After a few weeks grousing about the state of Chinese humor, sex and Bill Bishop, we turn our gaze to the plight of the nation's children, and the stories of child abuse and maltreatment which have filled the mainland press for the last several weeks. And with the news today of child abuse protester Ye Haiyan's own detention and corporal punishment our core question could not be more timely: is there something about Chinese culture that has encouraged society to sweep this problem under the rug?With Kaiser Kuo in Italy this week, Jeremy Goldkorn is hosting this episode solo, joined by two excellent guests: the incomparable Tania Branigan who writes for The Guardian, and Leta Hong Fincher, an American academic with a research interest in women's issues in China. We're delighted to have both guests back on the show, and hope you enjoy our discussion.Have a love-hate relationship with us? If so, don't forget that you can subscribe to new episodes of Sinica automatically by RSS. If you use iTunes, just select "Subscribe to Podcast" from the "Advanced" file menu and provide the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when prompted. Alternately, please feel welcome to download this show as a standalone mp3 file. And let us know what you think!
huyilin
said on June 4, 2013
Could you post the recommendations please? If possible both the Chinese as well as the English names/titles of the book, 多谢!
zgidwitz
said on June 4, 2013
What was the name of the female activist you mentioned near the beginning? Can you link to her Weibo account?
matt_f
said on June 4, 2013
Hey, considering the State interest in activists in the Middle Kingdom, maybe it's best NOT to post links to such people's profiles. Anyone second this?Just sayin'. * Edit: Correction, I didn't read the header paragraph. It looks like they already got to this one. In that case, please do post links. :(
dialnz
said on June 4, 2013
Not a terrible discussion, but it could have been much improved by a stronger lens on how child abuse exists everywhere and what if anything is different about child abuse in China. The phrase 'handwaving' comes to mind. And the odd segue/slip into feminism while fascinating deserves its own programme. And that even odder drive-by of the year's issues to date at the beginning. Could it be this show was thrown together at the last minute and only pulled through on the talents of its guests and host? How much better it would have been with more thought and time given to a single issue.
Sinica
said on June 5, 2013
Recommendations:TanyaAn Interview with Zeng Jinyan 曾金燕 (The China Story) - http://www.thechinastory.org/2013/05/an-interview-with-zeng-jinyan-%E6%9B%BE%E9%87%91%E7%87%95/Leta"The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory" Edited by Lydia H. Liu, Rebecca E. Karl, and Dorothy Ko - http://www.cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-16290-6/JeremyBeijing of Dreams - http://beijingofdreams.com/