AI Slop, AI Detectors, and Authentic Voice: A China-Tech Insider on Writing and Working With AI
Should we view today’s powerful AI language tools as intellectual crutches or as incredibly useful assets? Can they be safely integrated int...
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Society & Culture
Barbarians at the Gate
A semi-serious deep dive into Chinese history and culture broadcast from Beijing and hosted by Jeremiah Jenne and David Moser.
Barbarians at the Gate Podcast Guide
Listen to Barbarians at the Gate, a Society & Culture podcast by Barbarians at the Gate. Stream 110 episodes in English, follow new audio stories, and play episodes online on Radio and Podcast.
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Episodes
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China Books Review x Barbarians at the Gate: The Private Life of Chairman Mao
The Politburo had given Mao Zedong’s personal physician Li Zhisui a direct order: prepare the Chairman’s body so that he can be on permanent...
This Was Funnier in China: Jesse Appell's Cross-Cultural Comedy Journey
On this episode, we sit down with the one and only Jesse Appell—Chinese TV stand-up comedian, blogger, lecturer, tea entrepreneur, and passi...
The Business of Burgers in Beijing: What Fast Food Festivals Reveal About China's Economy
Mike Wester launched the first Burger Fest in Beijing 13 years ago as a scrappy response to the collapse of print ad revenue. Today, burger...
Barbarians Remix: Do you really need to learn to write characters to study Chinese?
Warning: GEEKY CONTENT Hosting solo in this week’s episode, David takes a geeky deep dive into the digital revolution in Chinese language le...
The Many Lives of Da Shan: Mark Rowswell on Chinese Poetry, Performing Live, and Staging Shawshank in Mandarin
In this episode, we reconnect with an old friend of the podcast, Canadian performer Mark Rowswell—better known in China as Dashan, or “Big M...
Lee Moore's China Backstory: Why Saying "History Proves" Actually Means "I Haven't Done the Reading"
Lee Moore's new book challenges both Chinese state propaganda and Western pundits on Taiwan, Xinjiang, the Chinese economy, and Hong Kong wi...
Décadence Mandchoue: The wild (and almost certainly fictional) affair between Sir Edmund Backhouse and Empress Dowager Cixi
It’s another Barbarians at the Gate crossover with China Books Review. This month’s China Archives column covers Decadence Mandchoue by Edmu...
Barbarians at the Gate x By Their Own Compass: Emily Hahn's Shanghai
Welcome to a special episode of Barbarians at the Gate. David and Jeremiah are off this week preparing for Chinese New Year, but as a specia...
Lost in Thailand: The New Chinese Diaspora from Bangkok to Addis Ababa
It’s high season in Thailand. The weather is perfect. But look around the hotel lobbies and the night markets, and you’ll notice something m...
Perilous Prognostications for China in 2026 with Yajun Zhang
Following a tumultuous 2025, we gallop into the Year of the Horse. Tradition says it should be a year of dynamism and progress, but which wa...
Barbarians Remix: Horse Racing, History, and the Final Champion's Day in Old Shanghai
Champions Day in the city of Shanghai, November 1941. The world was at war, but the clubhouse at the Shanghai Race Club (now People's Park)...
The Dowager and the Dynasty: How did Empress Dowager Cixi rule China and should we blame her for bringing down an empire?
How does a teenage girl from Beijing’s hutongs end up ruling the world’s largest empire—without ever technically sitting on the throne? In t...
Barbarians at the Gate x China Books Review: From Heaven Lake
In 1981, the Indian writer and poet Vikram Seth traveled from Nanjing, where he was studying literature, to his hometown of Delhi. Moving by...
The Destruction of the Old Summer Palace (Remix)
Yuanmingyuan, the "Garden of Perfect Brightness," commonly referred to as the Old Summer Palace, was a Qing Dynasty imperial residence compr...
The Voyages of Zheng He
It’s just two guys talking China's naval history. In this episode, David and Jeremiah dig into the story of Zheng He, the 15th-century admir...
Barbarians at the Gate x China Books Review: The Records of the Grand Historian
Picture this: You’re 45 years old, halfway through writing the definitive history of your civilization. Writing this history is the family b...
Barbarians Remix: Seeking News, Making China
In this encore episode of Barbarians at the Gate, first broadcast in March 2024, John Alekna talks about his fascinating new book Seeking Ne...
AI-Laoshi Will See You Now: How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Chinese Language Learning
Teachers are an excitable lot prone to excessive consumption of caffeine and loudly proclaiming that [Insert New Technology Here] will doom...
Calling all China Nerds
Where are our nerds at? David Moser is on summer holiday, and stepping into David's seat for this episode is literary translator Brendan O'K...