conventional notions of race and class. She also shares her experiences as an academic doing research in China and how that has evolved over the last decade.

This week, NüVoices co-host and editor of the podcast, Megan Cattel speaks to Charlotte Ming and Beimeng Fu, two founders of the Far & Near Substack newsletter. Far & Near aims to depict China in all its complexity by shining a light on the country's visual journalism and showing the human side of some of the biggest headlines coming out of the country. At a time where in-depth, on-the-ground reporting on China is becoming all the more stripped down, Far & Near is a much-needed glimpse into the everyday reality for people living in China.Beimeng and Charlotte can sometimes spend up to 45 hours working on a single issue. The newsletter has covered topics from the residents living in the apartment blocks that were abandoned during constructions due to the real estate crisis, to the nation's outrage over the Chained Woman last year. During the A4 protests, they provided a guideline for foreign journalists to help protect the identities of protestors, which became a popular document used by newsrooms worldwide. During the course of the episode, Beimeng and Charlotte talk about their work for the newsletter as both a labor of love  and a much needed perspective from inside China. With more magazine and newspaper closures in recent days, Beimeng and Charlotte are determined to do all that is necessary to increase readership and make the newsletter a project for the long-term.

Chinese millennials are fed up with the 996 grind (working from 9 AM until 9 PM, 6 days a week) and are going remote. Office workers across the country are freelancing, consulting clients, and starting their own businesses from their laptops; some are traveling to neighboring countries and regions with cheaper living costs. To shed light on this trend, Jing Daily's senior editor, Crystal Tai, is on the podcast to discuss her reporting on this subject. The rise of China's digital nomads coincide with a number of factors: first, the 996 work schedule. Then, the Covid-19 pandemic. Lastly, the cost of living crisis and widespread burnout from a competitive schooling and high-pressure work environments. Together with host Megan Cattel, Crystal discusses all these converging factors — and how many countries around the world are grappling with similar issues when it comes to overwork. Today is the last day of #AsianHeritageMonth to shop for great books on House of Anansi and have 10% of book sales go to NüVoices! Visit this link to learn more: https://bit.ly/41uEsOX

This week, NüVoices host and co-founder Joanna Chiu speaks to Canadian journalist and author Jan Wong. Jan was one of very few foreigners able to travel to China during the Cultural Revolution where she talked herself into studying at Peking University before working as a news assistant in the New York Times' first Beijing bureau. Back then, the “office” consisted of two rooms in the Peking Hotel, one for the journalist and one that Jan shared with the driver and an interpreter. Jan Wong details how she then went on to hone her journalism skills at Columbia's School of Journalism, eventually working as a business reporter for the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail. When an opportunity came up to work as a foreign correspondent at The Globe and Mail's Beijing Bureau, Jan made it her mission to get the role. After landing the job, Jan describes what it was like reporting from China during the 1980s, a bubbling tension that eventually culminated in the Tiananmen Massacre which Jan not only reported on but witnessed from a hotel overlooking the square. Joanna speaks to Jan about life as a student during the Cultural Revolution and her journey into journalism, as well as the advantages of being a Chinese-Canadian when reporting from China. They also delve into the current relations between China and Canada, and the alleged secret police stations that the CCP has been setting across Canada and the United States.May is Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month in Canada and the United States! This month, we're partnering with House of Anansi, Canada's leading indie publisher. Throughout the month of May, 10% of book sales on HouseofAnansi.com will be donated to NüVoices. Check out their online shop to support independent publishing and our work too! Thank you so much to House of Anansi for partnering with us. 

This week, Yaxue Cao, the founder and editor of ChinaChange.org, joins the NüVoices podcast. ChinaChange.org is an English-language website devoted to news and commentary related to civil society, rule of law, and human rights activities in China. She works to help the rest of the world understand what people are thinking and doing to effect change in the country. Reports and translations on China Change have been cited widely in leading global news outlets (like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph) and in U.S. Congressional reports. In this episode, Yaxue discusses her advocacy on behalf of leading Chinese human rights defenders and her own journey into this fascinating sector. This episode was hosted by NüVoices board member Siodhbhra Parkin. May is Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month in Canada and the United States! This month, we're partnering with House of Anansi, Canada's largest indie publisher. Throughout the month of May, 10% of book sales on HouseofAnansi.com will be donated to NüVoices. Check out their online shop to support independent publishing and our work too! Thank you so much to House of Anansi for partnering with us. 

Today, we have a special guest on the podcast (and a worthy NüVoices ally) MIT Tech Review reporter, Zeyi Yang! Together with co-hosts Megan Cattel and Solarina Ho, Zeyi talks about China's initial reception to ChatGPT and all the uproar and suspicion surrounding TikTok. What are valid concerns surrounding the app and Bytedance? What are oversimplifications made by members of Congress and Western media? We touch on all this and more in the episode.About Zeyi Yang: As a reporter for MIT Technology Review, he covers technologies in China and East Asia. His work often focuses on the intersection of tech and social issues, particularly LGBTQ rights and immigration. He writes a weekly newsletter China Report that bridges the Chinese tech industry and readers in the English-speaking world. Previously, his writing has been published in Protocol, Rest of World, Columbia Journalism Review, South China Morning Post, Nikkei Asia, among others. He has received awards from the Asian American Journalists Association, the Association of LGBTQ Journalists, and the Society of Professional Journalists. In his spare time, Zeyi also works as a podcaster, translator, and fact-checker.

