#105 How female-centered content is making a killing
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Hello everyone, I am with LJ, editor of the World of Chinese magazine, which commissions Middle Earth. Hi Aladdin. So LJ, what are the exclusive stories that you guys have worked on this issue 104? We focus on how urban Chinese residents are reconnecting with nature. So they are lacking nature now? Absolutely. They discovered that there is a serious lack of nature education among urban kids right now. It has a negative impact on them, but there is also a strong effort to change the situation.

In a related story, we explored how a well-designed zoo in Nanjing has attracted large group of followers and how it has inspired them to care more about nature and wildlife.

And so in this issue, what are the others' articles? Yeah, we also took a cruise ship down the Yangtze River, traced the history of game consoles in China, and uncovered why Hunan Cuisine in particular is taking China by storm right now. So dear listeners, if you want to know more and support the podcast, go to theworldofchinese.com and order your latest copy. It seems that we can only rely on ourselves. The earth has made the last return to China.

This is not a place for a man to hide. I think it's better to take the woman's body.

Hi everyone and welcome to Middle Earth, your source for insight into China cultural industry. Listen to those who are making a living, and a lot of money right, by creating and distributing art or content into the world's second biggest cultural market. I'm your host Aladin Fahre, founder of CCP, China Compass Production. If you need location scouting for our next project in China, film translation service, or find a co-producer, you should reach out. Also, if you're a Chinese speaker and you don't mind my broken Chinese, don't hesitate to check my Bilibili channel, Aladin Chou Dian Ying, link in the podcast description.

Recently, I mean personally, I see that we can see more female-centered stories arising in China daily entertainment consumption. All the way back to 2018, at the beginning of this podcast show, we did an episode about feminist and LGBTQ content.

But back then, the only feminist stories that I could find was mainly about stand-up comedians doing gigs in English. Years later, I think a huge change has happened in the choice that consumers and audiences can have regarding the type of content that they can see in China. And numbers do back that trend. Movies like Trudeau de Juyessine and Hao Dongxi have recently killed the box office. So Trudeau de Juyessine made 100 million,

and they had like a really, really low budget. And Hao Dongxi, recently that just came out like a few weeks ago and that I went to see yesterday night, made 600 million yuan. They actually made more money than Gladiator 2. Hard to pin down exact number, but in terms of stand-up comedy, there are definitely more and more female comedians on stage compared to years ago. So today, to talk about that rise of female-centered stories and content, we have three guests in the studio. First, Xiaotong, hello. Hello everyone, I'm Xiaotong.

So now is the time when you're self-present in one minute. Okay. Like in a party. Okay. So I work in a Chinese language stand-up comedy industry. I used to be an actress for a very short moment. Then I started to work as a person, as a producer in this industry. So I produce shows, stand-up comedy shows. And right now I start my own stand-up comedy workshop.

Alright, next to you in the studio, because today for once we are doing a real live show in the studio and not like on a Zoom call like it's been the case so many times before. Wang Jiaxi, hello. Hi everyone. Okay, thanks Alogen for inviting me. I have been in this industry for almost 10 years as a scriptwriter and director.

I studied the dramatic literature in the Central Academy of Drama. And then I went to Hong Kong Baptist University to study film directing. Then I stayed in Hong Kong in a film production company for two years. At that time, I found that the mainland China's

And last but not least, Hailey Zhao. Hello.

Right under the nose. Yeah, and also Haley is going to make sure that I don't ask a stupid question about today's topic. Yes, so Aladdin doesn't ask any straight man questions.

That's good to know. So today, we'll mainly talk about how this trend came to be, how actually it is quite a good investment to make such stories, what are the projects that our guests have recently worked on, and how they see the future. And as usual, we'll finish this panel conversation with a podcast-usual quiz where one of our guests will win a prize.

