Below is a complete transcript of the live Sinica Podcast with Susan St. Denis.
Kaiser Kuo: Welcome to the Sinica Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China, produced in partnership with The China Project. Subscribe to Access from The China Project to get access. Access to, not only our great daily newsletter, but to all the original writing on our website at thechinaproject.com. We’ve got reported stories, essays and editorials, great explainers and trackers, regular columns, and of course, a growing library of podcasts. We cover everything from China’s fraught foreign relations to its ingenious entrepreneurs, from the ongoing repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples in China’s Xinjiang region, to Beijing’s ambitious plans to shift the Chinese economy onto a post carbon footing. It’s a feast of business, political, and cultural news of about a nation that is reshaping the world. We cover China with neither fear nor favor.
I’m Kaiser Kuo, coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Back in May, a little over six months ago, a young woman who’d spent a bunch of time in China approached our editorial team with an interesting proposal. She wanted to create an official TikTok channel for our company, which was then still called The China Project. She was already running her own China focused TikTok feed with a ton of subscribers. You should check that out — just add “Dear China” to TikTok. Anyway, as I watched those videos, I was really impressed with her presentation, with her scripting, as well as her wit and her sense of humor. But above all, I was impressed with her overall approach to talking about China, which, for me, ticked all the boxes. It was empathetic, knowledgeable, very balanced; interested in introducing context, and approaching all these complicated issues from a whole bunch of different angles.
So, all of us who looked at our stuff agreed. We liked it for very much the same reasons. Thus was born the China Vibe TikTok channel. And it’s done so well that just last month, we brought its creator on full-time to the China Project. The woman behind the show is Susan St. Denis — St. Denis, as we always said before we met her. And I’m delighted to welcome her today on Sinica. Susan St. Denis, welcome to Sinica.
Susan St. Denis: Thank you for pronouncing the name correctly. Look at you. You’re so cultured.
Kaiser: Oh, yeah. Are you French? I mean, is it like the-
Susan: Yeah.
Kaiser: Oh, you are?
Susan: My dad brags about it all the time. All of the streets in Paris are named after our family. We built France.
Kaiser: Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, he’s the patron saint of France, right?
Susan: Exactly. That’s the dawn.
Kaiser: Yeah, I think I actually, yeah, I lived at one… well, just stayed in some, like bed and breakfast on Rue Saint-Denis at one point.
Susan:We have a wine too, I think. There’s a winery. My dad uses that for special occasions. He brings out the St. Denis wine.
Kaiser: Oh, nice. Nice, nice. So, Susan, you have really just hit the ground running since he joined us. Actually, you joined us just before a spate of holiday-taking by some of the folks on our editorial team. And you’ve had to take on a bunch of newsletter responsibilities, even as you’ve kept up the China Vibe TikTok output. So, kudos for surviving your baptism by fire.
Susan: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Kaiser: Yeah. Hopefully, you’re going to enjoy this little holiday for the new year. Anyway, in the spirit of TikTok, we are going to keep the interview kind of short and to the point. But first, since you are a new face around here and unfamiliar to much of the Sinica listenership, I imagine, let’s talk a bit about who you are and how you became interested in China and in studying Chinese.
Susan: Yeah. I love telling this story because it’s been a wild journey. So, my dad, he lived in China in the late ‘80s and ‘90s. He traveled all over.
Kaiser: Oh, wow.
Susan: Yeah. He was a law professor. And he also did some work with various organizations. I believe it was in 1994 — that was the last time he went to China. He took my mom right after they got married, so talk about a test. My mom taught English, and my dad continued his work as a law professor. While they were there, they took a ton of photos. And this was what really had an impact on me when I was little. It was always a part of my life, this one little photo book. And I loved looking through it because unlike professionals, what my parents did is they just were wandering around with this Kodak and taking photos that just interested them.
It wasn’t professional. It wasn’t like a documentary or anything like that. And it was this really intimate look into daily life in a little fishing village in China that I know. I can’t even really remember the name of where they were specifically. But that really had an impact on me, and I realized a lot of people didn’t have that perspective on China. They were looking at China through this lens of politics and economics, business. Meanwhile, I was seeing China through the lens of my parents and through these photographs where it was real people and real lives that were being lived that were similar to my own in so many ways. So, when I went into high school, like a lot of weird, awkward kids, I was really into anime, and I decided to quit Latin, and I wanted to take Japanese.
Kaiser: Oh, nice.
