Ep 72 - Han Song and My Country Does Not Dream with the London Chinese Science Fiction Group

‘Because of sleepwalking, over one billion Chinese people have awakened’

In the seventy second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast I’m facing down a bleak reality: My Country Does Not Dream (我的祖国不要做梦 / wǒde zǔguó bù zuò mèng). But I’m not doing it alone! The London Chinese Science Fiction Group have deployed a team of Han Song aficionados (and one critic) to console my exhausted brain as the daytime hours fall away, revealing a sombre somnambulant city behind the city: Beijing.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Article in Sixth Tone: Infinite Scroll: The Making of China's Web Fiction Epics
• Words from Shen Yang in Telegraph article: What life's really like in locked-down Shanghai
• Short story Meta-Shanghai by Angus himself is published in Ab Terra 2021
• Watch/Listen as Jack Hargreaves reads from Chen Chuncheng's Submarines in the Night

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// WORDS OF THE DAY //

(梦游 - mèngyóu - sleepwalking)

(吊儿郎当 - diào'er lángdāng - sloppiness)

(躺平 - tǎngpíng - lie flat, as resistance to the 996 work system)

(闭眼 - bì yǎn - eyes closed)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Jin’s musical pairing: Space - Just Blue (1978) (the theme tune from CCTV’s Animal World 动物世界)
• Scarlet’s musical pairing: 我们走在大路上 - We Walk on the Great Road [Cultural Revolution version] 
• Terminator (Danny C remix) from Mark Fisher’s accelerationism mix
• New wave scifi, and emergence of the New Weird in the 90s
• Guangzhao’s writeup of his group’s event on this story
• 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep by Jonathan Crary
• The forthcoming English translations of Han Song’s Hospital trilogy
• China 2185: Liu Cixin’s cyberpunk novel

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Ep 69 - Xue Mo and The Women, the Camels, and the Dholes with Sarah Lam and Nicola Clayton

You couldn’t get to grips with fate, but the enemy you could see and touch was your own body

In the sixty ninth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are riding with The Women, the Camels, and the Dholes, one of the stories contained within the Selected Stories of Xue Mo (雪漠小说精选 / Xuěmò Xiǎoshuō Jīngxuǎn). Two women are joining me on this trek: audiobook producer Nicola Clayton and voice actor Sarah Lam. In this tale we get material, we get Buddhist, we get into self-help, we get really close to death, and we take up a rifle loaded with... weirdly sentient bullets. It will make sense when we explain it… maybe…

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• BUY: The Paper Republic Guide to Chinese Literature
• LISTEN: Craig Clunas on Sigmund Freud’s Chinese Collection
• LISTEN/WATCH: Jing Tsu & Dan Russell on Kingdom of Characters
• READ: Ecocriticism and Chinese Literature: Imagined Landscapes and Real Lived Spaces

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(生存 - shēng cún - to exist, to survive)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Nicola’s cinematic pairings: All is Lost (2013, dir. JC Chandor) and Tracks (2013, dir. John Curran)
• Angus’ musical pairing: 万物生 Alive - 萨顶顶 Sa Dingding
• Gansu - Xue Mo’s home province
• The Holy Monk and the Spirit Woman - the book Xue Mo wrote about a figure from Tibetan history who inspired him. Note that this link leads to a page on Xue Mo’s own website
• The Inspector Chen Mysteries - the BBC Radio 4 series featuring Sarah!
• The Leeds Centre January 2022 Author of the Month (it’s our guy XM)
• Xue Mo’s: Twitter, and Instagram, and Pinterest, and his entry on Paper Republic

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Ep 66 - Ba Jin and Hong Kong Nights with Luo Tianqi

