All sorts of swindles in the late Ming society, with Christopher Rea and Bruce Rusk

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Culture, China News, Hangzhou, Chinese, International Relations, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan, Currentaffairs, China, Politics, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China Economy, News, China Politics, Business, Film, Shenzhen

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2018

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Christopher Rea and Bruce Rusk, both professors at the University of British Columbia, about their translation of Book of Swindles: Selections from a Late Ming Collection (骗经 piànjīng), by Zhang Yingyu 张应俞. Anyone who has lived in China in recent decades will understand intuitively why a podcast ostensibly about current affairs in China would want to talk about a 16th-century book. However, for anyone who doubts the relevance for today's China, we believe it all will become painfully clear as you listen. Recommendations: Bruce Rusk: The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man. Written by David Maurer, a professor of linguistics who spent the 1930s hanging out with a legion of con artists to learn their languages and tricks, the book is one of the most colorful, well researched, and entertaining works of criminology that has ever existed. Christopher Rea: Slapping the Table in Amazement: A Ming Dynasty Story Collection. Originally written by Ling Mengchu 凌濛初 (1580–1644) and translated by Shuhui Yang and Yunqin Yang, the book is full of fantastic tales that collectively present a broad picture of traditional Chinese society during that period of time. Kaiser: The Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset that blew Kaiser away. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the cynical podcast.
0:11.0	We've the discussion of current affairs in China produced in partnership with SubChina.
0:14.8	SubChina is the best way to keep on top of the latest news from China in just a few minutes a day.
0:19.3	That is still joined SubChina's Access Program
0:22.4	for lots of bonus materials,
0:24.6	steep discounts on our conferences and our live shows,
0:27.7	and membership on our SubChina Access Slack Channel
0:31.4	where you can talk China with our staff, our readers, and our listeners,
0:35.3	and take part in weekly live conversations with special guests.
0:38.7	I am Kaiser Guo. I am coming to you today from the sidelines of the Association for Asian
0:42.5	Studies Conference in Washington, D.C. I am, I regret to say, terribly disappointed that
0:47.1	David Moser, who had originally planned to be in town for the conference, wasn't able to make it.
0:51.3	Originally, he was going to co-host this episode, along with Jeremy Goldcorn, while I just
0:55.7	manned the controls, but as fate would have it, it's just me.
0:59.3	To me that Arch Pienze claims to be on vacation, but actually he is, I'm going to reveal
1:05.1	to you back home in Nashville, Tennessee, working on his latest stupendous feat of charlatanism,
1:10.2	which I think involves building a mega church on his land in gold corn holler,
1:14.5	where he plans to fleece unsuspecting God-fearing Americans
1:18.0	of their hard-earned with a theology shamelessly cribbed from Hong Xiu-Tuan
1:22.4	and his Taiping doctrine.
1:24.3	He's going to deliver sermons in that slickly charming Anglo-South African accent of his,
1:29.6	and shame on him, shame on him. Anyway, today on Seneca we are going to talk about the Piansu Kynz
	...

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