Alternate title: We’re RFA Insider… of course we’re going to discuss China’s systemic repression of the Uyghur people.
How It’s Made
Shahrezad Ghayrat, a radio production coordinator from the Uyghur Service, joins Eugene and Amy to unpack a TikTok video filmed by young Uyghur activists. Following the #ofcourse trend, where individuals use the phrase “of course” to discuss elements of their ethnicity, job or other parts of their identity, the women alternate their jokes with sobering truths.
Shahrezad addresses how Uyghur activists are creatively presenting their cause to raise awareness on social media, the line between humor and flippancy in online activism and how she manages the emotional toll that comes with her work. Most of all, she offers a primer for those reading this and wondering: what’s going on in the Uyghur region?
Podcast Free Asia
For the thirteenth episode, Eugene explains that the number 13 has a reputation as a harbinger of bad luck in the West, but unlike the number four which is unlucky in East Asia, 13 never really seemed to bother either of us. Tall buildings in the U.S. often skip the 13th floor going from 12 to 14, but shrug.
The Rundown
The crew institute an unofficial segment, “Down the Rabbit Hole,” to share interesting tidbits they’ve come across while researching each episode (and to justify their meandering YouTube watch history). Eugene shares that while watching the Olympics, he heard the anthem played for Chinese Taipei and turned to YouTube to hear Taiwan’s actual national anthem. One video led to another, until he found a video of popular North Korean singer Kim Ryu Kyung performing the national anthem of Russia during Putin’s visit to North Korea.
And in contrast, Eugene shares horrible renditions of the Russian national anthem by other countries, with the standout coming from the Egyptian military band.
Amy addresses China's dominance in table tennis, starting from Mao Zedong's promotion of the sport in the 1950s. However, the proliferation of prominent Chinese table tennis players has led to fan club rivalries, which came to a head when two Chinese players, Chen Meng and Sun Yingsha, faced off at the final for women's singles in Paris. Sun's fans audibly booed Chen whenever she scored during the game, and turned to the internet to spread online rumors about Chen after she clinched gold. The slew of hate comments led to Weibo deleting more than 12,000 posts and banning more than 300 accounts over "illegal" comments, one woman being arrested and China's internet police confirming that they would be watching online sports fan groups more closely.
Also in the realm of table tennis, Ni Xia Lian, a former Chinese table tennis champion who now represents Luxembourg, became the oldest table tennis player to win a match at the Olympics. Ni defeated a Turkish player half her age before losing to Sun Yingsha in the second round, winning the hearts of the crowd and earning a hug from the Grand Duke of Luxembourg in the process.