Welcome to another episode of The Meandering Pod! 

This week you’re in for another bonus ep - woohoo! It features bikepacker-extraordinaire and Aussie legend John Paul Lopez Taberdo, AKA JP. He an expert in his frield and someone we’ve become fast friends with. Check out the previous group episode if you haven’t already to hear the lore of how we met in Bishkek as we prepared for our first bikepacking adventure in Kyrgyzstan. 

In this episode we discuss JP’s love of bike-packing, the story of how he found himself living in Krgyzstan when we were passing through, his reflections on the society he is now embedding himself in, and much more. Stick around till the end to hear about a crazy bikepacking adventure that JP embarked on in Kyrgyzstan called the Silk Road Mountain Race  – it knocked our socks off and is sure to give all the turbos out a bit of a thrill, and everyone else a good dose of vicarious horror and amazement!

Here are the links to John Paul and his family’s websites and social media:

- globalbikepacker.com, @bikepacking.john

- apricotadventures.kg, apricotlodge.com,  @apricotadventures.kg

- applehostel.kg, @applehostelbiskhek

People can email JP directly at [email protected]

Hey guys! Click play if you want to hear an hour update of the last 6 weeks - recorded unedited on Cams phone. We’re currently bikepacking together in Kyrgyzstan, and many things have gone awry! However, it is beautiful and we’re leaving problems behind in the dust. Apologise for the chaos. 

Book recc is The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan! Amazing book of world history telling an alternative to the typically western centric world history we’re told. In fact, much of historical power and wealth was held in the east - in Persia and Central Asia - where we are now. 

Hope you enjoy, and sending some love to you all. 

Welcome back for another episode of The Meandering Pod!!!

This week, we’re hopping back for a final episode about Japan – specifically the worst disaster it ever faced. Although many people may would remember hearing about the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, it’s been 15 years now and not many would still be across the details. 

Today, we’ll be doing a deep dive on the multifaceted fallout experienced after Fukushima – for Japanese society, it’s energy transition and the nuclear industry generally. We also are very grateful to have interviewed Dr Alexander Brown, about the post-Fukushima protest movement in Tokyo. 

Enjoy the episode and share with a friend if you feel like it! 

More on Dr Alexander Brown: 

• His PhD
• His book – Anti-nuclear Protest in Post-Fukushima Tokyo: Power Struggles

• An article he wrote about an art installation, Japan and its link between nuclear weapons and power 
• His Substack channel Contesting the Nuclear Age 

The ‘protest song’ was a snippet from a freestyle performance of the artist Akuryō freestyling at an antinuclear protest in Japan on July 29, 2012 (the mp3 was downloaded from a YouTube account called protestreserach (video originally by ken23qu on youtube). The full clip is available (with subtitles) to watch here. Ethnomusicologist Noriko Manabe wrote this article about music in Japanese anti-nuclear demonstrations (as well as a book), from which the clip was discovered.

Interesting content about Fukushima:

• Graphic novel – Guardian of Fukushima
• TV show – Fukushima 50
• Animated YouTube video –
• More songs – "humanERROR" by FRYING DUTCHMAN and
  'It was always a lie' by Kazuyoshi Saito (a cover of his own song but with Fukushima plant protest lyrics)

Key sources:

• BBC: Fukushima disaster: What happened at the nuclear plant?​
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Why Fukushima Was Preventable
• ScienceDirect journal article: The Fukushima nuclear accident and its effect on global energy security
• IAEA: Nuclear Power 10 Years After Fukushima: The Long Road Back
• Namazu Myth Explained
• BBC: UK nuclear support 'rises after Fukushima'

Did you know 5 families control more than half of the Korean economy and ALL of its politicians? Meet the Chaebol - the driving force behind Koreas economic miracle but also the root of many of the countries present day issues from corruption and inequality to a hyper competitive social structure and declining birth rate.

In this episode, for the first time in Meandering history, Cam and Dom jump on the mic and dive deep into terrifying control Korea’s oligarchs have over the people - as well as the terrifying control the global tech oligarchs have over all of us, as the world transitions from Capitalism to ‘Techno Feudalism’ as outlined in Economist Yanis Varoufakis’s book by the same name.

Welcome to another group episode of The Meandering Pod!

Not much time has passed but a lot has happened – strap in while we update you on the shenanigans our group got into while travelling from Japan to China via Korea.

This episode also features superfan SHAZ, who joined Lotta + Dom, then Bec + Cam on our meandering (mis)adventures. Stick around to hear about our East Asian foods, and for another Brick #1 sparring session, judged impartially by Shaz :)

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Books:

(Japan)

- The Shut Ins by Katherine

- Cold Enough For Snow by Jessica Au

(Korea)

- Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

- I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-hee

- The Vegetarian by Han Kang

- Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner (Japanese Breakfast)

(China)

- Beijing Comrades by Bei Tong

(East Asia)

- Three Tigers One Mountain by Michael Booth

Movies:

(Korea)

- The Taxi Driver by Jang Hoon

How much do you know about protists? How much do you know about their behaviour and intelligence? I’m gonna guess very little, as that’s where I was not that long ago. The world of these obscure creatures is incredibly complex and fascinating, as they interact with their environment and make decisions and weigh up risks. 

