Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast

By John ZhuArts Books History

Favorites
61
Followers
Typical duration
30 min
per episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast episodes

April 09, 2024 Announcement: 10 Years of Podcasting
2 min
October 17, 2022 Announcement: ”Investiture of the Gods” Launched
Hi everyone. I want to let you know that I have posted the first episodes of Investiture of the Gods on the Chinese Lore Podcast. If you are not yet subscribed to that show, go to chineselore.com. You will find links to the show on various podcast platforms and on YouTube, as well as links to find me on social media and to review and support the show. If you like the podcast, a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts would be much appreciated. As always, thanks for listening!
1 min
May 14, 2022 Announcement: May 24 Live Interview
Hi everyone. I want to let you know that on May 24, I will be part of a panel of Asian podcasters on Podbean’s Storytelling Podcast Week Live show. It’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and this live show will be highlighting AAPI podcasters. We will be discussing our podcasts, the stories behind our stories, and our experiences as podcasters. I’m looking forward to it, and I hope you will tune in as well. The show will be live on May 24 at 3 p.m. eastern time. I have included the registration link with this announcement on my podcasts’ websites, outlawsofthemarsh.com and 3kingdomspodcast.com. See you there!
1 min
June 18, 2021 Announcement: Interview on Asian Fantasy Fiction Podcast
Check out my recent conversation with Jeremy Bai, a translator and writer focusing on Chinese fantasy genres.
1 min
August 23, 2020 Announcement: 2 Podcast Interviews
I recently did two interviews on other podcasts. The first is the Mandarin Slang Guide podcast, where we talked about some common Chinese expressions that had their roots in the characters and stories of the Three Kingdoms era. The second one is Journey to the West: The Podcast, where we had a long chat about classic Chinese novels and their cultural significance, including the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Water Margin, and of course, Journey to the West. Have a listen, and also check out the other episodes on those podcasts, too. If you like what I'm doing, you might be interested in those shows as well.
2 min
November 22, 2019 Announcement: Ask Me Anything on Dec. 16
If you have questions about the how's and why's of this podcast, or my thoughts on podcasting in general, post them at the Ask Me Anything hosted by WhatPods on December 16 at https://whatpods.com/show-development/ama/john-zhu.
2 min
May 20, 2019 Update: Videos on Three Kingdoms Warlords
I recently collaborated with the YouTube channel Invicta History on three videos about Three Kingdoms warlords. The videos were sponsored by Creative Assembly as part of the promotion for its new game Total War: Three Kingdoms. My role in the project was to provide research and record the narration for the videos. We covered Dong Zhuo, Cao Cao, and Liu Bei. It was a fun project. All three videos are out now, so have a look.
2 min
May 02, 2019 Update: Appearance on "Total War" Podcast
Back in February, I took part in a podcast conversation on the Invicta History YouTube channel with the host, Julien, and Peter Stewart, a writer from the team producing the coming “Total War: Three Kingdoms” game. We chatted for more than an hour, geeking out over the history of the Three Kingdoms period, the novel based on it, and how all of that is handled in the game. It was a fun conversation, and it was interesting for me to hear how the team worked to capture the essence of the story in the game. Have a listen.
1 min
January 07, 2019 Update: Water Margin Podcast Launch; Three Kingdoms Miscellany
An announcement about my new podcast project, and an update on a couple things I've been doing with the Three Kingdoms Podcast.
4 min
May 14, 2018 Episode 154: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
A reflection on this four-year ride, and a glimpse of things to come.

* Transcript

Transcript
PDF version
Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast. This is episode 154.
So, here we are, the end of a journey that started on April 9, 2014, when I hit Publish on the first episode of this podcast — an episode that I foolishly numbered episode zero, creating all sorts of metadata annoyances for myself for the next 154 episodes). I had no idea what kind of audience would be out there for this project. Well, after 4 years, 1 month, 5 days; 175 total episodes; more than 81 hours of recordings; 700,000-plus words of scripts; 2 computers; 2 crashed hard drives; and one lightning strike; I have my answer, and it’s beyond anything I could have imagined. By industry standards, our numbers are by no means huge, but it’s definitely bigger than what I could have expected, and the enthusiasm I have seen from you is simply unparalleled. So before anything else, let me say once again: Thank you so much for checking out my little corner of the podcast universe and for dragging others into it. You guys are awesome.
Many of you have asked what I’m doing next, and I’ll get to that in a bit. But first, I want to do some reflection on the novel and the podcast. I explained in the first episode what the novel means to me. I see it as a quintessential part of Chinese culture, and I wanted to share it with people who may not have been familiar with it and might find it hard to get into due to the language barrier. Based on the enthusiasm I have seen in your emails and comments, I feel that goal has come to fruition. But more than that, I have found that in doing this podcast, I have greatly expanded my own understanding of the novel. When you are trying to not only recite a book, but also explain its many intricacies to an audience, you find yourself combing through its pages in a way you would not have done otherwise. Details that I had glossed over on previous readings and references that I only half-understood before now had to be explored and researched much more thoroughly so that I can explain it to you. And in that way, I have gained a whole new appreciation for the novel.
A listener asked why I think the novel has become so popular in China. I think there are many reasons for it. For one thing, the stories and characters of the novel are from more than 1,800 years ago, so they have had plenty of time to become ingrained in Chinese lore. The novel itself may have been written in the 14th century, but the historical text the Records of the Three Kingdoms was written during the Jin Dynasty, in the immediate aftermath of the Three Kingdoms era, and it’s safe to say that there were likely already stories being told about the people and events from the era during that time.
Second, I think anyone who grew up in Chinese culture could see various Chinese values illustrated in the novel. Every society and every culture likes to present some kind of mythical, idealized vision of what its values are, how it sees itself. For me, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms embodies many of the values that we Chinese like to hold up as our ideals, such as the honor of Guan Yu; the loyalty, dedication, and wisdom of Zhuge Liang; the valor of Zhao Yun ; or the unbending principles of every court official who dared to speak up against the next would-be usurper, even it meant losing their head.
Beyond those values, I think the novel is appealing to the Chinese sensibility because one of the things that we Chinese have been taught to take pride in is o...
17 min

About Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast

From the publisher's feed

A retelling of the classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms in a way that’s more accessible to a Western audience. See 3kingdomspodcast.com for more.