Do Chinese people know more about the US than Americans know about China? Is there an “information deficit” between average educated Americans and their Chinese counterparts? Educators working in US-China academic exchange programs have noticed a marked information asymmetry, a “China cluelessness” on the part of American students. At the same time, their Chinese peers enter into American studies with a substantial amount of cultural and historical background knowledge. How serious is this problem, what are its causes? And what are the implications for building greater cross-cultural understanding of China?  To address these issues, Jeremiah and David are fortunate to be joined on the podcast by Yajun Zhang, the co-host of the WǑ MEN PODCAST, an English podcast featuring Chinese people’s daily lives from a female perspective. As a former journalist and communication specialist, Yajun has crafted content to facilitate mutual understanding between Chinese and international audiences. Now, leading content and program design for one of the largest conferences in the world, she has witnessed how information asymmetry and decoupling between China and the world has grown over the past couple of years.The podcast discussion examines the causes of the information asymmetry, which include the status of English as the world’s lingua franca, America’s decades-long global soft power dominance, and the sheer numerical imbalance (e.g., 370,000 Chinese students studying at US universities in 2019, as compared to only 11,000 US students studying Chinese language and culture in 2017-18), all factors resulting in the educated Chinese populace having a more intuitive grasp of the complexities of American culture. The podcast also discusses the effects of the information deficit amidst the chaotic news wars during the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, the importance of an informed electorate when American leaders formulate China policy, and the need to cultivate a supply of China-savvy policy-makers in areas such as diplomacy, military, trade.“A Fearful Asymmetry: Covid-19 and America’s Information Deficit with China”David MoserThe Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 18 | Issue 14 | Number 5 | Jul 15, 2020The WǑ MEN PODCAST co-hosted by Yajun Zhang, Jingjing Zhang, and Karoline Kan(Apple Podcasts)

On the cusp of the Chinese New Year and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Jeremiah and David record an Olympian episode of the podcast. The guest is Mark Dreyer, a veteran sports reporter, who has just released his new book, Sporting Superpower: An Insider’s View on China’s Quest to Be the Best. Mark has worked for Sky Sports, Fox Sports, AP Sports, and many other outlets and currently hosts the China Sports Insider Podcast. The conversation covers issues such as the historical importance of the 2008 Olympics, challenges of Covid-19 in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the Chinese model of recruiting and training Olympic athletes, the PR disasters of Chinese athletes due to lack of media savvy, the quest for a world-class Chinese soccer/football team, and the nexus of geopolitics, economics and soft power in China’s Olympic endeavors. Dreyer also recounts many fascinating and telling anecdotes from his many years of interviewing athletes and covering Chinese sporting events.Other books and clips mentioned:Susan Brownell (1995) Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People's RepublicMao Zedong (1917) "A Study in Physical Education"Yao Ming, "You can't f------ stop me" Video

In this week’s episode, we talk with Jean Hoffmann Lewanda about her father Paul Hoffmann’s memoir, Witness to History: From Vienna to Shanghai: A Memoir of Escape, Survival and Resilience, recently published by Earnshaw Books. Paul Hoffmann left Vienna at the age of 18 to escape the rise of Nazism, arrived in Shanghai in 1938, and became a part of the historic stream of Jewish refugees who found a haven in China during WWII. His memoirs describe the harsh living conditions in the Hongkou Ghetto during the Japanese occupation and the lifestyles of the multicultural, multinational community in Shanghai. Paul eked out a living teaching English and mathematics while obtaining a law degree from Aurora University (currently Fudan University). He worked for the American lawyer Norwood Allman (who was secretly the US spy chief in China). Paul remained in China during the communist takeover in 1949, managing the dissolution of his law firm, and witnessed firsthand the harassment, imprisonment, and expulsions to which the foreign community was subjected. After rediscovering her father’s memoirs, Jean Hoffmann Lewanda edited the text, weaving in the various photographs and documents Paul left behind. The result is Witness to History, a gripping and sometimes harrowing memoir of a man who was caught up in the tides of one of the most tumultuous periods in history and lived to tell the story.

