Chinese Whispers: strangers in a strange land

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4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2022

⏱️ 39 minutes

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Summary

Over the last few hundred years, China has had a difficult and complicated relationship with foreigners. On the one hand, they added to the country’s intellectual richness by introducing western philosophy and science; and on the other, these contributions often came accompanied by guns and gunboats.

And today, out of a country of 1.4 billion, there are fewer than one million foreigners living there. So what is it like to try to make China one’s home if you were British or anything else?

On the episode, Cindy Yu speaks to two long time China hands. Mark Kitto is a writer and actor who lived in China for 16 years, setting up two businesses in succession there but now back living in Norfolk. Alec Ash is the author of Wish Lanterns, all about Chinese millennials. He moved to China around the time that Mark left, and has just moved back to the UK after a decade there.

She speaks to them about what it is like to be foreign in China given the country’s complicated history with Brits and other foreigners; and whether the Chinese identity itself is particularly hard to penetrate as a foreigner.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Subscribe to The Spectator this Christmas and get the next 12 weeks of print and online access
0:04.3	as well as a bottle of Polroger champagne all for just £12. This offer is available in the UK only.
0:10.1	Go to www.spictator.com.uk forward slash Santa to subscribe. Hello and welcome to Chinese Whispers with me, Cindy Yu.
0:27.6	Every episode, I'll be talking to journalists, experts and long-time China watchers about the latest in Chinese politics, society and more.
0:35.8	There'll be a smattering of history to catch you up on the background
0:38.2	knowledge and some context as well. How did the Chinese see these issues? Over the last few hundred
0:45.0	years, China has had a difficult and complicated relationship with foreigners. On the one hand,
0:50.3	foreigners added to the country's intellectual richness by introducing Western philosophy and science,
0:55.7	and on the other, these contributions often came accompanied by guns and gunboats.
1:01.3	Today's China is still a very homogenous place.
1:04.2	Out of a country of 1.4 billion, there are fewer than 1 million non-Chinese nationals living there.
1:10.6	Out of a country of 1.4 billion, there are fewer than 1 million foreigners living there.
1:14.6	So what does it like to try to make China one's home if you were British or anything else?
1:19.6	I spoke to two long-time China hands in a discussion about identity, history and belonging.
1:26.6	They are Mark Kitto, who's a writer and actor who
1:29.3	lived in China for 16 years, setting up two businesses in succession there, but now back living in
1:34.6	Norfolk, and Alec Ash. You might know his 2016 book Wish Lanterns all about Chinese millennials.
1:41.2	He moved to China around the time that Mark left in 2012 and has just moved
1:45.5	back to the UK after a decade there. I wanted to find out from them what it was like to be
1:50.3	foreign in China, given the country's complicated history with Brits and other foreigners,
1:54.9	and whether the Chinese identity itself is particularly hard to penetrate. In the last few years,
2:02.7	at least anecdotally, I also feel that there has been an exodus or foreigners leaving China, not least because of zero COVID.
	...

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