Susan: Yeah. I told my dad, though, and he said, “Listen, if you want to go anywhere in business and you really want to make it, you need to study Chinese”. My high school was a pretty well-known private school, and we had a lot of Chinese students, so a lot of pretty prominent families in China would send their kids to my school for our athletic program. I actually swam with a lot of them. And because of that, they had a great Chinese program. So, I started studying Chinese when I was in the 11th grade, went to China for the first time after only one year, and studied in Qingdao at a high school there, and then went off to college where I wanted to do fashion design, but then I got into film. And this whole time, China was with me. I knew I needed to make sure to integrate China into everything that I did. Once I got to grad school, though, I didn’t get into film school — dreams were crushed.
Yeah, I know. It was heartbreaking. I didn’t know what to do with my life. My Chinese history professor brought me aside and he was like, “Listen, you’re really good at writing about China. I think you really have a passion for it.” I had just gotten back from my second trip to China where I was in Sichuan, and he wanted me to get my master’s degree in Chinese studies. And I was like, you know what? I have nothing to lose. It was the middle of COVID. I figured, why not? And I applied to Florida International University in Miami, packed my bags, and moved right after I got accepted. And here I am now.
Kaiser: Nice.
Susan: Now I specialized in politics and law and all that good stuff. So, it’s been a wild ride from start to finish.
Kaiser: Yeah. You are one of those rare people who can turn a Master’s degree in Chinese studies into an actual China-related job.
Susan: I know. I did it. I’m so proud of myself.
Kaiser: Oh, amazing. That’s a very, very different story than one usually hears where there’s usually like years of anguish where you don’t know what you’re going to do with this, yet you went right into it. What drew you to using TikTok, though, as a platform instead of other platforms like YouTube or Twitch? I mean, you were already a pretty avid TikTok user, I imagine.
Susan: Yeah. So it’s…
Kaiser: Were you just watching or you were already creating content, or what were you doing?
Susan: Yeah, so it’s kind of funny. Before I did the China stuff, my account was a comedy account, so I did sketches. I think I had like 60,000 followers from that. And then one day, I did a video on, I think it was on the Shang-Chi movie and why that movie wasn’t doing well in China. And it blew up. I think it hit a million views. I can’t remember. And from that, people just started asking me questions about China. They realized I was getting my master’s degree in that. And they were like, “I want to know more.” And they started asking me questions, and I started answering them, and here we are.
Kaiser: Oh, wow.
Susan: So, it was almost by accident, but I realized TikTok was really valuable because it was short. I could keep people’s attention, and I had a young audience. The problem with YouTube is it requires a lot of effort in terms of production. I’ve been debating shifting over there for a little while now, but it just takes a lot of time. And with Twitch, I mean, you just have to know your stuff right out the gate. You get no chance to edit. So, what’s nice with TikTok is if I make a mistake, I can fix it pretty easily.
Kaiser: Yeah. I mean, so what people in my generation think, “Hey, let’s put this content on TikTok to reach younger people,” I think there’s something of an assumption at play that it needs to be somehow dumbed down. I see now that this is completely wrong. I like TikTok. I look at a lot of stuff, and there’s a lot of stuff that is not at all dumbed down. It’s like straight from the top, very adult and very smart. So, between little, short videos of women with bouncing breasts, for some reason, they always start people with that. It’s just really annoying. There’s actually some really great stuff. But you certainly don’t dumb stuff down for your TikTok channel; for neither the one that you did before, your private one, nor the China Vibe.
So, where does this erroneous idea come from, first of all? I mean; obviously it’s got to be maddening to you or for anyone from your generation that there’s this assumption in play at all. But where does this come from, and what should you be doing instead?
Susan: Right. So, I think there’s a difference between dumbing something down and making it accessible. And this is something that yeah, a lot of academics struggle with. And I say that as someone who is an academic myself. When you’re getting your master’s or getting your PhD, anything like that, you’re encouraged to use a lot of scholarly jargon. And because of that, it makes it very difficult for regular people who aren’t in that field to understand what you’re talking about. Not because they’re stupid by any means, but just because normal people aren’t using those terms when you talk about theories and all that jazz. So, what a lot of people make the mistake of is they think they need to make it really simple and dumb it down when it’s not about that. It’s just using common language and not making it intimidating.
So, that was my big goal with my videos out the gate. I’ve been very open about it where I said I wanted to make this stuff accessible because so much of the information on China is hidden. The good information is hidden behind this wall of jargon that’s very intimidating for regular people that are interested. And I will say the majority of people are very interested in China and want to learn more. They just don’t feel like they have access to it.
