Wo Men Podcast
79 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 3 years ago - ★★★★★ - 17 ratingsTwo Women. One Country. Modern China from the Inside.
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Episodes
Wǒ Men Podcast: “Sitting the Month” – Postpartum Confinement in China
August 26, 2018 08:10 - 46 minutes - 64.6 MBThe Wǒ Men podcast is a bi-weekly discussion of life in China hosted by Yajun Zhang and Jingjing Zhang. Previous episodes of the Wǒ Men podcast can be found here, and you can find Wǒ Men on iTunes here. Imagine not being allowed to take a shower, leave your house, or even open a window for an entire month. Sound horrible? Well, it is an experience millions of Chinese women have been through immediately after giving birth. It’s called “sitting the month” (坐月子 zuo yuezi in Chinese) and, so ...
Wǒ Men Podcast: #MeToo Finally Takes Off in China
August 10, 2018 22:43 - 49 minutes - 67.8 MBOver the past month, a somewhat belated #MeToo campaign has finally sprouted in China. Over three dozen sexual harassment cases mushroomed in universities, media organizations, NGOs and the private sector in China. Suddenly, this campaign has become a hot topic on Chinese social media. But why now? Why has it started in the academic arena, rather than the entertainment industry, like in the US? Can the campaign last or have a long-term impact? And how should we address the concern expres...
Wǒ Men Podcast: The Changing Landscape of Chinese Media
July 28, 2018 13:24 - 54 minutes - 75 MBOur new episode features an editor of international news at a major Chinese news portal, who gives us a rare peek inside a Chinese media organization and see their daily operations, story angles, and how they deal with censorship. Thanks to technology, the format of media keeps evolving from print, to online, to mobile. At the same time, the media landscape keeps changing as well, from State media to commercialized media, and now to the rise of “self-media” and KOLs. People now have so ...
Wǒ Men Podcast: One Year Anniversary Party
July 13, 2018 00:27 - 48 minutes - 66.6 MBThe Wǒ Men podcast is a bi-weekly discussion of life in China hosted by Yajun Zhang and Jingjing Zhang. Previous episodes of the Wǒ Men podcast can be found here, and you can find Wǒ Men on iTunes here. On Saturday 7 July, the RADII-sponsored Wǒ Men Podcast celebrated its first anniversary at The Bookworm in Beijing. It was an entertaining afternoon of thoughtful discussion – all recorded live. Check out a photo gallery of images from the event below and listen to an audio recording of ...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Author Lijia Zhang on China, Changes, and Prostitution
June 22, 2018 09:34 - 1 hour - 86.2 MBZhang Lijia is a free spirit and rebellious soul. After being forced to drop out of school and work in a rocket factory for ten years in the early stages of the Reform and Opening up era, Lijia taught herself English and chased her childhood dream to eventually become one of the best-known Chinese authors writing in English. Over the last decade, she has used her pen to portray a China that we rarely see in mainstream media. For this episode of Wǒ Men Podcast, we sit down with Lijia to d...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Children's Day Special
June 01, 2018 10:33 - 24 minutes - 34.1 MBWhat’s your fondest childhood memory? What was your favorite entertainment as a kid? Do you still remember your first toy? If you ask these questions to Chinese kids born in the 1980s, ’90s or 2000s, you will receive very different responses. Both Jingjing and Yajun were born in the 1980s, during a period in which China was recovering from Cultural Revolution and the “market economy” was still an unknown term. The material scarcity led to humble lives for many Chinese families. Children we...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Let’s Talk About Sexual Consent
May 28, 2018 06:23 - 1 hour - 83.7 MBHow do you know whether your partner agrees with the sexual engagement or not? What kind of signals can be considered as a “yes”? Does going back to your apartment mean he or she definitely agrees to have sex with you? If he/she is drunk is he/she qualified to give consent? These are the questions we all kind of know, or think we know, but don’t necessarily understand as clearly as we might like to think. With the recent emergence of two alleged sexual assault cases against Jonathan Kaiman...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Tackling Mental Health Issues in a “Hidden Emotion” Culture
May 11, 2018 20:59 - 1 hour - 85 MBThe Wǒ Men podcast is a bi-weekly discussion of life in China hosted by Yajun Zhang and Jingjing Zhang. Previous episodes of the Wǒ Men podcast can be found here, and you can find Wǒ Men on iTunes here. According to the World Health Organization, there are over 300 million people suffering from depression in the world. Over 173 million Chinese people also face mental health issues. Mental health is a topic that we grew up knowing very little about. In particular, as Asians, a lot of us we ...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Searching for Home
April 28, 2018 10:13 - 47 minutes - 64.9 MBThe Wǒ Men podcast is a bi-weekly discussion of life in China hosted by Yajun Zhang and Jingjing Zhang. Previous episodes of the Wǒ Men podcast can be found here, and you can find Wǒ Men on iTunes here. There are approximately 46 million ethnic Chinese people living outside China. The term “overseas Chinese” is mostly associated with the first period of migration (the 1850s–1950) after mass migration from China began during the mid-19th century (according to Hong Liu and Els Van Dongen’s 2...