So my first question, kind of an open question for everyone around the table. I was wondering, compared to 10 and 20 years ago, do audience and consumers have actually more choice to watch female perspective stories? Should we go one by one or just... You started talking, so yes. Yes, Xiaotong, you start. Sorry, the question was more and more people choose to see and watch female

female works, right? Yes. And I don't know, maybe this is actually, I feel the whole point of this podcast is actually maybe kind of a chicken and egg. Is it like because there are more people want to watch it than more people to, than producers produce it? Or is it because more people produce it then suddenly they realize that there is a need? But first of all, to give some kind of historical background, do you think compared to

10 and 20 years ago, is there more like stand-up, TV shows, movies that are a little bit more female perspective centered? Yeah, in stand-up comedy, I think, yes. It's not, we don't have to trace back to 10 years ago. We just, if you just trace back to three years ago, four years ago, yeah, there are more and more. And you see the trend. Everyone in this country who watch online shows, online variety shows,

everyone knows, oh, feminism or like women power is a thing for everyone. Yeah, we see more and more female comedians getting onto the stage and they are making more and more social memes, women power memes on social media. So yeah, I think that's very obvious.

I agree with what Xiaotong said. So the feminism is very hot topic for recent years, and especially in the film industry. So I think the audience feels so, they feel so boring about the blockbuster films

the film something like the crime and the war and they want to find maybe the female director to show the real the reality and the real life and something make them feel what the life is really is yeah I think it's the same goes in the publishing industry as well like in recent years there are like a lot of feminism books that are becoming very popular and

like this year's Nobel prize winner, the Korean author who wrote like the vegetarian vegetation or the vegetarian, uh, is also like on the topic of like feminism. There's definitely a trend. I think, uh,

A big part of it is I think social media is really helping to prompt that into everyone's feed. And it kind of becomes like a positive circle. The more you see those kind of content, the more you want to go check it out yourself. And then the more the producers will create these kind of content because they see a market that's growing. So yeah, definitely, I think you don't even have to go back

10-20 years like things are moving so fast right now so like every year is very different from the other with either the economy or the market or the policy changes so I think every year there's like different trend going on and

in like the recent year, feminism is definitely one that's growing really fast. Yeah, and I would again invite the listeners to listen to episode 92 about how writer, bookstore owner and printer survive in China. And actually, we interviewed one bookstore owner and I was really interested to know that most of our books are actually about feminism.

and art and culture but that's the one I guess not every bookstore in China are like this but there was an interesting case study in my opinion but then again like to keep pushing like do you do you guys think the it does it stay kind of the

Jolingho, Balingho, Linglingho who are consuming those kind of content or does it kind of goes back a little bit more like to the mother generation and grandmother generation? I think the majority of these consumers and audiences are

are 八零后 九零后, like... Yeah, on the younger side. Younger, yeah, like oldest 30s, in their 30s. In their 30s or like late 20s. Late 20s are these people. Not too young, though. Not too young. Not as young as like teenagers, but yeah, but major were, the majority were, are 八零后, yeah, because I think it's really special for our generation. I'm 八零后, right?

I'm in my 30s. So for our generation, we have experienced a very open time, a very open decades. So we were very highly, strongly connected with Western world. And now most of us are like we are in our 30s and most of us come back to like

even if we go out abroad for study, we come back to our home country. And we kind of, it's easier for us to accept this new culture. Like some of the 80 后 are, when it comes to like movies like 好东西 and 父宗绝亲, they're like taking their mothers to the theater to see it. That's also like a part of the appeal of these films as well, because they want their mom to kind of

on their life of how they see family and how they see motherhood. So I think that's also a part of the appeal as well. Like the content, if they're like good enough, it doesn't have to only appeal to like the children

the younger or the people in their 30s, they can also resonate with a broader audience. I think people in their 30s are leading more people into the theater to see that. I want to add on to that point. So I produced this show called... The brand was called She's You and Me. So basically our content, the first She's You and Me show was about...

like the comedian herself, the story was about what happened between her mom and herself. So it's a motherhood series, stories. On that show, we have seen so many audiences brought their mothers, brought their moms to the show. Yeah, because of

The heroine in Chu Zou De Jue Xin is my mom's generation. And that generation, the women maybe sacrificed a lot and they have their own life. And so they want their mom to see you have another way of living. You have another choice. A friend told me that her friend's mom, after watching this, and her mom want to divorce. Oh, okay.

