When chaos grows in 12th century China, and the empire is in peril, great heavenly heroes will arise among the people to make everything worse.

Our exciting read along of China's literary classic 'The Water Margin' (水滸傳) finally begins!

In this first episode we go over the history of the novel, its cultural significance, as well as the historical time periods in which it is set and written. Then we discuss the first chapter, which is mostly about one Chinese government official being bad at his job.

Feel free to get a copy (or find one of the many versions online) or just listen along as we go over this extremely entertaining story of rebellion. We are reading the Sidney Shapiro translation.

After this the schedule should be 2 chapters every two weeks, eventually we may move these episodes to a separate podcast feed.