Drum Tower: Stand-up feminists
Economist Podcasts
The Economist
4.3 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2023
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tickets for “Nvzizhuyi”—a monthly stand-up comedy show in New York City— often sell out in less than a minute. The show invites Chinese citizens, mostly women, to tell jokes, perform skits and recount the absurd challenges they’ve encountered as feminist activists in China—things they could never utter in public back home.
This week, Alice Su, our senior China correspondent, reports from the dark basement of a comedy club. Together with David Rennie, The Economist’s Beijing bureau chief, they ask: Why are some of China’s exiled feminists doing stand-up comedy abroad? And can their performances have any impact back home?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a free episode of Drum Tower. |
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| 0:14.8 | In a world of seismic change, will your business shape the future or be shaped by it? |
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| 0:30.6 | and unlock economic and social prosperity through environmental responsibility. |
| 0:35.6 | With EY's full spectrum of services across sectors, |
| 0:39.5 | we're all in to shape the future with confidence. |
| 0:42.7 | Start your transformation journey at EY.com slash transformation. |
| 0:50.6 | The Economist The Economist. |
| 0:55.2 | So David, I've been spending some time reporting in the dark basements of New York City. |
| 1:15.1 | Tell me more. |
| 1:16.9 | I went to capture a story for Drum Tower, and it involved a lot more laughter than usual. |
| 1:23.5 | What is going on there? |
| 1:24.9 | So when we were in the U.S., I went to a Chinese feminist stand-up comedy show in New York City. |
| 1:30.8 | It's called Nuzzi Zhu Yi, which can mean two things. |
| 1:34.2 | It can mean women's ideas or it can also mean good ideas. |
| 1:37.9 | And of course, feminists in China, along with all kinds of activists, have been having a much, much harder time recently. |
| 1:44.0 | So much so that many have now left the country, |
| 1:46.2 | and yet they are trying to rebuild a feminist community from the outside. |
| 1:52.1 | This week, we're asking, |
| 1:54.0 | why have some of China's feminists taken to doing stand-up abroad? |
... |
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