For the first-ever episode of the China Untold Podcast, I revisit my experiences at the PRC’s borders with two of the five self-proclaimed communist states still in existence: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Lao People’s Democrati

Ep.18 – From Middle-earth to the Middle Kingdom: How Tolkien Came to China

Aug 4th, 2021 17m 40s

Originally published way back in 1954-55, Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy was released when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was mostly closed off to the world. In the past few decades, however, the author’s celebrated stories hav

Ep.17 – The Haunting Tale of Beijing's Legendary Ghost Bus

Jun 18th, 2021 8m 20s

On November 14, 1995, a dark and possibly stormy night, a young man boarded the last bus heading to Beijing’s Fragrant Hills in Haidian District. If the stories are true, it was a bus ride he would never forget.This super-short episode of the

Ep.16 – Disappearances and Strange Lights in China’s Cursed Landscapes

Apr 18th, 2021 21m 25s

Certain places on this planet seem to have a personality of their own: Landscapes that can instill a sense of sadness, misery, or horror in anyone who visits them. In this episode of the podcast, I introduce two areas in China that have played

Ep.15 – China’s Phantom Ruler and the Ancient Cult He Created

Feb 25th, 2021 16m 56s

If you are from the West, the word ‘cult’ likely brings about thoughts of spiked Kool-Aid and ritualistic suicide, aliens and Tom Cruise. But how much do you know about Chinese cults? In this episode of the podcast, I introduce an ancient Chine

Ep.14 – Chinese Immigrants, Lost Mines and Ghost Towns on Canada’s Frontier

Feb 11th, 2021 26m 31s

From Quesnel Forks to Barkerville, Chinese people were significant players in the boom-and-bust resource towns of western Canada in the 1800s and 1900s. In this episode of the China Untold podcast, I introduce the role Chinese migrants played i

Ep.13 – The People – and Gods – Living in China’s Caves

Jan 28th, 2021 22m

From Maludong Cave in Yunnan province, the home of the Red Deer Cave people, to the mysterious human-made Longyou Caves of East China’s Zhejiang province, China is home to an incredible collection of underground geological structures. In this e

Ep.12 – Two Incredible Stories of Disabled People Succeeding in China

Jan 11th, 2021 18m 49s

In the PRC, being disabled often comes with stereotypes. For a long time, disabled persons in the country were referred to as canfei, an amalgamation of two characters meaning “incomplete or deficient” and “useless.” Starting in the 1990s, pe

Ep.11 – Did 3,000 Chinese Soldiers Really Disappear into Thin Air During WWII?

Dec 20th, 2020 12m 5s

Mass disappearances conjure up an extreme set of emotions, and they genuinely are terrifying. The most recent and arguably most notorious mass vanishing in Chinese history is the March 2014 disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 – which

Ep.10 – China Reimagined as Zelda's Mythical Kingdom of Hyrule

Dec 11th, 2020 21m 10s

With the arrival of yet another addition to 'The Legend of Zelda' franchise, I have decided to assemble a quirky episode of the podcast comparing locations from the fictional world of Hyrule to real-life sites in China. This list has been creat

Ep.9 – Meet the Terrifying T-rex Relative That Once Terrorized China

Nov 15th, 2020 13m 1s

Among the diverse array of organisms that lived in Jiangxi’s Ganzhou region during the Late Cretaceous was a carnivorous beast that has changed the way researchers view the iconic Tyrannosaur family: Qianzhousaurus sinensis, more comically know

Ep.8 – Where in the World is China’s Mysterious ‘Peking Man’?

Oct 1st, 2020 20m 49s

Beijing’s Zhoukoudian cave is commonly referred to as the Peking Man cave, and it was once home to a group of early hominids known as Homo erectus. In the 1920s and ’30s, excavations at the site discovered 200 Homo erectus fossils from 40 indiv

Ep.7 – This Chinese Man Claims to Have Had Sex with an Alien

Aug 30th, 2020 10m 36s

For this week’s episode, I share two stories of alleged extraterrestrial visitations in China: The first of which is a bizarre tale of a Chinese man from Heilongjiang province who claims to have had sex with an alien.

Ep.6 – Is a Man-Eating Salmon Lurking in a Chinese Lake?

Aug 2nd, 2020 9m 15s

Xinjiang is one of China’s five autonomous regions and its landscape is a scenic patchwork of rivers, lakes, prairies, forests, deserts and imposing peaks. It’s also the supposed home of lake monsters. For this week’s episode of China Untold, w

Ep.5 – China’s Role in the Global Quest to Find Aliens

Jul 9th, 2020 24m 32s

Since its completion, China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope has been monitoring the heavens, observing pulsars and working to detect interstellar molecules, among other missions. Perhaps most interesting of all, the faci

Ep.4 – The Chinese Mall That Doubles as a Prison for Animals

Jun 22nd, 2020 20m 47s

For this episode of China Untold, I am going to introduce you to what I have dubbed ‘The Worst Mall in China.’ Located in the heart of Guangzhou, Grandview Mall is by many metrics a fine shopping center. It’s modern and plays host to a myriad o

Ep.3 – Did a Lost Roman Legion Settle in Ancient China?

Jun 9th, 2020 23m 21s

In 1957, American sinologist Homer H. Dubs published a book called 'A Roman City in China.' It detailed the academic’s theory that a group of Roman soldiers worked as border guards for the Western Han Dynasty at the empire’s western edge. In th

Ep.2 – China Has Bigfoot Too

May 25th, 2020 18m 45s

Almost every region of the world has a mysterious beast that haunts the backwoods of civilization. North America has the hairy and elusive bigfoot, the United Kingdom has the Loch Ness monster and Latin America has the chupacabra. But what abou

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