This week, host Megan Cattel speaks to science fiction and fantasy translator, Emily Xueni Jin, on the art of translation and the rise of Chinese science fiction.During the course of this discussion, Emily explains her process of translating work, and the special relationship she develops to writers who are bilingual themselves. The result is often a collaborative process, as Emily herself explains, “In a way, you basically develop a voice for them in the English language. Which they, in turn, being bilingual themselves, come to inhabit as well.”Megan and Emily also discuss the essentialization of Chinese science fiction, where writers are often expected to answer questions on Chinese political issues completely unrelated to their work. As Emily points out in the discussion, her community of Chinese science fiction writers are usually just "sci-fi nerds," telling universal truths about the human condition.This is a fascinating conversation about the power of language and the role of a translator, not merely to translate words, but as a mediator between cultures.About Emily Xueni Jin: an essayist, science fiction and fantasy translator, translating both from Chinese to English and the other way around. She graduated from Wellesley College in 2017, and she is currently a PhD candidate in East Asian Languages and Literature at Yale University. Her most recent Chinese to English translations can be found in “The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories”, the first Chinese speculative fiction anthology in translation produced by female and non-binary creators, and “AI2041: Ten Visions for Our Future”, a collection of science fiction and essays cowritten by Dr. Kaifu Lee and Chen Qiufan. She's currently a columnist for Sixth Tone.

Trigger warning: This episode briefly mentions suicide at 01:15 and 15:45. This week host Lijia Zhang speaks to Tania Branigan, current Foreign Leader Writer and former China Correspondent at The Guardian. In this episode, they discuss her new book Red Memory, about the Cultural Revolution, and more importantly about the suppression of memories, and how a society comes to terms with a tragedy deeply rooted in its psyche.In the course of writing the book, Tania spoke to people who were affected by this tumultuous decade in various ways. People like Zhang Hongbin, a man who denounced his own mother at the age of seventeen and is reckoning with this fact decades later, trying to make amends for what he has done.Tania points out that Xi has begun dismantling the protections that were put in place after the Cultural Revolution and the parallels between that period and Xi's rising cult of personality. This is a riveting conversation about memory, intergeneraional  trauma, betrayal, mob mentality, and a deep look into what we are all capable of as human beings. (Red Memory was released in the UK on February 2nd, 2023. The US edition's release date is May 9th, 2023.) About Tania Branigan: Tania is the Foreign Leader Writer and former China Correspondent at The Guardian. Her writing has also appeared in The Australian and The Washington Post. Red Memory is her first book. 

A Ming Dynasty courtesan who transforms into a zombie. A family of ghosts wreaking havoc on a local hot spring. Elite Hong Kong bankers who are secretly serial killers.  Welcome to the world of Lindsay Wong's new short story collection Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality, a pleasantly grotesque series of "immigrant horror stories." Lindsay joins Joanna Chiu and Megan Cattel to discuss  all things writing, publishing, and why the horror genre attracted Lindsay while writing about Chinese women. She also shares details about why her memoir The Woo-Woo  was deemed "unmarketable" by industry gatekeepers and how Lindsay's stories stray from the model minority myth, which still dominates narratives about Chinese immigrants today. * This episode is the free version publicly available on all our social media platforms. For an extended conversation with Lindsay, sign up to become a Patreon member at www.patreon.com/nuvoices. Membership is just $1 a month! Become a member today to get all of our previous and future bonus episodes. Help us continue publishing independent and ad-free content by subscribing! * 

This week we speak to Liza Lin, an award-winning journalist and technology reporter at The Wall Street Journal who has covered China for over a decade on topics ranging from digital surveillance to venture capital. Liza has reported on the acceleration of digital tools like facial recognition in China, tracing the initial large investments in this sector to its implementation by the Chinese government to oppress Uighurs in Xinjiang. This reporting is the basis of her book Surveillance State which Liza co-wrote with colleague Josh Chin. In this episode, Liza also helps us understand how Covid sparked the deployment of more invasive technology and how it was behind the swift response by the police to quash the recent A4 protests. The surveillance affects her work, too. Currently based in Singapore, Liza explains the difficulties of reporting on China from abroad when Wechat conversations can be cut off instantly if too many sensitive terms are picked up by voice recognition technology. Though this riveting conversation paints a bleak picture, the work of journalists like Liza offers a glimpse of hope. This is an episode you don't want to miss! About Liza Lin: Liza is an award-winning technology reporter at The Wall Street Journal who has covered China for over a decade. Her work has covered artificial intelligence, surveillance, venture capital, and more. 

