XXII: Sinopticon and the World of Wǎngwén w/ Xueting Christine Ni

This week on the podcast we had on Xueting Christine Ni, an independent researcher of Chinese culture who is most famous for her collections Sinopticon and Sinophagia (which focus on Chinese science fiction and Chinese horror, respectively), as well as her nonfiction writings on Chinese mythology. We spent a bit of time talking about the stories in those two collections, as well as the wide world of Chinese web fiction (wǎngwén) and the implications that it has for China and the rest of the world.This episode was recorded quite a long time ago, but the timing nicely coincides with Kevin’s last article “How 'Chinese Goodreads' Illuminates Forgotten Sci-Fi Classics”. We were very glad to hear Xueting’s unique perspective, who has spent quite a bit of time in both China and the UK, experiencing the fiction and life of both cultures.This episode was edited to be relatively light on spoilers in case people are interested in reading Sinopticon or Sinophagia afterwards— which we would highly recommend! Thanks for listening!TIMESTAMPS00:00:12 – Episode Start00:00:49 – Is Chinese speculative fiction more stratified than Western web fiction?00:02:57 – Xueting's original entrypoint into wǎngwén (Chinese web fiction)00:05:02 – What is the 'mission statement' of Sinopticon?00:07:03 – “The Fall of Adam” by Wang Jinkang and getting stories past the publisher00:10:32 – 2023 WorldCon in Chengdu and a Reddit thread about the nominees that reveals cultural gaps in science fiction00:14:48 – “The Great Migration” by Ma Boyong and notes about translation00:17:54 – Xueting talks about her elite translator notes in Sinopticon and Sinophagia00:26:44 – “The Waking Dream” by Fan Zhou00:31:28 – “Net Novels and the She-Era” by Xueting Christine Ni00:35:52 – Understanding the scale of the Chinese web novel economy00:44:17 – What a Western web fiction market might look like and Seven Seas Entertainment00:47:47 – Xueting and Gordon talk about how the insular web fiction community enables certain kinds of playful experimentation with recurring elements00:51:55 – Conclusion and final recommendations00:52:43 – Xueting asks Kevin and Gordon about wuxia00:55:26 – Synthesized Sunsets Backstage begins00:57:08 – Talking to curators v. authors about their work00:58:53 – “Flower of the Other Shore” by A Que01:01:35 – “The Tide of Moon City” by Regina Kanyu Wang01:03:58 – Kevin goes on a long side tangent about hating unnecessary frame stories01:07:48 – Kevin’s article “How 'Chinese Goodreads' Illuminates Forgotten Sci-Fi Classics”01:12:27 – Kevin’s initial “wrong” conclusions about Chinese science fiction01:15:19 – Why “The Martian” was so popular01:16:21 – Kevin talks about meeting Chinese science fiction fans01:18:39 – Is Cixin Liu that popular in China?01:21:08 – The popularity of Japanese mystery fiction in China01:23:00 – Curators are to authors as original contexts are to foreign contexts?01:25:35 – Conclusion and final recommendations This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit synthesizedsunsets.substack.com/subscribe