A quick overview of what I’ll attempt to do with this podcast. You can also read this explanation instead.

Transcript

A few resources for those who want to delve more deeply into the novel and the historical era on which it is based (and yes, they contain spoilers):

* threekingdoms.com: Read an English translation of the novel online for free. Scroll past the Oprah picture at the top to see the table of contents. The site includes a lot of crowd-sourced annotations, some of which can be helpful.

* purepen.com/sgyy/: Read the original Chinese novel online for free.

* The China History Podcast: This excellent podcast series is a must-listen if you’re into podcasts and Chinese history and culture. There are episodes on the Three Kingdoms era, the Han dynasty that directly preceded it, and the Jin dynasty that followed.

* BBC podcast about the novel

Transcript

PDF version

Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast.

So, what is this show about? It’s my attempt to tell the story of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in a way that is accessible and interesting to a Western audience who did not grow up in a culture that has been infused with characters and tales from the novel for centuries.

For the sake of full disclosure, I should note that this is a re-recording of the introduction to the podcast. After doing 50-some episodes, I feel like I have kind of found my footing in terms of style and technical setup, so I wanted to redo this intro to give you a more representative impression of the show. Also, the original version of the intro sounded like I was whispering into the microphone, which, yeah, I kind of was, since I recorded that version at night and I was afraid of waking my toddler in the next room. That is one of the lessons I have learned. You only get one chance to make a good first impression, so let’s try this again.

 

If you are not familiar with the novel, here’s a very quick primer. If you want more information than what I provide here, there are certainly many sources of information online, so I’m not going to read the Wikipedia entry to you. The book is considered one of the four great classic Chinese novels. It covers a period of almost a hundred years, from 184 to 280. That takes us from the last days of the Han dynasty to the founding of the Jin dynasty. The novel has often been called 70 percent history and 30 percent fiction.

I have seen some comparisons of the book to the works of Homer in Western literature, but I think a more apt comparison might be the works of Shakespeare, because just like how characters and lines from Shakespeare’s work have become infused into Western culture, the stories and characters from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms have become infused into the culture of Chinese culture.

Just to give you an example: You know how we say “Speaking of the devil”? Well, the Chinese equivalent of that is “As soon as you mention Cao Cao, Cao Cao is here.” Cao Cao is one of the characters from the novel, and he was famous for how swiftly he moved his army.

 

That’s why I want to do this podcast, to help a Western audience understand a key piece of Chinese culture and history. Now,