Kaiser: Yeah. The access thing has been just such a problem. I mean, I feel this real sense of urgency after three years of, for me, total disconnection from being able to go there. Hopefully, that’s about the change. But for so many people whose lives and livelihoods are actually wrapped up in covering China, thinking about China, I think I share that whole despair that they must be feeling over what must be happening to people who aren’t specialists. I feel like if it’s that bad for me, God, just imagine what it’s like for people who aren’t like actively trying to keep up with what’s happening and trying to interpret what’s happening. I have to think it’s gotten even worse for people in your age cohort who have just spent the last six or seven years, is these are incredibly formative years for them.
Who are hearing only how bad things are with China and never even having had a shot at being able to spend that gap year there or take a year abroad, or those really important post-college years where a lot of us just went and kicked around China randomly for a while. So, just soaking it in. That’s what has been driving me to want to bring on somebody like you; somebody who can talk to people where they actually are. What about you? What compelled you to start your TikTok channel about China? And then what drew you to The China Project in particular? Was there something about how we were covering China that made you think that you’d be a particularly good fit?
Susan: Right. As you were talking about earlier, the struggle that younger people have, for the past six years, it’s just been “we’re dying.” That’s all that you hear. The alarm bells are ringing. It’s interesting, I was joking with my siblings. I’m home for the holidays right now with my family, and I was joking with them, where I was like, anytime I come home, I have to be ready to give a 60-minute interview because everyone wants to ask me questions about China. And my little brother, my youngest brother’s like 13, and last night we were out at dinner, and it was the whole time, he was like, “Well, Susan, what about this? What about this?” And he’s a kid and he’s wanting to understand these very complicated things about China, but asking in the terminology of a 13-year-old and with the attitude of a middle school boy who spends most of his time on the internet.
But he’s genuinely curious. So, I have to be able to take this complicated information I learn and present it to a kid but not make him feel stupid and not make him feel belittled. I do want to bring that up because that’s the mindset that I’ve had. That’s what I’ve had to do my whole time in Chinese studies, is I come home for the holidays and I’m explaining it to my 13-year-old brother.
Kaiser: Oh, that’s great practice. Yeah.
Susan: Totally. Regarding what you were talking about… I think that kind of answers your first question, but with The China Project, what I noticed was that y’all were doing that. The articles you were writing were simplified — not dumbed down. You weren’t talking down to people. You weren’t belittling your audience, but you were talking at their level. And although the majority of the people that are listening to y’all, using your content, from what I understand, the majority of them are people in the field. I can see this opportunity where regular people would want to use y’all’s analysis. And it’s unique. It’s different than other platforms that I’ve seen, where you look at major news networks, they do tend to have this belittling attitude, or they go to an extreme that is not helpful. It doesn’t help people understand things. It just lets them know, oh, everything’s on fire, but I don’t understand why. How did we get to this point?
The China Project explains the why, and that’s missing in a lot of coverage when it comes to China, is the why. And that’s what I like about y’all.
Kaiser: Well, thank you. I will take that. China obviously is not an easy topic to cover by any medium. And I cut anyone a lot of slack because it’s tough to do. But you have to, I mean, like, I know, for me anyway, you have to have pretty thick skin. You’re going to get it from both sides as you’re trying to sort of be in the middle. But what are some of the unique challenges that come with covering something as complex and controversial as China for you on TikTok especially?
Susan: Great question. First of all, I mean, kind of on a funny note, it is true. When you’re on the internet like I am and your face is everywhere, people forget you’re a person. So, I get quite a few interesting comments, and then I try to be lighthearted about it and I make jokes. My favorite is… 50% of people that are watching my videos are like, “You’re a CIA agent,” and the other half are saying that I work for the CPC. So, it’s like, all right, well, okay.
Kaiser: So, you fit right in with us.
Susan: I’m a double agent. Look at me go. I know. Exactly. That’s how you know you’re doing a good job. That’s true balance. But yeah, the big challenge, I think, is just first of all, fitting all of the information into those videos. Although TikTok allows for you to do 10-minute videos now, those don’t really hit the algorithm as well. So, the challenge is managing to fix, fix, fit very complicated concepts into a three minute video. And that’s why on my personal channel, the Dear China one, I do the video series, but China Vibe has presented this unique challenge of, how do I explain the current state of China’s relationship with the Middle East in three minutes? Sometimes I’m not able to do it.
Kaiser: Well, I have the pleasure of editing your scripts, and it’s amazing. I think you just do a really, really good job. I mean, I think that you were born to be a news person. I mean, you really pack a ton in and you’re very efficient about it. And you present the information in the right order so that it sort of like builds. You have a good sense for that. And you don’t bury the lead. You’re very smart about that. Yeah. I think you have a natural talent for it, so yeah.
Susan: I appreciate it. No, it’s because I had a journalist professor that beat it into me.
Kaiser: Ah, okay.
Susan: Oh, it helps when you study journalism and your professor’s a jerk.