For those who didn't see this movie, it's the story. It's based on a real story of a housewife who after years of, I don't know if we can say abuse, but a really tough life. But that part was kind of cut. Yeah, it was like,

She was in a physically abusive relationship in real life, but the movie kind of played down that part. It didn't really show the abusive side, but it's still like a very powerful thing to see a woman decide to leave like a...

not like a bad family environment to seek her own identity. Yeah, after 30, like more than 30 years. More than 30 years of being a good mom and good wife. I just went to see Hao Dong-si yesterday and I really like the director's first film and I feel like this movie is also about like a single mom but they take it with like such a

They put like a... It's not just like a drama, social situation. There's a lot of humor and there is a... It's really a classy comedy. And I just think like those are really great movies that should definitely go abroad and not just on some like really tiny festival for a Chinese film festival abroad, things like that. So yeah, I think that it makes complete sense that those...

Movies make great box office because the quality of the stories and the writing and the editing and everything is just so great. I think they're just like really good movies first and then like it has like a feminist selling point that are bringing a lot of female viewers. But if the quality is bad, it's not going to be successful either way. I forgot the name of the movie, but recently wasn't there like a movie about this woman who really focused her work and her life about young girls education and

张贵美 And the movie was actually really badly made and it pissed off everyone. 大山的女少 Yeah, because they kind of twisted the truth in the movie and like presented women in like

a like stereotypical way basically and they I think I remember they made one of the in real life it was like the abusive father of one of her student and in the movie they made it to the abusive father into like an alcoholic mother

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That really pissed a lot of people off. And also, they, like, they changed the, like, core motivation of the heroine, the headmaster. She, like, in real life, she just wants to, like, give more female students the opportunity to go to college. And then in the movie, she is, like,

fulfilling the ideal of her late husband. So that kind of problematic adaptation really pissed a lot of people off. But actually, the TV series are very well received. That is more true.

truthful. So yeah, so it's not just because you stamp like a... Yeah, it doesn't work if you only stamp like a marketing point of like a feminist theme on it. It doesn't work that way. To move on now, I would like to go like behind the curtain. So I'm wondering because me in my, you know, apart from this podcast with all the various...

clients and people that I meet, like I always felt like the decision makers, most of them still now are basically guys in their 50s. But I do sense that in especially in the cultural industry, like there are more and more women joining in and they join as director, producer, and at some point, they're going to be the one calling the shots. So Jassie, I'm wondering over your 10 years working, have you seen more and more women getting into the driving seats?

of taking the decision of who gets to commission the show and who gets to pay those movies to be made. Did you see a change of who are the decision-makers in terms of gender?

actually the majority of the audience are female it's not it's not change but I think that in the streaming platform the producers are all women maybe the boss are female but the producers they are all women yeah it's a phenomenon and I think the script writers maybe some male and some female but the

female directors before that it's less but now it's more and more women more and more female they

They join this job, yeah. And I would obviously think this would impact the kind of content that gets made, right? Yeah, I think the female think that their voice should be heard, our voice should be heard. So, Cici, now I'm wondering then if you could talk a little bit about your own TV show that you've made for Bilibili. So, can you explain the whole process from writing the first...

episode all the way to distribution and things like that like could you explain a little bit how did that go oh yeah it's really a tough process uh before that i got the commission work from the film uh production company or tv show companies and that time i feel so depressed because all the projects are shut down or maybe for some reasons they are stopped so uh

At that time, I watched the British TV show called Fleabag. And it really impressed me and I got inspired. I want to make that web series, something like that. It's not very traditional, long stories. Maybe it's about 12 episodes, one season. And one episode is about 25 to 30 minutes long.

So I began to tell my ideas to some producers, but all of them told me it's not impossible because the streaming platform can't accept that. Why can't they accept that? Because the traditional form is...

maybe one season about 24 episodes to 40 episodes. That is a regular form. Yeah, maybe so. The shorter one, they can't accept that. Yeah, but now we're talking about the formats. What about the content and the story? Because the heroine in my story is about a girl who don't want to lean in. She just want to lie down. They don't like that kind of character. It's not popular.

positive energy. Yeah, they think that, oh, it's, well, maybe the audience don't like that kind of girl. Yeah. The concept of lying down, that's not mainstream. That's not what is encouraged. And also lying down, the concept of lying down culture was from stand-up comedy, from Li Dan. And we, our circle knows that clearly it's not encouraged. Yeah.

And so I told my idea to one of my classmates and she's really interested in it and we want to make the story, our original story, something like that.

And then the pandemic begins. We just stay in our different hometown for four months and we finish the story about 12 episodes. And then I come back to Beijing and give the story, the script to different producers and I face many difficulties. And then a producer from Youku, she's really interested in the story and she wants, Oh, Youku want to do the project.

