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'Kane. It takes about two minutes for Jeremiah and Brendan to go off the rails, over the edge, and back to the Amilal Courtyard in Beijing ca. 2010 (if you know, you know). In this wide-ranging conversation, Brendan and Jeremiah rate different levels of dynastic decline on the "fuckery" scale, Brendan reads a translation from Chinese philosopher Mencius, there's discussion of how to best gloss "laowai," if Xi Jinping is "president," "chairman," or something else entirely, a quick debate on whether Matteo Ricci had an eidetic memory or was just really, really smart, and Brendan's adventures battling ICE. Come with us for a wild ride of Sinological geekdom and summer-style freeflow scholarship.

You can listen to Calling all China Nerds online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Calling all China Nerds is an episode from Barbarians at the Gate by Barbarians at the Gate.

This episode is 0:32:33 long.

This episode was published on Aug 14, 2025.

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