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It was the year of the housing market (up then down), Ai Weiwei's imprisonment, Wukan, the Wenzhou train crash, air pollution, gutter oil, tainted milk, clenbuterol, China bulls and bears, government transparency, the soaring price of Maotai, Guo Meimei sticking it to the Red Cross, drinking and driving crackdowns, the sixth plenary session, Weibo and the real name system, Shenzhou 8 and Chinese space exploration, the 100th anniversary of the Xinhai revolution, SARFT declaration of war on vulgar culture, Yue Yue and Good/Bad Samaritan laws, the anti-child tracking campaign, the nationwide abuse of tablesalt, a Chinese upset at the French Open, Steve Jobs and Pan Shiyi, and more school bus accidents than we can count. Today on Sinica hosts Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn take a closer look at the year that was as seen through some of the top ten lists circulating on the Internet. What do we all agree were the top news stories of the past year? How do Chinese and foreign accounts differ, and what stories have slipped through the cracks? Joining Kaiser and Jeremy as we work through the last year are two Sinica regulars: Will Moss of Imagethief fame and Josh Chin of the Wall Street Journal. So check out the show and we hope you enjoy it. Want more Sinica? Manually downloading our entire Sinica archive is admittedly not for the faint at heart by now. Which is where RSS and iTunes can come in. If you want to subscribe to Sinica and have your computer download all of our shows, including new ones as they're released, just open iTunes and select "Subscribe to Podcast" from the Advanced menu. Provide the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica and you'll be set. And if you have any problems, leave us a comment or send us an email at service@popuchinese.com. Hate iTunes? You can also download this show as a standalone MP3 file.

Surrounded by an objectively unpleasant mass of grunting, sweating fleshcakes, Hank's body resented his mind for its foolish attempt to impose such Spartan discipline on them both. And to have the gall to disguise it as self-improvement? Gone indeed were the halcyon days of 2011 with its late nights at the pub and mid-morning breakfasts, replaced with this daily hell of early-morning suffering and pain. Learning Chinese? Even if you're as generally slothful as some of us you'll still be able to get quite a bit out of this mandarin lesson for absolute beginners to the Chinese language. The reason is that while our dialogue centers around generally athletic behavior, what we focus on linguistically is talking about taking turns, and this is remarkably useful language regardless of whether you're pushing your body to the limits at a health club, or just buying another round of drinks for some friends.

Now that Chinese New Years is barreling down on us like a t-shirt salesperson at the Great Wall, the thoughts of pretty much everyone throughout China are turning to the obvious question of the holidays: how on earth to get home. If you've ever experienced traveling during what the locals euphemistically refer to as the "Golden Week", you'll know what this involves. And if you've been lucky enough to avoid the spectacle, let our Chinese podcast for today provide the horrifying illumination. Learning Chinese? Our Chinese podcast for today isn't a lesson so much as a discussion aimed to provide advanced conversational listening practice. In the studio with Echo today are Gao and Tan, two younger actors on the Beijing scene who face the unpleasant prospect of figuring out how to get home. At least they're not from Xinjiang.

The Captain grew reflective as earth loomed out the starboard window. His crew would be pleased with their extended shore leave, but the inner planets were far too crowded for his tastes. Although the first few days off-ship were always refreshing, after that he would miss the constant adventures and brotherly camaraderie that had made his time in space so professionally and personally fulfilling. Years traversing the galaxy would do that to a man, he thought. In time you could come to feel free only in uniform. Learning Chinese? In addition to a Chinese dialogue infused with space-faring camaraderie, we've also filled this podcast with some of the most underrated adjectives you'll need to know in China. Because while you may be able to express joy and delight by this point, what about frustration, angst, blame and resentment? All these emotions and more are yours for the listening. So take a listen, and we hope you enjoy the show.

Fleet Street had embraced the killings with the unbridled enthusiasm of the British press, pouring rivers of ink into outraged editorials denouncing the demise of traditional values and calling for the heads of practically the entire city council. The authorities responded with the imposition of a strict curfew, yet seemed powerless to arrest London's downward spiral. Practically every dawn brought new rumors of death and dismemberment, and breathless reporting on the discovery of yet another dessicated victim. In the midst of this surreal spectacle, Michael found his life acquiring a strangely dreamlike irreality, so much so that even the forced cheer of his two flatmates could hardly shake his suspicions that something was terribly amiss. And if his days were as a dream, his nights were worse, as he lay in a sleep haunted by visages of horrible and unspeakable violence.

