NüVoices

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 [email protected]. 

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.