Living in a community of China watchers, we are unceasingly assaulted by words and phrases for which definitions are unclear, or ambiguous, or over which there is controversy or disagreement. And so, bearing Confucius’ admonition that the most important thing for understanding China is “to call things by their right names,” Kaiser and Jeremy set out this week to do exactly that with a show all about rectifying names in Chinese.
With this aim in mind, we solicited a list of words and phrases needing such rectification (everything from “50 center” to “middle class”) and found two great guests at whom we could throw the pressing questions of what on earth do these words actually mean? Putting themselves in the difficult position of answering are thus Rogier Creemers, creator of the China Copyright and Media blog, and David Moser, who is not only Director of the CET immersion program in Beijing but also a mean jazz pianist to boot.