Great Leap Brewery is an institution. As one of the earliest American-style microbreweries in China, not only has the company rescued us from endless nights of Snow and Yanjing, but its also given us something uniquely Chinese with its assortment of peppercorn, honey and tea-flavored beers. So as much as we love the other microbreweries in Beijing and throw our money at them too, it's no accident the Great Leap taproom is our most frequent destination most evenings after recording a show.

Today on Sinica, Kaiser Kuo sits down with Great Leap founder Carl Setzer to talk about his story in China: why Great Leap got started, how the company fits into the beer industry in China, and what it's like to run a food & beverage startup as a foreigner. This is a surprisingly intimate look at one of the places we've grown to take for granted, filled with details on their touch-and-go early years and the bureaucratic run-in that almost crippled the business. We hope you enjoy hearing their story as much as we did. [standalone mp3 link]

Sinica - Beijing's Great Leap Forward

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Barbarians at the Gate - Confused about Confucianism?

Welcome to a new podcast from Pop-up Chinese. Barbarians at the Gate is a semi-serious look at Chinese history and culture hosted by rogue historian Jeremiah Jenne and writer James Palmer. We’ll pick a topic and then explore that subject over four episodes released every other Friday. Our first topic appropriately enough is about barbarians, and our inaugural episode looks at An Lushan: the outsider who charmed his way into the court of the Tang Dynasty in the eighth century and who almost succeeded in bringing down the empire. It’s a story made for imperial slash fic: The aging emperor, his rotund but sexy concubine, and the foreigner who came between them.

Barbarians at the Gate - The Barbarian, the Emperor, and the Concubine

Barbarians at the Gate - Barbarians at the Gate: The Barbarian, the Emperor, and the Concubine

50 years ago, Mao Zedong launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, inaugurating a decade of political turmoil with his calls for young people to "bombard the headquarters." In this special live edition of our podcast recorded at The Bookworm Literary Festival in March, Kaiser Kuo and David Moser welcome Melinda Liu, longtime China bureau chief of Newsweek for a discussion of the 50th anniversary of this definitive event. Melinda shares stories about her brother, who remained in China after the civil war and experienced it firsthand. [standalone mp3 file] [rss feed]

Sinica - Live: The Cultural Revolution at Fifty

The immense popularity of social media has afforded China watchers a terrific window onto public opinion in China. In recent years, a slew of English-language websites have emerged to interpret the various trends and phenomena, discourse and debates on the Chinese Internet for non-Chinese audiences, but for our money, the very best of the bunch is ChublicOpinion.com — public opinion with Chinese characteristics — written by Ma Tianjie. A graduate of Peking University who now works for China Dialogue, Ma Tianjie offers penetrating insight and analysis written with great flare. He joins Kaiser, Jeremy, and Ada Shen in the studio for a wide-ranging discussion that reveals the mysterious origins of "diaosi" culture and looks at some of the controversies and conversations that have dominated Weibo and WeChat in recent months. [standalone mp3 file] [rss feed]

Sinica - Beijing's Great Leap Forward

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