Today we're pleased to share a special live edition of Sinica recorded last Saturday at Capital-M in Beijing. Held to a standing-room only crowd, we talked all about our ongoing love-hate relationship with Beijing, and asked what on earth is happening to the city that so many of us have known since the 1980s and even earlier. As housing prices and rents soar, hutongs get ripped down and "crazy bad" air becomes the new normal, will Beijing maintain its heart as a cultural capital, or is the city losing itself and our affections?

Filled with stories of pig excrement, SARS babies, and enough Chinese cursing to satiate even the Beijing Profanity Alliance, this show was a pleasure to put on and we were really glad to see everyone who came out. Joining Kaiser Kuo on stage were two Sinica stalwarts: Chinese media export Jeremy Goldkorn and David Moser, jazz pianist and head of the CET Beijing program. We were also thrilled to be joined by Zha Jianying, author of China Pop and Tide Players, and a now-expat Beijinger from New York who admits to being torn between her two homes.

As always, if you'd like to have editions of Sinica stream to your computer automatically as they're released, be sure to subscribe to us using iTunes, following the instructions included with any other podcast. You can also download this podcast as a standalone mp3 file. And if you have any specific feedback or suggestions for future guests or topics you'd like to hear covered, you can send an email directly to Kaiser anytime at sinica@popupchinese.com.