This week on Sinica, Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn are pleased to host Ed Wong from the New York Times along with Adrienne Mong who you've seen on NBC News. First up is Xi Jinping's recent visit to the United States, and a closer look at the personal and political background of the man who will be King. Also on our roster is a discussion of the state of development across Southeast Asia, and of course Eric Li's controversial editorial in the New York Times last week, which seemed to argue for the superiority of the Chinese political system over Western democratic models.

Enjoy Sinica? If you want to subscribe to the show via RSS, just open iTunes and select the option "Subscribe to Podcast" from the Advanced file menu. When prompted, provide the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica. Alternately, you're welcome to download the show as always as a standalone MP3 file, free to play as you wish or pass along to a friend. And let us know what you think in the comments section below.
 said on
February 24, 2012
Some links to some of the materials mentioned this week:

On Vietnam in the 1990s:

1. Vietnam Now by David Lamb

http://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-Now-Reporter-David-Lamb/dp/1586481835

2. Shadows and Wind by Robert Templer

http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Wind-View-Modern-Vietnam/dp/0140285970

Adrienne Mong's recommendations:

1. The Operators by Michael Hastings

http://www.amazon.com/Operators-Terrifying-Inside-Americas-Afghanistan/dp/0399159886

Ed Wong's recommendations:

1. China Marches West by Peter Perdue

http://www.amazon.com/China-Marches-West-Conquest-Central/dp/0674057430/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330071048&sr=1-1

2. Beyond the Pass by James Millward

http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Pass-Ethnicity-Xinjiang-1759-1864/dp/0804729336

Jeremy Goldkorn's recommendations:

1. Mui Ne beach in Vietnam

http://www.muinebeach.net/

2. Great Wall Fresh, Chenjiapu guest house and country home:

http://www.greatwallfresh.com/

 said on
February 25, 2012
Thanks for touching on the Eric X. Li op-eds. I saw his piece in the scmp a few days ago (which was very similar to the one in NYT) and was wondering what this guy is all about - and whether anyone else had noticed.

Great analysis too. I agree with pretty much everything said.
 said on
February 26, 2012
On Vietnam, Foreign Policy has an interesting piece this week:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/23/the_new_asian_tiger

And I really enjoyed Ed's piece on Yu Jie, mentioned briefly in the podcast:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/world/asia/yu-jie-dissident-chinese-writer-continues-his-work-in-us.html?_r=1&hp

Thanks
 said on
February 26, 2012
Kaiser: "It's just the feminine pronoun..."

:-D
 said on
February 29, 2012
Kaiser gave a shout-out to my pengyous in The Beijing Beatles. They've got a great sound, play a grip of the classics and rock out in costume. Check out their upcoming dates at www.thebeijingbeatles.com. I recommend the video of the performance of 黑猪 (Hey Jude) at Tudou http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/XRqy0fDJ-Kk/.
 said on
March 1, 2012
I think Vietnam is pretty cool, because in city like Saigon we found everything we can find in Beijing,of course the price is also quite high than other cities in Vietnam. At the same time, we also found cheap restaurants,night markets and guest houses cost 10 bucks per night(a room, not a bed). Vietnam people said they were experiencing inflation, however the price was still OK in 2011. It's about 1/3 of price in China.

Also, although the relation between China and Vietnam is not very good politically these days, we found Vietnam people are very friendly.

--Amber

amber@popupchinese.com
Mark Lesson Studied