China Travel Podcast with Wei Chen

This podcast follows one resident's attempt to know China by moving through it slowly, city by city, season by season. Travelling here means negotiating a country where the tropical south and the subarctic north are linked by high plateaus, deserts, and dense eastern river plains. Across episodes, he moves from the hutongs and government buildings of Beijing to the high-altitude grasslands of Qinghai, from the karst hills around Guilin to the port cranes of Shenzhen. The route also pauses in places like Tianjin, where the patterns of daily life differ from the more famous nearby capital. The show unfolds over time: one region is learned, then the next, often connected by a river, a railway line, or one of China's regional languages. Seasons return to the same streets and wet markets, so a first impression is tested against a later one. That slow accumulation is the point of knowing a place as large and varied as China. Wei Chen lives in China and stays for two y