Kaiser: Yeah. Yeah. We all were-
Susan: I’ll never forget my lessons.
Kaiser: No, that’s great. I mean, seriously, you do a very, very good job with those scripts. But now that you have like a pretty sizable audience, I have to think that you are under a lot of pressure. Like you said, your face is everywhere now. You’re being quoted, you’re being challenged on TikTok. How are you dealing with that kind of stress?
Susan: So, it is very overwhelming. I had an experience recently where I went to a kind of a conference, just meeting with other people in the field of Chinese studies that were around my age. And one of the people worked in the U.S. government; they worked in China policy. I come on the call and they see my face, and they go, “Oh my gosh, I love your videos.”
Kaiser: Oh great.
Susan: And it freaked me out. I mean, great, but it also kind of freaked me out, because suddenly, up until that point, I had been under this naive perception that I was somehow anonymous. That, oh, you know, I’m just making videos for fun. This is all great. And in that moment I realized, oh, wait a minute, there’s an impact. People are listening to me. And this is affecting how people are analyzing. This could affect the way that people are moving forward with these kinds of things. I’m not some crazy, big influencer or anything like that, but there is a little bit of an impact there. Now, when I write my scripts, I have to take that into account, and I have to make sure, all right, are you presenting accurate information? Are you being biased? Because if I make a video and it goes viral, I could get a million people watching that video, and that’s a million people that I could misinform — like that.
And that can be a little bit unsettling. I know, on China Vibe, it’s kind of become a running joke with some of the followers where the mistake I often make is because I read things phonetically, Peking University. Oh my gosh, I keep saying ‘Peking’ like an idiot. And everyone makes fun of me for it. But it is like, that’s a mistake that it really affects you, where you’re like, “Oh man, I did it again.” A mistake that normally wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But in that context, in that situation, it really can. You have to watch every little thing that you put out there, every little detail. So, it can make you go a little bit manic sometimes, and it would be overwhelming.
Kaiser: Peking is a weird pronunciation. Where do you get Peking?
Susan: I don’t know. Thank you for understanding because I don’t understand it either.
Kaiser: Yeah, no. I totally… Peking sounds a lot closer to Beijing or to whatever.
Susan: That’s what I was saying.
Kaiser: Exactly. Yeah.
Susan: All right. We need to fix that.
Kaiser: Yeah, totally. I reckon there are quite a few self-styled China experts today who cover China on TikTok or Instagram or on some other social media channel. What is the landscape like out there? Because I don’t really know it so well. I know there are some full on awful rank apologists who think China can do no wrong. And then there are also some unalloyed haters who just think that People’s Republic of China is the moral equivalent of Nazi Germany, or worse. What’s it like out there? I mean, what’s China like on TikTok?
Susan: Yeah, great question. On TikTok, you do have those extremes. You have the extreme apologists that drive me up a wall. But you also have the extreme haters that just don’t want to learn. But in the middle, I have found an amazing community. I’m actually going to New York in a few weeks to hang out with some of my fellow China TikTokers. We’re getting an Airbnb just to hang out.
Kaiser: Oh, awesome.
Susan: Yeah. It’s so much fun because you find there’s comradery in it because we’re all dealing with the same things. I think there are a lot of people that are genuinely on that platform. They saw an opportunity to teach people about China and open a lot of doors and change people’s perceptions and provide accurate information. They saw that opportunity, and they ran, and they took it. And so there is a lot of that, and I’m very happy to be a part of that community. But when it comes to those extreme sides, I think the problem, and I’m going to actually speak more on the China haters because I think they get a lot more attention on TikTok. The problem is that you have people that don’t know. They’re not educated. The majority of people that are consuming their content are people that don’t have a good understanding of China, and they trust them.
So, these are accounts that people trust, and the people with that, knowing that they have the trust of these people, they don’t bother to do this in-depth research. They just go off of the first thing that they read off of Business Insider.
Kaiser: Geez.
Susan: Yeah. That’s how they’re presenting analysis and that’s how they’re presenting information on what’s going on, which is really frustrating. Because like I said before, those are the… You get a million views on that. Some of these videos I’ve seen get 8 million views, and no one corrects them. And then when I correct them, I don’t get 8 million views.
Kaiser: But I love that you correct them. I love-
Susan: I will.
Kaiser: Those are some of my favorite things on Dear China are when you like take on some guy.
Susan: Get mad?
Kaiser: Yeah. You do great mad. It’s fantastic, I mean, those are the ones I always seek out and watch on your personal channel.
Susan: Endless entertainment.
Kaiser: Yeah. Totally, totally, totally. I’m curious about your perspectives on generational, like American, especially attitudes toward China. You’re what? Are you like a late millennial or early Gen Z? What are you?