The rocking of the boat created the illusion that all the lights were moving

In the sixty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are adrift in Hong Kong Nights (香港之夜 / Xiāng Gǎng Zhīyè), as fleetingly recollected by Sichuan’s long-surviving left-anarchist writer, Ba Jin. Joining me in the constellations is fellow Sino-lit podcaster Luo Tianqi – here to talk about revolution, regret, and responsibility. Grab a seat on deck, comrade, brush up on your Bakunin, and let go of your transient identity as sights become sounds, and sounds become sights.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Lu Xun’s The True Story of Ah Q to broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on January 26
• The Sons of Red Lake and Chinese Elemental Philosophy - Sinoist Books’ blog
• The Way Spring Arrives gets a beautiful Chinese edition
• A dialogue between past and future show guests Mike Fu and Jenna Tang
• KakaoEntertainment buys Wuxiaworld - plus thoughts from the translators

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(家 - jiā - home/family)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Tianqi’s podcast
• Various translated Ba Jin essays available on Anarchy Archives
• Tianqi’s musical pairing: Hong Kong Nights 香港之夜 by Teresa Teng 鄧麗君
• Angus’ musical pairing: Hieroglyph by Cynic
• Dissenting from Ba Jin by Geremie Barmé // Available on DOUBAN and GDOCS
• Family by Ba Jin (trans by Sidney Shapiro)
• Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho
• Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
• Social Class in the 21st Century by Mike Savage
• The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction by Terry Eagleton

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Ep 64 - Chen Qiufan and Coming of the Light with Francesco Verso

‘Suppose the universe is a program. Everything that we can observe is the result of the machine-executable code. But the cosmic microwave background can be understood as the record of some earlier version of the source code.’

In the sixty forth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we bear witness to the Coming of the Light (开光 / Kāiguāng), penned by the shaman-consulting Google graduate himself; it’s Stan, it’s the man, it’s Chen Qiufan. And hark – what’s this? Waves and photons in the shape of noted publisher Francesco Verso surge from the underscreen to puncture my cybernetic solipsism, but will our agile enterprise decode the universe before its unravelling, or are all digital startups nought but the initiation of the end?

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• READ: A Ramble Through the Heart: A Semi-Coherent Attempt at Self-Justification by Chua Chim Kang, tr Tan Dan Feng, from Renditions Issue 96
• LISTEN: My Scandinavian nemesis strikes again - Owlish and Other Translated Languages with Natascha Bruce
• ROUNDTABLE: Can Chinese Science Fiction Transcend Binary Thinking?
• REVIEW: TrChFic named ‘Shiver-Worthy Runner-Up’ in: {Scary’s Voices} Sound Bites for November 26th

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(云 - yún - cloud)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Ether by Zhang Ran - Francesco’s recommendation
• Chan/Zen Buddhism
• Zhongguancun - the Silicon Valley of Beijing
• duang - a rather old meme - and here it is in a That’s Shanghai meme review
• Solarpunk - according to the BBC
• Wired’s article on Silicon Valley Buddhism
• And…Wired’s brilliant article on Chen Qiufan - some more evidence of his interest in the shamans of China’s periphery
• the PRC's internet/gaming addiction camps

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Ep 62 - Liu Cixin and The Wandering Earth with Jairo Morales

Before us stood the long abandoned skyscrapers of Manhattan, the Sun's weak light casting their long shadows across the quiet ice of the New York Harbor. In my tipsy haze, tears began to gush down my cheeks. 

In the sixty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are setting sail on The Wandering Earth (流浪地球 / Liúlàng Dìqiú), drawn up and captained by Liu Cixin himself. Calling into the show from the Peruvian Engine Bunker is Jairo Morales. We get deep into postnationalism, censorship, cultural transmission, and the sublime spectacle of the utter annihilation of our planet’s fragile surface. Goodbye solarpunk, hello solardoom.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• The Tyranny of Neutrality - Virginia L Conn reviews AI 2041 
• TrChFic Meta News: The Leeds Centre Taiwan Literature Symposium
• HKKH interviews Dorothy Tse
• Announced by Tweet: Amazon Crossing will publish a translation of Han Song’s Hospital Trilogy

