Even years after her sudden death from apoplexy, Robert's mother would haunt her son's dreams, her corpulent and open-palmed presence bellowing with outrage over his "filthy, filthy pants" and threatening to give the boy "a good scrubbing." As his court psychiatrist would later testify, this classic case of childhood trauma not only colored his relations with the opposite sex, but also affected his notions of acceptable personal hygiene.

Interested in learning Chinese? Or perhaps you're not really interested in learning Chinese at all but are still curious how exactly to speak to household cleaning staff. You know, wanting to know enough Chinese so that you can walk that fine line between being the sort of permissive employer who attracts every layabout in the Middle Kingdom, and the sort of tyrant immortalized in the oral histories of Fujian and Anhui? Then this podcast is for you.