NüVoices

“China is angry. If you make China the enemy, China will be the enemy," a Chinese Embassy official told Australian reporter Jonathan Kearsley at a meeting in late 2020. Kearsley wrote that the comment seemed like the strongest public indication from the embassy of how “toxic” the relationship had become between China and Australia. In the last year, the Chinese government has suspended beef and cotton imports from Australia, slapped an 80% tariff on Australian barley, and instructed Chinese students and tourists not to travel to Australia.  

But Australia used to be one of the strongest supporters of forging closer ties with China. NüVoices chair Joanna Chiu, author of the new book China Unbound on Beijing's deteriorating global relations with Western countries, chats with former Australian diplomat Natasha Kassam on how Australia-China relations has hit such a low point and why diplomatic tensions seem to have impacted Australians of Chinese heritage the most. 

Kassam is the director of the Lowy Institute’s Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program, researching Australia’s Indo-Pacific strategy, China’s domestic politics, Taiwan, and Australia-China relations. Before joining the Lowy Institute, Kassam was responsible for government policy on human rights and legal issues in China, and drafted the Australian government’s 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper. 

Recommendations:  

Natasha: The new book The Beijing Bureau; also, the Lowy Institute's interactive survey feature on experiences of Chinese-Australian communities where one in five said they were physically threatened or attacked because of their Chinese background in the previous year. 

Joanna: An essay by Bobo Lo, Global Order in the Shadow of the Coronavirus.

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Dolly Li is an award-winning independent video journalist, filmmaker, and correspondent. She is the former host of an award-winning AJ+ (Al Jazeera) show, Untold America, as well as a co-founder of the digital publication Goldthread, which was a part of the South China Morning Post.

​In this wide-ranging conversation with Cindy Gao, Dolly talks about video journalism and the power of visual storytelling, documenting multi-generational immigrant and Asian-American stories, and navigating her own evolving identity throughout her years living and working around the world.

Recommendations:

Cindy: The PBS film series Asian Americans and The Chinese Exclusion Act, this short video about Grace Lee Boggs, and the Netflix TV series Hip-Hop Evolution. 

Dolly: Lot, by Bryan Washington, and this interview featuring Bryan Washington and Ocean Vuong.

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Shen Lu is a reporter with Protocol China and a cofounder of Chinese Storytellers. In this conversation, she talks to Cindy Gao about the misogyny and barriers Chinese women face in tech and politics, the dominance of social ecommerce, Chinese voices in social and political activism, and how cooking has helped her endure the pandemic and explore and express more of her own complex identities.

Recommendations:

Cindy: Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell, available on Netflix, and the column Beijing Lights, featured on the website of the Beijing-based Spittoon Collective. 

Shen Lu: The movie Qiū Yuán 秋园 and this episode of Story FM, a popular Chinese-language podcast.

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Throughout the 10 stories in Land of Big Numbers, Te-Ping Chen — a founding member of NüVoices — sketches the interior lives of her protagonists, who live in (or are connected to) China: a man determined to strike it rich in the stock market, a migrant worker employed at a flower shop who is infatuated with a customer, and a government employee being stalked by her ex-boyfriend. 

Inspired by her years living in Beijing and Hong Kong as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, Chen drew upon her travels and the remarkable lives of people she met to construct a world that didn't fit neatly into news reports. 

The debut author speaks with NüVoices chair Joanna Chiu and New York chapter member Megan Cattel on her observations of modern China, the transferable skills of journalism to fiction, and advice on navigating the publishing industry. 

Recommendations: 

Te-Ping: Do Not Say We Have Nothing, by Madeleine Thien, and Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, by Maile Meloy.

Joanna: Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke, Invisible, by Paul Auster, and The Woo-Woo, by Lindsay Wong. 

Megan: Notes of a Crocodile, by Qiu Miaojin (English translation by Bonnie Huie), I Was Their American Dream, by Malaka Gharib, and The Wedding Banquet, directed by Ang Lee.

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Jin Ding is the vice president of finance at the Asian American Journalists Association and the cofounder of Chinese Storytellers. She also oversees grants, awards, and emergency response programs at the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF). In this episode of the NüVoices podcast, Jin and Cindy talk about the importance and efficacy of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, how journalists can and should be supported in addition to funding, digital safety measures we should all adopt, and how sports and (identity) politics are intertwined.