For the last few days, international attention has focused on the small fishing town of Wukan in southern China where villagers are in open revolt. Simmering tensions caused by corruption and illegal land sales have escalated into an armed uprising by locals against security forces and local government, both of which have been driven into at least temporary exile. Starting with the question of what exactly is happening down south, our conversation on Sinica this week eventually turns to a more general discussion of how China's liberal intelligentsia seems to be grappling with the idea of reform: whether it is possible and what it might look like if it ever arrives? Joining Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn for this discussion are Charlie Custer of the excellent translation blog China Geeks as well as Ed Wong of the New York Times. We're also delighted to have the stalwart Gady Epstein back with us, now in his new role as China correspondent for The Economist. Please note: we ran into unexpectedly severe technical problems recording this show. Heavy editing has cleaned up the worst of the mess, but there are still noticeable problems. Our apologies in advance for the reduced audio quality, and we hope you still find the show reasonably coherent and listenable.

The Shaanxi orphanage was not where Xi Jinping had hoped to spend his weekend, but a western pilgrimage was an easy way to shore up support among the Party's left-leaning student faction and consolidate his lead as front-runner for replacing Hu Jintao as Party Chairman in 2012. Nonetheless, as the children bustled into the room screaming and yelling, one of the most powerful men on the Politburo couldn't help but think back to his last vacation in Tahiti, with its endless beaches, seaside tranquility and... well... lack of children. Learning Chinese? If you're new to Popup Chinese be sure to signup for a free account to get immediate access to our massive archive of Chinese audio lessons just like this one. In this lesson we focus on the emotional differences between two popular ways of asking questions. Most textbooks don't cover this sort of emotional subtext, but knowing it is fundamental to really being able to communicate natively in mandarin. So enjoy the podcast, and let us know anytime if you have any comments or suggestions.

In real life, we suspect this Hollywood conversation would have a lot less breathless talk about "revolutionary breakthroughs" and a lot more apologetic mumbling about how "it seemed like a good idea at the time" and "is there any way we can avoid getting the Feds involved?" Not that we'd necessarily do anything differently to be perfectly frank, because what use are close friends and family if they're not going to be supportive about personal development goals and/or hostile to science? Learning Chinese? Film Friday is our regular film guessing game at Popup Chinese. Join us each episode as we play a clip from a famous Hollywood movie that's been dubbed into mandarin, and then cover some of the more tricky things in the clip. And if you can guess our mystery film from nothing more than its Chinese soundtrack? Write echo@popupchinese.com for a chance to win a free month of premium access to everything at Popup Chinese. Good luck!

There's a story circulating on Weibo that may or may not be apocryphal, but is whipping up resentment and envy among proles like us nationwide. You may have heard it: it's about a secretary in a Chinese investment company who broke down in tears after receiving a six-figure year-end bonus. When news of this hit our office, work stopped for at least a minute, although less out of shock at the excesses of finance and more from our collective inability to rapidly handle currency conversion when dealing with multiples of Chinese 万.... Learning Chinese? In this podcast, Echo takes to the studio with two guests whose voices will be familiar by now if you've listened to a lot of our more intermediate podcasts. And the subject of our discussion is the year-end bonus culture in China. If you're curious about how the numbers add up on the Chinese side, want to know if you're the only one who has been gifted cured pork ("as good as cash"), or just want some insider Popup gossip, take a listen to our advanced Chinese podcast for today.

The dream had been rich in suffering and in omens of his imminent return: creatures of unspeakable form pooling in the blood-soaked depths, waves of terrible power foaming beneath a darkening midday sun. And through it all the chanting, chanting, chanting of his true name. Over and over the chorus called for his return, for the restoration of his empire and the slaughter of all mankind. And it would soon come to pass, once his sojourn in this quiet British village was complete.

