NüVoices

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, particularly 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.