In this episode, Jeremiah and David talk with James Griffiths, Asia Correspondent for the Globe and Mail, about his new book Speak Not: Empire, Identity and the Politics of Language. This podcast can be considered the third installment of a trilogy of Barbarian at the Gate episodes that deal with the politics of language and dialects in China (see the links to the earlier podcasts below). Our previous guest Gina Anne Tam aptly sums up Griffiths’ research topic in her dustjacket review of the book: “Speak Not is a beautifully narrated and intensely smart global history of how languages are destroyed. From Hong Kong to Wales, Hawaii to South Africa, Griffiths artfully guides us through intimate stories of people fighting over decades, often in vain, to protect their linguistic heritage and identities, stories that, when taken together, reveal an oft-unexplored aspect of the ‘disasters wrought’ by colonialism, nationalism, and global inequality.” In addition to insights from the revitalization of Welsh, one of Griffiths’ native tongues, the podcast delves deeply into the recent plight of Cantonese in Hong Kong and the mainland minority languages of Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. Links to: “Mandarin Mayhem” April 10, 2020 “Mandarin Mayhem, Part II: Dialect and Nationalism in China” June 02, 2020  The Great Firewall of China “A residential school system in China is stripping Tibetan children of their languages and culture, report claims” The Globe and Mail  December 7, 2021David Moser, A Billion Voices: China’s Search for a Common Language (Penguin, 2016)

In this episode, Jeremiah and David have a long-overdue discussion with historian and writer Maura Cunningham. Maura was Editor-in-Chief of the classic blog China Beat, a fellow at the Asia Society Center on US-China Relations, Program Officer at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and is now the Digital Media Manager for The Association of Asian Scholars (AAS) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Maura is also the co-author, with Jeffrey Wasserstrom, of the essential book China in the 21st Century: Everything You Need to Know, and the podcast conversation starts with a reconsideration of the book’s title: “What are the new China realities ‘everyone needs to know’ in the post-Covid, post-Xi Jinping era?” We compare notes with Maura about the current state of scholarly research on China, the aftermath of the pandemic on US-China academic exchange programs, and the problems of maintaining standards of academic freedom amidst the tightening of the Chinese information environment. Other topics include a reevaluation of the fundamental goals of China research and the prospects of increased Chinese language training and sinological research activity in China under increasing research limitations in the PRC.Greitens, S., & Truex, R. (2020). Repressive Experiences among China Scholars: New Evidence from Survey Data. The China Quarterly, 242, 349-375. doi:10.1017/S0305741019000365Will I Return to China?: A ChinaFile Conversation (June 21, 2021)Wasserstrom, J. N., & Cunningham, M. E. (2018). China in the 21st century: What Everyone Needs to Know.

This week Jeremiah and David catch up with an old friend, China history scholar Marketus Presswood., who has just released a documentary on jazz in China entitled Yellow Jazz, Black Music, available on Vimeo. Based on years of research and extensive interviews, the documentary traces the influx and development of jazz music in China, from the Shanghai ballrooms of the 1920s to a resurgence in the urban nightclubs of the Reform-and-Opening period, and finally to the art form's flourishing in a new globalized, high-tech China. Marketus provides a fascinating description of the lives of the African-American jazz musicians in Republican Era Shanghai, including the experiences of Langston Hughes, who visited the city in 1934 and interacting with the stars of the local jazz scene. We also discuss the difficulties of Chinese musicians in accessing and mastering the art form, the social and artistic impact of jazz on Chinese culture, and the possibilities of a new kind of "jazz with Chinese characteristics."Links to:Website for the film:www.yellowjazzblackmusic.comYellow Jazz, Black Music on Vimeo:  https://vimeo.com/ondemand/yellowjazzblackmusicThe Yellow Jazz Black Music Spotify music site:https://open.spotify.com/album/2oDjOu5dXCUm8atpkZfJ2WJeremiah on Langston Hughes in Shanghaihttps://www.jeremiahjenne.com/the-archives/2021/1/28/langston-hughes-in-shanghaiDavid on Jazz in Chinahttps://chinachannel.org/2018/07/20/chinese-jazz/Marketus on "Being Black in China" https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/07/on-being-black-in-china/277878/