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(短暂的 - Duǎnzànde - ephemeral/efimero)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Jairo’s musical pairings: Gymnopédie No 1 by Erik Satie & 消愁 - Xiao Chou (Drown One's Sorrows) by Mao Buyi 毛不易
• Angus’ musical pairing: Black Light Machine by Frost
• Magical realism from Latin America
• The Emerging Japanese Superstate by Herman Kahn - 70s think tank guy does a yellow peril, history buries him
• Chuang article: The Wandering Earth: A Reflection of the Chinese New Right
• 200 Drones Fall Out Of The Sky In China’s Zhengzhou
• Ken Liu’s anthology of Chinese sci-fi: Invisible Planets
• The Cultural Revolution as ‘partially denouncable’

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Ep 61 - Chen Xiwo and The Book of Sins with Nicky Harman

I loathe reason. Reason is the sort of rubbish you can indulge in when life is sweet, like love and honour. I totally reject it.

In the sixty first episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction we are opening The Book of Sins (冒犯书 / Màofàn Shū), by edgelord-with-a-conscience Chen Xiwo. Playing common-sense counterpoint to my doom-laden interpretations of the text is its translator, Nicky Harman. Here’s what we deal with: pain, incest, and the political uses of shock, horror, and offensiveness. Are you sure about this? You can delete this episode now. Do you choose to hit play?

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet by Bogna Konoir - applies Liu Cixin’s logic to cyberspace
• Sense of Place - new issue of Pathlight Magazine
• Gei Fei’s Peach Blossom Paradise bags spot in translated literature finalist list for US 2021 National Book Awards
• TOR announces full contents of The Way Spring Arrives

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(痛 - tòng - pain)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Nicky’s musical pairing: Stride la Vampa from Il Trovatore
• Angus’ musical pairing: God’s Away on Business by Tom Waits
• Chen Xiwo’s speech on literary censorship in the PRC, given at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club in 2010
• A Banned Take on Contemporary China: Wall Street Journal review of The Book of Sins
• Haunted by Chuck Palahnuik
• Thomas Ligotti, anhedonic pessimist horror writer
• Lit by Mary Karr, a considerably more functional individual
• Various edgy Chinese novels: Playing for Thrills … 1988: I Want to Talk with the World … Dancing Through Red Dust … Shanghai Baby … A Perfect Crime

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Ep 58 - A Que and Flower of the Other Shore with Xueting Ni

The moment I was bitten, I died and became another thing. Now I am loitering on the other shore of the Styx, listening to the past from beyond its waves.

In the fifty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are picking Flower of the Other Shore (彼岸花 / Bǐ'àn Huā), a romantic(!) zombie short story by A Que. Here to help me find sympathy for the undead is the tale’s translator, Xueting Ni. The story will feature in her anthology of translated Chinese sci-fi: Sinopticon.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Hao Jingfang’s Vagabonds shortlisted for the 2021 Arthur C. Clarke Award
• Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing launches new journal & calls for papers
• TrChFIc Meta News: Ximalaya feed censored, stoopid Lu Xun meme blows up

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(丧尸 - sàngshī - zombie)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Intertextuality - big word for a simple concept
• World War Z - the book & the film
• Xueting’s From Kuan Yin to Chairman Mao: The Essential Guide to Chinese Deities
• The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction
• Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

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Ep 57 - Chih-Ying Lay and Home Sickness with Darryl Sterk

‘Chopin always reminds me of being lovelorn in Penang’

[ this is episode 5 of our Taiwan Season ]

In the fifty seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are suffering from Home Sickness (匿逃者 / Nì Táo Zhě), a short story collection by Chih-ying Lay. Here to ease this terrible affliction is the book’s translator: reformed Buddhist and agile herper Darryl Sterk.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Healing with Poisons - a book on the interwining of classical Chinese medicine & poison
• Ketamine and the Return of the Party-State - DLK’s political history of ket vs the CCP
• A&Qs on 'Sinofuturisms' - compiled in Verge: Global Asias by Virginia L Con & 胡子哥
• TrChFic bags a spot in the Feedspot Literature Podcasts list

