Sidney Rittenberg on solitary confinement and more

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

🗓️ 26 January 2017

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sidney Rittenberg is a labor activist from Charleston, South Carolina, who went to China as a translator for the U.S. Army in 1945 and stayed until 1980. In this episode, Sidney talks about the conditions he endured during his two periods of solitary confinement, Sino-American relations, the behavior of Russian advisers sent to China by the Soviet Union, and much more. Part one of our interview is here. You can read a Q&A with Sidney on SupChina here. You can buy Sidney’s books: an autobiography, The Man Who Stayed Behind, and Manage Your Mind: Set Yourself Free, on lessons he learned while in solitary confinement. The Revolutionary is a documentary film about his life (also available on Amazon). 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	Hey there, cynical listeners. Check it out. Our first commercial message, and it's actually for something many of our listeners are going to find very tempting.
0:07.8	Fly direct to Hongzhou from the U.S. for as little as $493 round trip on United Airlines, the only airline offering nonstop flights to Hong Cho.
0:17.0	For $493, you can ring in the year of the rooster as you sip lunging tea on the
0:22.6	shores of Westlake.
0:24.7	But hurry, you have to purchase before February 1st, which is yipes just a few days away.
0:30.3	So fares from $493 roundtrip, visit United.com for details and booking and enjoy the podcast.
0:47.1	Welcome to the Cynical podcast,
0:48.8	with the discussion in current affairs in China, produced in partnership with SubChina.
0:53.3	SubChina offers the best way to stay on top
0:55.1	of the most important news from China in just a few minutes a day through a free email newsletter,
1:00.2	a smartphone app, and at the website SubChina.com. SubChina offers a feast of business, political,
1:06.4	and cultural news about a nation that is reshaping the world. I'm Kaiser Guo, and today co-host Jeremy Goldcorn and I bring you the second half of our
1:15.2	conversation with Sidney Rittenberg.
1:17.7	As the first American to join the Chinese Communist Party, Sydney got to know many of the
1:23.0	luminaries of the Chinese Revolution during his years at Yanan and beyond, and he spent a total of almost
1:29.1	16 years in solitary confinement in two long stretches. If you haven't heard the first half,
1:35.5	we urge you to hit pause and go listen to that before giving this one to listen. But before
1:39.8	you do that, a couple of announcements. First, Jeremy and I will be back in Beijing in February,
1:46.2	and we'll have a couple of live events, some of our Beijing-based listeners or anyone who happens
1:50.3	to be in town will hopefully come join us for. First, we'll be doing a live podcast taping
1:56.0	at The Bookworm with Jane Perlase, Peulitzer Prize-winning correspondent for The New York Times, and we'll be talking about
2:02.6	China's foreign policy in this fast-changing time.
	...

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