In this episode, Jeremiah and David talk about the foreign experience of travel in China, drawing upon their personal experiences over the years as explorers, educators, and tour guides. The two trade accounts of the rapid expansion of China’s travel industry in decades after Reform and Opening, the occasional brushes with anti-foreign sentiment, and the exploding domestic luxury travel market as the economy booms and overseas travel has been restricted. The discussion also turns to the new post-Covid-19 reality of quarantines, vaccination records, and issues with the ubiquitous health-record apps that have become mandatory additions to everyone’s mobile phone. The podcast concludes with cautious prognostications about the upcoming Olympics, vaccination passports, and the future of foreigners traveling, studying, and working in China. David also recommends the excellent new documentary about jazz and jazz-age Shanghai by Marketus Presswood, Yellow Jazz, Black Music now streaming on Vimeo.

In this episode (taped on the eve of June 4th), Jeremiah and David examine the zeitgeist of China in the 1980s through the lens of the historic 1988 documentary River Elegy《河殇》. The six-part documentary was a scathing critique of Chinese traditional culture and political philosophy, portraying hallowed icons such as the Great Wall and the Yellow River as morally repugnant symbols of barbarism and cultural self-deception. The TV series also touched upon previously taboo topics such as Mao's Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The documentary was highly controversial at the time yet was widely disseminated in State media such as the People's Daily, giving rise to an astonishingly frank public debate about the fate of China and the need for economic and political liberalization. The documentary was banned after 1989 but remains a cultural time capsule of the decade's relatively open political discourse. The podcast discussion examines the contentious intellectual currents of the 1980s and poses some counterfactual questions about how China's reforms might have progressed if the free-thinking trajectory of River Elegy had continued to exert an influence. Link to a segment of River Elegy on YouTube Moser, David, "Thoughts on River Elegy, June 1988-June 2011" (2011). The China Beat Blog Archive 2008-2012. 904.  

In this episode, we host Ruth Poulsen, Director of Curriculum and Assessment at the International School of Beijing and author of a recent article in The American Educator entitled "What's the Line between Culture Shock and Racism?" Ruth is a long-term ex-pat, having spent much of her childhood and adult life in various countries in the Middle East and Asia. In the interview, Ruth shares her cross-cultural insights gained from her years working with teachers and students living abroad and offers some strategies for coping with cultural shock, cultural misunderstandings, and negative stereotypes. Those new to the podcast might want to check out an earlier episode with Lenora Chu, which examined cross-cultural differences in the Chinese and American education systems.

On the show this week, Jeremiah and David dialogue about one of their long-term common missions: educating American study abroad students about the complex culture and politics of China. With the rise of the PRC as an economic power, it has always been vitally important to get American scholars to this country to gain first-hand experience with the language and culture. Yet, It has always been a challenge to establish and maintain study abroad programs in China. For decades there had always been a significant disparity between the number of Chinese students in the US vs. American students in China, but now with rising US-China tensions and the onslaught of Covid-19, the China study abroad student has become somewhat of an endangered species. The pre-Covid number of Chinese students in the US studying for undergraduate and graduate degrees had increased to about 370,000 by 2019. By contrast, the number of American students studying in China, after a brief spike prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, had declined to a mere 11,000 in the 2017-18 school year. Jeremiah and David reminisce about their experience teaching US students in Beijing, discuss the geopolitical importance of fostering a China-savvy cohort of American scholars entering the US workforce, and explore possible strategies and models for building China study programs in the post-Covid world. Jeremiah on Twitter David on Twitter David Moser, A Fearful Asymmetry: Covid-19 and America’s Information Deficit with China 8.7.3