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(亲源关系 - qīnyuán guānxì - phylogenetic relationship)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Herping - not a word I’d heard before! 
• Small publishers Honford Star, Balestier Press, and Linda Leith
• 航向愛爾蘭: 葉慈與塞爾特想像 (Sailing to Ireland: Essays on W. B. Yeats and the Celtic Renaissance)
• Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale - film about an anti-Japanese indigenous uprising in 30s Taiwan
• Lessons in Essence by Dana Standridge
• The Mystery Religions of Gladovia: A Novel by Bradley Winterton
• Kant’s noumena & the Buddhist concept of ‘convenient means’

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Ep 56 - Pai Hsien-yung and Taipei People with Nadia Ho

‘According to the ancient precepts, grief supersedes all formalities’

[ this is episode 4 of our Taiwan Season ]

In the fifty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are introducing ourselves to the Taipei People (台北人 / Táiběi Rén), as written by Pai Hsien-yung. Joining me to question the merits of nostalgia and muse aimlessly on umbrellas and the like is a genuine Taibei ren; the effortlessly hip Nadia Ho.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Alain Charles Asia seeking publishing production freelancers - contact daniel.li@alaincharlesasia.com
• Issue One of ‘Jintian’ - the legendary Chinese lit magazine
• READ: The Killer  撞死了一只羊 by Tsering Norbu
• Two Poems by Bei Dao - commemorating June 4th

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(夢 - màng - dream)

pls note I’ve used the character’s traditional form and local Taiwanese pronunciation here!

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• The Taste of Apples by Huang Chun-Ming tr. Howard Goldblatt
• Dubliners by James Joyce
• Kun opera - Mr Pai’s favourite style
• The May 4th Movement & Battle of Tsingtao
• The Paramount Ballroom in Shanghai

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Ep 49 - The TrChFic Megacrossover Part 2: Moderns

'One morning, Salinger was woken from sleep by deafening noises. Dazed, he gazed outside the window and saw a row of gleaming Baekdu bulldozers, which had been modified from Chonma-ho battle tanks, bearing down on his cabin.'

In the forty ninth episode we continue our megacrossover, this time tackling modern literature. Once more unto the jazz hall, dear friends, once more, as we tackle: lamppost sexuality, mantou typography, disposable(?) wuxia, and the philosophy of chicken nuggets. No, really. I'm not joking. Wait, come back!!!

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Taiwan Year at the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing - Egoyan Zheng Excerpt
• Jeremy Tiang - The World Is Not Enough - is world literature just a ‘spice rack’ for lazy Westerners?
• Lost in Translation: What’s the Problem with Chinese Literature in the West? - Zoom talk w/ Jianan Qian, Nicky Harman, and Eric Abrahamsen
• Reading "The Story of the Stone" with 白先勇 Pai Hsien-Yung and 陳毓賢 Susan Chan Egan - a superstar Zoom talk!

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// PODCASTERS & THEIR CHOSEN STORIES //

Rob and Lee of The Chinese Literature Podcast chose Sealed Off by Eileen Chang

William and Kevin of Rereading the Stone chose Shanghai Foxtrot by Mu Shiying

Yifan of 文化土豆 Culture Potato chose A Bond Undone, Chapter 1 by Jin Yong

and your host Angus chose Salinger and the Koreans by Han Song

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Eileen Chang's time in Shanghai and Hong Kong
• Distortion of time during lockdown
• Mu Shiying, a somewhat forgotten Shanghai modernist
• Modernism & 'mechanophilia'
• Jin Yong & the origins of modern Wuxia
• Chinese pen names
• China’s Image in Han Song’s Science Fiction
• the concept of the 'observer' in quantum physics

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// Episode Sponsor //

Buy Jeremy Bai AKA Deathblade's The Heretic Peacekeeper here:

Amazon: http://mybook.to/9h10eTHP

Kobo, Nook, etc: https://books2read.com/u/mgzxxx

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