Susan: I’m the weird mutt. So, I’m ‘97, which means I’m the last… The last millennials were ‘96. And the first Gen-Z-ers are ‘98. I’m the forgotten year. The best of both worlds.
Kaiser: Yeah. Totally. Totally. In any case, you are somebody who comes from and who is addressing a younger demographic compared to not just the rest of The China Project team and its traditional audience, but also compared to all the other China-focused outlets. So, what’s your take on how these different generations view China, their sort of attitudes about China and what formed those attitudes? Because I hear it from both sides. I mean, here I hear people who say that Gen Z is way less in a hurry to condemn China for moral whatever, to visit moral opprobrium on China. But then I also hear that they’re way more eager to do so.
Susan: It’s both. I think both are true. I’ll speak more on Gen Z because I think that’s more of my audience is within that age range between the ages of like 15 to 27. With those, with Gen Z, the problem that I noticed is a lot of them get their information from Reddit, for example. And so, their analysis on China comes from the perspective of memes. So, they don’t take things seriously and they don’t know the impact of what they’re saying. For example, I’ll talk a little bit about the Winnie the Pooh meme. I think this is a good one.
Kaiser: Sure, sure. Yeah.
Susan: With the Winnie the Pooh meme, on one hand, yes, a lot of people use it to criticize Xi Jinping and to draw, be like, oh… make fun of this political leader that a lot of people disagree with. But it’s evolved in the United States or in the West in general where you’ll see a lot of younger people use it just on any Chinese person’s videos. Any Chinese person, anyone talking about China, they comment things like Winnie the Pooh, or the social credit meme is another one. Not because they have any understanding or not because they’re actually wanting to use it for the intention it was created for when it comes to the Winnie the Pooh meme. Just because, oh, China bad, so I’ll throw this out because it’s funny. And in that, with that, it evolves into something that’s racist and problematic and really damages people and halts the conversation where they don’t want to take it seriously.
I mentioned how my experience is explaining China to a 13-year-old. It’s like that too, where my brother will come at it from this perspective of memes and jokes. And for example, like mispronouncing Xi Jinping’s name just for the heck of it, you have to push past that and be patient, be like, “Well, wait a minute. Why is that not okay? How do we push past that? Now we can learn.” But there’s that barrier of the jokes, not taking it seriously, not realizing the impact of words and visuals, I guess. Hopefully, that makes sense.
Kaiser: No, it totally makes sense. I mean, so what about millennials? A couple of years ago, there was this gigantic, long sprawling debate on Twitter about sort of generational attitudes and whether there are marked differences, whether the millennials were more hawkish toward China, and if so, why? Why are so few Gen Xers sort of represented in the serious China policy circles? Stuff like that. For me, I mean, I had my own theories. I mean, I know people in my own generation are… We are kind of underrepresented. I’m solid Gen X. And as such, we had this experience where China was accessible to us right after college.
We all finished college and, and just went to China. And then, because we were there for an awfully long time, none of us were ever going to get security clearances. None of us ended up in government. I guess that’s my excuse anyway. But a lot of us were just feral China watchers just developing our language abilities independently, just our perspectives on China just from hanging out there long enough — people like Jeremy Goldkorn or Bill Bishop or myself. And so, the Gen X crowd, but I’m curious about, like, I did, for a while, seem to come away with the impression that millennials were considerably more hawkish and that… Did you have a sense of that at all?
Susan: I agree with you because I think for millennials, their perspective on China is in the realm of business and economics. I think for millennials, money is something that’s very important. I don’t mean that critically. I think it’s because of the struggles that they themselves face as that generation in terms of access to jobs and wealth and things like that. So, I think for them, they look at China as an opportunity, like an economic opportunity. And when things get in the way of that economic opportunity, it becomes hawkish. The videos that do the best with that age group that I’ve done are things like the Evergrande, the Evergrande videos that I did.
Kaiser: Huh. Yeah.
Susan: That age group was really interested in that kind of content when it had to do with economics, stocks, how is China affecting my prospects and my fields? In that sense, yes, it’s more hawkish. I also will say it has to do with how long have they been consuming media about China? Because then that also closes doors as well. For Gen Z, they haven’t been consuming certain media as long, so they’re more open-minded and willing to have more well-rounded analysis presented to them. For millennials, I think more doors are closed. So, when they’re presented with well-rounded analysis, they’re immediately wary of it because their perception is anything that paints China in a not even positive light, but just in a fair light, has to be propaganda. Because up until that point, their perspective has been very negative.