Was it a girl producer? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's a girl producer. She's nearly my age. And she also gave the script to a production company called Wanyan. It's a web series company. They want to co-production this project. But then Yoku refused to do it. They think it's a very low-budget project. They want to do it.

So, Wan Nian invested it and we made it. And then after wrapping it, Wan Nian sold this project to Bilibili. Can you tell us what is the reaction of the audience? Do you have numbers regarding the number of views or things like this? I'm sorry.

150 million. So the viewership is 1.5 million. And I read a lot of the

The people online said that they never watched this kind of story before and they were really inspired by the heroine. So I think that it's what I want from that story.

Congrats. I just have a quick question. So like you said the heroine was like a girl who just want to kind of lay flat. By the end, is she still like laying flat? At the end, she didn't get success and she just leave her way. At the beginning of the story, her mom passed away and she don't want to face the reality and she just regard everything is okay and trying to live that way. But at the end,

She understands the relationship between her and her mom. She understands her mom. And she accepts that her mom has already passed away. So, Xiaotong, turning to you now, I'm wondering if you... First of all, for those who wouldn't know, because a few years ago, there was kind of a joke made by comedian Yang Li. Can you tell me what was the joke and how did that impact your industry? So, yeah, it was... I think it was like a five-minute joke.

It talks about the difference between men and women. But that was kind of like a stand-up show on some platform with a lot of people watching it. First of all, that show was the top show. It's like the S-plus show of the country, which means each year the viewer, each episode of the clicks would be like millions. And the whole episode each year, it was like billions of views.

So it was like the top show of the country. And the show was only about stand up. It was a stand up contest. So every year we have a lot of stand up comedians getting onto the show and and compete in tight five, which means five minutes stand up comedy piece pieces. So this year there's this female comedian named Yang Li. She performed a joke talking about the differences between men and women.

So in the beginning, it was kind of mild. She talks about, hey, like when we grow up, like there are always girls and there are always girls who study very well and upset about their 80 point test result.

And there were always boys who only got 40 points, but they are just so happy. They just had their test result in the air and they just run it in the classroom and say, hey, look at me. I only got 40 and I'm a dumbass. So this is like the beginning of the joke. It tells about, hey, like, oh, there are differences between men and women. There are differences between girls and boys. And then she says,

digs into it. And in the end, she talks about this joke, the punchline was, there are so many men who are so good

average or ordinary, but overconfident. So this became a super, like a phenomenon meme on the platform. And even right now, we are still using it called ordinary, overconfident, male.

So this punchline was so good, was so precise. It just kind of awakened all the women who watch this and everyone who watched this show, who hear this word,

suddenly just realize, oh, I have so many ordinary overconfident men around me in my life. It could be your father, it could be your boss, it could be your boyfriend, it could be a neighbor, it could be someone just sitting next to you on an airplane. There are these men everywhere. They are so annoying. They are so overconfident, but they are actually nothing. So this kind of, this sentence just awakened so many women. But

But so after that, Yang Li received a very, very controversial debate on like on the platform network. She faced a lot of fierce charges from men and she lost a lot of commercials, which means she lost a lot of job opportunities because of this stroke.

Although she received some because of that too. Yeah, so I guess for me, from my life experience, that's like what I see the recent feminism started from. That joke just awakened so many people.

so many females about what their situation is. It's just a joke, so it's not harmful. And people start to realize, yeah, we can make jokes about what we are really at, what the reality is. That starts, I think that kind of like a,

a point that women start to speak about their situation. Yeah, because during our pre-interview, you told me that you actually, in your previous company where you worked, like you actually saw a lot of people actually signing up girls to become a stand-up comedian, right? Yes. So she encouraged a lot of female stand-up comedians. And we realized a lot of people, a lot of female comedians start to realize, oh, that's something that we can talk about.

Because before that, we didn't ask, but we kind of feel that it's not okay to create a division between men and women. And also the industry, because most of the decision makers in the industry are still men, they will accuse you for making money because of the division of men and women.