Wǒ Men Podcast: The Real Girl Code
April 13, 2018 08:23 - 49 minutes - 68.5 MBWho says that women and coding have nothing to do with each other? Gu Xi didn’t believe that and broke the barrier by building one of the first Chinese tech communities for women when she was 18-year-old. (It makes Jingjing and Yajun wonder what they have missed when they were 18.) In this community, she worked with the team to provide online courses and offline conferences for girls who were interested in tech but felt they couldn’t get the support they needed in this male...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Black Panther and Attitudes to Race in China
April 01, 2018 08:14 - 44 minutes - 61.7 MBThe Wǒ Men podcast is a bi-weekly discussion of life in China hosted by Yajun Zhang and Jingjing Zhang. Previous episodes of the Wǒ Men podcast can be found here, and you can find Wǒ Men on iTunes here. The movie Black Panther has become a global phenomenon, smashing through box office records and preconceptions about the performance of black actor-fronted films, while triggering a worldwide celebration of African culture and spirit in the process. Beijing was not left untouched by this ...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Condescension, Support, and Dialogue on International Women’s Day
March 16, 2018 09:19 - 22 minutes - 31.9 MBOn March 8th, International Women’s Day, Jingjing and Yajun were invited to two different panels to discuss women’s issues and how men can better support their wives or girlfriends. They both learnt a lot and were inspired by the debate. On this episode, they share key takeaways from the panel discussions. They also express their strong “resentment” toward the Chinese translation of Women’s Day (“三八妇女节”) – and they are not the only ones. After hearing of a female friend’s experience of b...
Wǒ Men Podcast: From a Chinese Military Officer to a Feminist
March 03, 2018 00:56 - 48 minutes - 66.2 MBWhen we first met with Shi Xiaoqin, we couldn’t believe that she had just left the Chinese army. She was free-minded, vocal and funny, very different from the images of disciplined military officers portrayed in media or in popular entertainment. More importantly, she very proudly called herself a feminist. Just before International Women’s Day on March 8th, we are pleased to interview her, and to listen to her story about how she transformed into an outspoken women’s rights advocate. Bo...
Wǒ Men Podcast: The Chinese New Year Traditions You Need to Know
February 13, 2018 08:59 - 40 minutes - 55.8 MBChina has transformed greatly over the last few decades, and Chinese New Year has also come to mean very different things from generation to generation. When our parents were children in the 1960s, their pleasure at this time of year was being able to finally enjoy vegetable balls fried with the oil that the whole family had been saving for the entire year. By contrast, when we were kids in the 1980s, meat dishes, sweets, new clothes and endless playtime with our cousins made the Chinese N...
Wǒ Men Podcast: The Chinese New Year Traditions You Need to Know
February 13, 2018 08:59 - 40 minutes - 55.8 MBChina has transformed greatly over the last few decades, and Chinese New Year has also come to mean very different things from generation to generation. When our parents were children in the 1960s, their pleasure at this time of year was being able to finally enjoy vegetable balls fried with the oil that the whole family had been saving for the entire year. By contrast, when we were kids in the 1980s, meat dishes, sweets, new clothes and endless playtime with our cousins made the Chinese N...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Teaching Tech to Young China
January 27, 2018 07:53 - 1 hour - 92.1 MBA young British man tries to introduce 3D printing and hackathon teaching methods to the notoriously exam-heavy Chinese education system. Can he succeed? Our guest for this episode says the fact that he went to an “unconventional, edgy” school that doesn’t give homework and sends students off to build dens in the woods has fundamentally shaped his perception about children’s education. Now 30 years old, Kit Harford, an educator and serial entrepreneur, has spent the majority of his adultho...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Be Your Own Mulan
January 12, 2018 04:27 - 43 minutes - 60.2 MBMu Lan, an ancient Chinese heroine, became globally famous thanks to Disney’s awesome animated film. Arguably, she is one of the most popular Asian figures in global cinema, besides Kung Fu Panda, Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. For most women in China, Mu Lan probably lives only as an on-screen character. But our guest today, Lila Stange, feels related to this figure in a very personal way. Mu Lan pretended to be a man in order to become a soldier and take her father’s place on the battlefiel...