Digital safety to-do list:

• How to dox yourself on the internet
• Doxxing training overview 
• Data broker opt-out list

Recommendations:

Jin: Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Cindy: The Investigation on HBO; The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, by Heather McGhee; and Stray, a documentary by Elizabeth Lo.

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Jiāyán "Jenny" Shī (施佳妍) is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and video journalist based in Chicago. Her first feature-length documentary, Finding Yingying, was the winner of the 2020 SXSW Special Jury Recognition for Breakthrough Voice, among numerous other awards during a virtual distribution season. The film was produced by Kartemquin Films and distributed by MTV Documentary Films. In addition, Jenny was named one of Indiewire's "20 Rising Women Directors You Need to Know in 2020" and also named to DOC NYC’s 2020 “40 Under 40” list.

Jenny and NüVoices board member Chenni Xu discuss her creative process, what it takes to be a documentary filmmaker, the emotional toll the film took (as well as mental health recommendations for filmmakers), and the story of Yingying and its impact.

Finding Yingying is available to stream in virtual cinemas around the world.

Recommendations:

• Last Train Home
• The Times of Harvey Milk 

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Dr. Pamela Logan's latest book, Compassion Mandala: The Odyssey of an American Charity in Contemporary Tibet, chronicles her experience founding and running Kham Aid Foundation in the eastern Tibetan Plateau from 1997 to 2011. After the foundation shut down, she returned to the U.S. and now works as an aeronautical engineer. In this conversation, Pamela and Cindy talk about the elements of the development mandalas (Pamela’s development ideology) — education, healthcare, poverty alleviation, and heritage preservation and conservation. They also discuss the importance and scarcity of education in Tibet, the plight and resilience of girls and women located there, and what it takes to sustain philanthropic efforts in the long run.

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On January 9, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo announced that the United States would eliminate self-imposed restrictions on exchanges between American and Taiwanese officials. Reactions have been mixed, with some saying a change in policy on Taiwan was overdue, while others warning that the timing of the announcement in the last days of the Trump administration means Taiwan will bear the brunt of Beijing's fury. Experts Margaret Lewis and Jessica Drun — both currently in Taipei — join NüVoices podcast host Joanna Chiu to explore this historic moment. 

Recommendations: 

• Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse, by Shelley Rigger.
• The Legislative Intent of the Taiwan Relations Act: A Dilemma Wrapped in an Enigma, by Lester L. Wolff.
• Toward a stronger U.S.-Taiwan relationship, by Bonnie S. Glaser.
• Pompeo’s 11th hour change in Taiwan policy does Taipei no favors, by Michael J. Green, Bonnie S. Glaser, and Richard Bush.
• Frozen Garlic, a blog by Nathan Batto. 
• Ghost Island Media, a Taiwan-based podcast network.

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Rita Liu is a seasoned fintech executive who started her career at American Express, then spent nearly a decade at Alipay building its international business. During her time there, she formed partnerships across Russia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Canada. She joined Mode Bank as chief commercial officer in London in March 2020.

In this conversation, Rita and NüVoices board member Chenni Xu talk about the “war stories” of the beginnings of Chinese fintech, the future of fintech, and money and gender representation in the industry.

Disclaimer: Views represented are the personal views of the host and interviewee.

Recommendations:

Rita: The Currency Cold War: Cash and Cryptography, Hash Rates and Hegemony, by David Birch, and The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, by Saifedean Ammous.

Chenni: The works of Shirley Hazzard.

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Tiffany Ap is currently the China bureau chief for Women’s Wear Daily. In this episode for the NüVoices podcast, Tiffany and Cindy discuss the revival of the fashion and retail industries as China emerges from COVID-19 lockdowns, the meteoric rises of China’s ecommerce livestreaming and platforms, Hong Kong's retail domination collapse, and a sexual harassment incident hashtag that went very viral. 

Recommendations:

Tiffany: Matthew McConaughey's autobiography, Greenlights; the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, Emily in Paris, and My Octopus Teacher; and The Biggest Bluff, by Maria Konnikova.

Cindy: Three documentaries: Sing Me a Lullaby, Then Comes The Evening, and Flower Punk.

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