I still receive comments when I do some business, like from some male clients. So yeah, so for female comedians, they will receive this kind of accuse. They are afraid of it. So people just don't want to step out, don't want to lean in for this kind of joke. But after Yang Li, it's just so inspiring. People...

a lot of female comedians start to realize that we can speak about ourselves and we can make chances by ourselves. And also because of this joke, there are more and more female working opportunities for female comedians. I remember you told me that before

years ago, like more than three years ago, obviously, when you guys were touring or trying to do stand-up comedy shows in various cities, you were trying to find at least a couple of female comedians and you realized that some towns had no female comedians at all. Maybe, but after that joke, then more people joining. Not after that joke. So basically, that was just...

last year's thing yeah so I we produced a female headliner show it's called She's You and Me and in this show we ask all the corporate clubs to use female comedian as our host or

or like the opener actress. In some cities, there are none. They have to fly female comedians from other cities to this place just for this show. It's very hard. So I guess for half of the places, we have to fly female comedians. And also we receive a lot of complaints about it. Like the club owners, they are all male comedians.

they are men they are like complaining about it and also they just say some bad words behind our back saying that oh they are very picky they just want to create their own parties and they don't want to use other actors they don't like yeah some bad words

But yeah, that was just last year. But this year, we still do the same. We still have the same requirements, but we find it's getting better. Almost every city, there are female comedians, at least one. In each club, at least there will be one female comedian who can host or who can perform. So this is just one year change. And we were very happy to see it. And I do think...

our show has a little bit impact on that. Yeah, because we, our show is not a big show. It's a small show. But we still, we have some, like, industry impact in our industry. Like, a lot of people know it. And also, we were the first show who will ask all the voices, the audiences here, all the people who stand on the stage should be female.

So that kind of was kind of like a starting point. And then there are more and more female shows coming up and clubs realize, oh, we need to prepare at least one female comedian in our club to cut down the cost.

So this year we have more. Yay! Just to finish on that, could you share some numbers? Sorry, I always love to compare numbers. So can you tell us how many shows you make per month or per year? How many people attend? And can you kind of give us a glimpse of comparing with other competitors? So last year, the first round of the show, we did like 30 or 40 shows in different... Basically, it's like 30 cities. Yeah, and almost half of it...

they don't have female comedians. But this year, we did another round of 35 shows in like 30 cities. And we have like most of them will have female comedians. Another interesting number. So I was the principal. No, I mean, I was the kind of like a principal of the comedian training school in a top comedy company. But

Yeah, so we have this training camp. It's the top training camp in the industry. So every year we have 50 to 100 comedians who can be accepted to our camp to get training. In the beginning, the female comedian portion would be less than 30%. But the most recent one, we have more than 50%. I think it's like...

like with every industry like baby steps we have to like you know slowly grow into the world that we wanted to like exist in where there are like more equal opportunities for women so yeah I think

I think it's great to see that there, at least in comedy, there are more women working in the industry. And as a consumer of stand-up comedy and social media, I do feel like I see more posts or sketches online that are presented by female comedians. And I do feel like their content are getting deeper as well.

Even deeper than Yang Li's content that is shown on television. So that has to be toned down for a general audience. But I've seen some clips that are from more offline shows that can be even more sarcastic and...

kind of like a dark humor about the like unequal treatment they have received whether growing up or in their workplace. So I definitely think like Yang Li kind of encouraged that a lot of people to really dig deep into their like feelings and personal experience. I found that there are another female comedian. She stand on the stage and talk about her period. So her name is Cai Cai. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's really hard. So before that, we make this variety show, the stand-up contest show every year. Every year, there would be female comedian who tries to talk about period. It was only allowed till right now.

Before it would be cut down? Yes. They won't allow you to talk about that. Before that, the director will tell you, this will not be showed. This will be cut. So just choose another content. Until this year, it is allowed. It's really big progress. Yeah. Why do you think that happened? I think it's because all the women comedians are trying. We are like...

trying hard to fight with the directors or fight with platform. And also I think it was encouraged by the female consumers. They want more of these kind of content. They want to see, they want to hear more women's voices. So the platform feel maybe like they counted.

they know this will make a huge impact. So they go for it. Just to add to that, I think there's also like a bigger societal layer in there. Because period shame has been like talked about in recent years on like a lot of social media platforms, especially with the incidents that like they don't sell sanitary pads on Gaotie on the

like high-speed trains. That was like a huge, that sparked a huge debate and discussion within the Chinese society, both online and offline, about whether that's fair. It's probably not. But that kind of triggered a discussion that brought the period of shame, the topic, to the forefront of everyone. So I think once everyone's talking about it, it's going to be easier for, like, whether platforms or, like,