Wǒ Men Podcast: A Very Special Christmas Episode
December 24, 2017 00:45 - 26 minutes - 36.1 MB2017 was an amazing year. With so much support from our family, editors (Josh and Anthony, we mean you) and friends, we finally launched our Wǒ Men Podcast, a program that we have been thinking about doing for years. It has been a magical journey. Every single guest was so generous and kind to open up and share their thoughts and lives with us. In that small studio, we had many deep conversations, touching the part of our hearts that we usually only keep it to ourselves. We feel we know ea...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Follow Your Heart
December 15, 2017 12:49 - 46 minutes - 64.2 MBAlong our career paths, we face so many challenges and choices. How can I make the best decisions for myself? This is a question that bothers us for the majority of our youth. Growing up in the ’70s, ’80s or even ’90s, we don’t have role models for career development. Looking back, our parents’ generation — who received professional training under China’s planned economy — was very much used to the idea of going to work from 8 am to 5 pm, and believed in doing the assigned job diligently...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Follow Your Heart
December 15, 2017 12:49 - 46 minutes - 64.2 MBAlong our career paths, we face so many challenges and choices. How can I make the best decisions for myself? This is a question that bothers us for the majority of our youth. Growing up in the ’70s, ’80s or even ’90s, we don’t have role models for career development. Looking back, our parents’ generation — who received professional training under China’s planned economy — was very much used to the idea of going to work from 8 am to 5 pm, and believed in doing the assigned job diligently...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Sexual Harassment in China
December 05, 2017 07:21 - 13 minutes - 18.6 MBOver the last few months, many sexual harassment cases in the US have come out one by one. Many women have stepped out from the dark to speak about what has happened to them, bravely challenging the powerful figures that they used to be afraid of. It is time to say “NO.” On the other side of the world, some Chinese women who have more exposure to international affairs have started to raise awareness of this issue, and look at what’s happening to themselves. China’s society as a whole, howe...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Beijing’s Queen of Craft Beer
November 20, 2017 06:13 - 54 minutes - 75.3 MBAny self-respecting beer drinker who has lived in Beijing has heard of Great Leap Brewing. As northern China’s first ever craft brewery, Great Leap Brewing consigned to history the days when beer in Beijing meant Tsingtao, Yanjing, or nothing. Sourcing about 80% of its ingredients from China, Great Leap aims to make world-class beer that showcases the finest aspects of Chinese culture. Arguably the institution that brought true pub culture to Beijing, it is now the go-to place for beer-lov...
Wǒ Men Podcast: The Difficulties of Dating in China
November 06, 2017 03:12 - 48 minutes - 65.9 MBDating is hard for a Chinese girl. Not only because it’s difficult to find Mr. Right, but also because the window for you to date is short. Before college, parents and teachers forbid you to date lest it distracts from your studies. Right after college, if you’re still single, parents and relatives start to become anxious. God forbid you turn 25 and are still single, and get labeled a “leftover woman.” At that point, finding a so-called “perfect husband” suddenly becomes the top priority n...
Wǒ Men Podcast: China’s New Fitness Craze
October 21, 2017 02:05 - 43 minutes - 59.6 MBNot long ago, “going to the gym” was not very common among working Chinese — traditional gyms, which tended to be overcrowded and lacking in modern, functional equipment, were pretty much the only option for exercising in China. In recent years, however, “getting fit” has suddenly become popular, and many boutique fitness centers seem to have mushroomed in China overnight. There are many options now, including spin class, HIIT, yoga, boxing, and dancing. Today, many of us are motivated and e...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Serial Entrepreneur
October 13, 2017 10:22 - 36 minutes - 49.8 MBWe are re-releasing the early episodes of the Wǒ Men podcast on iTunes. This was our third podcast (and we were still trying to figure out the technical aspects). In this episode, we talk to Ailin Guo, a young, intelligent and passionate woman who describes herself as a serial entrepreneur. This episode originally aired on the Radii China network on August 11, 2017. People used to call China the copycat nation, but now China is known for its innovation and entrepreneurship — from e-comm...
Wǒ Men Podcast: The Breastfeeding Dilemma
October 08, 2017 00:23 - 48 minutes - 66.4 MBAre you comfortable with the idea of breastfeeding in public? Do you think it’s a totally natural thing, as Jingjing does? Or are you, like Yajun, someone who feels that breasts are too private to expose in public, no matter the purpose? What would you do if you and your child were out, and he or she needed to be fed? Many Chinese mothers face this kind of situation every day, and for working mothers, the situation gets even trickier when you factor in business trips. Today Grace Zhang, ...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Donald Trump as Seen Through Chinese Eyes
September 28, 2017 23:29 - 28 minutes - 39.8 MBWe are re-releasing the early episodes of the Wǒ Men podcast on iTunes. This was our second podcast (and we were still trying to figure out the technical aspects) with Kiki Zhao, formerly of the New York Times Beijing Bureau. For China, Donald Trump is one of the most dramatic and unusual US presidents in recent memory. His bold statements — sorry, Twitter posts — and capacity for courting controversy have made him popular fodder for the Chinese media. What do people in China think as they...
Wǒ Men Podcast: A Chinese mother’s life in three different countries
September 22, 2017 23:16 - 42 minutes - 59 MBWhat’s life like when you move to a new country with a completely different language and culture? How do you achieve a balance between work and family? How do you make sure your young children can adapt to the new environment? On today’s show, Jingjing and Yajun sit down with Handan Bao, a mother with two children who has lived in three different countries over the past eight years. Based on her unique experience, Handan shares her life stories, insights and challenges from living in C...
Wǒ Men Podcast: Travel in New Style
September 22, 2017 22:26 - 47 minutes - 65.6 MBHow was your summer vacation? Did you go somewhere nice and relaxing? What is your next holiday destinations? If you still perceive Chinese tourists as loud people who are not interested in local culture but only buying Louis Vuitton bags in Paris and eating in Chinese restaurants, well… you’re not wrong. Many of them still are. However, China’s new generation of travelers, such as our guest today Annie Huang, may show you something different. Annie, born in the ’90s, has never studied a...