In this episode, I interview researcher Alid Al-Asmar about slime moulds (the “blob”) ciliates (unicellular beings with eyelashes) and his personal favourite - nematodes (little round worms).

Dom joins me for the end for a comparison of his intelligence to that of protists. Brutal, but demonstrates my point. 

Below are the articles I cite in the show.

Does being multi-headed make you better at solving problems?

ScienceDirect.comhttps://www.sciencedirect.comDoes being multi-headed make you better at solving problems? A survey of ...

A ciliate memorises the geometry of a swimming area

royalsocietypublishing.orghttps://royalsocietypublishing.orgA ciliate memorizes the geometry of a swimming arena | The Royal Society

C. Elegant transfers across a gap under an electric field as dispersal behaviour

National Institutes of Health (.gov)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.govCaenorhabditis elegans transfers across a gap under an electric field as ...

Maze-solving by an amoeboid organism

Naturehttps://www.nature.comMaze-solving by an amoeboid organism

Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design

Science | AAAShttps://www.science.orgRules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design

Geometrical preference of anchoring sites in the unicellular organism Stentor coeruleus

PNAShttps://www.pnas.orgGeometrical preference of anchoring sites in the unicellular organism ...

Join Dom, Lotta and special guest Sharran as they talk all about snow and how it’s changing. How is changing snow affecting the skiing world? The Winter Olympics? Plants, animals, and humans who reply on snow and snowmelt? And what can we do about all this scary change? 

Join along for this important discussion and learn how winters are changing, and how we can protect them. 

And definitely check out Jonica Newby’s BEYOND CLIMATE GRIEF for all the feels and how to deals. 

Wowee, it’s been a hot second! And it’s HALF WAY THROUGH OUR TRIP! Another group episode for all your travel ramblings and, of course, the reveal of who topped the brick rankings for the past three months. The four of us are finally reunited (however briefly) for meandering shenanigans - involving saunas, cherry blossom festivals and hitting the spring snow slopes in the Japanese Alps. Also, we have a guest on the show: our friend Drea, whose contributions are the highlights of the show. We’d listen to them all day any day, make a podcast Drea (ironic seeing as they don’t listen to podcasts, this is the first one of ours they’ve heard!).

Anyway, some of the pertinent info we promised in the show:

The Chinese spirit is called Baijo. It is insane. We also had a lot of shochu, sake, umeshu, and lots of Asahi, seeing as we travelled through the town Asahi.

Our book recommendations are: 

The Membranes, a novel by Chi Ta-Wei

Discipline by Randa Abdel-Fattah

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman

Water, Wood and Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town by Hannah Kirschner

Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis

We hope you enjoy the show! Click the bell, leave a comment, subscribe, it boosts our serotonin if not our outreach. Lots of love, all us beans.

On this weeks deep dive Bec and Cam take you through the wonderful history of the Matsu Islands, from a refuge for pirates and outcasts on the periphery of the Chinese empire to becoming a heavily fortified ‘Berlin Wall’ of the East to now being a tourism hotspot where Bec and Cam found themselves stranded due to bad weather and ferry cancellations.

How much do you know about Myanmar? Have you heard of the iconic Aung San Sui Kyi? Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, martyr of democracy who has spent 20 years of her life in house arrest, who fell from grace on an international stage and it is now unknown if the 80 year old mother of Myanmar is still alive?

Lock in to this gripping episode to find out more. Lotta and Cam discuss Suu Kyi‘s life, the historical events that lead to the current civil war and sham elections, to Rohingya crisis, scam centres: in short, why we didn’t not go to Myanmar. A incredibly privileged position to take - as so many people from myanmar are trying to escape or rave their lives from the violence raging around them.

If you want to donate to help some of the most vulnerable people in this theatre of terror, here are some suggestions:

The Women‘s Peace Network of Myanmar supports the most vulnerable people on the path to a democratic and violence free Myanmar. Ere you can donate to help educate Rohingya girls in refugee camps.

https://www.womenspeacenetwork.org

You can donate to help victims of modern slavery and forced marriage in Myanmar here, including the scam centres on the Thai - Myanmar border we talk about in the episode. They also focus on the exploitation of women and girls who are incredibly vulnerable and are facing heightened risks of sex-trafficking, forced marriage and forced labour.

https://www.freedomfund.org/hotspot/myanmar/

If you‘re interested to learn more, here are some resources:

Clare Hammond‘s Book, ON THE SHADOW TRACKS: A Journey Through Occupied Myanmar

The podcast What‘s Happening in Myanmar

For a fortnightly update on the situation in Myanmar through experts and interviews

Thanks for listening to this big one!

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