TV stations to kind of rationalized bring that to the audience because people are already talking about it. It's not like taboo or anymore. So I think that also plays into why we have like more of these kind of topics because on a societal level, we are also talking about it. Just to re come back to the fact that now some jokes can be told, uh,

I'm just wondering, since the economy is kind of contracting now in China, I'm wondering now if platform also don't have to take a little bit more risk to go to talk about more topics and push the boundaries. Since, for example, like that's the one example I always use. But for example, Alien Romulus. Okay, yeah.

just a sci-fi horror movie came out in China and it was the same cut as the one in the US in the sense of nothing was cut down, nothing was taken out instead of, I don't know, for example, Logan of the X-Men like a few years ago, they reduced like five or seven minutes due to local regulation. So I'm just wondering does the fact that the economy now is contracting, does that impact the platform and the stand-up comedy shows and the

and the cinema to maybe take a little bit more risk in terms of content. The platform is trying to get more... They want to be less risky, they want to get more secure, but also they are debating making money or being safe. And you can't neglect the fact that people want more women topic.

So sometimes they are trying to just, I guess, just dancing on this boundary and just testing.

what is good. And also, it's not like, I think all the platform, I think Xi Xi must know this, all the platform has a good communication with the government. The censorship. Yeah. They all have talking channels. They all have connections. Yeah. So they can talk to the people who

who are in charge of the censorship to know if this can be spoken. And just to redo a quick callback to one of our former episodes, number 46, about China TV format industry, I will never forget the comment of one of our guests, Luca Zhao. I remember he told me, like, if you want to make a zongyi, like a format in China and you want it to win, you must have the woman watching it. If the girls don't watch it, it's not going to work. So I was always really struck by his comment back then.

That's true. That's true. That's true. Same goes for TV shows, right? If you got like... Yeah. Especially in the film industry. Yeah. Although apparently worldwide, 80% of book buyers are girls. Oh, we're just more cultured, I guess. Yeah.

No comment. No, I think there's like a logic behind that because like the current society is like we want to be equal, but the reality is it's not. So girls have to work harder to fight for that equal chance. So that's why we study harder. We read more books. We become more qualified to...

to get the same job. That's why we're buying more book. We're consuming more knowledge. That's my theory. Well, not my theory, but like...

Us theory. To keep on with you, Hayley. So I was pleasantly surprised to know that a lot of people reading the World of Chinese Magazine articles are people in China as well. Yeah. So I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about, of all, because you guys publish roughly one story per day or something. Yes. So can you tell us a little bit about like the female centered story? Like are there a lot of readers who tune in more to that? Yeah.

Yeah, because our team is predominantly female. So we do like...

pay special attention to produce a lot of like female centered stories and like, or just like stories from like female perspective. And we publish them online almost daily. Well, not like not the female story, but like the stories overall and our female centered content do have more clicks. But we can't really tell whether people are hate reading it or love reading it because we don't have like any

an engagement mechanism, like you can't comment or like thumbs up on our website. But we do also publish them on our WeChat channels. That's where we get some like

feedbacks from our readers. Like I remember one article, like our female centered pieces are also doing really well on WeChat as well. But I remember this one piece is like a book review about a book about like women's role in like family lives. It's like short fiction. It's not even like social studies. It's short fiction. And there was this

guy commenting under like he wrote in english and he said don't bring this shit to china don't bring this these feminist shit to china you have to beat me out there um but then we won't but yeah we we do get comments like that which is unfortunate but like it's the reality like some people would um say things like that but if you

decide to like look on the silver lining is engagement. We don't want that kind of comment, but they do happen. So it's a reality we have to live with. And I hope that it will get better. But for the time being, I don't think it will be like that.

such great progress overnight so we'll probably keep getting those comments in the future but I think we can live with that yeah we our industry get a lot of them yeah yeah I know we get a lot of these uh hateful comments uh

And every time there's not only Yang Li, but if there's this like female comedians doing commercials, if she says anything about like women power, she will get these kind of comments. And also when we were touring our female comedy show, we also get that kind of comments. But I'm very optimistic towards these comments. My theory is if you...

