NOTE: If you haven’t read the book and are allergic to spoilers, please be aware that the interesting surprises of Scott’s story are discussed in this podcast.
Scott Tong is a reporter for American Public Media’s Marketplace, and from 2006 to 2010, he helped found and run the radio program’s Shanghai bureau. During that time, he also experienced a lot of culture shock — his Chinese-American upbringing in the U.S., Hong Kong, and Taiwan didn’t prepare him for mainland China as much as he had expected, and while in Shanghai, he uncovered some surprising truths about his family, which has roots in nearby Jiangsu Province.
A Village With My Name: A Family History of China's Opening to the World is Scott’s deeply personal reporting and reflection on what he learned about his family, and China’s history, by visiting distant relatives in a forlorn part of Jiangsu Province. It is a highly engaging, eye-opening story that sheds light on how Chinese people engage with their past — and their present.
Recommendations:
Jeremy: McKay Books, a huge used books store in Nashville, Tennessee. And Congo Cables: The Cold War in Africa—From Eisenhower to Kennedy, by Madeleine Kalb.
Scott: Resigned Activism: Living With Pollution in Rural China, by Anna Lora-Wainwright. And Rough Translation, an NPR podcast about how foreigners see America.
Kaiser: Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, by Kurt Andersen.
China's draft regulations on generative AI, with Kendra Schaefer and Jeremy Daum
Xiong'an: Techno-natural utopia or authoritarian folly?
Earth Day episode: How can the U.S. and China cooperate on climate in this era of competition?
Legendary CNN reporter Mike Chinoy on his book and documentary series "Assignment China"
As the U.S. and China part ways, the Global South finds its own path, with Kishore Mahbubani
Sinica at the Association for Asian Studies Conference, Boston 2023: Capsule interviews
The Maoist legacy in Chinese private enterprise, with Chris Marquis
Beijing brokers a Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, with Tuvia Gering
The Xi-Putin meetings, with Maria Repnikova
The expansion of China's administrative state during COVID, with Yale Law's Taisu Zhang
Jude Blanchette on the Select Committee and the American moral panic over China
Inside Tencent's "Influence Empire," with Bloomberg's Lulu Chen
China and the electric vehicle battery supply chain, with Henry Sanderson
China and the Ukraine War one year after the invasion, with Evan Feigenbaum and Alexander Gabuev
Sinostan: Raffaello Pantucci on China's inadvertent empire in Central Asia
CSIS analyst Gerard DiPippo deflates the balloon hype and brings the discussion back to earth
Live in New York City with veteran China journalist Ian Johnson
Is China's demography China's destiny? A chat with former World Bank economist Bert Hofman
A firsthand view of China's chaotic COVID re-opening, with Deborah Seligsohn
Talking China on TikTok with The China Project's Susan St. Denis
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