And so, again, similar to what I was talking about with the meme thing with Gen Z, you have to push past that and be very patient, and then people become more open. I almost had to win a lot of my followers trust. It took them a little while before they were like, “Oh, you do have good intentions. You’re not trying to sway me,” if that makes sense.
Kaiser: Yeah. Wow. God, now this is totally eye opening to me. Speaking of which, so I’m imagining your average Sinica listener out there, my age, even older doesn’t have TikTok on their phone, has no idea how to access your content. Can you just walk them through that real quick? What do you do? Okay, so you download the app, TikTok. Okay, you got it on your phone. Now what do you do to get to you?
Susan: Yeah. Well, actually, let me make sure that I’m giving accurate instructions. I’ll pull up my own TikTok app, and I’ll walk through it with everybody. So, you can open up the TikTok app. Yeah, so when you open it, you’re going to be taken to the “For You” page, and in the right corner there’s a search bar. You can just look up my accounts there. So, “China Vibe Official” is The China Project account. And then my personal one is “Dear China”. And once you look that up, you’ll see my face, it’s pretty obvious. It’ll show up in the search results. And then you just click and you follow. And there you go, you’ll get my content on your “For You” page, and you can hear my lovely voice and see my face 24/7.
Kaiser: All right. No, yeah. I highly, highly recommend people do this because I think it’s just such… I mean, it’s a very effective, and for me, quite novel way of getting across this information. And I think that you’ll also be impressed with the way that Susan is able to package this stuff in the way that’s intelligent, but concise and accessible. So, check it out. Definitely check it out. TikTok has obviously been in the news a lot recently. It is, of course, owned ByteDance which is headquartered in Beijing. And there are a lot of Americans who have concerns about how ByteDance collects and uses data. Part of me wants to just dismiss all of that is paranoia. Like, oh no, the evil commies are going to learn our best dance moves. But I know that’s way too flippant.
So, in your opinion, are there legitimate concerns, and do you think that the proposal that’s now… It’s getting close to actually being approved, to have Oracle actually house all of TikTok’s data, is that going to address those concerns?
Susan: Yes. Having Oracle house the data would address the concerns, but-
Kaiser: Yeah, I agree. I actually have one friend who’s, who works in this stuff, who told me that TikTok would, under that agreement, be like the most locked down social media company in the world. So, yeah, I trust that.
Susan: But I do want to add on to it and say, maybe this is just because of my age, and for me and people around my age, we grew up with social media. So, I’ve had my data getting collected since I was 12 years old. To be honest, it’s a little hard for me to grasp why China collecting data is such a big deal at the moment because that’s been happening with American companies. I worked in marketing, so I had to market to people using their data. I know what data is collected, and it’s a lot. There’s no privacy anymore. In that sense, the data collection thing isn’t something that really freaks me out. It’s never been something for me that I’m like, “Oh my gosh. Oh no.” I think, in a way, it’s almost used as a boogeyman for people that don’t know how social media works.
It’s a convenient, yikes, to put on your platform to stand on. When it comes to TikTok, there are issues, real issues that we could be talking about, but we’re not. For example, you brought up earlier the whole bouncing breasts thing. To be honest with you, there’s a lot of really unsettling content on the platform that just does not get addressed. You have parents that are posting their kids on that platform not aware of or disturbingly aware of who is following them and who is saving the videos of their five-year-old. You have extremists that create whole circles on the platform using coded language, keeping up disturbing videos and distributing things. I mean, you have young men that go on the app and they get sucked into this whole pipeline where they’re being told that masculinity is defined by treating women as objects, and things like that.
There’s a lot of really concerning things that happen on the app, but we don’t talk about that. The thing that everyone’s getting really freaked out about is the possibility of China harvesting our data. From what I understand, there hasn’t even been a legitimate case where that has happened. It’s just been this thing that could happen. I understand preventative measures, but it’s weird that these are the alarm bells we’re raising.
Now, I will say, when it comes to propaganda, that is present on TikTok. There are quite a few accounts that I have stumbled across being in the China sphere on the app that are blatantly just propaganda accounts. But they don’t have big followings; they don’t have a big reach. They don’t have large numbers. And most people know what they’re looking at.
They’re like, “Oh, I don’t really care about that. I’m not interested.” So, if that’s why people are wanting to shut down the app, I think that’s a real shame because TikTok is such a unique platform for education and learning and for building communities around the world. It is a shame to me that we’re going to shut all that down for a possibility. Yeah, I don’t think people should turn themselves off from the app because of that.