guest them it means your show is successful yeah yes is touching people is really hating yeah people so they are they get offended that that means it's successful yeah it struck a nerve well there is no haters for the middle earth podcast so i guess we're not doing a good job enough well maybe you'll get some after this episode

waiting for it but then on that topic Jessie so when your show came out on Bilibili like did you so a lot of people clicked in and watched it but then did you did you saw some horrible Dan Wu things oh really some people send private messages to me because the heroine she missed her ex

boyfriend but now his her boyfriend got ex got a new girlfriend but she still miss him so it's a plot and the audience they they talk about how can you write such this plot and

I want to add to it. So I think the, not hateful, but negative comments, like if you are making female, like women power works, you get two kinds of negative comments. One is from men. They just hate women topic. One will be from women. They just think you are not clean enough. They think you are not, like say, they think you are not clean

how to say, like absolute, not 100% feminism. You know, you still get that kind of, right? You still get that. They're like, if you are a true feminist, you should not get married. You should not love a man, right? Like, we get a lot of, like, comments like that. If you are, if you are talking about women power, why would you still love a man? Yeah,

Why would you still bear with your father? There's like a lot of... I think this kind of comment really make us feel sad. I don't mind about all those hateful male comments. I just... When I see them, I say, oh, we are successful. But when we see some... We are attacked by some girls. Some of them saying you are not...

clean enough you're not 100% feminism some of them are not awakened they think oh you are just making money from saying this like hatred stuff just performing hatred like division jokes some girls don't agree with you too I think that's the sad part now moving on to the show and more I think where the future stands

So, Jesse, I have a question for you. Do you think there is a risk for a director like you to maybe be cornered into stories that are supposed to be more female-centered? And the fact that you've made a TV show, a web series for Bilibili, I don't know what's your upcoming project, but I guess maybe do you think like you could be cornered into doing only those kind of topics, like kind of the Chinese version of Fleabag?

Yeah, because when you write something like that, and the producers and companies will help you to write something like that. But I don't want to keep doing the same thing. Yeah, I want to try different. Okay, now my last question is usually like any last word of our esteemed guests during today's topic. Like, do you have any comment or things you would like to share that you think is really important that you think the audience should know about?

I remember something happened just several days ago. So recently I started my own startup doing this comedy related business.

and there's this guy who's my friend's friend. He came to me and he introduced his company. It's about advertising or whatever. And he asked me one question, like, which celebrities or comedians do you have or you can introduce to us for future businesses? And I said, it depends on how much money you want to...

offer right if you have limited uh money we can do small comedians if you have big money we can go to big ones like pangbo or yang li and i can't that kind of lit him so he said i don't think my clients will accept yang li and i'm like i tested back

ha ha ha ha ha, cry laugh, cry laugh emojis. And I didn't text back anything. I think that's something that I don't want to talk about anymore. And I think usually if a normal person, he will be like, he will receive this message from me. He will like, oh, she doesn't want to talk about it. But that guy just continued. He explained, he said, you know what? I don't like comedians who make money from division of men and women as well.

And I'm like, oh, I understand. But what I'm really thinking was, who cares?

Who cares about you? I was just, I think that was funny because he really got offended by Yang Li, got offended by jokes. And he also tried to make, and he was the ordinary overconfident man at that moment who tried to educate it on me. He tried to use this very, this excuse to make me believe that Yang Li or female comedians are,

like not doing good right can she can he afford Yang Li and I don't think so

But yeah, I was like, I feel that's just so ironic because what that joke was joking about is this kind of man. And this kind of man is just like being overconfident and average and being bad and talking to me like this. So I would, I think that's a very good story. As a Lao Ban to Lao Ban. No.

Now I'm curious, like also do you, I'm just wondering, like did you also mention Yongli as kind of a way to test the water with him? Yeah, I think many of, like me and many of my friends, we use Yongli as a test point. We just talk to, like for a lot of my friends, if they're single,

if they go on a date, they will talk about Yang Li and see if the guy can accept this. For me, I have that kind of thought because this is just the starting of the business and I don't say anything offensive to him. I'm just like, understand, I get that. So I'm being polite. I'm just like curse him in my heart.

