‘O thou city that surpasseth our understanding! How impressive are they emptiness, and thy commonness, and thy bad taste!’
In the thirty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Hymn to Shanghai (上海之歌 / Shànghǎi Zhīgē), a piece by ‘the little critic’ himself, Lin Yutang. Joining me to pick apart Lin’s biblical condemnation is the roguish raconteur and historian of Old Shanghai, Paul French. Expect to hear a lot about the virtues of liberal cosmopolitanism and the evils of Art Deco and gin liqueur.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- Yen Ooi’s article in the SFRA review – Chinese Science Fiction: A Genre of Adversity
- The Three Body Problem gets picked up by Netflix
- a cool book I only just learned exists: Reading Lu Xun Through Carl Jung
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(黄包车 / huáng bāo chē / rickshaw)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Little Tokyo in Old Shanghai
- Do Bedbugs Exist in China? by Lin Yutang
- Lin Yutang’s Chinese typewriter
- Extraterritoriality in China
- Metropolis (dir. Fritz Lang, 1927)
- Man’s Fate by Andre Malraux
- Shanghai by Yokomitsu Riichi
- Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui
- The XXth Century – the Nazi magazine that Eileen Chang got her start in
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The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast 