The Beijing Sessions

16/05/2022

In the midst of semi-lockdown in Beijing, I got to talk to my CrossFit buddy, translator Alice Xin Liu, for this week’s The Beijing Sessions podcast. Also: daily testing in Beijing, and overheard stat of the week.

https://thebeijingsessions.substack.com/p/translator-and-writer-alice-xin-liu?s=w

05/05/2022

The lead guitarist of Beijing's hottest (only?) ticket in town on an abrupt lockdown and a newfound appreciation for Paul McCartney

https://thebeijingsessions.substack.com/p/danny-dunn-of-soul-shake?s=w

Listen now (30 min) | The lead guitarist of Beijing's hottest (only?) ticket in town on an abrupt lockdown and a newfound appreciation for Paul McCartney

28/04/2022

And... we're back. After a longer than expected break, it's volume 2 of The Beijing Sessions.

We catch up with musician Djang San (张思安). He's in Lijiang at a residency with the Dayan Naxi Guyue Orchestra.

We talked about how being one of the only, and perhaps the last, French musicians in Yunnan opened up an opportunity to spend time with musicians at the orchestra, where he records conversations, jam sessions, everything, and everything.

Listen in at Apple Music, Spotify, or at www.thebeijingsessions.com

Follow Latest Episodes Podcast Episodes Apr 28, 2022 Catching up with Djang San Apr 28, 2022 We catch up with musician Djang San. He's in Lijiang with a residency at the Dayan Naxi Guyue Orchestra. Apr 28, 2022 Oct 16, 2021 Nick Cheng/Longhu, Comedian in Heels on using comedy to combat low self-este...

24/04/2022

The Beijing Sessions returns... this week, when we catch up with an old friend. Tune in:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2OEJcBx
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/13x6APM56NODu6tdpTuHPI?si=qf7wjOVBQJutWpLAWVRy1A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDQ4ODgxLnJzcw

19/12/2021

We’ve been talking to some incredible people over at the China Sports Insider Podcast. This week’s guest: two time NBA all star and CBA legend Stephon Marbury!

We talk to the two-time NBA All-Star about his long career in China, plus pick apart the misinformation going around on the Beijing Olympics

04/12/2021

While I retool The Beijing Sessions, you can listen to me on the China Sports Insider Podcast with Mark Dreyer, who has insider insights you won't get anywhere else.

There’s a lot to talk about, including the Peng Shuai/WTA story, the Olympics, and the China men's hockey mess. We also talk to the great Steph Hsiao from NFL China.

Listen here:

http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/china-sports-insider-podcast/id1578652044?i=1000543738112

‎Show China Sports Insider Podcast, Ep WTA ups the ante, crunch time for hockey, and a chat with NFL China's Stephanie Hsiao - Dec 2, 2021

01/11/2021

Hey all - you may have noticed (I hope) that there haven't been any Beijing Sessions for the last couple of weeks. A couple of reasons for that:

1) Getting the sports podcast off the ground has been a bit more complicated than anticipated;

2) I'm retooling and hoping to come back stronger than ever.

More news to come!

18/10/2021

Nick Cheng wasn't always Longhu, the Comedian in Heels. Then again, Nick's path to Beijing's comedy stages was more treacherous than most.

Nick earned his transformation to Longhu the hard way. Longhu is "the as***le I wished I could be when I was younger" he says in this revealing interview.

One of Nick's great passions is about using comedy as an antidote to low self-esteem, something he's struggled with throughout his life. His comedy is pure joy, a combination of shanties, stories about marrying his husband, navigating China's culture.

Nick Cheng 'LongHu' Comedian


https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-beijing-sessions/id1547402400?i=1000538756482

‎Show The Beijing Sessions, Ep Nick Cheng/Longhu, Comedian in Heels on using comedy to combat low self-esteem - Oct 16, 2021

01/10/2021

I don't like to play the game, and I don't want to play the game," photographer Feng Yu told me near the end of our interview. Utterly brave and supremely talented, her portraits of celebrities like Jackie Chan, Ai Weiwei, Michael Phelps, Stephon Marbury, Juliette Binoche have been published in magazines like Marie Claire, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, and Men’s Health.

I also speak with Harry Reid and Tony Tse (21:04), two former executives with advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather. Company insiders recently published a book on their foray into China called In The Name of Redness. Harry and Tony take us to the late 70s and early 80s in Beijing, just as the country was opening up.

‎Show The Beijing Sessions, Ep Photographer Feng Yu on empathy, portraits, and an early lesson with a cranky director; Harry Reid and Tony Tse on Ogilvy's early days in China - Sep 30, 2021

27/09/2021

Where can you find the best vegan food in Beijing? How do you tell a waiter you don’t want meat? And what’s the best fake meat in town?

Christine Yang, whose channel - A Little Vegan 叮姐 - has become a destination for foodies across China, is my guest this week on The Beijing Sessions.

www.thebeijingsessions.com

16/09/2021

The booze. The pressure. Beer promotions gone horribly wrong. In his many years as a touring musician, Tom Knight’s seen it all. He’s led Soul Shake, a band in Beijing, for over four years and he’s got stories to tell. A must-listen.

www.thebeijingsessions.com
Apple: https://apple.co/2OEJcBx
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/13x6APM56NODu6tdpTuHPI?si=qf7wjOVBQJutWpLAWVRy1A

13/09/2021

Dalton Grant Jr. wants to help build the Pixar of China. I talk to him about the company he co-founded - Floating World Animation - as well as China's burgeoning animation industry.

https://apple.co/2OEJcBx

‎Society & Culture · 2021

03/09/2021

Busy show this week.

Huihan Lie, the CEO and founder of genealogy company My China Roots comes on to about collecting over 100,000,000 records and making them searchable, and why he’s cautious about getting into DNA testing.

But first, I talk to Cale Amir Holmes. He's opening for JoeWong this weekend.

cc: Comedy Club China

Listen in to the full show at

https://apple.co/2OEJcBx
https://open.spotify.com/show/13x6APM56NODu6tdpTuHPI?si=qf7wjOVBQJutWpLAWVRy1A
www.thebeijingsessions.com

Or anywhere you get your podcasts.

27/08/2021

What does poverty look like? For those of us who have experienced it, it’s a series of choices about needs. In The Poverty Line, Beijing-based artists Chow and Lin travel to 36 countries to examine poverty with regard to food. They bought food from local markets based on the amount of food they could afford based on that country’s poverty line, then took portraits of that food on a local newspaper they bought that day.

The Poverty Line has been touring the world as a gallery exhibit but it’s just been published as a book. And it is brilliant. They’re my guests this week on The Beijing Sessions.

Lars Müller Publishers
Actes Sud

https://thebeijingsessions.com/episodes/artists-chow-and-lin-on-their-new-book-the-poverty-line

To demonstrate what it means to live at the poverty line, Beijing-based artist duo Stefen Chow and Huiyi Lin visited 36 countries and territories on six continents―from Germany and China to New York and London―examining poverty with regard to food.

13/08/2021

People think Beijing is extremely flat, and it is. But it's also surrounded on three sides by mountains and hundreds of kilometres of paved roads. It's what makes Beijing an 'unfound destination,' according to my guest, Shannon Bufton of Serk.

https://apple.co/2OEJcBx

‎Society & Culture · 2021

29/07/2021

The Beijing Sessions is back, now with video!

For the first episode after a month-long hiatus, I speak to Chris Stokel-Walker. He's the writer of TikTok Boom.

TikTok is the fastest growing app on the planet. And unusually for a breakout social media app, it’s owned by a Chinese company. That’s a combination that makes a lot of people in the west uncomfortable, and puts the makers of the app, Beijing-based ByteDance, in a precarious position as they navigate political and economic pressures from seemingly every direction.

What's a little unusual about this video, besides the gratuitous (though purely illustrative) clip of Cardi B, is that I'm currently in contention for a job at ByteDance.

Anyway, TikTok Boom is a great book and Chris was fun to talk to.

You can listen the interview at thebeijingsessions.com or watch on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/Q-tDtkTNFWc

TikTok is the fastest growing app on the planet. And, unusually for a breakout social media app, it’s owned by a Chinese company. That’s a combination that...

21/06/2021

If there's one niche topic that I'm really, really into, it's heritage buildings in Asia. And I'm not alone. Weird!

This month a new book was published from Hong Kong University Press called Asian Revitalization: Adaptive Reuse in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore.

The book looks at the issues around adaptive reuse in those megacities and, in my opinion, makes a very strong case that cities really should make adaptive reuse a big part of their development.

The editors of Asian Revitalization are Dr. Katie Cu**er and Professor Lynne Distefano. They joined me from Victoria, BC and Toronto.

Here's a taste:

Listen to the entire thing though.

www.thebeijingsessions.com
Apple: https://apple.co/2OEJcBx
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/13x6APM56NODu6tdpTuHPI?si=qf7wjOVBQJutWpLAWVRy1A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDQ4ODgxLnJzcw

06/06/2021

A really quick one this week with two guests. Kerry Wald of the U.S Embassy in China on China’s first ever American Literature Festival. Then, Sun Yao on Camera Stylo’s sixth birthday.

Listen in at https://apple.co/2OEJcBx

‎Society & Culture · 2021

27/05/2021

This week I’m joined by director Tong Hui, the co-director of Curtain Up, a documentary about elementary students at a Chinatown school in New York City who staged Disney’s musical Frozen. He screened the film in both the US and China, and got wildly different reactions.

Curtain Up! is a documentary that deals with themes of identity, immigration, and generational conflict, and it’s quite poignant. I was really happy to speak with Hui and hope you get a chance to see the film in China.

Listen in at https://apple.co/2OEJcBx or https://www.thebeijingsessions.com

‎Society & Culture · 2021

20/05/2021

🎧 New Podcast

Alex Shi keeps talking about her mom in her stand up. As long as she keeps telling Alex to stay elegant, that probably won’t change. And: will she ever do a set completely in Chinese?

Follow at https://apple.co/2OEJcBx
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/13x6APM56NODu6tdpTuHPI?si=qf7wjOVBQJutWpLAWVRy1A
Listen in at www.thebeijingsessions.com

Follow Latest Episodes Podcast Episodes May 20, 2021 Alex Shi on Chinese superstitions, Chinese comedy, and her mom May 20, 2021 This week's guest is Alex Shi, the first Chinese comic to appear on The Beijing Sessions. May 20, 2021 May 13, 2021 Mike Wester and Peter Catterall May 13, 2021 Mike Weste...

12/05/2021

Starting today, you can hear excerpts from The Beijing Sessions on Radio Beijing International! I’m told Radio Beijing International’s English audience is 200,000 people a month. That’s… a bit more than the show's normal weekly download numbers. If you’re in Beijing you can listen in on FM92.3. If you're not, check your local listings.

Oh, and nothing changes with the podcast. It’ll out every Thursday, with great guests. Tomorrow: Mike Wester makes a return, and I talk to journalist Peter Catterall about China’s favourite sports.

06/05/2021

🚨 New Podcast 🚨

China Sports Insider Mark Dreyer came on to talk Olympics protest rules, prepping for the Beijing Games, and the car crash waiting to happen for the Chinese men’s ice hockey team.

We covered many of my favourite topics: sports, business, and China.

Here's Mark on why it’s important for foreign athletes to try out venues before the Olympic Games begin. A huge challenge in the age of COVID.

Full episode at www.thebeijingsessions.com
Follow at https://apple.co/2OEJcBx
https://open.spotify.com/show/13x6APM56NODu6tdpTuHPI?si=qf7wjOVBQJutWpLAWVRy1A

29/04/2021

🚨 New Podcast 🚨

It’s Charles Pellegrin day on The Beijing Sessions. Beijing correspondent for FRANCE 24 by day, stand-up comic Comedy Club China by night, he has a lot to say about Paris, Beijing, and… suppositories???

https://apple.co/2OEJcBx
www.thebeijingsessions.com
https://open.spotify.com/show/13x6APM56NODu6tdpTuHPI?si=qf7wjOVBQJutWpLAWVRy1A

Listen to The Beijing Sessions on Spotify. Every week in the Beijing Sessions, host Haig Balian brings you interviews with fascinating characters from the world of music, film, the visual arts, sport, publishing, and broadcasting that make Beijing - and China - one of the world’s preeminent centre...

22/04/2021

In 1973 The Philadelphia Orchestra went where no American orchestra had gone before: China. Beethoven in Beijing is a new documentary about that groundbreaking visit. It's streaming now on Great Performances l PBS

Co-director Jennifer Lin is this week's guest on The Beijing Sessions. Catch the interview:

https://apple.co/2OEJcBx
https://open.spotify.com/show/13x6APM56NODu6tdpTuHPI?si=qf7wjOVBQJutWpLAWVRy1A
www.thebeijingsessions.com

‎Society & Culture · 2021

15/04/2021

In 2016 writer Jonathan Chatwin went on a walk across Beijing’s Chang An Jie, a street that has something to say about China’s history at every stop. He wrote about it in Long Peace Street.

"When I first moved to China I was first preoccupied by this sense of ‘how did the country get to where it is today?'" he told me on the most recent episode of The Beijing Sessions. "I suppose now the question is ‘where is it going?'"

Manchester University Press

http://thebeijingsessions.com
https://apple.co/2OEJcBx
https://open.spotify.com/show/13x6APM56NODu6tdpTuHPI?si=qf7wjOVBQJutWpLAWVRy1A

08/04/2021

My guests on The Beijing Sessions this week are director Arthur Jones and lead researcher Steven Schwankert of the new documentary, The Six, about the Chinese survivors of the Titanic. “We got pushback from the Titanic community,” Jones tells me. “We had people say to us, ‘you just have to accept they did something wrong.’”

“We did not approach this story with a particular agenda,” Schwankert added “We felt we had the opportunity to take a corner of the Titanic story and reexamine it in a way that just had never been done in more than a hundred years.”

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2OEJcBx
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/13x6APM56NODu6tdpTuHPI?si=qf7wjOVBQJutWpLAWVRy1A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDQ4ODgxLnJzcw
Website: www.thebeijingsessions.com

05/04/2021

The Beijing Sessions is finally on Google Podcasts.

I would have done this sooner, but it was surprisingly a bit more complicated than publishing on other directories.

The majority of listeners (53%) tune in using Apple Podcasts, with another 16% listening via "unknown Apple apps". A further 9% listen on Spotify.

I'm curious if Google will make a dent. In any case, it's there now!

Every week in the Beijing Sessions, host Haig Balian brings you interviews with fascinating characters from the world of music, film, the visual arts, sport, publishing, and broadcasting that make Beijing - and China - one of the world’s preeminent centres of culture.

02/04/2021

New podcast!

Sejin Bae is a jazz pianist, a composer, a teacher, and an arranger. Her band, the Sejin Bae Quartet, released their debut album, Direction, just a few months ago.

She’s based in Beijing and if you’re here you can see her performing at venues around town.

She came on The Beijing Sessions to talk about her start in jazz in a country where pop music is king, how her travels have made their way into her compositions, the fundamental differences in teaching jazz in the United States and Korea, and much more.

You can buy here album from Amazon (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/3rDRvve
Or from her label: https://davinci-edition.com/product/c00332/
It’s also available on Apple Music, Spotify, and wherever you stream music.

***

If you enjoy the podcast, please follow it, rate it, review it, and share it with friends.

You can find me on twitter at twitter.com/haigbalian

The website is thebeijingsessions.com

‎Society & Culture · 2021

29/03/2021

New York Times bestselling novelist told me that he wrote China: the novel after a trip to China: the country. He was contemplating retirement. Instead, he wrote what Newsweek calls "a sweeping tale that brings to life a nation's history, traditions and the people who lived through it as if by magic."

When I was researching Edward Rutherfurd, I remembered I’d read one of his books - Russka - in high school. He’s sold 15 million copies of his books, and it’s not that unlikely that a 15 year-old version of me would pick one up from my local library.

And as I was reading China, and taking notes on what I thought I might ask, I thought about how cool it is that I get to do this: to read someone’s novel, and get to ask them about it. Reading books is usually a one-way conversation.

What I didn’t realize is that is that I’d be there first person to interview Edward Rutherfurd about China: the novel. Such a fun conversation that gets into plot, developing real characters, and motivation.

Subscribe here: https://apple.co/2OEJcBx

25/03/2021

Newsweek calls it "a sweeping tale that brings to life a nation's history, traditions and the people who lived through it as if by magic."

Tomorrow bestselling novelist Edward Rutherford joins The Beijing Sessions for his first interview about his new novel, China. Great book, great talk. Listen in.