Shortly after his arrival in China, the late, great, 19th century Sinologist Robert Hart would write his frustrations in his private diary, confiding that the convoluted phonemes of the Chinese language struck him like nothing so much as "the sounds one would make talking to a horse," and bemoaning his placement in Shanghai, a damnable city far from the Imperial capital where he considered it impossible to pick up mandarin "through one's skin." Fast forward more than a century and while none of us are running the Chinese government yet, the joys and frustrations of learning the Chinese language are as high and low as they have ever been. Fortunately, we have a new avenue for kvetching in podcast form, which is what Sinica stalwarts Jeremy Goldkorn and David Moser have joined Kaiser to do this week. Also in the studio representing the next generation of Chinese speakers are newcomers Jessica Montesano and Charlie Melvoin, who join us to share their own experiences learning Chinese and talk about what exactly is happening in the States with bilingual education programs. Like Sinica? If you'd care to have Kaiser and crew show up automatically in your iPod whenever a new episode is published, subscribe to the Sinica show by creating an account on Popup Chinese and visiting the site. Alternately, subscribe manually by selecting the option "Subscribe to Podcast" from the Advanced menu in iTunes and providing the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when prompted. Those looking to download this show as a standalone mp3 file are also warmly invited to do so. Thanks for listening, and enjoy!

We should have a special show called "Total Request Live" which will be much like MTV's video request show except with less sex and more conversational mandarin. In any event, that's what we're getting today as we're pleased to publish a Chinese lesson on a topic that's been requested by you guys: the basics of asking for directions in Chinese. The mandarin to do this is actually fairly simple, but our dialogue moves quickly so we're publishing this at the elementary rather than absolute beginner level. Note: think we're missing something you've got a burning desire to know? If there's a topic you'd like to see us cover, please let us know either by leaving a suggestion in our comment section below, or reaching out to us by email at service@popupchinese.com. We promise to treat you with more civility than the befuddled tourist in today's podcast.

Two days west from Guilin and the riders were all but lost. Despite the effectiveness of China's Imperial road network, which strung together the major cities of the empire and helped ensure the political fealty of the far-flung provinces, nationwide travel was still dangerous. And the maps from the Imperial College in Beijing were nearly worthless too, showing only the general lay of the land and occasional geographic landmark. To find a small town in this maze-like mountainous region the two riders would have to ask for directions town by town.... Learning Chinese? Let us just admit it: the title for today's lesson is a bit tongue in cheek. Because it isn't about asking for directions in anything but the loosest possible sense, and instead focuses on how to communicate an attitude of condescension in mandarin. So listen up and in a short ten minutes we'll arm you with knowledge of how to quietly infuriate speaking partners. And if you have thoughts or feedback, send us an email at service@popupchinese.com anytime.

Our podcast this week is all about books and money in modern China. If you like us are tired of Lu Xun and Lao She, listen to Sinica this week as we look into the state of contemporary Chinese literature, asking what writers are hot, what writers are not, and even the more humdrum question of how much authors make these days. Joining host Jeremy Goldkorn today are three of the most knowledgeable people from Beijing publishing circles. We're delighted to be joined by Jo Lusby, general manager of Penguin books in North Asia, Eric Abrahamsen of the translation consulting company Paper Republic, as well as Alice Liu, managing editor of the newly-launched translation journal Pathlight, which features translations of works from upcoming Chinese novelists including a piece from a name longtime Popup Chinese listeners will recognize. Like Sinica? If you'd like to subscribe to the show automatically and have your mp3 player download new episodes as soon as they're released, just create an account on Popup Chinese and add the Sinica show to your list of podcasts. Alternately, subscribe manually by selecting "Subscribe to Podcast" from the "Advanced" file menu in iTunes and providing this URL whem prompted: http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when prompted. Listeners can also download this episode as a standalone mp3 file as always.

Discovered in a bundle of personal effects years after Popup Chinese morphed into the world's leading educational-military conglomerate, Echo Yao's secret diary paints a different portrait of the organization's early history than that found in the sanitized corporate histories which would follow. And while the authenticity of this material cannot be verified beyond all doubt, these fragmentary recordings offer historians a fascinating window into working class life in China at the start of the 21st century.