Kaiser: Yeah. No, I completely agree. I remember watching this 60 Minutes a few months ago about… And there’s this guy he gets… I mean, this is like sort of the most famous quote. He says, “If you look at the Chinese version TikTok, Douyin, it’s all science experiments and educational stuff, and it’s really healthy, and it’s exercise. They keep the spinach version of TikTok for themselves and they export the opium version to the rest.” It’s like, “Really? Opium? You had to go there.” I mean, it was just insane.
Susan: And it’s not even true. I mean, my thing is the “For You” page on TikTok is curated to your taste. So, it says more about that guy that his “For You” page, it’s just only the weird erotic stuff. I’m like, what are you liking, my guy? If you’re wanting the education, I’m on the educational side of TikTok, there’s plenty of amazing education videos, science videos, all of that. But you need to be curating your “For You” page for that. If you’re only liking the bouncing breasts, you’re only going to get the bouncing breasts.
Kaiser: That’s right. Yeah. No, it’s amazing how the nourishing stuff that I get on TikTok, I mean, it’s just like the crafts and the manufacturing of things, the art projects and the science experiment. It’s amazing. That’s what keeps me scrolling at 3:00 a.m. sometimes when I’m feeling insomnia like we all do, but it is highly, highly addictive, I have to say. My God, that is, I mean, in that sense, it is opium, whether you’re on Douyin, which is also amazing. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if you check out, Douyin is amazing.
Susan: I do like Douyin. Unfortunately, I can’t get an account because I… I’ve been trying to find a way to get a Chinese phone number. I’m convincing my friends, I’m like, “Hey, do you think you can give me a hookup?” But at the moment, I’m just on the basic Douyin where I don’t get to have a curated page.
Kaiser: Oh, well, that’s too bad. That’s too bad.
Susan: A shame.
Kaiser: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Susan, what a pleasure speaking with you. And once again, just welcome aboard. I mean, you’re just knocking it out of the park already. We’re all thrilled, and I’m totally looking forward to hanging out with you at the end of January when we’re all going to be gathering for our little company offsite, so yeah.
Susan: It’s exciting. I’m excited to meet all of y’all in person.
Kaiser: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you’ll see what awful people we truly are.
Susan: Oh no, no, no.
Kaiser: Actually, the one thing about this company, I’d say there is not a single jerk at this company. Everyone is actually nice. And we all really, really like each other, which is a lot of fun.
Susan: And I’m here to change all of that. I’ll be the jerk.
Kaiser: We’re hoping you’re going to make us all TikTok stars, actually.
Susan: I’ll bring fame — fame and fortune.
Kaiser: Yeah. Let’s move on to recommendations. But first, a quick reminder that as Sinica approaches its 13-year anniversary, it is a perfect time for you to sign up for Access from The China Project. You get free admission to our live events, like our upcoming show in New York on January 24th, where Jeremy Goldkorn and I will be chatting with Ian Johnson, the legendary Ian Johnson. And you also get the secret RSS feed that allows you to listen to Sinica three days ahead of everyone else. And of course, you get the terrific newsletter. So, ring in the new year with a China Project Access subscription to help support the work that we do. Okay. On to recommendations, Susan, what you got for us?
Susan: So I, over the break, I’ve been reading Eldest Son: Zhou Enlai and the Making of Modern China by Han Suyin. It’s kind of a thing, people know this about me. If you know me, you know that Zhou Enlai is one of the historical figures I’m the most fascinated by. I think he’s an incredibly complex figure. And he’s, in a way, a little bit of a role model in some senses when it comes to diplomacy. So, I think this book is really interesting. It provides a lot of unique information. The writing style’s very entertaining. And I’ve just been completely engrossed in it. I think I’m halfway done now. So, it’s not finished, but so far, I think I can confidently say it’s a good read if you’re wanting to learn more about this enigmatic figure.
Kaiser: It’s an old book. I mean, when is it… like in the ‘70s or?
Susan: I know the one that I have was 95 when that one came out, but I don’t know when the book itself came out.
Kaiser: Interesting. Yeah, I have not read that. I will definitely check it out, though. For my recommendation, I don’t know if you guys listen to the You Can Learn Chinese Podcast, which is part of the Sinica Network. There’s this segment that they do, which is like recommendations except it’s called rants and raves. They either just like go off on something that bugs them, a rant, or they heap praise on something they really dig, a rave. My recommendation is a part rant, part rave kind of one. So, a great joy in my life these days is like listening to an audiobook as I shoot arrows at this indoor archery range. I’ve recently come into possession of a Mongolian horn bow. It’s traditional bow made of horn. It’s made in the great state of Florida by one of the greatest living bowyers, a guy named Lukas Novotny, who’s also a champion horse archer.