I'm just thinking that no I'm not like this guy is that kind of guy so yeah I'm using that as a test but for you that's kind of a crossing the line crossing the line you mean like I won't work with him anymore no I will work if he has money no

Just like we use Barbie to test man's friend. Yeah, Barbie. Yes, yes, yes. Jessie, do you have anything you want to add as kind of a last word? I think in the film industry, we found that the fifth and sixth generation, the male directors, time has passed. So,

Maybe some of them, not all of them. So I think the female directors and creators should be more ambitious to get the equal world and to just, as I said before, we can fight for it and we hope the world can heard our voice. Yeah, I think I agree with both of you guys about like we have to kind of

be loud to be heard so uh like some people might say oh they're gonna like uh there there's so many of female like centered content now people get tired of it i i don't think that would be the case because that topic has been like ignored for so long i think we're only making up for the lost time now so we i think we should like just keep being loud until we're heard yeah yeah

All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for sharing all of this today. But after this great moment of solidarity around the table here in Beijing, unfortunately, it has come to the last part of the show, my favorite, the quiz, where we're going to see who is the most knowledgeable among our guests. Oh, wow.

The rules are simple. I will ask you guys a few questions. If you know the answer, you first buzz in with your name. Each correct answer gives you a point and the person with the most points will win the quiz. And the winner of the quiz will receive the latest magazine issue of the World of Chinese. Yay!

So the quiz is obviously centered around female content stories. So hopefully we did a good job at finding the right question for today. Question one, let's go back to history a little bit. In the early 20th century, what was in China the play that caused sensation among Chinese youth and was a wake-up call for feminists? It's a movie? It's a European play. Oh, Jiaxi, Wang Ou Zhi Jia. Yes, indeed. The Door of...

So how do you say it in English? The door of the... A dollhouse. The dollhouse. By Norwegian Ibsen. Because I studied dramatic literature. You should earn that point. Yes, you earned it. Question number two. Can you tell me who is the female director in China, Chinese director, with the highest box office currently? Jia Ling. Jia Ling. Yes, indeed. Thank you.

for each movie? YOLO. Li Huan Ying. No. I think it's Li Huan Ying. Yes, indeed. So her debut film, Hi Mom, earned over 5 billion renminbi at the box office. And then her second film, YOLO, only made 3.3 billion. What?

Hint, the jealousy in Aladdin's world.

Question number three, we're going to play guess the number. In the 1990s, there were around 700,000 students in China and 33% of them were female students. Then in 2017, there were around 7.6 million students. So basically 10 times more. Can you guess? And you're each going to say a number, so no need to rush for the answer.

Can you guess each what was roughly the gender ratio? So in the 90s, that was one third, 33% of Chinese students who are female. Can you guess in 2017, like what was the gender ratio in the cohort of students in China? Haley, you start. 53%. 53%, okay. Percent female. Xiaotong, 45%. Jiaxi, 60%. All right, well, Haley...

you win because the answer is actually 52.5 well i cheated a little bit because uh uh in one of our articles no that's not true that's not true it's a good knowledge to have yeah yeah yeah yeah well congratulations well you you can win your own magazine

On that note, we'll wrap up the show. Glad, dear listeners, to have you until the end. I guess you liked that show. And if you do, you can help the Middle Earth podcast to grow by recommending us to your friends or recommend us guests. Let me remind you that Middle Earth is part of TWC, the World of Chinese Podcast Network, in case you have not figured it out by now. If you want to know more behind the headlines, go to theworldofchinese.com and order your latest copy.

Today's episode was produced and edited by Aladin Fahre. Additional research by Mu. Music by Sean Calvo. With a huge thanks to Ruyen and Raphael for putting me in touch with some of the guests today. And distributed by the World of Chinese Podcast Network. Hope to see you next time. Bye bye. Thank you. Sorry, one minute break because I have one thing I need to check on the quiz. Yeah, go ahead. I hope I don't get like less than one point. Maybe I can't catch the question. Yeah.

We need to stop second-guessing ourselves. We've got to be more overconfident. That's the spirit. Yes.

Looks like our listeners are still doing their dishes. We're really committed to their workout. For sure. Since we're still here, if you want to learn more about Chinese society, culture, and language, you should head to theworldofchinese.com and follow us on WeChat, TikTok, and Instagram, where you'll discover an impressive collection of award-winning in-depth stories and fun, informative videos, as well as amazing podcasts. Of course. Well, until the next issue then.