Chinese Whispers: a father and son at the edge of the Chinese empire

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🗓️ 16 September 2024

⏱️ 39 minutes

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Summary

As a child, the New York Times journalist Edward Wong had no idea that his father had been in the People’s Liberation Army. But as he grew up, a second generation immigrant in the United States, Edward was hungry to find out more about his father and mother’s pasts in the People’s Republic of China. That hunger took him to study China at university and eventually to become the New York Times’s Beijing bureau chief.

Edward’s new book, At the Edge of Empire, is a marvellously constructed work that traces his father’s journey through China as a soldier in the PLA, and his own reporting in China as an American journalist. It reveals how China has changed between the lives of father and son, but also how some aspects – such as the nature of political power – have not changed at all.

On this episode, Cindy Yu talks to Edward about the yearning of second-generation immigrants to understand their roots, why both China and America can be seen as empires, and the seventy years of change that the lives of father and son span.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Subscribe to The Spectator in September and get free months of website and app access absolutely free.
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0:14.3	Go to www.spicator.co.com.org. forward slash sale 24.
0:32.3	Hello and welcome to Chinese Whispers with me, Cindy Yu.
0:37.0	Every episode I'll be talking to journalists, experts and long-time China Watchers about the latest in Chinese
0:38.0	politics, society and more. There'll be a smattering of history to catch you up on the background
0:42.9	knowledge and some context as well. How do the Chinese see these issues? As a child, the New York
0:50.1	Times journalist Edward Wong had no idea that his father had been in the People's Liberation
0:54.6	Army. But as he grew up as a second generation immigrant in the United States, Edward was hungry
1:00.2	to find out more about his father and his mother's pasts in the People's Republic of China.
1:05.3	That hunger took him to study China at university and eventually to become the New York Times'
1:09.9	Beijing Bureau chief.
1:11.8	Edward's new book, At the Edge of Empire, is a marvellously constructed work that traces his father's
1:16.5	journey through China as a soldier in the PLA and his own reporting in China as an American
1:21.4	journalist. It reveals how China has changed between the lives of father and son,
1:26.9	and also how in some aspects, very little
1:28.8	has changed, such as the nature of political power. I'm delighted to say that Edward joins me
1:33.9	now. Welcome to Chinese Whispers. Thanks, Cindy. Great to be here. Now, Edward, above all, I found
1:38.5	this a really, really touching book. I would describe it as something of a family memoir. So can we start
1:43.0	with your father? What made you
1:44.9	want to write a book about him? Well, the book, or maybe the general ideas for the book,
	...

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