He’s amazing. But anyway, so I listen to audiobooks and shoot that bow and other bows that I have, and it’s just great. But what better to listen to while shooting a Mongolian bow than books about Mongols, right? Alas, my Mongol themed audiobook diet has been pretty uneven in quality, thus the part rant, part rave thing. So, I won’t get into… Okay, so one of the books was Jack Weatherford’s book, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, which disappointed me in various ways, though, I’d say it’s so worth listening to. But the other one, the one I want to focus on is this whole series of historical fiction novels written by this British guy named Conn Iggulden, I-G-G-U-L-D-E-N. It’s about the Mongol Empire basically from the birth of Temujin who becomes Genghis Khan, or just Khan, through across what, like 70 years or something? Until like midway point of Kubli Khan’s career.
So, he’s in the midst of his conquest of China when that last book ends. I think there’s four of them so far that I’ve read. They were obviously good enough that I have continued to listen to them. But a couple things drove me absolutely nuts. One of them is that he leaves out the story that has the most like compelling plot elements in it, which is right there laid out for him in the secret history of the Mongols, which he obviously read. And it’s about, Genghis Khan, he has this sworn brother, an anda, a blood brother this guy named Jamukha, who, on like three separate occasions, they swear blood loyalty to each other, but then they become mortal enemies. I mean, that’s an amazing drama right there, but he completely leaves that out, which is just baffling — utterly baffling to me.
The other thing that drove me crazy is that there’s one Mongolian phrase that he uses, and he uses it all the time in this book. And it’s this thing that you say as you’re about to step into somebody’s ger. You say, “nokhoi khor,” which means please hold onto your dog. I remember that phrase from when I went to Mongolia in like 2001 because it was in the freaking Lonely Planet phrasebook. And so, it’s like the one phrase of Mongolia, totally, I’ll bet you anything, he got it from like The Lonely Planet trip that he took to Mongolia and in doing research or whatever. It would be like writing a book about Sung Dynasty China and having everyone greet each other with nǐ chīle méiyǒu (你吃了没有). It’s just like so annoying because it’s almost certainly something quite modern. I don’t know. Maybe somebody can correct me and say that, yes, they used that phrase in 13th century Mongolia or whatever, but until then, I’m just going to believe that this guy remembered that one phrase from Lonely Planet, and it’s kind of ruined the books for me.
Susan: I needed to do a better job with my recommendation. You went into such great detail. I have to check out what you recommended now. You painted such a good picture.
Kaiser: Yeah, well, it’ll annoy you also. I mean, sometimes it’s so uneven. There’s some really great storytelling in there, and then there’s some just clunk… It’s like we’re just phoning it in. It’s just really weird. Anyway, rant over.
Susan: I did want to mention, so I don’t know if it’s okay for me to shout this out, but I do have a conference that I’m building, and so I just wanted to give that a shout out.
Kaiser: Yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah. No, please. Yeah, no, that’s awesome that you’re doing that. Yeah. Well, talk about it.
Susan: Yeah, so I am happy to say I’m one of the elected ECs for the China America Student Conference. And so, this is going to be our third year running this. It’s a part of the International Student Conferences Organization. And so, I’m going to be inviting 10 students from China, 10 students from the United States, and we’re going to be coming to New York or traveling to New York and DC from June 5th to the 17th.
Kaiser: Oh, awesome.
Susan: Yeah, it’s open to all college students. So, to all of the Sinica listeners, if you have a college student that you know that is really wanting to learn more about U.S.-China relations, is wanting to have an impact on that field, please have them check us out. You can go to iscdc.org , and you can go to our conferences, and you’ll see the ChASC link there. And you can check out our locations, learn more about me and my fellow ECs and see what we’re all about. It’s going to be super exciting. It’s a ton of fun. So, I’m hoping that we get some applications through this because it’s a really amazing opportunity to have some really beneficial conversations and build up the future of U.S.-China relations.
Kaiser: That is fantastic. And any help that I can throw your way, you know, you can count on it. I love that, I mean, it’s a start. I mean, for me it’s like the foundational bridge building. It’s like the bricks of building of bridges, this kind of thing. So, kudos to you. All right.
Susan: Exactly. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Kaiser: All right. Happy New Year to you, Susan.
Susan: Happy New Year to you.
Kaiser: The Sinica Podcast is powered by The China Project and is a proud part of the Sinica Network. Our show is produced and edited by me, Kaiser Kuo. We would be delighted if you would drop us an email at sinica@thechinaproject.com or just give us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts as this really does help people discover the show. Meanwhile, follow us on Twitter or on Facebook at @thechinaproj, and definitely check out China Vibe Official on TikTok. Be sure to check out all the shows also in the Sinica Network. Thank you for listening, and we will see you next week. Take care.
