This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy are delighted to by joined by Professor David Walker, chair of the Australian Studies department at Peking University, and historian with a special focus on Australian immigration policies and relations with China since 1850. Starting with a look back at Australia's history of exclusion, our discussion moves forward to look at the state of relations today, as well as the state of Australia studies in China more generally.

Like Sinica? If you want to have Kaiser and Jeremy show up automatically on your computer or Android/iPhone whenever a new episode is released, fire up your favourite RSS reader and subscribe to our custom feed, available right here. Comments and suggestions for future shows are welcome in our discussion section, as well as by email at [email protected]. We also welcome everyone to download this show as a standalone mp3 file for listening or sharing with friends. Enjoy!

The admission process had already taken four months. Four months of school tours, and meetings with first the principal and then every fourth grade teacher on payroll. Four months of paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork as Jonathan sat sullenly at home wondering when he would finally be able to go back to school. It had been a long wait, but today, at least, his parents would get an answer to that question.

After a shocking expose of Jeremy Goldkorn's criminal past, Sinica this week moves on to examine the Bitcoin phenomenon in China. Joined by Zennon Kapron, fintech expert, owner of the Shanghai consultancy Kapronasia, and recent author of the book Chomping at the Bitcoin, we delve into the driving forces behind the cryptocurrency revolution in China, as well as take a quick look at the various other kinds of innovation surfacing in China's online financial sector.

Interested in more Sinica but shy about signing up at Popup Chinese? If you'd like to get iTunes to download new episodes of Sinica automatically as they are released, don't forget you can subscribe to our free public RSS feed and have your computer download new episodes as soon as they are released. Twitter users are also welcome to join the constant stream of discussion about China news by following Kaiser at @KaiserKuo and Jeremy at @danwei. And we welcome everyone to download this show as a standalone MP3 file too.

We've all heard about the difficulty of finding good schools in China, and know first hand about the food and air safety problems. But what about the terrors of pedestrian crossings, the dilemmas of how much trust you should inculcate in your kids, or how much abject poverty should be included in family outings? For our answers to these questions and much more, join Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn and David Moser for this no-holds-barred and boys-only discussion of what it's like to be a father in China.

Enjoy Sinica? If you'd like to have Kaiser and crew show up automatically on your computer whenever a new episode of Sinica is published, you can subscribe to our RSS feed by opening iTunes, selecting the option "Subscribe to Podcast" from the File menu and providing the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when prompted. We also welcome listeners to download this show as a standalone mp3 file. Thanks for listening, and enjoy!

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy are joined by Colin Chinnery from the Beijing Sound History Project, a recording project that aims to preserve the distinctive clangs, songs and shouts of traditional Beijing life. In addition to sampling some recordings from the archives, we also talk about Chinnery's work with the Shijia Hutong Museum, which recreates life in the narrow hutongs of Old Beijing.

Have thoughts? Once you've done listening, please share your thoughts in our comments section, or write us at [email protected]. We encourage everyone to subscribe to the Sinica show through RSS as well. You can do this by opening up iTunes, clicking on the "Advanced" menu and selecting the option "Subscribe to Podcast". When prompted, copy the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica into the box. Or download this show as a standalone mp3 file.

This week on Sinica, Jeremy Goldkorn and David Moser are pleased to be joined by Sascha Matuszak, a Chengdu-based expert on Chinese martial arts and the producer of a new documentary on Chinese MMA, a competitive tournament series where competitors combine different styles from varying schools of combat in a frenzied quest to pummel their opponents into submission.

Enjoy Sinica? If you'd prefer to have new episodes of Sinica stream to your computer automatically as they're released, subscribe to our special RSS feed using iTunes. Alternately, you can get into the spirit of Daoism and download our shows week-by-week as we release them: this podcast is available for download right here as a standalone mp3 file. We also welcome feedback on our shows as well as suggestions for future guests or topics by email directly to Kaiser and Jeremy at [email protected].

Rather than a regular podcast, today we are pleased to publish a longer Elementary dialogue designed to test your listening comprehension. The language used here is not terribly difficult, but it is spoken at native pace and with the sort of emotional inflection you'll find living and working in China. So take a listen and click through to our quiz to see how much you understand. Our annotated transcript is there as always in case you have difficulty.

Kaiser and Jeremy are joined this week by Mara Hvistendahl, Pulitzer Prize-nominated author and long-standing resident of Shanghai, to discuss her two main works. Along with discussing the twists and turns of her murder novel, And the City Swallowed Them, we also touch upon on law enforcement in China, the global modeling industry, the parallel lives of ex-pats and migrant workers in big Chinese cities, and the different philosophical approaches to punishment. Also, we look into sex-ratio imbalances around the world and its diverse adverse social repercussions, the topic Mara explores in Unnatural Selection.

You like listening to Kaiser and Jeremy as much as we do? Subscribe to Sinica through our private RSS feed, or download this show as a standalone mp3 file to share with your friends. If you have questions or suggested topics, feel free to reach out to us anytime by email at [email protected].

With the Alibaba IPO throwing daytraders worldwide into a frenzed adulation of all things China, and the press going wild over Jack Ma and his Chinese e-commerce engine, this week's show takes a closer look at Taobao - the jewel in the Alibaba crown - with a hard-hitting quiz covering the most important things no-one seems to be able to remember about our favourite shopping site. Also on the show: questions about Beijing and the secrets of Uighur time....

Quiz Night is a regular feature here at Popup Chinese that we've put together for intermediate to upper-intermediate students. And our goal is not so much teaching anything in particular so much as producing a half-mandarin, half-english show that features higher-level vocabulary you won't run into in other learning materials. Today, join us and learn everything from the name of Goldman Sachs in Chinese, to the essential catchphrases needed to outsource your thesis to somewhere south of Wuhan.

This week on Sinica, Jeremy Goldkorn and David Moser are joined by Fan Popo for a discussion of the way life works for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) community in China. For those who have not heard of him, Fan is an accomplished film-maker and social activist, best known as author of the book Happy Together, a complete record of 100 queer films, as well as the director of the China Queer Film Festival.

If you like this show, give a thought to subscribing to Sinica through our private RSS feed, or download this show as a standalone mp3 file to share with friends. Finally, if you have questions or suggested topics for the show, please feel welcome to reach out to us anytime by email at [email protected].