Note: As current events regarding Covid are rapidly changing, we want to acknowledge that this episode was recorded in early January 2023. In this first episode of our 2023 season, Dr. Jennifer Bouey, an expert on global health equity and security, is here to make sense of zero-Covid's sudden end in China. Following the 20th Party Congress last fall, the signal from the top seemed to suggest that China would continue to stay the course on zero-Covid. Few could have imagined the sudden dismantling of the policy.Days before the Lunar New Year, China reported nearly 60,000 Covid-related hospital deaths for the first five weeks of the current outbreak. But many experts believe that number is still low. As physicians in China told Reuters, they are discouraged from citing Covid on death certificates. Relatives of those whose deaths were related to Covid say the disease did not appear as a cause of death on official documents.The number of deaths is also a lagging figure; one infectious disease model reported in the journal Nature suggests that the current wave peaked ahead of Chinese New Year in many parts of China, which means the number of deaths could surge over the holidays and beyond.

This episode was originally released May 29, 2021 * Stay tuned for our new season starting on January 25, 2023! *Learn more about Yilin's new upcoming book, The Lantern and the Nightmoths Yilin Wang (she/they) is a Vancouver-based writer, editor, Chinese-English translator, educator, and cultural consultant who was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize and a finalist for the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction. Her work engages with topics such as Chinese folklore, martial arts literature (wuxia), diaspora identities, gender expectations, migration, and cultural reclamation. Some of Yilin's work translating the Chinese revolutionary feminist Qiū Jǐn's 秋瑾 poetry was recently featured on NüVoices' website.In 2018, Yilin spent months travelling around China for research, leading to the launch of the #LiteraryJianghu Project to promote engagement with wuxia and related Chinese literary traditions.Yilin chats with NüVoices chair Joanna Chiu about the fascinating themes and genres of their work, and about the day-to-day realities and power politics of being a creative writing and translation professional in North America. For further reading from Yilin on racism in Canadian literature, see her Carte Blanche essay here.  Recommendations:  Yilin: The wuxia series Legend of Condor Heroes, translated by Anna Holmwood and Gigi Chang and Grace Lau's debut poetry collection The Language We Were Never Taught to Speak.  Joanna: China: The Novel, by Edward Rutterfurd for an immersive narrative approach to learning about 19th century Chinese history, and Yilin's website!

As 2022 draws to a close, so must this season of the NüVoices podcast. But fear not! Before we sign off for a winter hiatus, we wanted to bring together our team to reflect on the past year. Joanna Chiu, Rui Zhong, Solarina Ho, Megan Cattel, and Saga Ringmar come together to discuss our podcast's highlights, our favorite episodes, and what we hope to achieve next year. We also delve into the anti-COVID lockdown protests that swept China late last month in response to the apartment fire in Urumqi that claimed the lives of ten people. Lastly, co-host Sophia Yan gives a recap of 2022's major events: from the Beijing Olympics, China's aggression toward Taiwan, and the National Party Congress which solidified Xi Jinping's third term. Sophia also gives a glimpse into her latest project, How to Become a Dictator, a podcast series for The Telegraph. Please do check it out wherever you get your podcasts! Thanks for listening and supporting us this year. See you in 2023! 

This week, journalist Angela Hui joins the NüVoices podcast with board member (and occasional pod host) Lijia Zhang! Angela discusses the major inspirations behind her memoir, Takeaway: Stories from a Childhood Behind the Counter. She writes that growing up in a Chinese takeaway — helmed by her parents — in the Welsh countryside was anything but peaceful.  Angela was responsible for translating the menu, dealing with outrageous customers, and preparing orders for the usual weekend rush. Violent, racially motivated attacks were also not unusual, with some incidents ending in a physical confrontation (or her father wielding a meat cleaver). Angela also writes about her family history, trips to see relatives in Hong Kong, personal identity, and xenophobia in Takeaway. Listen for all this and more in our episode with Angela Hui and Lijia Zhang. 

"Hello everyone, my name is He. It's spelled as H-E. Yes, it is my name, not my pronoun." Last month, Sydney-based comedian He Huang went viral with her 4-minute Australia's Got Talent audition. She joked about xenophobia, racism, and the pressure from family to settle down and get married. While these aren't unusual topics in the stand-up world, He's dead pan delivery and charisma won over viewers from just about every social media platform around the globe. We had the chance to talk to He about her career as a stand-up comic, her former life as a grad student in America studying public policy, and navigating sexism in the industry. He also discussed how she pokes at racial stereotypes with her work, clapping back at critics, performing in Western countries, and what her parents think about her stand-up. This episode was hosted by Megan Cattel. 

This week, Sue-Lin Wong of The Economist discusses her new podcast 'The Prince: Searching for Xi Jinping'. This eight-part series details the life of Xi Jinping — from his tumultuous youth during the Cultural Revolution, his early political career in Fuzhou, to his ascent as the leader of China. Sue-Lin talks about the challenges of creating a podcast about China from abroad, and finding sources to talk about sensitive topics such as internet censorship, surveillance, and more.  Sue-Lin and Joanna also recap the highlights from China's 20th Party Congress — including Hu Jintao's unusual exit from the meeting — and the political challenges Xi Jinping faces at the start of his third term.